Ai Ore! by Mayu Shinjo

Title: Ai Ore!

Mangaka: Mayu Shinjo

Age Group: Older Teens

Series is: Complete with 5 volumes

Volume(s) Reviewing: 1

My Rating: 2.5/5

Mizuki's boyish features have her as the prince at her all-girls school. She rocks the stage with her all-female band called Blaue Rosen. Akira is considered the princess of his all-boys school next door because of his feminine frame. Akira wants to join Mizuki's band when their singer moved away. Mizuki was against it as first but finally gave in. What is in hold for these two??

This took me quite awhile to get into. In the beginning, I was really annoyed by the fact that the girl looks like a guy and the guy looks like a girl. I have read mangas in the past where characters looked like the opposite gender (W Juliet), but I felt that in Ai Ore! it was a bit much. The mangaka could've at least toned it down a little. I would have preferred it if the characters looked like their gender but instead, have the girl dominate and guy submissive in the relationship. That would've been different than the usual manga plot lines that I have been seeing in the past 8 years in manga.

Midway through the manga, it was not so bad. The mangaka gave different situations for the characters to show their vulnerability and I got to see Mizuki more feminine and Akira more manly. [SPOILERS] However, everything went downhill for me towards the end. An upperclassman got really interested in Mizuki because she was so beautiful. So she nearly raped the Mizuki when their school was at a resort. Mizuki was luckily rescued, but later Akira sent one of his fans to rape the girl who was about to rape Mizuki. This I found to be absolutely ridiculous because the characters were only in first year of high school but they are doing such vile things. I would have forgiven this act a bit more if the characters were older and were not in high school. Except they were not. [SPOILERS END]

Unless you are a huge Mayu Shinjo fan, this manga could be skipped.

Review copy from Viz.

My Monday Mailbox & Music Machine (July 18/11)

Mailbox

Review

Boyfriend from Hell by E. Van Lowe

Won

When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer

Sorry that I don't update MMM&MM too frequently. It's just that since I'm winding down with my reviewing lately so I haven't request for any books lately.

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Music Machine

Title: Desert Rain

Artist/Band: Edward Maya ft. Vika Jigulina

Language: English

My Thoughts: LOVELOVELOVE

Short and Simple (7)

Title: March Story

Mangaka: Hyung Min Kim (Art) & Hyung Il Yang (Story)

Age Group: Older Teens

Series is: Ongoing with 3 volumes

Volume(s) Reviewing: 2

My Rating: 5/5

Sentence Summary: Continuing adventures with March as she hunts for the demons called Ill.

Speaking Straightly: As fantastic as the first volume! There is possible romance budding in this one, haha. I totally look forward to the third volume! Totally recommend this series if you have never read it yet and is a manga fan.

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Title: Blue Exorcist

Mangaka: Kazue Kato

Age Group: Teens

Series is: Ongoing with 6 volumes

Volume(s) Reviewing: 1

My Rating: 4/5

Sentence Summary: A boy discovers that he is a half-demon and vows to be an exorcist after the man who took care of him is killed by Satan!

Speaking Straightly: Been seeing and hearing a lot about this new popular series so I decided to give it a try. Not bad for the first volume. Definitely will appeal to shonen fans who are into demons. However, the first volume doesn't make me go crazy to pick up the second volume. But I wouldn't mind reading it if there is nothing else appealing on the shelf.

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Title: Hell's Belles

Author: Jackie Kessler

Age Group: Adults

# of Pages: 344

My Rating: 2/5

Sentence Summary: Jezebel is a succubus running away from Hell and pretends to be a human in order to hide.

Speaking Straightly: I tried. I really tried. I renewed this book 2 times and I still cannot get into it after half a novel later. The way it was written is just boring, no matter what kind of action scenes there are going on. I don't really care too much for the protagonist and the adult content is not that great either. Wouldn't recommend at all.

My Monday Mailbox & Music Machine (July 4/11)

Mailbox

Borrowed

Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual

The Color Trilogy vol. 1 by Kim Dong Hwa

Too lazy to get the pics lol, you can google if curious :)

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Music Machine

Title: Hands Up

Artist/Band: 2pm

Language: Korean

My Thoughts: Current song stuck in my head. :D I love 2pm, glad they came back with a fun song.

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Hedley

Title: North of Beautiful
Author: Justina Chen Headley
Age Group: Teens
# of Pages: 373
My Rating: 5/5

From behind, Terra Cooper is seemingly all-so-beautiful as she have the figure, model height and blonde hair. However, if she was to turn around, one would have a double take. Due to her port wine stain that takes up part of her face, she buries her flaw underneath heavy makeup.

Terra plans on moving far away in order to start her life anew, away from her father who constantly verbal abuses her and her mother. She is tired of the life she is living and wants something different. Her wish is granted when she meets a goth Chinese boy who understands her and is not bothered by her face. Everything changes for her when she spends more time with him and the doors to the world open up.

You may notice that my reviews aren't very current with the latest novels as I'm trying to get through my current pile first. I was so glad to have North of Beautiful in the pile.

Generally, characters with Terra's brief characteristics tend to be those girls who have it all in those Gossip Girl themed novels. However, Terra is different. With her birthmark, she thinks a lot more differently than the usual teen. She for sure wants to fit in, but at the same time in her own way craves for new changes in life. She loves her mom and wishes that her mother could do better because her father is so mean and is not worth staying with. In all honesty, I was supporting Terra's mom the most throughout the novel. I wanted her to so badly to divorce her husband and was looking forward to that.

My favourite part of all is the fact that Terra and her mother got to go to Shanghai, China along with Jacob (Chinese boy) and his adopted mother. She experiences a whole new culture and it is great to see how it changes her perspective on things. I'm at the stage where I want to desperately go out and see the world and this book gives me that.

North of Beautiful is not your average, typical teen book. It have depths and meaning on being truly beautiful and the idea of living life. This is a great novel to pick up if you want something a bit more mature (not in a sexual way at all) and developed, not just your usual "girl likes boy" story. Or if you are tired of being bombarded with the latest titles and would like to go back to ones that you may have missed in the past couple of years.

Won copy from Books by Their Covers.

Bookmarks Winner

Orchid! :) Going to be emailing you now. Yay for bookmarks! :D