Category: Book Related

Fantastic Manga Read in 2025- Blogmas 2025

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the pandemic, I have been slowly but surely getting back into reading and collecting manga. (And yes, I do consider the two topics to be separate, mostly because I’m still behind reading what I’ve collected, haha.)

2025 was a great year for reading manga for me. Even though I haven’t read everything I’ve bought (thanks to reading for book clubs and challenges and the like), I’ve had a blast with reading what I got to, and with a few I wasn’t 100% of a fan of. Here’s just a few that I read and enjoyed this year.

Otherside Picnic

It is well known within my family and friends that I avoid horror with all my heart. And yet… Otherside Picnic has been one of my favorite reads for the past year or so. Technically, it isn’t classified as horror, but there is enough references to internet creepypasta and urban legends that are just enough to give me nightmares.

That being said, the story is interesting, building from something simple to tense and complicated, with romance in the background. It’s just great.

Captive Hearts of OZ

While this four volume series has been out for a while, I happened upon it on Kindle Unlimited and blasted through it one night. It’s another Wizard of Oz series with a twist, which somewhat works (and somewhat doesn’t). But it was a cute little read one night.

Assassination Classroom

I missed this series when it was first releasing in 2014-2018. I knew about it, but I wasn’t reading manga at the time. I ended up picking it up over the course of 2024 and finally reading and finishing it in early 2025.

For a series with such a simple concept, it’s amazing in writing and art style. Worth spending probably $100 over a couple months to grab the entire series.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

I have a great run with this property. I first saw the animated film in theaters, then I read the translated novel (also worth it), and now I’ve read the manga and loved it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it when I started it, which was the same feeling I had during the film, but it ended up working well.

And then…

Whoever Steals This Book

True confession, I enjoyed the first two volumes of this three volume series. But the third… I was not a fan. Read the first two and make up your own ending, it’s the only way that you don’t get plot dumped on your head.

Corpse Blade

I took a risk with this series. I shouldn’t have. Good concept, fumbled the middle and ending.

And finally…

My Hero Academia

So. One of the current major manga series that just came to an end last year (October 2025 for those in English speaking countries). I only just collected the last volume, so I haven’t techecially finished reading this just yet.

I’m planning a read through during January 2026, from Volume 1 all the way to Volume 42. If you like superhero stories where things get complicated, it’s probably worth a read.

All in all, a pretty great year! Of course, there were other series and singles I read, some that will get a discussion in the future, others… that won’t. But that’s okay, that’s the nature of reading.

Happy trails!

So, What Actually Happened with the Barnes and Noble YA Book Club? – Blogmas 2025

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Back before the COVID-19 pandemic, back before everything in the world felt wrong and weird, Barnes and Novel started their second “Book Club” collection.

The Barnes and Noble Book Club had be going for about a year at this point, focusing on adult books. While I didn’t take part in any way (I was still in the “I still only read YA books, away this those adult books, they are all full of horror or sex and I’m just not comfortable reading that, though I don’t judge those books or those who read them” mindset), I knew about it and kept an eye out for them.

The picks were of all different genres. The only thing that seemed to be a constant is that each choice was usually a debut author or an author changing genre or type. The books were usually well received as well.

Then in June of 2019, Barnes and Noble announced that they were started a second book club, this one focused on the Young Adult Genre. Again, it got off to a great start. The picks were wild and diverse, some of which that have gone on to be loved and beloved, some have been optioned for TV or film (with one off the top of my head having already released a season, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, March 2020’s pick.

I myself discovered my local B&N was hosting the YA book club just after the second pick, We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal. I ended up reading the third pick and made it a point to go, even though travelling to that B&N on a Tuesday night was somewhat difficult with my job at the time. August 2019, I ended up reading Wilder Girls by Rory Power and attended my first meeting.

Surprisingly, it went well! I wasn’t sure how I would do with being in a book club for the first time (this was long before the book clubs I joined in 2023/2024). In fact, I kept attending, reading all the books and enjoying most of them.

And then COVID.

We had a socially distanced meeting in March 2020 for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, with the hopes to meet again in person the next month. This didn’t happen. The in-person meetings were cancelled for the foreseeable future. Barnes and Noble took everything online, doing mediated interviews with the authors, where readers could ask questions directly.

Post-pandemic, the clubs didn’t return immediately. Most of the stores didn’t start up, and those that did only held the Adult Book Club. The YA Book Club was usually ignored.

The books were still being picked. They still have somewhat of a place of respect at the stores and on the website… but they weren’t be promoted. December did not get a pick for every year of the YA Book Club’s running life, beyond 2019.

In March of 2025, Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven was released. It had a decent reception. It sold well, from what I can see.

April 2025, there wasn’t a pick. May? Nothing. By June, it was clear that the Barnes and Noble YA Book Club had been quietly cancelled. From what I found on Reddit, for booksellers at B&N, this wasn’t much of a surprise.

I enjoyed the collection. I obviously do, I have all 66 selections on my bookshelves. I just wasn’t surprised to see it go. It was getting harder and harder to find the choices in store (where I preferred to buy them).

It’s been nine months since that last book was picked. I still think about it, still have my sticky notes out so I can mark the next book, still have enough space on my shelf for probably three more pics. But that said, I’m not surprised anymore. I’ve moved on a bit. While I’m not reading the Barnes and Noble Book Club picks, I am reading books outside my comfort zone, thanks to my book clubs now.

I just… miss it. Nostalgia is a weird thing.

Happy reading!

Reading Challenges I Took Part In This Year – Blogmas 2025

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Let’s continue on with the book theme, now shall we?

Here’s a fun little tidbit. Towards the end of 2024, I hit a reading slump. Nothing was catching my eye, nothing was piquing my interest. Manga I’d enjoyed earlier that year bored me. Novels I’d waited all year for were set aside.

I was a right mess.

And then… I discovered a reading challenge.

Okay, now let’s be fair. I’ve been doing the Goodreads Challenge for years now. Set a goal, read that goal, bask in the glory of finishing that goal before the end of the year. But just reading x number of books in a year because a chore, a task to do. There was nothing interesting about it.

Until there was.

Throughout the year, Goodreads has been setting little reading challenge. Read a book off of a specific list, and get a fabulous prize! Also known as stroking your ego and boosting your reading goal by reading books that are probably outside your preferred genre and comfort zone. The challenges had to be completed within a specific timeframe, usually two months or so.

Thanks to this challenge, I have read award winning books, books by marginalized authors, Queer positive stories that have been in genres I would normally touched… The Goodreads Reading Challenges have very much opened up many doors for me.

But that’s not the only official reading challenge I’ve done this year. I discovered that Barnes and Nobel has their own, which isn’t very well advertised. And actually, they did two.

Barnes and Noble’s Reading Challenge presented 52 prompts around the year, meant to be weekly, though you could easily read ahead if wanted. The prompts were for the most part one word challenges, such as “prequel” or “relaxing, “avoided” or “memoir”. A kind soul over on Storygraph made a reading challenge page for it, which has made keeping up with the challenge much more manageable.

On top of this, Barnes and Noble also did a 14 week Summer Reading Challenge, with the fourteen prompts being common summer themes, from “hot dogs” and “forests” to “shark week” and “campfire stories”. I was the one who set up the challenge over on Storygraph (which has been a lifesaver this year), and it went well, I think.

Because of these reading challenges, and my own personal goal to attempt to not overlap book picks all that much if possible, my reading goal for this year when from high and probably insane to very much possible, with added manga to the mix.

Here’s hoping that next year brings more reading challenges that are fun and inventive, but also allow for readers’ choice.

Happy reading!

My Rise and (Tiny) Fall from Book Clubs – Blogmas 2025

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

If someone told me that in late 2023 or early 2024 I would be a part of a bunch of book clubs, and that by the end of 2025 I’d be down to just a few, I’d laugh at them.

Okay, maybe not laugh, but I wouldn’t believe them all that much. And honestly, I have personal history to back that up.

For the vast majority of my life, I have detested being told what to read or when to discuss it, how to read something in a particular way and how to “engage with the text.” Even though I have an English degree and love reading, it’s always been difficult for me to read assigned books. Sure, some ended up becoming books I liked or loved or fought for, but in the end, that was like four out of fifty.

I also don’t particularly like discussing books down to the most minute detail. When I read, I want to enjoy books, not analyze them.

But then… well… the pandemic finally eased and I needed to get out of the house.

Without going through the entire history, I ended up joining book clubs at two different used bookstores and through my local library. Each one had a different mix of choices and types of discussions and in general everything seemed to be working out great.

I have read books that were so out of my comfort zone that it was unbelievable, and yet I ended up liking several of them. (Even the one that still gives me the occasional nightmare because it was so well written and vivid.) I’ve also read books that I thought I would enjoy, and discovered that I didn’t. I’ve found new auto-buy authors and whole genres I’ll give a second shot.

Over the past few months, things have changed a bit. I’ve made the decision to cut out all but two of the book clubs. Past of the reason is that I didn’t feel heard anymore. My suggestions weren’t being taken seriously. My points were being ignored in conversations, or were being somewhat manipulated to mean something else. It felt like anything I had to contribute was just… a waste of my time. But more over, it was becoming a waste of anyone else’s time but the core group.

So, I cut down from five or six book clubs (there was one that we only held sporadically) to just firmly two. One is fiction that feels very open to all conversation (and suggestions and picks are welcomed with open arms) and the other is queer, with subjects and genres galore.

Technically there is one more within that store, I just don’t go to it, as the theme just doesn’t click with me (and that’s fine!). I also have an open invitation to book clubs at any of the other locations, as well as one of the Barnes and Noble locations near me (though they have cancelled the YA Book Club, but that’s a conversation for another day).

As for now, i have two book clubs in two weeks in December, reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (for this coming Saturday) and The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (on the following Sunday). I’m slightly behind in my reading, so I’m off to jump in.

Happy reading!

An Adventure for a Book – Blogmas 2022

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Today was not the best of days by a long shot, but it topped off in a hilarious fashion that I never could have expected.

Earlier this afternoon, Barnes and Noble announced on their social media that they were releasing the highly anticipated novella Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman early. The novella, part of the Heartstopper universe, has an official release date of January 2, 2023. However, B&N put on a promotion to release it in stores today, with a limited quantity of enamel pins.

So, like any fan of good quality media, I decided that as soon as I finished my day at work, I took off for the bookstore. I was only about to brave a store if I had a very good reason. And honestly, for this? Yep, good reason.

I got to my local Barnes and Noble and began the search. And if you’ve been keeping up at home, you can see where this is going. I walked the entire store, checked all around, couldn’t find it. I knew what the cover looked like, I knew about how big it was. Two of Oseman’s other books were on the shelves, but not this one. It wasn’t on an endcap or on one of the display tables. I looked everywhere.

I should also point out that it was incredibly crowded with people making their last minute purchases. Booksellers had people all around them asking questions about books. Even the help desk was backed up, though the two women were incredibly helpful.

When I finally was able to get to the help desk, I did my best to be kind as they looked so very stressed. I just said, “Excuse me, you’ve probably been getting this question all day, but I was wondering if you still had any copies of Nick and Charlie?”

One of the workers shook her head and told me about the street date, which would mean that it wasn’t available. I quickly flipped through my instagram to the official Barnes and Noble account and turned it around. “Oh, that contradicts what the official B&N account says,” I had said, or something along those lines. I didn’t raise my voice, but I was polite.

To their credit, they decided to check it instead of just sending me off like a child. And boom, there it was. One worker went three sheets paler. The other looked as though she’d seen a ghost. I actually felt bad for about 30 seconds.

Less than five minutes later, I was in live for checkout, Nick and Charlie and pin in hand.

The reason why this was an adventure? I am so beyond not comfortable speaking up when I need to. But I was able to when I needed to. And it actually heled out, as while I was standing in the checkout line, I had three different people ask me where I found the book.

I can’t wait until Christmas morning to actually read it! It’s going under the christmas tree as a gift from my uncle (he’s not the best at buying gifts, so usually Mom and I will by for him and he just wraps and labels.

Until next time!

Reading Goals for 2023 – Blogmas 2022

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be the first to admit that my reading goal for 2022 was a little… unobtainable, especially once my luck with the job market happened.

It wasn’t the total amount of books that was the problem. No, I’ve done that before and more. It was the fact that I was reading the same type of book over and over again. It just got… tiresome? I guess? You could also say exhausting. Or just… very one note. Basically, reading only one type of book made me not want to read, because if I wasn’t reading a book from my challenge, then I felt like I wasn’t reading the right thing.

For 2023, I’m going to try to broaden my palette, as it were. I still have my “reading challenge,” but I have a few others that will let me read basically anything I want. Let me explain.

Owlcrate’s 2023 Reading Planner Goals

Every year, my favorite book box Owlcrate sends out a reading planner with their November box. This year, the planner included a small list of 14 prompts as a way to encourage people to read something they wouldn’t normally.

For example, one of the prompts is to “read a collection of poetry or short stories.” Another is “an epistolary novel.” There’s also a prompt for “a book set in a library or a bookstore.” Two personal favorites of mine are “a book from a country that you’d love to visit this year” and “a recommendation from a friend with reading tastes different to yours.”

I’ve already come up with a few books that might fit some of these prompts, though I won’t start actually reading until January 1st. But I’m okay with that. Mentally planning is important.

The Nest’s 3 Degrees of Difficulty Annual Reading Challenge

Hilariously, this is also Owlcrate. They just launched The Nest, which is an app to connect with other booklovers in a safe and welcoming space (#notasponser). One of the things I like is that they are hosting their own reading challenge, with three levels. To make it slightly more challenging, each level features 25 prompts.

Level one is pretty simple. It has the normal prompts, such as “YA Historical Fiction,” “A Library Book,” or “A Classic High Fantasy.” Pretty much every prompt is one that can be found on another list someone else. It’s meant to be an easy list to fill.

Level two gets a bit more difficult. There are some more specific prompts, such as “set in the 1920s.” “More than 500 pages” sticks out because most prompt lists don’t have a prompt like that. “Portal Fantasy” is something I’ve never heard of as of writing this post. There’s also a “contemporary duology” and a “super serious sci-fi,” which means I’ll be scouring the internet for those and others.

I’ll admit, Level three is the one I’m not sure I’ll finish. Most of the prompts are ones that I wouldn’t normally pick up, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. “African Magical Realism” is something I’ve never even thought of (though I am intrigued). “Healthcare Worker POV?” No offense, but I avoided that line of work for a reason, I’m not looking forward to that one. And I’ll be honest, unless I get lucky, I’m probably to have trouble with the “2022 Hugo Nominee” as I’m usually not a fan of their choices… Oh wait, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir? Okay, that one might be okay.

But Wait! What About Your Reading Challenge?

I’m still going to do it! I’m midway through the Trials of Apollo, which is the last major pentalogy in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles. I still have the two spinoff trilogies (The Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard) as well as the companion books.

I also would love to work my way through The Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger, which was already in the challenge. Considering the size difference between KotLC and the other complete series in the challenge (The Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare), the former is at least obtainable.

One important things is that this challenge won’t be my main goal. I’d love to complete more than just the CHBC portion (which will get done next year if I have anything to say about it). I’m just going to prioritize reading for the other challenges more than just this. It will probably help with my anxiety as well.

Wrap Up

I’m hoping that having what amounts to nearly 100 prompts, I’ll get a lot of reading done on my offtimes. I do have some grand plans for reading, some ideas I’ve already jotted down, though of course nothing is set in stone just yet. We shall see what 2023 shall bring in the form of reading!

Until next time!

My Lowest Rated Books of 2022 – Blogmas 2022

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

This year wasn’t my best year, mostly due to drama and life and work and just a general shift my personal time. However, I did read about 30 books (my list isn’t exactly up to date, I’m working on it). When glancing on said list, I realized I had three books that I rated the lowest. Considering how I rate books, I wanted to talk about them.

Before we jump in, I wanted to detail my rating scale:

  • 5 Stars – This book is basically perfect. I would reread it right now. I absolutely enjoyed reading this in every way.
  • 4 Stars – I liked this book. It’s not perfect, but it was fine and I enjoyed my time with it.
  • 3 Stars – I read it. I’m not a fan, but I probably have a reason. It won’t be reread.
  • 2 Stars – I finished it. Not a fan, never again, it’s getting donated.
  • 1 Star – DNF. Absolutely hated it. Offensive.

So let’s run through my lowest rated books.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe (Graphic Novel) – Originally 4 Stars, rerated at 3 Stars.

Before someone throws a tomato my direction, this review is only and specifically regarding the writing of the graphic novel. I’m not touching the contents or the author’s life. (Also, a blanket apology if I mess up Kobabe’s pronouns. I’ve never used Spivak pronouns before, so this is a new experience for me.)

My only and biggest issue with Gender Queer is that I was bored. Kobabe chose to present eir story using a graphic novel style, which should have worked to eir advantage. However, for me, I don’t think it did. I felt very limited in learning about Kobabe’s life during eir coming out and life. I just felt… bored. Focusing just on the writing, I just didn’t get hooked into the writing. I started skimming early on. I didn’t feel like I wanted to really sit their and learn about Kobabe’s life and struggles.

I respectfully just wasn’t interested in the end. I rated it 4 starts originally more because I was worried that people might get pissed at me for rating it any lower. But personally, I just wasn’t a fan.

That said… Gender Queer is a massively important graphic novel that needs to be available to anyone who wants to read it.

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour (Paperback) – 3 Stars

I had loved LaCour’s previous book, We Are Okay. When I picked up Watch Over Me, I was hopeful that I would enjoy it just as much. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

I felt as though nothing happened throughout Watch Over Me. There was a little thing here or there, but no real plot movement until right towards the very end. By the time I finally got hooked into the story, I was into the final chapter and right at the end. I just wasn’t happy about that.

I’m willing to give LaCour another shot either with her 2022 novel or with one of the other novels she’s written previously. I guess it will be a rainy day read.

As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson (Hardcover) – 3 Stars

This one is shocking to me, as The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was an instant 5 Star novel for me in 2019. The middle book in the series, Good Girl, Bad Blood, was a 4 Star, but I still enjoyed it very much. As for As Good As Dead…

The best way to describe it is that I really enjoyed AGAD until the middle of the book. The moment the major twist happens, I feel like the entire book takes a left turn into “I don’t know what this is” Land. I read it in my car (in a parking lot waiting for a family member to be done with a medical procedure) one afternoon and I almost threw the book out the window. I was so very annoyed.

I know there is a prequel novella that’s been released, and will be released in February I believe. I also know that Jackson has a new standalone novel out. I’m gonna give it a try (fingers crossed that it’ll be under the tree). I’m just sad because this last outing just didn’t do it for me in any way.

Wrap Up

I’m okay with only having three low rated books in 2022, even taking into account that I honestly haven’t read a lot this year (thanks reading slump). I’m hoping that in 2023, I’ll get more opportunities to read a variety of books. It’s on the list, once things get more settled around here.

Until next time!

My 2022 Reading Challenge – Update – Blogmas 2022

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Back in March of 2022, I made a series of bad “bets” on a few different TV shows, basically on what was going to be shown on screen or during the marketing of different episodes. And when I say I made some “bad bets,” I mean I kept on getting it blatantly wrong. Since a few of my (former) friends and I were pseudo-gambling on it, I had to set my own, for the lack of a better term, punishment for getting things wrong.

So I set out to do what I named “Remy’s Reading Challenge.”

The challenge was deceptively simple. I was to read every book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger, every book in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles series by Rick Riordan, and every book in the Shadowhunter Chronicles series by Cassandra Clare. To save you the math, the grand total is 46 novels, 60 short stories, 1 novella, and 1 online novel.

I set out to do this challenge with a bit of a gusto, as I really did want to read all of these books. It was something that, in February and March, was completely obtainable. And then it wasn’t.

April 1st, I got hired with my job, and cut off from the majority of my family. May 4th, I left the friend group that had been my support for over a year at that point, and in the process lost the “friends” that had helped set these challenges. End of June? I was knee deep in training and had my entire fandom life implode around me, which also almost resulted in the loss of my job. July through Septempber was simply trying to build myself back up, October was a low point, November was a disaster, and December? Well, at least 2023 is right around a corner. And on top of this, medical issues. Just… medical issues.

That’s a very long-winded way of saying that I am nowhere near completing the challenge in any way.

As of today, December 11th, I have read the first ten Camp Half-Blood Chronicles novels and one companion novel (which held two of the short stories, if I remember correctly, have to check that). No, you’re not reading that wrong, that’s it. That’s all. I never touched The Shadowhunter Chronicles or The Keeper of the Lost Cities, even though I did get Book 9, Stellarlune, for my birthday.

With everything going on, I’m honestly surprised I got this far. I really did want to read more of them, but I never was either in the mood or I didn’t have the time when I did want to read. It’s been a challenge all the way. It’s the same reason I don’t really think I’m going to do a reading wrap up this year, because I really haven’t read all that much.

Depression sucks, y’all.

While I’ll be doing a few reading challenges in the new year (hilariously all hosted by Owlcrate in various forms, I’ll talk about those later this month), I also am hoping to get through with at least part of this challenge by the end of 2023. I’m not making any promises.

But for now, I’m going back to The Hidden Oracle, since that’s where I left off and I’m just over halfway through… I will get done with Apollo’s books. One day, anyway.

Until next time.

Christmas Shopping Mistakes – Blogmas 2022

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

With it being the holiday season and shopping being heavily underway, I was reminded of a bit of a shopping nightmare that my mom experienced years ago, long before she trusted Amazon with most of my Christmas list.

Buckle up, this one is fun.

It was 2008. I was already knee deep into falling in love with Marvel, even though I’d only seen the first Iron Man film at the time. (The Incredible Hulk was not on my watchlist because I have a… thing… about Edward Norton, but that’s a discussion for another day.) I also had found a love of movie novelizations, enjoying rereading the films that I enjoyed on screen, but from an author’s perspective. It was always fun to see a different take.

So for that Christmas, I asked for a bunch of movie novelizations. I was careful to make note of each one, putting the author clearly on my Christmas list, as well as a picture of the book cover. The list ended up being like six pages long or something, but there were only like fifteen books. I gave my mom options, it’s a thing.

And while, yes, the list was printed out from Amazon, Mom wasn’t a fan of the site yet. So instead of just clicking and buying, she went down to our local Borders one day on her lunch break while I was at school. She brought the list with her, highlighted by order of what I considered important (I’m a book snob, sue me). And after walking around the store for a bit (she set her own hours, lucky human), she went to an employees for some help.

You see, finding those movie novelizations was, and still is honestly, rather tricky in store. You had to first know what genre they were, then the author, then pray that they were mildly popular enough to be sold. Some were, some weren’t. I wasn’t sure about these, I hadn’t checked.

Mom had just asked the employee for directions, just a general “point me in the right direction please, I’ll be fine from there.” Instead, the employee decided to personally help her, which I fully say was kind of him!

Until he proceeded to tell my mom that I didn’t know what I wanted, I’d put the wrong things on my list, and I obviously wanted these really really expensive comic omnibuses. He apparently spent several minutes convincing her, and since I wasn’t there to defend my questionable taste in books and life choices, Mom ended up listening to him and making a very expensive purchase. So expensive, in fact, that those two omnibuses ended up being the only books for me under the tree.

So Christmas morning rolls around, I camp out in front of the tree, we start passing out presents. I’m immediately clocking that there’s not a lot of “book-shaped” presents, but mom has packed multiple books in different ways before to trick me, that’s obviously the case here.

Nope, I open up an X-Men Comic Omnibus and a Batman Comic Omnibus. (Please don’t ask which ones, I do not remember.) I did my damndest to hide my disappointment, but I did a poor job of it.

Here’s the thing. I respect the comics. I support anyone who wants to read them. But I really really really don’t. I am a person who would want to collect them all if I got one. I know me. It would be a massive problem. It bothers me when I don’t have the complete collection. And comics are a very expensive hobby, especially ones that have been around for decades at this point. On top of that, I don’t read them. I prefer to watch the films and read books, but the comics do nothing for me. Again, total respect to anyone who wants to read them, they just aren’t something I want.

Mom clocked my disappointed face faster than not and called me out on it. So I was honest. Polite but honest. I thanked her profusely , but I said that I wasn’t a fan of the comics. I told her I was grateful that she’d tried to get me what I asked for and I understood that it was probably hard to find in the store.

It was here she cut me off and told me about what had happened at Borders. About how the worker had told her this was what I wanted, not the novelizations. That I’d made the mistake when I’d made my list. She was sad that I didn’t like it after she’d gone to all that trouble.

I flat out told her that I didn’t know what that worker was thinking, but I wrote down exactly what I had wanted, like I do every year. I told her that I’d already read several movie novelizations and that I’d wanted to continue, hence why they were on my list. I explained my thing about the comics. I also said I didn’t appreciate someone at a store saying that I didn’t know what I liked or didn’t, that it would have been my mistake if I had made one, but his mistake was more egregious.

The conversation actually continued for several hours, with me literally having to prove that I had wanted the novelizations over the comics (thank you Amazon). By the end of the day, mom was apologetic, and I flat out told her she had nothing to apologize for, mistakes happen and it was easily fixable.

Boxing day, we went to Borders to return the omnibuses. She gave me the receipt to make the return while she went to go do attempt number two on books for me, like a mini Christmas. When the person behind the counter asked why I was returning the books, I told them that they had been purchased in error, that an employee had convinced my mom that I didn’t know what I wanted even with a list with pictures, and that I was returning the books so that I could purchase what I would actually enjoy.

The guy looked chastised. Very chastised. Enough that the look has stayed in my mind for almost fifteen years.

He returned it without a word. Well, it was clear exactly who he was.

Mom was able to find a few of the books that were on the original list, which was more than what I had figured. I also learned a valuable lesson – take better acting lessons. Okay, no, be more grateful for the gifts I receive. I still am quite embarrassed for how I reacted to this day.

The moral of the story: when you have a list, assume that what is on the list is what the person wants, not what someone at a store says. That lesson would have saved us all a bit of grief.

And now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself…

Until next time!

Book Review: .hack//Another Birth Volume 2: Mutation by Miu Kawasaki – Blogtober

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Title: Volume 2: Infection

Author: Miu Kawasaki

Series: .hack//Another Birth

Publish Date: October 10, 2006

Publisher: TokyoPop

Format: Paperback

Goodreads Summary:

Akira – also known as Black Rose – keeps fighting to save her younger brother’s consciousness from The World. But as she becomes immersed in the online game, Black Rose is beset by even further problems in the real world.

Review: For the second book in the series, this one always felt a little… slow. I remember reading it the first time on an Amtrak from Orlando, Florida to Newark, New Jersey, and just not really enjoying it nearly as much as the first book, Infection.

Akira continues to live this double life, both active in her school sport of tennis and taking more responsibility with her family, while also continuing her journey through The World with Kite and their slowly growing friend group. The trials and tribulations they go through mostly follow the games (the source material), but having certain actions through Akira’s eyes makes some of the prose feel lost or chunky.

One thing I will give this volume credit over the previous is that the author seemed to have a better grasp on the characters and source material. Things are somewhat more explained, and the main character’s personalities seem to be closer aligned to the games. Some of Kite and Black Rose’s dialogue remains flipped, but it is much less jarring in this volume compared to the original.

As a nostalgia read, coming back nearly fifteen years later still makes me wish I had played through the entire series on PS2. (I only owned the first game due to being a late adopter of the Playstation, and by that time the series was basically over and the newer games were being released, and re-released, and remade, and I’m not bitter that the originals are ignored. No. Not at all.)

Rating: 3.5/5 (Rounded up for Goodreads)

Goodreads Goal 12/52

[Edit note:] This book was originally reread in June 2020. The review of this one (as well as the final two in the series, were delayed due to some personal life things. I’m playing catchup right now! This review had been started (in a slightly different format) when I had to step away, so please forgive the shortness. My notes just weren’t that good for this one (or the sequels, lol).