Tokyopop Pre-Garage Sale Extravangza!

If you are a manga fan like I am, you may have heard the announcement that Tokyopop has officially closed its doors. This is such sad news to all anime and manga fans because just this previous year, two other manga publishers (CMX and Go! Comi) also closed down.

Tokyopop has to clear out much of their inventory. In order to get rid of their stuff, they are hosting a contest with 10 winners. However, their location is in Los Angeles so if you are not near that area, you wouldn't be able to win because they won't be mailing out the prizes.

So if you are a manga/anime fan and is in L.A., check out this link: http://tinyurl.com/649gdqw Contest ends May 1st so hurry!

I am back!

Hopefully, haha! So my first year of university has officially ended (no summer school for me, no siree!) and now I have four months of vacation. :D My plan is definitely to update Stop, Drop, and Read! more often. Even though I haven't done My Monday Mailbox & Music Machine (The Story Siren's In My Mailbox inspired weekly feature) since like August, I did receive quite a few books to review despite the fact I held off requesting any. I will restart that feature this upcoming Monday with the latest books I have received this past couple of weeks.

In terms of my reading so far, you can see what I have been trying to get through on the left sidebar (has been the same 3 books for the last 2 months). I think I will have to re-read Awakened for sure. The review copy I received awhile back was actually paper-bounded so the ARC is huge. I was unable to take it with me to places and I sometimes forgot to read it. So I need to re-read it in order to give a clear and concise review. (I'm so sorry Ednah for the extreme delay! Will let you know once I have the review up!)

I actually held off reading Flowers in the Attic because I was really disliking the grandmother. I know the series is very popular, even till this day. However, it is a really dark story and I don't know how far I will be able to go. If anyone has read this novel or the series in general, what is your take on it?

Since I have been out of the YA loop for over 10 months, anything you guys want to update me on? :)

Upcoming review: Saving June by Hannah Harrington

P.S. Who is watching the Royal Wedding tomorrow?

Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori

Title: Ouran High School Host Club

Mangaka: Bisco Hatori

Age Group: Teens

Series is: Complete with 18 volumes

Volume(s) Reviewing: 14-15

My Rating: 4.5/5

In volume 14, Hikaru finally confesses his feelings to Haruhi. Poor Haruhi, who has been so oblivious up until now, has no idea how to react to this situation. Later the plot spins off when she gets kidnapped while she and the host club were visiting the shrine for the New Year's!

The last time I reviewed the series was in December of 2008. Since then when there were only a few volumes out, the story lines and characters have developed so much ever since. Hatori's art style evolved ever since volume one so there would be a difference if you compare her style now and then. Tamaki and the twins I have noticed did change a lot in terms of their personalities. If you have read up to thus far, you would know that some of the Ouran characters became more complex over time in terms of their backgrounds and so on.

In this volume, Hikaru finally decides to be brave and tell Haruhi how he feels about her. This is a big step in his character especially and it is nice to see the clear difference between him and his brother. After Hikaru told Tamaki that he likes Haruhi, poor Tamaki gets into this confused state of mind. He then became a deep and philosophical person as he tried to sort out what he was really feeling inside.

We then get introduced to a new character named Megumi Kanoya, a girl who is practically twin to Haruhi in terms of appearance! Classy and gentle, Kanoya is similar to Tamaki because of their background history and is attached to the king of the Ouran Host Club. She is slightly bland in this volume so I wasn't paying attention to her as much.

I particularly enjoyed the side story at the end of volume 14 with Mori and his racoon and chicken pets. They are simply adorable. Too bad in real life they aren't that cute to actually own.

In volume 15, the host club decides that in order to get Tamaki out of his moody state, they host a race for the school!

Through the race, you get to see Kanoya's personality a lot better. I like her after this volume because she turned out to be very cute and has this funny personality. Tamaki did get out of his weird mood in this volume and turned out to misunderstood things a bit more than before!

Surprisingly up until now, the mangaka never mentioned about Hunny's and Mori's graduation since they are older than the rest of the club. So that is now thrown into the plot! This is pretty much hinting that the story will sometime ends soon in the future.

After reading up to volume 15, I really hope that in the last volume it would show where everyone would be in 5 or 10 years from now. That would be so amazing to see where our beloved characters end up at!

I definitely look forward to the next volume!

Review copies provided by Viz.