Hello! Quick late post today, just to recommend a manga for this week! I’m trying to gather a bit of everything that I have already read here on the blog, so today it’s time to show you Nana, by Ai Yazawa!
Nana Komatsu is a young woman who’s endured an unending string of boyfriend problems. Moving to Tokyo, she’s hoping to take control of her life and put all those messy misadventures behind her. She’s looking for love and she’s hoping to find it in the big city. Nana Osaki, on the other hand, is cool, confident and focused. She swaggers into town and proceeds to kick down the doors to Tokyo’s underground punk scene. She’s got a dream and won’t give up until she becomes Japan’s No. 1 rock’n’roll superstar. This is the story of two 20-year-old women who share the same name. Even though they come from completely different backgrounds, they somehow meet and become best friends. The world of Nana is a world exploding with sex, music, fashion, gossip and all-night parties.
Why I think it’s a worth-reading manga: Nana is that kind of shoujo (romance) that stars cute and light and then goes darker with each volume. Secrets, lies, problems, dramas… Everything pops up. It’s not only real life, it’s a sad real life. I admit that I couldn’t keep going with the series after volume 7, as I would open it and immediately started to cry, but Yazawa-sensei’s art is wonderful, just like her plotting skills. If you like a good drama, you have to pick this one up 🙂
Hello, welcome to my daily review! I know you’re all shocked at my rhythm, I am as well, haha! Anyway, today’s book is True Colors, the first volume in Landry’s True Colors series, by Krysten Lindsay Hager 😀 I’ve received my copy from YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review during the book’s tour time. Thanks again 😀 The time has arrived!
Landry is a common teenage girl, with the common struggles of life in this age: having fun with her best friends, avoid the troublemakers at school and worry about her grades. Until one of her best friends, Ericka, pushes her and their other friend Tori into participating of a tv show selection –the American Ingénue, the most popular modeling show ever.
Even against all odds, Landry passes the first test and is invited to the second test. She couldn’t be happier until she realizes that Ericka and Tori don’t want to have anything to do with her anymore – and it wasn’t even Landry’s idea to go to the hearing in the first place!
Now Landry has to learn what true friendship means while struggling to not sound stuck up for her modeling gigs.
The Analysis
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂
Since I participated in the blitz for the third book in the series, Landry In Like, I was pinning to start this series. It’s not my typical YA read, as I’m not that a fan of contemporary, but something about the series just caught my eye. I have to say that I expected to see more about the backstage of the start of a modeling career than all the teen drama that came along with it and that Landry let me down several times when it came to her choices, but overall I enjoyed this reading experience. I totally plan to continue reading the series, as Krysten has a beautiful writing style that sticks the reader on Landry’s life until the last page and I think that Landry herself has much potential as a character and I’d love to see her growing up into a strong woman 🙂 All considered, three stars!
The narrative was first person styled from Landry’s point of view. Surprisingly, this didn’t bothered me at all. I had nothing against Landry, but she made it hard for me to actually like her. I may have mentioned this one time or two, but I never had the patience with people that don’t know who they are or where they have come from (you know, existential problems. It’s one thing if the person lost their memories or something like that, but that wasn’t the case at True Colors).
In my defense, I suffered with bullying during high school too – to this day, I have panic attacks when I’m forced to walk among large gatherings of teenies, both male and female, and sometimes I even get nervous diarrhea episodes thanks to that. It’s been five years since I’ve left high school, so thanks a lot, bullies.
Anyway, my point is that I understand Landry’s feeling of being tossed aside and the insecurities, but I couldn’t forgive her for treating people poorly because of somebody else’s judgment. It’s one thing if you don’t like someone and doesn’t want to be around this person for this reason; it’s another entirely different thing to not be around someone just because someone says you shouldn’t. It’s a free country, people! And that was my biggest disappointment regarding Landry. She grew up a lot and even changed a bit during the story, but that’s where the stars got lost.
The plot was good enough, wrapped around Landry’s daily life and the start of her modeling career, but I honestly thought, by the book’s blurb, that True Colors would focus more on her professional ascendance and show how this impacted her social life, not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, I love teen drama, it’s highly amusing, but I guess I expected more. Oh, well. It happens, haha!
As I said before, I didn’t mind Landry for good or bad, but she did let me down a few times. I really liked Devon and some of the other girls, but no one managed to catch my eye for long. That statement includes the boys, as none made it to my boyfriends list – but that’s okay, since I was a teen myself I was already into older guys. Like older than 20 guys. So I can’t really say anything here, the boys were just too young for me, haha! What I can say is that Hager built up the characters in such a fashion that made them real and likeable. Even the awful people like Ericka were fun to hate, you know? Like a sport. I caught myself smiling several times while I read the book, as it felt like I was one of the gossipers, haha!
The parts in which the modeling deal effectively appeared were very good as well, and realistic. I have offline friends that once were models, so I can speak up for that, haha! Sometimes, the most unexpected things happen in this world.
Overall, if you enjoy contemporary romances, gossiping, school drama and female power games, you really should read True Colors 🙂
Thank you so much for reading my review! And thanks to YA Bound Book Tours for sending me my review copy, it was a very interesting read!
Bellow, you can read more about the author, Krysten Lindsay Hager, watch the book trailer and enter an awesome giveaway 😀
ABOUT KRYSTEN
Krysten Lindsay Hager is the author of the Landry’s True Colors Series, a clean reads young adult series and the new Star Series. Krysten writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, middle school and high school, frenemies, modeling, crushes, values, and self-image in True Colors, Best Friends…Forever? And Landry in Like, as well as in, Next Door to a Star (Star Series). Her sequel to Next Door to a Star will be out March 22 2016.
Krysten is a book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. She’s worked as a journalist and writes YA, MG, humor essays, and adult fiction. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in Portugal, South Dakota, and currently resides in southwestern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows. She received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint.
Hi, there! Welcome to March’s first edition of Authors of my Heart ❤
Today is manga author day, so next Friday we will see a book author 🙂
Today’s mangaka is a very special one, as she is responsible for truly defining the kind of art that I prefer on my manga titles. You’d think it was Matsuri Hino, but no lol
It was Kaori Yuki-sensei!
As you may have already read in this post, we’ve met in 2005, as soon as Panini Comics released Angel Sanctuary here in Brazil and I was hooked since page one. On the first time that I’ve read this series, what kept me loving this series was Yuki-sensei’s art, as I didn’t understand most of what was happening (and with reason; I was 10 and the title is rated 16+ lol). I only really understood this series on its core when I re-read it, five years later.
Kaori Yuki has several series and oneshots under her name and I’m ashamed to say that I found this out writing this post. I only knew the titles that I had read and two tbr series from her. I’m a lousy excuse for a fan, I know The awesome part is that I have several titles to read from her now ❤
The angel Alexiel loved God, but she rebelled against Heaven when she saw how disgracefully the other angels were behaving. She was finally captured, and as punishment sent to Earth to live an endless series of tragic lives. She now inhabits the body of Setsuna Mudo, a troubled teen in love with his sister Sara. Setsuna’s misery mirrors the chaos among the angels, and their combined passions threaten to destroy both Heaven and Earth.
Why is Setsuna so mixed up? Despite his attempts to be noble, he’ll fight anyone anytime; he ignores all authority; and he harbors feelings for his sister that can only be described as “incestuous.” Why is he such a mess? The reason may be found with two demons from the underworld and their enemy, an insane angel who is distributing an insidious computer game called Angel Santuary.
The first one we never forget, right? One of my favorite things about this title is the characters dynamics. They are so real and their relationships (not only amorous ones) are always so fogged, so… Grey. Seriously, just read this, haha!
Born under an evil moon harboring dark secrets, Earl Cain C. Hargreves, the youthful heir of the aristocratic Hargreves family, is a man on a quest to find the truth about his family’s past. Written in dark, harrowing episodes, The CAIN Saga chronicles how Cain solves the strange crimes that seem to plague his cursed existence, yet somehow bring him closer to deciphering the puzzling circumstances surrounding his father’s tragic death.
I spoke of this one very recently, so I’ll just add that I love the mysteries that Cain has on his hands during this series!
Lawrence is a young male prostitute whose actual aim was to look for his brother. Unknowingly, he did find his brother – the owner of the young boys prostitute club. However, his life was about to change when he witnessed the killing of one of the biggest serial killers – Dr. Wolfgang Adrain Cray. Instead of running away, he searches for the murderer and falls in love with him. Adrian, who is basically a nice person (he is a school teacher) takes in Lawrence and reciprocates Lawrence s love. but Lawrence s brother was not too happy about losing a possible money tree and sends out his gang in search of Lawrence.
You may have noticed that Kaori Yuki’s stories tend to not win the happy manga of the year prize, right? Oh well, on Boy’s Next Door, she outdoes herself. I’m not usually one to cry while reading manga, but I did here. I felt the pain, the agony, the crushed love. I really would love to re-read this title and review it, but I don’t know if I am strong enough. What awaits me is too real…
That’s it about Yuki-sensei ❤ I also innovated this time and prepared a list with my TBR list of her titles:
Thank you for reading 😀 If any of my TBR titles of this post caught your eye and you want a review for it, just say so in the comments that I’ll work faster towards the chosen title 😀
Good morning and good Tuesday! 😀 In Brazil, we are having our annually Carnival, a holiday that started on Saturday, February 6th, and ends today. It is very weird to not have anything to do after a Carnival, like classes or work, but I think I can manage, haha!
Anyway, today is Authors from my Heart ❤ day! I’m aware that I skipped the manga author last week and I apologize. The post will go live on February 22th, a Monday, as there won’t be Match Made in Mondays in the foreseeable future and I will join another weekly meme. Which one? You will find out later today ;D
But let’s go back to today’s post! The author chosen is my first male, Alexandre Dumas!
We first met when I was on elementary school, on 2003. We had to read The Three Musketeers for our Portuguese class and I fell in love, even being a child. Soon enough, I had read The Man in The Iron Mask and his version of Robin Hood. All books are in a sore need for a re-read, haha! Besides, I still want to read The Count of Monte Cristo.
My first book from him, that led me into watching The Man in the Iron Mask, that 1998’s movie with Leonardo DiCaprio (btw, that movie rocks hard!), and that started my love for his works ❤
I’m fairly positive that the version that I have read of Robin Hood was his version, but as I was too young and the book was borrowed from my school library, I’ll never know. Anyway, it was my second, as the Robin Hood made by Disney set some priorities among his works in my childish mind, haha!
My last read book from Alexandre, as the end left me heart broken. As a child, I didn’t understand that movies could take liberties from their books, so I was expecting a happy decent enough end. Eh, no. Not at all. I cried a river that day and decided I needed a break from Alexandre, haha! A 13 years break so far, but okay.
Now, hopefully I’ll have the heart to read The Count of Monte Cristo, haha!
Thank you for reading! Do you like Alexandre Dumas’ books?
Hi, good morning! First of all I have to say that I’m very pleased with life, as I’m going home on Sunday ❤ I miss my dog and my books, despite all the fun I’m having at my uncle’s. Nothing like home, right? 🙂
Anyway, today’s post is from my Authors of my Heart ❤ section and it’s another manga author, as I got confused with my own posting schedule and did two book authors in a roll. Next week, its book author again and everything will fall back into place, haha!
The chosen one? Yuu Watase-sensei!
I didn’t found a larger picture, I’m sorry D:
We met after Fushigi Yugi was published in Brazil. The series was published in 2002, but I believe that I only started to read it somewhere between 2003 and 2004, as I read my first manga in 2003. Regardless of the accuracy on my chronological history, it was love at first sight. Also, as you may recall from this post, Yuu Watase is the author of the manga series that originated my first anime in Japanese with subtitles: Ayashi no Ceres 😀
Without anymore gibber jabber, let’s go to the list:
When best friends Miaka and Yui open the pages of an ancient Chinese book, they are transported into the Universe of the Four Gods, a parallel world to ancient China. Now, to escape schoolwork and family problems, Miaka flees to the parallel world, only to find a lot more danger and romance than she bargained for.
This manga has the perfect balance between romance, mystery, adventure, dystopian, drama and comedy, besides awesome characters and handsome villains. There is no way you won’t love it too!
Aya and her twin brother Aki thought they were going to a celebration of their sixteenth birthday at their grandfather’s home, but the funeral-like atmosphere tips them off that something’s not right. Their “birthday present” turns out to be a mummified hand–the power of which forces an awakening within Aya, and painful wounds all over Aki’s body! Grandfather Mikage announces that Aki will be heir to the Mikage fortune, and Aya must die! But Aya has allies in the athletic cook and martial artist Yûhi, and the attractive, mysterious Tôya. But can even two handsome and resourceful guys save Aya when it’s her own power that’s out of control?
I already talked a lot about this series, so let’s just do a quick recap with the main message behind my compliments: if you like shoujo (a.k.a. romance) and drama, just read it!
Shy high school student Riko Izawa aches for a boyfriend but guys just won’t look her way. Then one day she signs up for a three-day trial of a mysterious “lover figurine,” and the next thing she knows, a cute naked guy is delivered to her doorstep–and he wants to be her boyfriend!
Has Riko died and gone to heaven? The cute naked guy turns out to be smart, super nice, stylish and a gourmet chef. Plus, he looks like a million bucks…. Trouble is, that’s about what he’s going to cost Riko because she didn’t return him in time!
This series is so funny! It made me wish I was rich to have a boyfriend of my own built for me, literally, haha! Also, it awakens big reflections about society and human behavior, plus made me cry several times in the end, despite it being somewhat happy. Another good combination of shoujo, drama, comedy and a touch of sci-fi.
yup, the cover is on the vertical for some weird reason
In a mythical world where humans and gods co-exist, Arata has the unfortunate honor of being the successor to the matriarchal Hime Clan. This means he has to pretend to be a girl or face death if his true gender is discovered! On the day of his inauguration, an assassination plot forces him to flee—and he somehow winds up in modern-day Japan! Meanwhile, a boy named Arata Hinohara gets sucked into the first Arata’s world and finds himself dealing with people after his life!
This was my last series from her, I read it last year and only volume one – I’ve had it for quite a while sitting on my shelf, so I decided to give it a go and discover if I was going to continue the collection. For the record, I WILL! It was amazing! This one is a shonen (a.k.a. adventure/action) title, very different from what I had read from Watase-sensei so far. I loved the start, can’t wait to read more ❤
That’s it! Thanks for reading ❤ Now I have to figure out who shall be my next book author, haha!
Hello, there! Today we have another yaoi manga from 2015 with a delayed review thanks to college, haha! I will be back on track soon, I promise ❤
Today’s manga series is The Tyrant Falls In Love, from Hinako Takanaga! If you find this mangaka’s name familiar, you must have seen my review for another title from her, Croquis 🙂 And if you didn’t, now you can, haha!
Oh, in case you are new here: yaoi manga = gay romance manga 🙂
The Story
Tetsuhiro Morinaga is a hopeless romantic. Nothing really wrong there, right? Well, it gets wrong if you start to day dream about your very heterosexual and homophobic work college, as it is the case with Morinaga. He has a huge crush on Souichi Tatsumi, his supervisor at his part time job in their college.
After a very frustrating episode with his younger brother, Souichi is traumatized and really annoyed at gay community in general. Souichi hates to admit, but he does care for Morinaga.
The thing is that Morinaga doesn’t seem to be good at measuring affection.
The Analysis
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂
So, if you have been following my manga reviews for a while, you will notice that my friend Hachiyumi has an awesome taste in reads and always tips me off, so I get to read only the best titles in town ;D Thanks yet again, Hachi!
At first, I didn’t thought I’d like The Tyrant Falls In Love, but oh boy, I was so wrong! So deliciously wrong… Sigh. Anyway, haha! I usually don’t like gay characters that hide behind homophobia. They can hide all they want, it’s a right of all of us, but homophobia? Really?
And, to my utter astonishment, I fell deeply in love with the series. The more you read, the more you like it, haha! I started giving it 4 stars per volume, but now I think that it is a five stars yaoi manga series as a whole ❤ It is still being published in Japan and this review contemplates it until volume nine!
The narrative pace is annoyingly slow, mostly in Morigana’s point of view. When they have already stablished some sort of relationship, we start to get glimpses at Souichi’s mind as well. I like switching POVs, so I’m happy, haha!
The plot is very simple: boy falls in love with hetero co-worker and decides to conquer him. And gets punched a lot in the face for trying. Several times.
Yes, just like this.
But simple plots are not a bad thing. Poorly executed plots are a bad thing and it’s not the case at all! Takanaga-sensei, once again, was brilliant in conducting the story and leaving her reader in a constant need for more, a.k.a. hooked up into her work 🙂 And, for having a slow pace, the story has many details, something that I utterly love! The most amazing part? We can remember it all!
Now, the characters. There are some awesome sidekicks to this story, but they don’t make much of an appearance overall. So, I’ll focus on our Lucky couple, kay? 🙂
Morinaga is a completely lost case. He is very insensible when it comes to other people’s feelings, even not meaning to, and it’s a paranoid sort of fellow. He is handsome and cute and the top of the relationship – btw, I love cute tops and powerful bottoms, haha! – but he has much to learn yet, even with the series in volume number nine. Of course he already grew a lot and developed beautifully, but that one was just too damaged, haha! Even more than Souichi…
Anyway, let’s go to the crux of the problem: Souichi. He is the dream man on the outside, but has a very awful temper. He is violent, unforgiving and pretty much the tyrant described in the title. Honestly, I don’t know why Morigana fell in love with him in the first place, haha! But after he starts to drop his defenses, we can’t resist him ❤ He is so cute!
As the pace is very slow, it takes forever between a sex scene and another and they are not very explicit. If sex it’s what you’re looking for, this title is not for you, haha!
One of the things that I like the most about The Tyrant Falls In Love is that it follows the couple’s routine and shows how the outside happenings can affect their relationship even when both are okay with each other. It’s amazing.
Overall, this is a cute series with an interesting story and loveable characters. If you like yaoi, this is a must-read for you!
That’s it! Thanks for reading and hope you’re having an awesome weekend!
Hi, there! I know that it has been a while since my last TOP 3 post, but life has been kind of busy, oops! And I’m back and that’s what really counts, haha! ;D
Today, my theme for the TOP 3 is mangas shoujo. But first, let’s do a quick recap about this gender, just in case you are not very familiar with the manga world 😀 If you are, just skip the next paragraph and keep going, haha!
Shoujo is a manga genre that describes romantic stories with girls as main characters, usually in high school and the series has a happy ending. Usually. I’m going to show today three distinct types of shoujo mangas, so here we go ❤
It’s not easy being beautiful. The envy…the jealousy…the vicious rumors spread by your best friend…that’s life for young Momo. Thought to be a wild party-girl, she is shy and lonely in reality. Can Momo confess her love to her classmate Toji–or will her best friend steal him away? Winner of the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award, Peach Girl is a bittersweet coming-of-age drama with incredible artwork that will captivate readers everywhere.
This is the classic shoujo styled manga: there is a drama involving a boy, another drama without the boy and the girl has to learn to balance her life to be happy. The drawing style is sweet and delicate, even when it comes to boys. Peach Girl was my first classic styled shoujo and the second title I’ve read in my life, so it’s very special to me ❤
Yukari wants nothing more than to make her parents happy by studying hard and getting into a good college. One afternoon, however, she is kidnapped by a group of self-proclaimed fashion mavens calling themselves “Paradise Kiss.” Yukari suddenly finds herself in the roller coaster life of the fashion world, guided by George, art-snob extraordinaire. In a glamorous makeover of body, mind and soul, she is turned from a hapless bookworm into her friends’ own exclusive clothing model.
Paradise Kiss is a work of art. Of course, being primarily a shoujo manga, its first focus is the romance between Yukari and George, but this is far from being the highlight from the series. But oh my God, the clothes. The drawing style. The art, the general plot, the character construction. Honestly, Ai Yazawa is brilliant and made me cry hard in the end of this series – my first without a standart but still existing happy ending, haha! This is a dramatic shoujo at its best, totally worth the reading!
One day, Haruhi, a scholarship student at exclusive Ouran High School, breaks an $80,000 vase that belongs to the ‘Host Club’, a mysterious campus group consisting of six super-rich (and gorgeous) guys. To pay back the damages, she is forced to work for the club, and it’s there that she discovers just how wealthy the boys are and how different they are from everybody else.
This is one of the most epic and cool shoujos ever. I mean, despite being a shoujo and having a good dose of romance, the main focus is humor and adventure, so it is a light and sweet read – until you get to know the characters better. Then things get darker, haha! I’ve seen the anime and read the manga and this is a rare case where both are woth taking a look. The anime is lighter and has extra scenes, but the manga is funnier, haha!
it’s that nice 😉
That’s it! Thanks for reading ❤ Have you read any of those titles?
Hi, there! I’m so happy (I’ve been saying that a lot, sorry) that this section is back on the blog as well! To see everything that I’m up to, please check this post!
This week’s choice is a title called Chobits, from really badass group CLAMP ❤
Volumes 1 to 3 and 5 of the collection: feel those covers ❤ (sorry, this pic is a bit blurry, I took it without my glasses lol)
Chi isn’t your average humanoid computer. She can’t do word processing, she can’t connect to the Internet, and she’s incapable of networking with other persocoms. Even her sound card seems broken. No wonder Hideki found her tied up in a pile of trash. But when the 19-year-old technophobe takes her home, he finds that she may be more advanced than her childlike behavior lets on.
Why I think it’s a worth-reading manga: this was my first manga ever, so it is very special. The plot is very actual and it’s problem is very real: will we stop loving human beings and just love machines? Is being forever single a real problem? How to live without a partner? How having one changes your life? This manga explains it all with a touch of sci-fi, wonderful clothes, an adorable female protagonist and a very funny male protagonist 🙂
Those are official illustrations of the manga. Come on, FEEL THIS FASHION STYLE. (I do not own any of those images, they belong to CLAMP group and are here only with illustrative purposes)
My point exactly. If for anything else, read it for the clothes.
I guess that’s all, haha! Thanks for reading! Have you ever read or seen this series??
Hello, guys! In the end of July, I received from sweet and dear Linda Oaks her new book, Chasing Rainbows, in exchange for an honest review. Thanks again, Linda! The moment is here, so here we go 😀
Chasing Rainbows tells us the story of Addison Hayes, a seventeen-year-old girl that lost her older sister, Natalie, in a car accident three years ago. Addie is somewhat stable in the beginning of the book, but still suffers a lot with depression, even after lots of therapy and counseling, and keeps a secret that no one ever knew: she auto-mutilates herself.
The story officially begins at the start of her freshman year and two new students threaten the little piece of mind that Addie has: Chase and Chance Logan, identical twins that shake her up, each one in a way. Both start a sick competition for Addie’s attention, making her doubt everything that is happening around her and go even further on her depression hole. Addie doesn’t want this for her life, but she also can’t deny the twins. Chance was her bad boy prince and Chase was the needing attention whore one; and none was ready for Addie’s secret.
After a night in Addie’s place, Chance simply stops talking to her, without further announcements or explanations, showing an awful behavior – and they didn’t even had sex. That was too much for Addie, already so tired of unstable affective grounds to rely on, as Chance just pushed her from his heart and her parents were too trapped on their own grief to remember they still had a living daughter.
Just when everything seemed to be over at Addie’s life, she meets Jake, her best friend Kara’s boyfriend roommate. Their connection is instantly and strong, but will Addie have the courage to move on and be happy?
Few, explosive book! Now let’s go to my favorite part: analysis! Just remembering that this were my impressions and opinion during reading, ok? 🙂
I really loved the book, much more than I expected to. I connected with Addie in an unbelievable level, as it had never happened with another book character before. The book narrator is Addie herself, so there were many things written that I had said myself during life, that I had already thought. This book was too close to home, in a way that made me loose it while I read – I cried, laughed, screamed, replied Addie’s questions out loud. Those are things that I usually don’t do. I’m a laughing person, I think a lot about the story of the book, but I’m never extreme, you know? And, this time, I was. The title may sound a bit abstract, but, on the last chapter and in this post from Oaks, we understand why Chasing Rainbows and I can say that Oaks is totally right. Being addicted to something is just like chasing a rainbow, chasing a fleeting and unique moment, that disappears right in front of our eyes, but you need to have that again.
In narrative matters, the book is good. As I said, Addie herself tells us her story, so it’s possible to dive in her emotions and on the events easily. You understand why she commits the mistakes that she does, her frustration at herself for not being able to control her emotions. Of course, first person narratives have this problem of leaving gaps on the plot without the purpose of doing so, and I’ll talk more about this when I go through the plot itself, but they weren’t serious business.
But let’s go to the characters: Addie is that kind of person that you love, but want to kill at the same time, haha! I loved her deeply as a protagonist and she will always have a special place on my heart. My other favorite ones were: Brandon, the strongest and loyal friend ever; and Jake, the magic boy that I won’t tell a thing about to not spoiler you guys, haha! Ok, I’ll tell you what I wrote on one of my Goodreads statuses: “Jake reminds me of the first fresh breath we take as soon as we exit a very dark and closed place <3”. In the other hand, I thought Kara, Addie’s best friend, too fake. I can’t picture her like a real teen, you know? She’s a nice character, but completely unrealistic. And it’s not different with Devon, her boyfriend and Jake’s roommate. I have to agree with Addie, those two were so sweet on each other all the time that I felt diabetic, haha! I started the book really digging the twins. Then I hated them, went back to loving them and wanted to them to just drop dead, haha! I have a thing for bad guys, but you don’t cross some barriers and they did it, hard.
Now, the plot. It was well constructed and fluid; the scene transition is smooth and the reader doesn’t get tired of the story, even with the strong theme behind the book or with the thousand problems of Addie, as we have the sensation that she only gets fucked up for more than half of the story. Overall, Chasing Rainbows had a good closure and few loose ends – but they do exist and bother me. For example, we don’t know what happened to the twins, nor how Brandon and Cal’s relationship works, why did Miley decided to be “nice” with Addie on her birthday. Oaks presents us to several small stories in the plot, but they are just as fleeting as the rainbows that Addie seek; only glimpses of the reality of the book. But that’s how it goes with firs person narratives: no one knows everything about everything that goes on in the world, haha! However, I admit that I’m still let down by not knowing those answers.
By the way, I already mentioned before, on a review, that I have problems with narrator-characters, but I’ve been biting my tongue on the matter lately 😀
In describing matters, Addie is a queen. She always notices people’s appearances, what they are dressing, how they wear their hair and their cologne. She also is very good at body language reading, it’s awesome. She doesn’t always react on time, but always knows what’s going on there, which feelings are involved. Her sensations are also a strong point, you can feel with her, haha!
I really liked how the book ended. Calm down, no spoilers, haha! Promise 🙂 The thing is, I usually end a book and think “O.M.G., I need another, give me a sequel, dear author, do a sequel NOW!”. I didn’t feel this way. I mean, I would gladly read a sequel if there’s one, but I felt the story so complete, the end of a cycle, you know? Battles like Addie’s will only truly finish in the day that the person dies, it’s true. The shadows are always lurking on our minds, waiting for the right moment to come. The difference is on whether you have the courage to fight this feeling and keep living or not. Death is the easiest way, very comfortable and controlling, so different of life. I know Addie will keep fighting because she finally understood that the past can’t hurt her, that she’s the one controlling her life and has the inner strength to go on. And this is the key to freedom.
Oaks gave voice to many people that suffer with self-mutilation through Addie and I honestly think that everyone should read this book, to understand how a person with this problem thinks and how, sometimes, the sadness just wins. I wish 15-yeard-old me had read this and learned some lessons.
That’s it, guys! Thanks for reading this and I’m sorry if I was a bit too carried away, but, sometimes, it’s impossible to put the book under the microscope and not hug it afterwards, haha! Linda, thanks again for the book, it was life changing.
That’s it, thanks for reading!
The awesome part is that I have several titles to read from her now ❤
The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange 