#IReadsYou Book Review: TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT (The Twilight Series Book One)
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

AUTHOR: Stephenie Meyer
ISBN: 978-0-316-16017-9; hardcover (October 5, 2005)
544pp, B&W, $22.99 U.S., $28.99 CAN

Twilight is a 2005 young adult novel written by Stephenie Meyer.  A vampire romance, Twilight focuses on a 17-year-old girl who falls in love with a 103-year-old vampire who looks like a 17-year-old boy.  Twilight is the first in the four-book “Twilight series.”  It was also adapted into the hit 2008 film, Twilight, which became the first entry in a five-film franchise.

When Isabella “Bella” Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, a small town in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state, she thinks that her life will be miserable until she graduates from high school.  Forks is not unfamiliar to Bella, as she was born there.  After her parents divorced and she followed her mother, Renée, to Phoenix, Bella often returned to Forks to spend summers with her father, Police Chief Charlie Swan.  Now, however, because of her mother’s new marriage, Bella is moving in with her father full time.

Adjusting to her new school is not as much as a problem as Bella thought.  In fact, the very things that made her unpopular in sunny Phoenix, makes her attractive to the high school kids in this remote rural area.  Bella makes, or rather tolerates friends, but then she sees him, Edward Cullen.  This pale-skinned Adonis, so beautiful and graceful that he seems supernatural, captures Bella’s attention and imagination.  She can’t stop thinking about him, but he’s distant, even hostile towards her.  Then, Edward saves Bella’s life in an act of bravery that is as shocking as it is impossible.  What is Edward Cullen, and why does he make Bella feel so madly in love and out of sorts that she can’t seem to live without him?

THE LOWDOWN:  Since its debut in October 2005, Twilight, the young adult (YA), fantasy, romance novel by author Stephenie Meyer, has been a favorite with teen female readers.  Twilight spawned three follow ups (with the four books forming The Twilight Saga) and recently became a hit movie.  I am of the mind that novels that are hugely popular and that also spawn a devoted following or fan base might actually be quite good, although many pop novels are really trash.  Twilight, however, is a damn good read.

The books strength comes from two strong elements:  strong characters (especially the leads) and a deeply seductive romance.  Bella and Edward are strong individual characters, but as a pair, they are magic.

Bella comes across as a modern goth-type girl, more stubborn and individualistic than sullen, but she has a romantic’s heart and a generous spirit.  She doesn’t dislike people so much as she prefers her solitude.  Simply put, Edward is chivalrous.  Loyal and brave, his protective way towards Bella may seem odd in this era of the independent woman.  On the other hand, it is also easy to see why young women would be attracted to the character of Edward, especially in an era in which young men consider loutish, self-centered behavior to be cool.

How does an author bring the girl who loves solitude and the boy who seems to be a gentlemanly hero from a 19th century romance novel together?  This is where the seductive nature of Meyer’s writing comes into play.  Meyer builds so much of the text on dialogue, and all that talk gives the novel such warm colors.  Even in the cold and damp setting of the evergreen forests of Washington, the way Meyer has Bella and Edward talk to each other brings a heat to the story that the reader feels.  In his own way, Edward seduces Bella, and in turn, Bella seduces him in her own way.  Their verbal play is searing, and although their conversations run for pages on end, it’s attractive the way real conversation was in the movies, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

The majority of the last act becomes a twister of suspense running on the razor’s edge.  Still, the thrills exist in the context of this dangerous, but alluring romance that will have readers flipping pages.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Readers who enjoy a well-written romantic novels, even a supernatural romance, will like Twilight.

A-
7.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://stepheniemeyer.com/
https://www.littlebrown.com/
https://twitter.com/littlebrown
https://www.facebook.com/littlebrownandcompany
https://www.instagram.com/littlebrown/?hl=en


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Review: TRINITY SEVEN Volume 20

TRINITY SEVEN, VOL. 20
YEN PRESS

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Kenji Saito
ART: Akinari Nao
TRANSLATION: Christine Dashiell
LETTERS: Anthony Quintessenza
ISBN: 978-1-9753-1041-7; paperback (April 2020); Rated “M” for “Mature”
164pp, B&W with some color, $13.00 U.S., $17.00 CAN

Trinity Seven is a fantasy and romantic-comedy manga series from writer Kenji Saito and artist Akinari Nao.  It has been serialized in Fujimi Shobo's shonen manga magazine, Monthly Dragon Age, since 2010.  Yen Press is publishing an English-language edition of the manga as a graphic novel series.

Trinity Seven focuses on Arata Kasuga.  He is living an ordinary life with his cousin, Hijiri Kasuga, in a small town.  Everything changes when the “Black Sun” appears and causes something called the “Breakdown Phenomenon” to happen.  This “happening” destroys their small town and makes Hijiri vanish before Arata's very eyes.  Determined to eradicate the Breakdown Phenomenon and get Hijiri back, Arata enrolls at Royal Biblia Academy, a secret school for mages.  This new life is tough, but by Arata's side are seven beautiful girls.  They are known as “Trinity Seven,” and each girl is a master of her own magical art.

As Trinity Seven, Vol. 20 (Chapters 87 to 91) opens, Arata and Hijiri are walking to school when the Black Sun appears.  Now, Arata has to save his cousin again... or maybe, things are not what they seem.  Arata is trapped in a powerful spell, the “Nostalgic Library,” and the allure of it may be too much for him to escape.  Can Trinity Seven help the young “Demon Lord” candidate find the strength he needs to emerge from this dream and confront a powerful enemy?

The Trinity Seven manga is the latest Yen Press manga that is new to me.  Although the series is deep, deep into the narrative, some Internet research will help the reader play catch-up – to an extent.

Trinity Seven Graphic Novel Volume 20 digs deep into the central premise of the series, and that is the fact that Arata Kasuga is really important.  Much of the story here involves magical fantasy battle manga, but there is a lot of exposition and multiple levels of dream worlds to overcome.  The ever versatile Christine Dashiell provides an informative and entertaining English translation, so readers simply need to go along with the story that writer Kenji Saito and artist Akinari Nao are telling.

The ending suggests that there are some big story events ahead.  I have to admit that I am curious, although I had mixed feelings about Vol. 20.

6 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://yenpress.com/
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https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/23045551-yen-press


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


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#IReadsYou Book Review: Roald Dahl's THE WITCHES

THE WITCHES
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE/Puffin Books

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Roald Dahl
ILLUSTRATOR: Quentin Blake
ISBN: 978-1-9848-3716-5; hardcover with color dust jacket; 5.31 in x 7.75 in; (September 3, 2019)
224pp, B&W, $17.99 U.S.

Ages 8-12

The Witches is a 1983 children's dark fantasy novel written by the British author, the late Roald Dahl.  The book was published with almost 100 full-page and spot illustrations by Quentin Blake (who illustrated many of Dahl's works).  This review is based on a hardcover edition of The Witches published in September 2019 by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The Witches is narrated by an unnamed young British boy who recounts his and and his grandmother's experiences battling a society of child-hating witches.  Some people are familiar with The Witches through two film adaptations, director Nicholas Roeg's 1990 adaptation, which starred Anjelica Huston, and the recently released 2020 film directed by Robert Zemeckis.

The Witches opens in Norway where we meet the story's narrator, an unnamed seven-year-old English boy whose parents were Norwegian immigrants to England.  After his parents are killed in an accident, the boy goes to live in Norway with his grandmother, whom he calls “Grandmamma.”  He has already previously spent much time with her, and he loves all her stories, especially the ones about horrific witches who seek to either kill human children or to transform them into animals.  It turns out that Grandmamma is a retired witch hunter, and she tells the boy how to spot witches.  They all look like ordinary women, but they are actually disguising their deformities,  For instance, they have bald heads, have claws instead of fingers, and do not have toes, to name a few of their deformities.

The boy eventually returns to England with Grandmamma in tow, and while on holiday at the grand Hotel Magnificent in Bournemouth, England, the boy has his second experience with witches.  While hiding in the hotel ballroom, the boy discovers that a meeting of the “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children” (RSPCC) is really the annual gathering of all the witches in England.  At that meeting, the boy sees something that almost no human has ever seen – the Grand High Witch, leader of all the world's witches.  And nothing can prepare the boy for the Grand High Witch's diabolical plan to get rid of all the human children in England.

THE LOWDOWN:  My experiences with Roald Dahl revolve around his 1964 children's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the two film adaptations of it, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).  I read the novel once, sometime after the release of the 2005 film, and I have seen both films a few times.

I remember when Nicholas Roeg's film adaptation of The Witches was originally released, and I planned to see it but never did.  I have been putting off seeing the film ever since, but when I heard about Zemeckis' then-upcoming adaptation of The Witches, I chose the book as one of my Christmas 2019 gifts.  After finally reading it, I wish that I had read The Witches a long time ago.  I feel it could have been a formative reading experience for me when I was young.

That aside, it is a fantastic novel.  I am amazed that Dahl could create such evocative and vivid prose in writing for children.  Well, I guess that's why he is beloved by generations.  From the moment he introduces the unnamed boy, Dahl transports readers into another world, one that is fantastical, but one in which the readers will want to believe.

I also love that Dahl makes both the boy and his grandmother, who is 86 in the book, both plucky and adventurous.  The boy is not afraid of new things, and his child's sense of wonder and nosiness makes him not afraid to try new things and to go new places, as well as to try dangerous things and to go to dangerous places.  The boy is one of those classic characters onto which the readers will graft themselves in order to follow him on an incredible and perilous journey.  The witches of The Witches are unique and scary, but are also a little pathetic and funny, which is enough to make them creepy.

The best thing that I can say about Roald Dahl's The Witches is that when I got to the end of its 200 pages, I could have read another 200 pages.  Also Quentin Blake's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to the novel.  I feel like the world of The Witches as my mind imagines it should look similar to the way Blake presents it.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Of course, fans of Roald Dahl should read and re-read The Witches, and fans of great children's literature will want to fight The Witches.

[This volume includes a 16-page from another Roald Dahl book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.]

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://www.roalddahl.com/
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The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Review: KORGI: The Cosmic Collector

KORGI (BOOK 2): THE COSMIC COLLECTOR
TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

CARTOONIST: Christian Slade
ISBN:  978-1-60309-010-0; paperback with French flaps (June 2008)
88pp, B&W interiors; full-color, double-spread cover; $10.00 U.S.

Korgi created by Ann and Christian Slade

Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector is a 2008 original graphic novel from writer-artist Christian Slade.  A paperback original with black and white interior art, The Cosmic Collector is the second in a series of five graphic novels.  The stories focus on two lead characters.  The first is Ivy, a young woman who his a “Mollie,” a woodland people who have fairy-like wings.  Then, there is Sprout, her “Korgi” (a kind of corgi) pup.  Their adventures take place in and around their home of “Korgi Hollow,” a village set in a faraway, pastoral land of woods, mountains, lakes, and cliffs.

The Korgi series is a pantomime or wordless comic, in which the story is told without word balloons, sound effects, caption boxes, or any other kind of text.  The Korgi series is ostensibly a children’s and young readers series, but it is also an “all-ages” comic that teenage and adult readers can also enjoy.  The fifth and final entry in the series, Korgi (Book 5): End of Seasons, is due in March 2021 (as of this writing).  Christian Slade is a comic book creator and former animator for the Walt Disney Company, where he worked on the 2003 animated feature film, Brother Bear.

Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector opens with a word or two from Wart, the scroll-keeper and historian of Korgi Hollow.  Next, one morning, Ivy and Sprout begin one of their usual jaunts through the forest near their home.  There, they discover fellow Mollie-Korgi duo, Art and Wanda, in a trap.  Soon, Ivy and Sprout discover that someone or something is clipping off the wings of Mollies.

Not long after their rescue mission, Ivy and Sprout encounter a peculiar creature, “Black 7,” and his maniacal companions, the “Bots.”  What is their connection to these grave assaults on the Mollies, and is Ivy at risk of losing her wings?

THE LOWDOWN:  I originally read Korgi (Book 1): Sprouting Wings thanks to a review “galley” copy I received from the book's publisher, Top Shelf Productions, back in 2007.  At the time, I never got around to reading the books that followed in the series, although I meant to do so.

I never forgot Korgi, and earlier this year, I turned to eBay and found someone selling the first two books in the series as a set.  Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector is like the first book in the series.  However, it mixes classic science fiction elements with the series' woodland fantasy milieu, and this results in another truly unique reading experience.  Also, the villains are quite interesting and mysterious, enough so that I remain curious about them even after reading The Curious Collector.

Christian Slade’s art still recalls the pen and ink book illustration of the first half of the 20th century.  The art is drawn entirely in pencil art, with Slade using cross-hatching and line work to add exacting detail to the drawings of characters and settings.  This gives Slade's art a sense of texture, a tactile sense for the eyes that blends well with the art's gentle, lamp-lit quality, which is also found in some of Walt Disney's animated films.  I think this Disney-esque style of the art and storytelling is perfect for a children’s illustrated book or comic book.  In fact, Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector is as much a picture book as it is an original graphic novel.

The series' stars, Ivy and Sprout, shine in Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector.  Ivy even shows a more plucky and determined side than she showed in the first book.  Slade's storytelling makes me think of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved children's fantasy novel, The Hobbit (1937), which I have read more times than I can remember.  However, The Curious Collector adds something new to the fantasy mix, which makes me curious about where this series is going.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Those looking for a young readers' comic book will find an excellent choice in Korgi (Book 2): The Cosmic Collector.

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


http://www.christianslade.com/
https://www.topshelfcomix.com/
https://twitter.com/topshelfcomix


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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