timefliesaway's Reviews (588)

(Read it in german. Find the german review below.)

Sweet story – who doesn't like stories about dogs (unless they're sad).
Glad the friends could talk about it in the end; it was unnecessary anyways, although relatable and kinda valid.

The parts with the crushes was too annoying though. Could someone please make it a rule to change the way boys are raised? Seriously, I can't even more.
It's so stupid how they fight for girls because of a simple crush, that won't last more than a week anyways. Which also was shown in the barbie movie. Just stop! It's not even funny anymore.

Well. Here a funny quote I liked:
P. 120:
"What should we sell anyway?"
"Everything we don't need anymore."
"Then I'll sell my three brothers."
Valid.

~~~

Süße Geschichte – wer mag denn keine Geschichten mit oder über Hunden (außer es ist traurig).
Bin froh, dass die Freunde sich am Ende vertragen konnten; der Streit war ja auch etwas unnötig, obwohl schon verständlich (bin mit meinem Hund auch manchmal so...).

Die Szenen mit den Crushes der Jungs war aber nervig. Könnte irgendjemand mal endlich eine Regel einführen, dass die Erziehung von Jungs schleunigst geändert werden muss? Ehrlich, ich kann nicht mehr. Und das ist noch eines der harmlosen Dinge.
Ist aber schon echt dumm, wie Jungs (und Männer) für ihre Crushes kämpfen, welche es noch nicht mal wollen und die Gefühle halten sowieso nicht mehr als eine Woche. Was auch perfekt im Barbie Film gezeigt wurde. Hört auf damit! Es ist nicht mal mehr lustig.

Naja. Hier noch ein Zitat, das ich lustig fand:
S. 15:
"Was sollen wir denn verkaufen?"
"Alles, was wir nicht mehr gebrauchen können."
"Dann verkaufe ich meine drei Brüder."
Passt.

(Read it in german. Find the german review below.)

Moral of the story: don't get a second child, if you can't properly care for the first one.
Or make sure to not spoil them, from birth on. You can't spoil your child 8 years, and then from one minute to another just stop, and expect them to not get sad about it. Anyone would be angry if you ignored them, especially if that person treated you like the main character until now.

Other than that, the writing style is smooth and humorous. Perfect for children/youngsters, as well as amusing for adults.

And the quotes in this book are too good. Especially the beginning:

P. 15:
"I'm really sorry for you."
"Why?"
"Because you're carrying a boy with you for eight months now. No wonder you're nauseous all the time..."

P. 20:
"Have you thought of a name already?"
I nodded. [...] "Dumbass."

P. 21:
"Dumbass? [...] That's not a human's name!"
"He isn't a human anyway, he is a boy."

P. 32
"Saw the thing with the handkerchief in a corny romance movie."
"Where the actors constantly lick each other's lips?"
Valid way to describe kissing.

The revenge, around page 100, was the best part. Laughed and grinned. That's what the boys deserved! Although the girls could've been a little meaner.

(Ps. Read in German; quotes translated by me.)

~~~

Moral der Geschichte: mach kein zweites Kind, wenn du dich nicht richtig ums Erste kümmern kannst.
Oder verwöhn sie nicht, von der Geburt an. Du kannst nicht erwarten, dass sie, wenn du sie 8 Jahre lang wie einen Hauptcharakter/Protagonisten behandelt hast, es einfach akzeptieren und hinnehmen, wenn du sie von einer Minute zur anderen wie Luft behandelst. Jeder würde da sauer und verletzt sein, wenn man acht Jahre lang verwöhnt wurde und dann plötzlich nicht mehr richtig wahrgenommen wird.
Natürlich ist das ein Kinderbuch mit Humor, natürlich sollte man das nicht zu ernst nehmen. Und natürlich ist das Buch zu unbekannt, als das meine Rezension irgendwas verändern wird. Aber man weiß ja nie, ne, und ansprechen sollte man sowas schon.

Naja, abgesehen davon ist der Schreibstil gut, es liest sich flüssig und angenehm. Perfekt für Kinder/Jugendliche und auch für Erwachsene amüsant.

Ebenso sind ein paar Zitate echt super:

S. 15:
"Du tust mir echt leid."
"Wieso?"
"Weil du seit acht Monaten einen Jungen mit dir rumschleppst. Kein Wunder, dass dir immer schlecht ist..."

S. 20:
"Hast du dir schon einen Namen für deinen Bruder ausgedacht?"
Ich nickte. [...] "Blödmann."

S. 21:
"Blödmann? [...] So heißt doch kein Mensch!"
"Er ist ja auch kein Mensch, sondern ein Junge."

S. 32
"Das mit dem Taschentuch hab ich mal in so einem schnulzigen Liebesfilm gesehen."
"Wo sich die Schauspieler dauernd gegenseitig die Lippen ablecken?"
So kann man küssen auch beschreiben.

Seite 100 mit der Rache war der beste Teil des Buches. Haben die Jungs echt verdient! Obwohl die Mädchen ruhig etwas fieser gewesen sein könnten.

Who would've thought that DreamWorks' Bee Movie would hit that hard. When will they start showing it like a documentary in schools?

On one hand, this book just made me afraid of the future. Afraid of a future like this. If the 3rd world war won't happen, pretty sure this dystopia is inevitable.
People care more about making unethical AIs, which do not help the planet in any way, even if it were ethical. What are you gonna do with a robot, who can draw, in 10 years? Sell generated images, while everyone is desperately looking for food?
And, because of this stupidity humans are currently living in, I say we totally deserve that karma. Bring it on, bees, time for you to disappear completely and for humans to slowly die out.

~

Now, for the actual review of the story.

William:
My least favorite story. Incredibly sexist and just very stereotypical characters with little to no personality.
Edmund is one of my most hated characters – not just this book, but generally, from all the books I've read – and all I wanted was to get an eraser and just erase him from existence. It was agony reading his name and whenever he was just slightly mentioned.
Thalia too, actually. I wanted to like her, but she was such a flat character – basically written as the perfect mother, who always sides with her kids, while the father does nothing but punishing them. While, yes, William wasn't much of a father, Thalia was pathetic. She should've kicked Edmund out of the house long ago.
At least Edmund got the ending he deserved, but the people around him, who suffered because of him, deserved way better.
Charlotte, my favorite character, also at least got what she deserved, although not enough. She deserved more.

Apart from that, it was interesting to see William following his passion with the bees and how it served as a base for the storylines in the future. These were only short bits though and the slice of life with his family problems were not in my interest, and just seemed unnecessary. A book about bees, but 70% is about misogyny.
Rating: 2 stars.

George:
Didn't like it much either, but it was better than William's. A little less sexist, but still stereotypical gender roles. Emma (George's wife) pretty much didn't have any other role, except for cooking and crying and wanting to move to Florida and being a good mother, while George was the bad father. Well, he wasn't bad per se, but he never showed emotions, except when he was angry and needed to show that he's the man in the house, and he only knew his son objectively, yet still felt like he knows the best for him, although he doesn't know him at all.
Tom, his son, was a nice character. I liked how he called his father out. He's pretty much the only non-stereotypical character in this book.

Story-wise, it wasn't that engrossing to read. Maybe because it plays in our time, more or less. It only really got interesting when it was revealed how they are connected to William, but even that was short and close to the end.
Rating: 3 stars.

Tao:
The most gripping storyline and what kept me going. Maybe it's because she's from the future, an unknown place, something more exciting to explore and dive into. Maybe it was the way her chapters were written – like a thriller. I love reading stories, where I can make lots of theories and Tao's chapters were exactly that. Although I figured out what happened to her son pretty quickly (well, at least it was one of my theories) and it was pretty obvious anyway, it was still compelling to read, and trying to get answers to her questions, together with her. 

It didn't start to be a thriller until the 100th page or so, and was rather boring in the beginning. Unnecessary family life, it felt as if I was reading a hetero rom-com, without the comedy part. And even without the romance part, as there was no romance, really. 
Rating: 3.5 stars.

~

As you can see, all stories were more about family problems and sexism, rather than bees, which was very annoying, but I guess I get it. While the title may say "the story of the bees", it's not supposed to be a documentary or a Wikipedia article of bees. It's supposed to show how humans and bees are connected, how much our lives are intertwined, how much of an effect they have on our lifestyles. And every lifestyle includes family problems. 
If that's what Maja Lunde wanted to show, good job. If not, well, I don't know then. 

I'll still rate it 4 stars because it's an important matter, but story-wise and based on my enjoyment it would rather be 3 stars.

I do love, though, how the three protagonists are connected – apart from the bees, of course. 

~

Page 456 was a bit difficult to read. As an artist, at least. 

I can't even destroy my old drawings, as cringe as some are. Imagine destroying ones that are over a century old and no one else knows about them. A family heirloom, a historical piece. Even if they're technically worthless. 
Just as worthless as this paragraph for this review.

The ending was really cute!

It was pretty annoying how Soramori was following Takabe everywhere throughout pretty much the whole series, but I’m glad they could resolve that in the end. And finally talk about their feelings. So refreshing.

I didn’t think that I would ever like Otome, but eventually she pushed them a little closer together, so I like her for that. Why is she always talking about herself in 3rd person tho?

It's not as good as the first, but not too bad. A bit of a waste to let it end here, as there's so much to do with this story. The idea with the Demis might not be anything new, yet still serves as a wonderful base to make it a 10+ volumes series.

Vol2 mostly focused on the romance, so that also adds to the wasted potential.
While I found them cute and was a bit excited, after vol1, to see their love blossom, that kind of faded away in one chapter, when a love rival was introduced. Although it was resolved, it made me loose interest and stop rooting for them. I wasn't really rooting for anyone else, but simply wasn't excited for them anymore.

Overall, it's not bad, I just wish the mangaka focused more on the Demis, rather than the romance drama. Maybe the way the love-rival was handled just wasn't my favorite trope.

Plot: Manaka, a human girl, moves into a dorm with Demis, who are half-human and half-animal or -supernatural beings. She lives with 5 Demis: a vampire, a wolf, a kitsune, a mermaid and a Yuki-Onna.
Demis are not very known in the human world, but slowly try to show themselves. The school they're all going to welcomes Demis like every other human, but some human students aren't that happy about it and bully them, because they're different.
Manaka became friends with her dorm-mates very quickly and does her best to stop the bullying and make them feel included.

Volume 1 focuses more on their dorm-life and getting to know each other. Only 2 chapters showed the school so far, and not very much of it. Hoping to see more Demis in vol2.

It is interesting though. I love the Demis and the art. It's very cute.
Just like the mangaka's other series, Our teachers are dating! , it's a happy world with little to no drama. The only drama so far was the bullying at school, which didn't get resolved yet, but also only had a short screen-time.
The characters like to tease each other and there's a bit of a harem vibe, but a romance blossomed in chapter 5 with the MC, so who knows where this is going, relationship-wise. They seemed very lovey-dovey in the bonus chapter, but it could still lead to actual poly. (Wouldn't mind that.)

What a beautiful and warm journey. 
Best part is that the author got herself a girlfriend & a cat, thanks to this series. Goals.

There was a bit of drama here with Asuka's parents. Realistic drama, not exaggerated. Unsurprisingly, it all ended well and they found a middle ground; but yeah, with the rather immature drama in the other volumes, that took me aback for a moment (in a good way).

I found it a bit of a quick progress in this volume, as the other volumes were rather slowly, and there was just suddenly so much happening, with all the new characters being introduced. And, I mean, getting married after just about a year? That is quick, even for a happy world like the author created here. 
But it does work for this particular series, somehow.
And the wedding was cute.
I also loved how they were both wearing gowns. Usually you have one wearing a suit, and the other a dress, but not here. Nice having some representation for two feminine lesbians as well.

It doesn't feel like a year. Nothing has changed between them – er, actually they're even more lovey-dovey than at the beginning, and there's more fluffiness added each chapter. There was even less drama and more maturity in this volume.

It's not really a bad thing, I still appreciate the absence of drama, it's just a bit surprising. 

But hey, maybe I'm just so used to reading about couples with lots of drama or fighting or misunderstandings, that having that much of a loving couple, with almost no issues, simply is unusual. Which also is kinda sad. I demand more pure-fluff books.

Very sweet and fluffy again. There's a bit more going on in school, with festivals and such, but they're also meeting up a lot outside of school.

Again, only minor drama that gets resolved pretty quickly. Although I found some of the dramas were a bit immature, but at least the side characters make sure they talk about it. Generally love how the mangaka values communication.

Ps. Didn't notice that earlier, but the chapters are called "periods" (9th to 12th period in this volume) and the bonus chapters "after school". Love it.