Ouran High School Host Club volume 3

Today's post is on Ouran High School Host Club volume 3 by Bisco Hatori. It is 192 pages long and is published by Shojo Beat Manga. As it is the third in the long running series you need to have read the first two in order to understand the book. The cover has the Hitachiin twins on it. The intended reader is someone who likes over the top humor, light love stories, and manga. There is no sex, no language, and no violence in this book. The story is told from third person close perspective of Haruhi. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- It's summer break, and the Host Club crew head to the beach, dragging out reluctant heroine with them. When Haruhi stands up to some local bullies and gets tossed into the ocean, Tamaki, the Host Club King, rescues her. But afterward, he's so mad that he won't speak to her until she apologizes. Trouble is, Haruhi can't figure out what she should be sorry for!

Review- We get see into a very important part o Tamaki's character in this volume: namely that he does not think. When Haruhi gets tossed into the sea, he just dives after her.Tamaki does not think all the time. Sometimes he just reacts and it was a good thing too because Haruhi cannot swim. They have a fight and Tamaki swears that until she apologizes he will not speak to her. Humor ensues. In the end, of course, everything works out and Tamaki gets to learn something important about Haruhi. Kyoya gets to play an interesting role in this volume. Kyoya is, I think, a bit more honest than normal but Haruhi being herself does not understand that. Tamaki gets it better but then Tamaki knows Kyoya and Haruhi really does not. Good character development in this volume.

I give this volume a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this book with my own money.

Fair Game

Today's post is on Fair Game by Patricia Briggs.  It is 293 pages long and is published by Ace Books. It is the third in her Alpha and Omega series. The cover has Anna and Charles on it looking cool. The intended reader is someone who has read the first two, likes urban fantasy, and good writing. There is no sex, mild language, and violence in this book. The story is told from the third person perspective of the characters moving from one to the others has the story moves. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- They say opposites attract. And in the case of werewolves Anna Latham and Charles Cornick, they mate. The son-and enforcer-of the leader of the North American werewolves, Charles is a dominant alpha. While Anna, an omega, has the rare ability to calm others of her kind.
Now that the werewolves have revealed themselves to humans, they can't afford any bad publicity. Infractions that could have been overlooked in the past must now be punished, and the strain of doing his father's dirty work is taking a toll on Charles.
Nevertheless, Charles and Anna are sent to Boston, when the FBI requests the pack's help on a local serial killer case. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves-all of them were. Someone is targeting their kind. And now Anna and Charles have put themselves right in the killer's sights...

Review- Another strong book from Briggs. This one takes place some time after the events of the second novel and the world now knows and has changed by the knowledge of more spiritual creatures. I did not guess the killer in this one until the reveal. I like how Anna is growing as she changes. She is growing into herself and trusting herself more and more. Briggs gives an interesting human character that I would love to see more of.Learning more about the Fae of this world was interesting too. Briggs stay very traditional with them. Very powerful, immortal unless murdered, and beyond human understanding. The world is becoming more complicated and more interesting. I would like to see more of the human supernatural powers other than witch. A very solid third book.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.

Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

Today's post is on Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story by Michael Rosen. It is 448 pages long and is published by Counterpoint. The cover is green with the title in different fonts. The intended reader is someone who likes history, language, and a lots different threads in a book. There is no language, no sex, and no violence. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins down the strange story of OK, traces our five lost letters and tackles the tyranny of spelling, among many many other things. His heroes of the alphabet range from Edward Lear to Phyllis Pearsall (the inventor of the A-Z), and from the two scribes of Beowulf to rappers. Each chapter takes on a different subject - whether it's codes, umlauts or the writing of dictionaries. Rosen's enthusiasm for letters positively leaps off the page, whether it's the story of his life told through the typewriters he's owned or a chapter on jokes written in a string of gags and word games. This is the book for anyone who's ever wondered why Hawaiian only has a thirteen-letter alphabet or how exactly to write down the sound of a wild raspberry.

Review- This is a very good book about the history of language, the alphabet, and how we read. At times it does get a little off topic but in the end it is a very fun read.Rosen talks about everything from where the letters come from originally to who put in the letter in Minuscule. Rosen gives personal stories about learning and dealing with language to common stories that everyone learns as we learn about words and their meanings. Overall this is an interesting book but at times Rosen gets a little detailed that has nothing to do with the overall narrative. He gives the reader a interesting and solid overview of the alphabet and how it came to be the way it is now.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.  

Ouran High School Host Club volume 2

Today's post is on Ouran High School Host Club volume 2 by Bisco Hatori. It is the second in her Host Club series and you need to have read the first in order to understand the story. It is 192 pages long and is published by Shojo Beat Manga. The cover has Tamaki and Kyoya on it looking cool. The intended reader is someone who likes shojo manga, romance comedy, and good writing. There is no sex, no language, and no violence in this volume. The story is told from the third person close of the main character Haruhi. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- The school-wide physical exam has thrown the members of the Host Club for a loop. How can the doctor not discover that Haruhi is a girl? And once the female customers learn the truth, Haruhi can kiss her job goodbye. But then life at the club will be unbearably boring if she leaves! So the guys wrack their brains for a solution...

Review- We get lots of character development in this volume. We see the twins at their best (or worse...), Haruhi gets to spend time with Mori and have an adventure. Poor Tamaki is still trying too hard to be someone other than himself with her because he gets embarrassed. Many laugh out loud moments in this volume. The plot is starting to really be build. The friendships between the characters are being revealed.On her adventure with Mori, we get a better understanding about the relationship between him and Honey.  Mori is one of my favorite characters in this series, he is really funny in his own quiet way. Kyoya does annoy Haruhi which is always funny. Kyoya's family is thinking about expanding into a new market and he uses his friends to test it out. Comedy ensues.

I give this volume a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this volume with my own money.

Maplecroft

Today's post is on Maplecroft by Cherie Priest. It is the first in her Borden Dispatches series. The cover is beautiful; it has Lizzie Borden with her ax in the center standing in a doorway. It is 435 pages long and is published by ROC. The intended reader is someone who likes Lovecraft, horror, and just some really good writing. There is language, sex, and violence in this novel. The story is told in first person of the character's moving from chapter to chapter. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one....
The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.
But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.
This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.

Review- This is one of the best written books I have read all year. I am very serious. Everything about this book is so good. The plot, the pacing, the setting, the characters, there it nothing I would change. Epistolary novels are so hard to do well but Priest owns this. In horror one common thing is to stop the reader or watcher from seeing too much but Priest instead makes it like an onion. Layers are peeled back slowly so that the horror just builds. The horror is very Lovecraftain, very slow to build but like the tide coming in, it will pull you under. The sex is not overdone and very tasteful. The violence is there but it is not overwhelming. I just enjoyed this book so much. I cannot wait to read the second one Chapelwood.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I was given this book as a gift.

Founding Grammars: How Early America's War over Words Shaped Today's Language

Today's post is on Founding Grammars: How Early America's War over Words Shaped Today's Language by Rosemarie Ostler. It is 309 pages long including notes and it published by St. Martin's Press. The cover is blue with a quill and the constitution on it. The intended reader is someone interested in history and grammar. There is no language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- Who decided not to split infinitives? With whom should we take issue if in fact, we wish to boldly write what no grammarian hath writ before? 
In Founding Grammars, Rosemarie Ostler delves into the roots of our grammar obsession to answer these questions and many more. Standard grammar and accurate spelling are widely considered hallmarks of a good education, but their exact definitions are much more contentious -- capable of?inciting a full-blown grammar war at the splice of a comma, battles readily visible in the media and online in the comments of blogs and chat rooms. 
With an accessible and enthusiastic journalistic approach, Ostler considers these grammatical shibboleths, tracing current debates back to America's earliest days, an era when most families owned only two books -- the Bible and a grammar primer. Along the way, she investigates colorful historical characters on both sides of the grammar debate in her efforts to unmask the origins of contemporary speech. Linguistic founding fathers like Noah Webster, Tory expatriate Lindley Murray, and post-Civil War literary critic Richard Grant White, all play a featured role in creating the rules we've come to use, and occasionally discard, throughout the years.
Founding Grammars is for curious readers who want to know where grammar rules have come from, where they've been, and where they might go next.

Review-This at times is a very entertaining and then it goes into very dry. There is no middle ground, sadly. But that said it was interesting to see where our language, as Americans, comes from and how it has grown. The notes were just for adding citation and did not really much more to the overall narrative. This is not just about how Americans write but also about how we educate ourselves and our children. Ostler takes something that could have been extremely dry and boring and makes a good effort to make it interesting and mostly readable. At times she gets into very detailed items about the how and it takes some time to get through those moments but in the end I think that it is a worthy read.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.

Ouran High School Host Club volume 1

Today's post is on Ouran High School Host Club volume 1 by Bisco Hatori. It is 168 pages long and is published by Shojo Beat Manga. The cover has two of the main characters on it looking cool. The intended reader is someone who likes extreme humor, light romance, and interesting characters. There is no sex, no language, and no violence in this volume. The story is told from the third person of Haruhi the main character. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- In this screwball romantic comedy, a poor girl at a rich kids' school ends up working for the school's swankiest club- and gets mistaken for a boy!
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 consisting of six super-rich (and gorgeous) guys. To pay back to damages, she is forced to work for the club, and it's there that she discovers just how wealthy the members are and how different the rich are from everyone else...

Review- This is one of the funniest, best written, and all around best mangas that I have ever read. The character's have real depth, the plot is very light and funny, but it is so funny. Haruhi has one of the driest sense of humor that I have ever read. She is just the best. Tamaki is wonderful. He is one of my favorite hero's of all time. Hatori takes all the shojo and romance tropes and she lampshades them. That said it is a romance comedy manga. When Tamaki 'discovers' that Haruhi is a girl is one of the funniest moments that I have ever read, period.  The first volume is all about setting up the plot and getting to know Haruhi and some about Tamaki. So expect lots of character development in later volumes.

I give this volume a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this manga with my own money.