May Reads

Another month is gone! Can you believe it? Here in Britain we've finally had a few days of sunshine and warmth, but now we're back to freezing rain, just in time for HRH Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee (and yet thousands of Britons lined the banks of the Thames yesterday for hours to see Her Majesty float by on her royal barge—there's something strangely endearing about that).

Anyway, here is what I read in the month of May:

• Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition, volumes 1, 2, and 4 (and Fruits Basket regular edition, volume 13), by Natsuki Takaya {manga}: Going back to the beginning in my favorite manga series, which follows orphan Tohru Honda as she is taken in by the beautiful and mysterious Sohma family and soon discovers their curse—that twelve of them are possessed by the vengeful spirits of the Chinese zodiac. Afflicted family members turn into their zodiac animals when they are sick, weak, or hugged by a member of the opposite sex. I love this story, especially Tohru's indefatigable optimism—it just makes me smile.
• Songs to Make you Smile by Natsuki Takaya {manga}: Curious to read some of Fruits Basket author Natsuki Takaya's other work, I've been wanting this collection of short stories for a while. I liked the stories, particularly the title one, in which the slightly odd singer in a teenage pop band tries to make the bullied, troubled girl he has a crush on smile. It's super cute and heart warming. Some of the stories in the collection are older, and you can really see how Takaya's art style has evolved into the clean, polished drawing that we see in Fruits Basket. The only story I didn't like as much was the bonus chapter, which struck me as a bit creepy with its odd sexual references.
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson {YA contemporary}: Fast-paced, easy-to-read novel about Ginny, a 17-year-old girl whose free-spirited aunt bequeaths her 13 envelopes, each with a task for her to complete. Only when she completes the task can she move on to the next envelope. In the first envelope: a thousand dollars and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London; so begins an adventure that leads Ginny all over Europe. At first the novel seemed a disjointed series of events, and it felt like the author just wanted to take the reader along to all of the neat places she herself had visited. But toward the end the plot really came together, and I ended up liking the book. I did have a hard time believing that Ginny's parents would allow her to travel to Europe on her own for an unknown span of time with no cell phone or itinerary, and instructions not to contact home at all. But once I got past that, I enjoyed the story. I was pleased to find that, with the exception of Scotland and Greece, I'd been to all of the places that Ginny visits in the story, which really helped me to visualize her journey. A good, readable, if not especially deep novel.
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor {YA fantasy}: I'd heard great things about this YA fantasy, but still approached it with a certain amount of skepticism, since I haven't loved most of the YA paranormal romance stories I've read. The book follows 17-year-old Karou, an art student in Prague who has had a rather unusual upbringing, in that she was raised by chimaera—hideous magical beasts who are actually pretty nice once you get to know them. When the seraphim—the angels—arrive, bent on carrying on an ancient war between the two races, Karou finds herself caught in the middle of it. So, I've raved about the book here. It's one of the best novels I've read this year, and if you haven't read it yet, I recommend you do so post haste. Just be warned: the sequel doesn't come out until November.
• Hot Gimmick, Volume 1 by Miki Aihara {manga}: When high school student Hatsumi has to buy a pregnancy test for her younger sister, the housing complex bully finds out and threatens to tell unless Hatsumi becomes his slave. I really liked the art, characters, and story in this manga, but I'm upset by how casually the author/characters treat sexual assault.
• Nana, Volume 1 by Ai Yazawa {manga}: Two very different young women, both named Nana, are thrown together when they both move to Tokyo for a fresh start. For the first half of the book I felt a bit iffy—Nana number one struck me as a bit helpless, naive, obsessed with finding a man to complete her life, and into drinking, all of which make her hard to like. The second half focuses on Nana number two, a rock musician in a semi-popular band. This Nana is much more interesting, and I love that she's independent and yet still vulnerable. Having read much tamer manga up to now, I was surprised at the more mature content: sex, drinking, and smoking (I guess that's why it's rated Older Teen), but all of that was okay once I got used to it. Not hooked on the series yet, but I'll read the next couple of volumes to give it a chance—it has to be one of Japan's most popular mangas for a reason, right?
• Bakuman, Volume 2: Chocolate and Akamaru by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata {manga}: Ninth graders Moritaka and Akito continue their quest to become successful manga artists. I love the way this series focuses on the creativity and especially the hard work it takes to make a work of art, and I love the way it informs us about the business side of manga. I also enjoyed the introduction of a new interesting character, Eiji Nizuma, an eccentric high school prodigy who soon becomes the boys' biggest rival. I still wish there were more—and more interesting—female characters, but I like the series and will continue reading it. 

So that's it! What have you been reading lately?