Julius Caesar... the manga!

I'm still working hard on taking care of moving stuff, but I'm also going to try to catch up here.  I've read a number of books that need reviewing (largely due to my new obsession with manga and graphic novels) and there are a ton of new books coming out that I am dying to read.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone was just delivered to my kindle, so we have a date tonight if I can get all my stuff done.

I've been intrigued since I first heard about manga versions of Shakespeare's plays, but Julius Caesar by Adam Sexton and Hyeondo Park is the first one I've been able to read.  There is actually another manga version of this play that I do hope to read so that I can compare the two, but for now I'll just give my thoughts on this version.

The manga starts with an introduction to the play and why a manga adaptation works.  The plays are words, but they aren't fully realized unless there is a visual element.  Manga is a way for a reader to experience the plays the way they were meant to be experienced, without having to actually go to a performance.  Like many productions, the original work was edited, dropping scenes here and there, adding visual interpretation, but always using Shakespeare's original words.

I will say this now.  Even though I don't always understand Shakespeare, he is a beautiful writer and I appreciated that his original language was retained.  For the most part I could follow what was happening, although I did miss the annotated version I read in high school.  I would love to reread the play and then take another look at this manga version.

Much like the language, I wasn't always aware of what was going on.  I'm not sure how much of that was missing scenes (it's been over ten years since I read the play) or the fact that I'm still getting used to the graphic novel / manga format.  I would often have to reread pages after realizing I read the panels in the wrong order (but I got better towards the end!).  The end seemed incredibly abrupt to me and it was the part I had the hardest time following.

Reading this play I wasn't sure who was the bad guy or who to root for.  I've always loved Mark Antony and Brutus, but now that I'm older the rest of the characters seemed more interesting.  I don't know enough about the history to know if they were really trying to accomplish good or if it was all politics and all you can hope for is the lesser evil.  This is a large part of why I would love to read an annotated version before taking another pass.

I definitely think this version could intrigue reluctant readers and make a writer like Shakespeare more approachable.  I love that versions like this can open up a door to literature for students who might otherwise resist it.  However,  I think the manga will work best along with an annotated version or a cliffnotes style essay that explains some of the story details that aren't quite clear.

Plain Janes

I am officially done with my road trip and settling in to Virginia (slowly).  I'm pretty behind on the blog, but I'm pretty behind in life too, so this is going to be a short post about a short read.  Cecil Castellucci has moderated the teen stage at the LA Festival of Books the past two years and I've been meaning to read something by her.  I have Boyproof on my kindle, but spotted this when I was hanging out at the library last week.  It was a nice easy afternoon read.

The Plain Janes is a graphic novel that follows Jane who, after experiencing a terrorist attack and moving to the suburbs, remakes herself from a popular airhead to a thinking artist.  She recruits three other girls who she deems worthy of friendship, all named Jane, and creates the Plain Janes.  The Plain Janes do all sorts of Art Attacks around town and credit a group called P.L.A.I.N. (People Loving Art In Neighborhoods).

While most of the town appreciate what the Plain Janes are doing, Jane's mother is becoming even more terrified about Jane's safety and the police are viewing the acts as vandalism.  But Jane can't back down because this is the only way she knows to try and see the beauty in the world again.

Going in I thought it would be a pretty light story about a girl who likes art, but it turned out to be about a girl using art to heal herself and those around her.  I really enjoyed it.  It was fun, Jane was easy to like, and I felt like there was way more substance to the story than I expected.  The message that art heals is one I truly believe in, so it was easy to connect with the story.  Castellucci also shows us a different side to the popular teenagers that Jane initially writes off.  This message is for everybody, not just the disenfranchised.

My only problem was that the story ended abruptly.  Jane's character arc was very complete, but there were a few plot threads that were kind of half explained away and I was left wondering if the book was missing a page (it wasn't).  Overall, I really enjoyed The Plain Janes.  I'm excited to read more graphic novels and more from Cecil Castellucci.

Paranormalcy

I can't believe it took me so long to read this book.  It was so much fun.  Paranormalcy follows Evie, a teenager who can see through paranormal glamours.  She has grown up at an IPCA center (IPCA is International Paranormal Containment Agency), where her skills make her incredibly useful in tagging paranormals and bringing them under IPCA's control.  But when a teenage paranormal breaks in to IPCA hoping to find out what creature is killing paranormals around the world, Evie's world is shaken as she discovers the truth about herself, the real goals of the agency she works for, and also falls in love (hehe... obviously).

More than anything else, Evie is a FANTASTIC heroine.  She is kick ass, can hold her own in a fight (with the help of Tasey), but also decidely girly.  Tasey (her taser) is pink and bejeweled.  She likes dressing up.  She dreams of going to prom.  She can fight and does, but she also never becomes so disillusioned that fighting is all she thinks about.  I love that even when her world is completely torn apart, she's still optimistic that she can have a future, that things can be better, that she can be happy.  It was completely refreshing, because I have been reading a lot of dystopian novels lately and LOVE them, but it is very rare for the protagonist to believe that a happy future is possible.

The plot twists (while not always surprising) were always enjoyable.  The romance, the fight scenes, the climax, the creepy fae ex constantly trying to control her... it was perfect.  The only thing that bugged me is that Evie didn't trust Lend's dad to help her, even though he consistently proved himself to be someone trustworthy and understanding.  I understand that Evie keeping things to herself is really her hoping that she won't have to deal with any of the paranormal stuff anymore, but her rationalizations drove me nuts!

I have the sequel, Supernaturally, in my car (along with everything else I own) and plan to read it soon.  I wanted to start it right away, but I have implemented a new rule where I no longer allow myself to read books in the same series back to back.  (My obsession with Marcus Flutie was unhealthy and is documented on my tumblr.)

Divergent

As I keep mentioning, I am in the process of driving cross-country from Los Angeles to Virginia.  I've been listening to some really loud music, but I've also been listening to some really loud books (I joined audible... whoops).  Emma Galvin narrates Divergent and kept me up through a long drive and then late into the night with headphones because I couldn't bear to wait until the next day to finish listening.

Emma Galvin is no Jim Dale and I was occasionally jarred from the story because she made a few weird choices with her voice, but overall, I think she did a great job.  I am looooving my audible membership and would definitely recommend it to anyone who regularly listens to audiobooks.

Divergent is a dystopian (surprise, surprise) set in what used to be Chicago.  As always, the society is made of good intentions gone bad: the society is comprised of five factions, each devoted to the one thing they think will bring about a perfect society. At 16, Triss has to choose whether to stay in Abnegation (Selflessness) or transfer to another faction (this would also mean that she is abandoning her family).  Her aptitude test doesn't help, because it tells her she has aptitude for several factions, which means she is divergent (a term foreign to Triss, but a dangerous thing to be).  When Triss chooses to become Dauntless (brave), she begins a brutal initiation process, but also discovers love (yay) and evil plots within the society's leadership (duh).

I loved this book.  I loved Triss because she is trying so hard to be good, but doubts her ability to be so.  Those kinds of characters always interest me.  More than that Triss is strong in the same way that made me love Katniss.  The romance with her trainer, Four, is adorable and beautiful and had me giggling even in the middle of violent plot twists.  Looking back, some of the characters seemed a little two dimensional (Peter was evil was evil was evil, not much else), but this didn't cross my mind reading and worked pretty well on the whole.  Part of it is that this story is told through Triss's eyes and she doesn't want to see him as anything more than a bad guy who is determined to be number one at any cost.

The society itself was a fascinating look at how easily good intentions can be warped.  Triss's journey is one that encourages us to be strong when faced with horrible choices, but encourages us to think for ourselves.  Triss shows us that when we don't like the options in front of us to make a better one.  She refused to blindly accept the facts of life that were given to her and she thought for herself.

I'm having a hard time explaining all the awesome in this book.  It made me think, but it also kept me on the edge of my seat.  Things weren't tied up nice and neat, but I also wasn't left unsatisfied.  I loved Triss's mom, I loved how messy and complicated everything in Triss's life is... but I'm not sure how to talk about it without ruining the book.  So I'm going to leave it with this: perfect dialog, lots of action, and plenty of plot twists (as well as Four... sigh), I will be eagerly awaiting the sequel.

PS-- There is no love triangle and I didn't miss it at all!

Shiver

This is seriously going to be a short post, because I'm on the road.  Tomorrow I drive nine hours to Chicago and tonight I still need to write, edit a vlog, and finish Paranormalcy (it's sooooooo good!).

Shiver was another book that had been on my shelf for far too long.  I started reading it and had a hard time getting into it because I'm so bored of the love at first sight, paranormal romance thing.  But the characters grew on me--I especially loved Sam.  I'm so glad this book is told from both the male and female perspectives, because it gave the whole thing something fresh.  And I was even satisfied with the reasons the characters first became infatuated with each other and loved watching them actually fall in love.

The world totally kept my interest... a small COLD town full of werewolves that transform based on temperature.  Interesting.  And she answered all the questions like "why don't they just move to the tropics?" to my satisfaction.  It didn't take too long for me to fall completely in love with this book.  I was a little disappointed with the ending, but I'm hoping that it is explained in the second book.  Even so, I will definitely keep reading if only to see what happens to some of the minor characters.