Mythos
3/5 stars
This is one of those books that I'm going to have to reread at a later time. Usually, graphic novels are an easy and fast read for me. This wasn't the case with this book. While the art is extremely captivating, I had a hard time grasping the story itself.
Although I was interested in the premise, the more I read, the less I was interested in reading the book. Even though I finished it, I barely retained any of the story. At the moment, I can't say I recommend it.
2/5 stars
I wanted to like this, but I couldn't get into it. The harem kept going and I was just waiting for her to focus on building a relationship with the current members, but that never really came. Harems are just not my thing. I feel like when a story focuses on a polyamorous story it tends to for the sexual aspect instead of the relationship-building aspect. As well as ignoring boundaries and their importance when it comes to these types of relationships. Then again I don't think that was even a goal for this story in the first place.
1/5 stars
I was first introduced to this book by a booktuber who I had followed for some time. I was intrigued by the way the book was described. I simply added it to my TBR list without bothering to check much information about the book. I was disappointed to find out that certain details were omitted while recommending this book. This book is an example of reverse racism. Having two black siblings in power is fine, but not when you are characterizing them in a way that harms them. Not only is this problematic by itself, but the book is also antisemitic. The main character being a blood witch is another horrible stereotype used against the Jewish community. The author refuses to respond and has chosen to censor their comments. Due to this, I personally will not be wasting my time by reading this book.
Reference: https://twitter.com/AshiaMonet/status/1541085622559035392
P.S. There is more than one review referencing these problems, but I can't link them all.
4/5 stars
It was a cute relationship to see develop. I liked the emphasis on consent as well. A lot of BL manga tend to forget that consent is a thing. So, that was a nice change. Although Kanae is usually cold, we see moments of genuine emotion as well. Haiga is the opposite, as he is full of emotion and would be what we consider puppy love. I liked the ending. It was short and rather sweet. The character designs also help a lot and make it more loveable.
I would recommend this manga. although I would ask if they were ok with reading certain aspects, such as Kanae's work. I know that not everyone is comfortable with that.
3.2/5 stars
It was a cute, wholesome story about two high school girls from different schools who meet each other and end up helping each other in their problem areas. One wants a boyfriend, the other wants a chance to get into college. It's definitely a slower-paced story and the romance is slow-burn. I loved how their relationship progressed from helping each other to realizing their feelings. The ending is a bit rushed. I wish we could have a bit more of an explanation as to the time skip. Although I loved the main story, the side stories were rather awful.
5/5 stars
I absolutely love this webtoon and will always be up for rereading it. It's a heartwarming story about being gay and how it's always easier when you're around accepting people. The story was more focused on family relationships than romantic ones. Although we do get to see Rin and Jun in relationships later on in the story. One of my favorite parts of this webtoon was how Jun's mother decided to get educated by reaching out to a club and getting books on the matter. I loved how she tried to understand more about her son's sexuality. I will say that the way she found out is rather triggering as he got outed.
Other than a toxic relationship and Jun getting outed, I would recommend this to someone who is trying to get a better understanding of the gist of being queer. It's not necessarily the best representation, but it's a good start.
SPOILER:
I am glad we got to see Hana's backstory as to why she doesn't like Jun. That still doesn't justify the fact that she outed him when he wasn't ready to come out. I kind of saw this scene coming, but it still shocked me, nonetheless. Also, we do see Jun get into a toxic relationship. I did feel like the car scene was excessive, but I'm glad he went to jail.
2.5/5 stars
Based on what I saw online when people recommended it and from the panels from Tumblr, I was expecting there to be more cute moments. It doesn't go too deep into the plot and is more about seeing snippets of their lives. The art is nice, and the characters seem interesting. If I had come in with different expectations of this, I would have given it a higher rating.
3/5 stars
Overall, Lookism is a good and enjoyable story. I really liked how the different perspectives affected the story and how the characters acted. In terms of release, Lookism is really long, so you will forget certain scenes and details that may be important in the future. In order to keep up with the story or better understand what is currently happening.
4/5 stars
I was originally going to rate this manga five stars, but after reading it for a second time, I decided to leave it at four-stars. Although I still believe that this is a very wholesome manga, there are some parts in which it's a little iffy.
Summary:
Minegishi is trying to befriend and it's implied that he wants to eventually seduce his coworker, Otsu. Otsu views Minegishi as handsome, fit, and an overachiever. Due to this, Otsu gains a dislike for Minegishi. Minegishi tries his best to befriend Otsu by bringing different snacks.
Review:
Although Minegishi had the best intentions of bringing Otsu different snacks, I felt that the manga overemphasizes at times how much he likes to watch Otsu eat. It seemed like it was a fetish of his at times, which was rather weird when those moments are compared to the rest of the series. On the other hand, it seems to be the complete opposite of Minegishi. He's essentially fat, short, and has a bad attitude. In the end, I liked Otsu better than Minegishi. Even though he misunderstands the meaning of Minegishi's gifts, it ends up being funny instead of annoying. It does end up using a lot of tropes apart from the misunderstanding. I'm noticing that it's becoming more common for mangakas to use food tropes, especially when one of the MCs is fat. I wished at times that the manga would deviate away from the food and focus more on the development of the two MCs' friendship/relationship.
1/5 stars
DNFed could not stand the fact that there was a lack of consent. It was weird overall, and I had a bad feeling about it. The person asleep is not aware of what they're doing. Even though the other may have feelings and may feel used, weren't they aware that the other person was asleep at the time?
3/5 stars
I was expecting for this book to be shorter. Although I will say that this is by far one of my favorite retellings of the Queen of Heart's origin story. We get a more in-depth picture as to why the Queen of Hearts came to be.
Summary:
Cath is being courted by the King, which he had to reluctantly accept due to the pressure of her parents. Meanwhile, she is dealing with the growing tension she has had since meeting Jest, as well as dealing with the number of Jabberwock attacks. She tries to try and escape marrying the King by entering a baking contest in order to win enough money to open her own bakery. This results in a disaster and the contest is cancelled. She finds out that she's in love with Jest at the same time she finds out that he is a high-ranking military official for the White Queen. His mission is to steal Cath's heart (the passionate heart of the Queen of Hearts) in order to end the war. Cath crosses the land of Chess in order to be queen without marrying the king. In order to enter, they have to pay a price, which is to see prophecies that reveal their futures. When Jest dies, Raven becomes a murderer, Cath becomes a pitiless Queen of Hearts, and Hatta goes mad. They try to escape it, but ultimately fail. They kill the Jabberwocky, who turns out to be Lady Peter. Jest is decapitated by Peter as an act of revenge. Cath makes a pact with the Three Sisters: they will bring Peter to Cath in exchange for the heart of a queen. She marries the King to obtain the heart and pay the price. They take her heart, and she immediately orders for Peter to be decapitated. This is carried out by Raven, bringing all the prophecies to completion.
Review:
One of my favorite aspects of this book is how the characters were depicted. Some of the best examples were from Cath and Jest. Jest was charming, intriguing, and bold. His character alongside Hatta provided a lot of serious and jarring scenes, as well as hilarious ones. At times, it's hard to do both, especially when you see them initially introduced as comic relief. Cath, on the other hand, was sweet and full of dreams. As the lies start to build up, we see the shift begin to happen, especially as she is fooling the King. By the end, it isn't as surprising to see how she became the unforgiving Queen of Hearts. I didn't necessarily hate any of the characters, as they all had their own intentions behind their actions.
Some of the things I didn't like about this book were the instant love between Jest and Cath. as well as how convoluted and twisted it got towards the middle. I felt that there really wasn't that much development in terms of how Jest and Cath fell in love (this may be more of a me thing since I was focused on understanding the worldbuilding). Also, the introduction of the Land of Chess and the Three Sisters threw me off and left me with a lot to process alongside what I already understood about the worldbuilding.
I would recommend this book but only if I was aware that the person liked villain origin stories or fairytale retellings. It's not a bad book, but it's also not the best book Marissa Meyer has ever written.
3/5 stars
This is one of those books where I really liked the concept, but I didn't really like the book's execution as much. I thought it was a more supernatural or science-fiction type of book, but that was not the case.
Spoilers ahead:
The book kicks off with Chris tripping and breaking his nose. This leads to his mother finding out that he's been using inhalants. From there, the story takes us through two different timelines. One in which he lies and stays in Ohio. The other is when he goes to California to stay with his dad and go to a rehabilitation program.
In the timeline in which he goes to see his father, we see him go through a rocky relationship with his father due to his decision to leave the family. He has to follow a set of rules in order to be able to go to college and get his college paid for. His dad wants him there in order to attend his wedding. We see Chris start a relationship with Swift, which his father disapproves of.
On the other hand, we see everything going normally until his two best friends start dating. We see a possible love triangle (corner) as there are some rather weird interactions between him and Matt. He continues on as a third wheel. However, Matt appears to be a one-dimensional love interest, which made me uninterested in what happened in this timeline.
As the book continues, we see the timelines merge into one. Also, his father finally approves of his relationship with Swift. He also manages to work his friendship problems out as well. In a time jump, we also see him go to college and get a roommate. Overall, I was a little disappointed with the ending. I was expecting Chris to face more real consequences. This is not the case, as we see him working everything out. In terms of the rest of the book, there were certain parts that were confusing, especially with the switch between timelines. There are certain details that you definitely have to read multiple times in order to not miss them. Due to this, I wasn't sure whether to rate this book 2.5 or 3 stars. I'll definitely have to come back to this book.
2/5 stars
I was expecting this to be interesting considering it was similar to other light novels I have read in the past. One of the biggest aspects that keeps me interested in the series is usually the characters. In this case, I liked very few of the characters that were presented to us. The stories could get confusing to follow at times, leaving me to reread certain sections multiple times. In some cases, I had to go back to another section in order to understand what I was reading.
I got halfway through the book before deciding against finishing it. Overall, I would not personally recommend this book to anyone. If you're going to read it, expect to be confused while reading this book.
1/5 stars>
I was really excited when I first began reading this. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse.
Spoiler:
The ML turns out to be the bodyguard who helped raise her. it got weird after that got revealed and had to drop it. The story was pretty stereotypical until that happened though.
3.9/5 stars
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
This is another short and easy read. It's mainly wholesome and fluffy. The art is good, and it helps add to the adorable factor. The plot revolves around Yeonwoo and Jaehee, who need help finding a better style to impress their crush. We see that as Yeonwoo's style slowly falls in love with Yeonwoo. Yeonwoo isn't aware of and doesn't realize his feelings until he is questioned about his relationship with Jaehee.
I do believe that the story was a bit rushed at the end, but I feel like it was better than having the author drag it out in order to make it longer. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a short and adorable read. this is one of the sweeter ones out there and I hope to find more.
1/5 stars
I really liked her character at first and how it was developing. In the beginning, I believed that the knight she met would have been the ML.
SPOILER:
The ML supposedly is the slave she freed, who happens to be 4 years younger than her and is drawn/characterized as a child. In any case, this is still a theory, but I”m not going to continue reading as the red flags were already raised. It can be assumed that she is 18 and he is 14. Unless something else is done about this, I don't think I'll pick it up again as I'm not comfortable if this relationship does happen.
3/5 star
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Martina was an empress who managed to get revenge on everyone that had wronged her. Only to be betrayed by the one whom she loved and trusted. After hundreds of years, she is reincarnated as Astina, with all her memories intact. Due to her family's financial struggles and her background in swordsmanship, she takes the place of her sister after she is set to marry a Duke who is rumored to have been turned into a beast.
Right off the bat, I was pulled into the premise. As soon as we begin to read, we are given Martina's backstory, which gives us the reason why she is the way she is when she is reincarnated. We see the differences between her old life and her new one. She shows how she feels lonely in comparison with her previous life.
Overall, I would recommend it if you're looking for something different than the expected FL and ML reads. I may come back later to read the first season to see if it gives me the motivation to read the second. It's not a bad read, but when I'm tired of something, I'd rather read something that I've already read and am familiar with.
1/5 stars
I personally didn't like this story.
1) One of the major problems I have is that it glosses over the fact that the MC took advantage of how drunk the FL was. Then he acts as if he didn't and how the FL was the one who took advantage of him and therefore owed him.
2) I also didn't understand how the FL fell in love with ML. When she finally managed to get him to quit, she decided to run back to him. I understood that they were getting closer, but it still didn't feel like enough for them to be in love.
3) Throughout the story, neither character experienced much character development. The little development they had was made to cover up plot holes or actions that made no sense in terms of context.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS WEBTOON.
1/5 stars
I despise this book. I had zero problems with it before because we read it casually in school. Then they decided to make it part of the curriculum, making it mandatory. I believe people need to be reminded that this does not work for everyone. Still, they decided to make it mandatory for teachers to read this to us and make us do assignments related to the habits mentioned in this book. This was given to us along with a planner. As a person who wasn't aware they had ADHD at the time, this made it almost impossible for me to pass the class. Most of the habits were useless, and after some research, some of them have been debunked. I wouldn't recommend this book if you need help being effective.
Never again too much information that doesn't work.