Plus One by Elizabeth Fama

TL;DR circumventing the rules of a segregated day / night society for both familial and romantic love

(finished 1/23/15)

I have to admit, I liked Plus One a lot more than I expected. At first, it seemed like the only really unique thing about it would be the day / night divide, and it took me a while to feel invested in the story. Sol and D'Arcy seemed like stereotypical protagonists -- Sol was impulsive and reckless and D'Arcy was the one to counter-balance her and make sure she didn't make too much of a disaster. Sol's whole kidnapping attempt seemed incredibly stupid and poorly thought out. 

I think it was the worldbuilding that really got my attention at first. It took a couple chapters for it to really feel solid, but the reasoning and effects of the legal divide seemed fairly well thought out. There weren't any huge info-dumps to explain it, either, which I really appreciated. There were a few groups of paragraphs scattered over the first couple chapters, but after that it was woven in with Sol's memories and the dialogue / plot so it wasn't overwhelming. 

Looking at the Goodreads reviews, though, a lot of people have pointed out that the divide was built around really shaky reasoning. And I kind of have to agree on that. I accepted the reasoning as enough to explain what was going on, but if you really think about it, it's a really stupid reason to divide society like that. So I guess your take depends on how much suspension of disbelief you're willing to give the book. 

I'm almost entirely sure I would've loved the book if it weren't for the romance aspect. I know it's not fair for me to judge it on that, especially since the copy of the book I got from the library has a "romance" sticker with a heart on it on the spine, but the romance didn't seem all that interesting to me. Sol and D'Arcy did work well together, but I feel like they moved way too fast in their relationship considering how much time passed within the book itself. And it made the book kind of hard to read in school; the cover basically shows them making out, and I had to skip over a few pages towards the end just to make sure someone couldn't look over my shoulder and question what the heck I was reading. 

But I realize that it's not fair for me to rate down a romance book because I don't like anything even remotely resembling insta-love. It's a really good standalone. I still haven't figured out the exact reason I gave the book four stars over three, but three stars doesn't quite feel like enough. 

Review TL;DR: it's at least worth a try. 

Five Anime Recs

Today I decided to share my most favorite animes recently! I'm not always too big on bandwagons, and a lot of times I don't watch the most popular animes from each season, but these were all ones I consistently kept up with or marathoned! The links all go to the anime's Crunchyroll page.

5: Mekakucity Actors

An anime about a group of kids with so-called "eye powers". I first got into the series through its music, starting with Kagerou Daze. The plot of the story is incredibly dense and inter-woven, and I have to be honest and say that the anime probably won't make sense without any background knowledge. However, the songs and Wikipedia / other online resources was enough for me, so I think with a little research you'd be fine. It's a really good story that builds upon itself as you get further and further into it, revisiting stuff that you thought happened and adding new facets to everything. It's really great. 

4: Kyoukai no Kanata (Beyond the Boundary)

An anime focusing on monsters called "youmu". It's equally cute and depressing, and it oftentimes flip-flops between the two. I loved Mirai and Akihito. Honestly, I wish that the anime was longer than 13 episodes. I really wish I could get my hands on the light novels, but I just learned that two new movies are coming out this year, so I'm really looking forward to those once they're uploaded online. 

3: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun)

I wrote a review for Gekkan here, but if you haven't read it, this is an anime about a girl whose crush is the writer of a girls' manga called Let's Fall in Love. It's a really cute and fluffy anime with an interesting cast of characters. I loved all of them! I especially identified with Chiyo, and I tried to channel her strength when I confessed to my own crush. I'm hoping to cosplay her sometime in the near future. I wish this anime were longer, too -- I'm not really sure what they would be able to put in more episodes, but Gekkan has definitely become one of my all-time favorites. 

2. Free!

An anime about a high school swim club. This is actually one of the few bandwagons I jumped! I didn't watch the first season when it aired, but I marathoned it while I was working on my Otakon vlogs and managed to catch up with the second season just before it ended. I didn't think I'd like sports animes, so I was really surprised! I loved all of the characters in this anime, too! They all had a lot more depth than I expected going into the anime. It's really light-hearted for the most part, but a few of the episodes in the second season regarding the end of high school really hit home for me. 

1: Sailor Moon / Sailor Moon Crystal

... And of course Sailor Moon is my top pick! In case you've never heard of it before, it's an anime about a group of magical girls "fighting evil by moonlight and winning love by daylight". I'm still kind of in awe that we got both a re-sub and re-dub of the original anime by Viz and an entirely new adaptation in the same year! Sailor Moon is kind of all over the spectrum in terms of mood -- Crystal is honestly more dark than the original, simply because they don't have the time for filler episodes that can explore the plot and the characters. Still, it's pretty uplifting! These girls literally go through hell each season and still persevere and save the world. If you've never watched it before, you should definitely at least try it out! I wrote a review of Crystal / a comparison between the two animes here if you don't want to have to watch both versions. 

Sailor Hoodie

At Katsucon last year, I saw a group of cosplayers wearing these super cute Sailor Moon hoodies from Weeaboo Warehouse. (I'm pretty sure I walked by them right before their photoshoot for the website, actually.) I decided right then that I wanted one of my own, and while I'm sure the $110 price tag is well worth it, I don't have the funds for that.

So I decided to make my own. I simplified the design, both because I didn't want to copy them and because I had a different image in my head for how I wanted it to look. I wanted to combine the aspects of a sailor uniform and a hoodie and have them work together, having it resemble Usagi's school uniform more by skipping the colored pockets and sailor collar you couldn't see if the hood was down.

Making it was surprisingly easy! I'd already worked with the pattern to make my Amamiya Hibiya vest, so for the most part I knew what I was doing. I initially cut everything out of the same fabric and tried to dye the hood / sleeve pieces, but they turned a slate blue instead of the color I wanted, so I went back to Jo-Ann's and bought "pillowcase fabric" (according to Dad) to sew to the outside of the pieces. It made the hood and sleeves a little heavy and hard to sew, but I'm really glad I made the decision! I had to re-sew the white hoodie facing, half of the bow, and one of the sleeves, but that's honestly the least amount of mistakes I've made with sewing something from scratch.

I'm really proud of how it turned out, especially considering I essentially free-handed the whole thing from an idea I had in my mind. I had faith in my idea and it worked out in the end! (I also had fun messing around with the picture in Photoshop to get it to look like that.)

The hood turned out a little weird because of using three different fabrics for the two sides of the hood and the white facing. It definitely could've turned out worse, though. I doubt I'll be able to get it up over my head with my Usagi wig on ... but it was supposed to be the sailor collar, anyway, so that kind of defeats the purpose. 

I copied the size of the bow off the screen-printed sailor sweater I bought from Anime USA. I made sure that it would line up with the necklace my friend bought for me off eBay. The right side was initially sewed on incorrectly, so it doesn't quite match up with the left even after I fixed it... I don't know if I'll ever want to try and fix it again or if I'll just leave it as is;;

I also have a pin I bought from Anime USA two years ago that's another one of Usagi's transformation brooches, but I haven't tried it out with the hoodie yet. I'm not sure if I'll be able to pin it over the zipper. 

I hand-stitched the lines onto the cuffs because the opening was too small to work with my sewing machine. You can't really see the lines from far away, and I feel like I might try to replace them with thin white ribbon in the future. I've gotten better with keeping my stitches straight and uniform, though, so I'm really proud of that. 

I should probably iron it in the next few weeks ...;;

All in all, the cosplay probably only cost about $25 for all the fabric. (Coupons are the best.) I already had the pattern on hand, and I'm pretty sure I used a coupon on that, too. It took me a weekend to put the hoodie together from start to finish. 

This will be my Saturday cosplay for Katsucon 2015! I'm excited to finally be able to cosplay Usagi in her school uniform (kind of), which I've always kind of dreamed about since I first got into the series back into elementary school. I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable wearing her magical girl outfit, simply because that's more skin than I usually want to show, so I'm really really happy I found a way to cosplay her school uniform and combine it with something I wear every day. Maybe I'll even find my own Mamoru on Valentine's Day...

Sailor Moon Crystal (Dark Kingdom arc)

I can't tell you how long I've waited for Sailor Moon Crystal. Ever since it was announced, like, forever ago, I've been dying to watch it. I pulled an all-nighter the day the first episode was released. (It was actually because the house was making weird noises and I couldn't sleep, but you know. I was awake at 6am when they made the video live.)

Because I'm writing this review in Jan 2015, I'm only covering what has been released so far. 

Sailor Moon Crystal is a remake of the original Sailor Moon anime from over 20 years ago. It's super faithful to the manga. After each new episode, I go back and re-read the manga chapter, and there are little to no changes between the two. It's amazing. I think that's my favorite aspect of the new anime -- there's no filler, it's so much more concise, and it's a slightly different plot from what was originally animated.

The biggest complaint I've heard on the internet is the quality of animation. From what I've heard, Crystal relies entirely on ad revenue because it's not being broadcast traditionally, so they have a much smaller budget to work with. It's honestly not that much worse than the original anime at the very beginning, and I'm pretty sure they're correcting the animation mistakes for the Blu-Ray release. (I'm assuming they're fixing it for DVD, too, but I only saw tweeted screenshots with the Blu-Ray mentioned, so I'm not entirely sure.) Sailor Moon is probably the only anime that I'll endure ads for -- partially because Viz and Hulu won't stream with AdBlock enabled, but I've also learned to appreciate the time that ads give me to check my notifications.

Crystal also has given me a sense of community that I never had with the original anime. I didn't get into the original until well after it had stopped airing on tv, and for the longest time I didn't really know anyone else that had watched it. Crystal has given me the kind of excitement I've heard people talk about with the original -- waking up early to watch it, anticipating each new episode, that kind of thing. I know it's not quite the same since I know what's going to happen, but I still appreciate it.

I've also strengthened a friendship with one of my classmates because we both watch it. Every Monday after a new episode, we'll both be like, "Did you watch it?" and then we'll get to talk for a few minutes before and after class about what we thought. I love that.

I'm super super excited to see what the Black Moon arc brings! I was a little worried that the series would stop at 13 episodes, so I'm really glad that we get to see Chibiusa in the remake.

Overall, though, I'm not really sure I can say that one version of the anime is better than the other. Crystal is great, but the original allows for more depth in both the plot and the characters. The other senshi don't get as much of a focus in Crystal because there's more attention to the plot, and I honestly kind of miss the kinds of dynamics they had in the original. Also, I really missed the kind of relationship Usagi and Mamoru had before they got their memories back from before they were reincarnated. I really enjoyed that Usagi didn't fall for him right away, something that bothers me a little bit with Crystal and the manga. I understand that part of it is probably because they'd already been in love, that it was something that "transcended time and space", but I loved their initial interactions in Sailor Moon.

Long story short: I'd recommend Crystal to basically everyone.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

TL;DR a high school mangaka, the girl who has a crush on him, and their friends as they work on the shoujo manga Let's Fall in Love
(watched Dec '14)

I actually started watching Gekkan because of anime club! They showed the first episode sometime during the fall, and I ended up marathoning the anime over winter break. 

Gekkan is a super cute shoujo anime that has a really unique cast of characters! All of the characters were really interesting and had great dynamics. I still can't decide if they broke out of typical tropes or just played up the tropes to their advantage, but they definitely are memorable.

I can't really say if there's much of a plot other than Chiyo's crush and the slice-of-life stuff regarding the cast, but it's a super fluffy / lighthearted anime, and I think it's one of my favorites now. I'd definitely suggest it if you need something uplifting. It goes by really quickly. I wish the anime were longer!;;

Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth

TL;DR short stories from the Divergent universe written from Four's point of view

(finished 1/8/15)

So! This is my first real attempt at making an individual book review instead of doing a monthly post of reviews. We'll see how this goes!

This is going to have spoilers from the Divergent series up through Allegiant. 

I actually really like the concept of short stories / novellas from series that are told in different perspectives or that cover something that didn't happen within the series itself, so I liked the stories about Tobias' choosing day and his initiation. They'd only been mentioned in the series itself, and it did help to build up Tobias' character.

However, one of the huge problems I had with Allegiant was that Tris and Four had identical narrations, which made it really difficult for me to differentiate between their chapters. The same thing is true with Four--at one point I actually forgot I was reading about Four and got really confused when Tris was mentioned instead of being the one narrating. The narration itself feels a little awkward, too, since it's in first person present, and I'm pretty sure I had that issue with Divergent as well.

I also didn't really see the point in having Four narrate scenes that had already been covered by Tris, since I didn't feel like he added much to what had already been established.

I think if Four had been entirely new scenes about Four himself, then I probably would've really liked it. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding of the changes in Dauntless since his arrival. It just seemed like the stories with Tris didn't add anything new, so they felt kind of redundant.

Books of 2014

You know, I read so many books, I may as well do an overall recommendation post for the year as a sort of TL;DR. These are books that I've read in 2014, but weren't necessarily published this year. I don't really have the capability to get books as soon as they come out, due to my money going more for crafts and the delay for the public library. Anyway! These are mainly in two categories: real and not.

Fluffy / romance / realistic fiction

• My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick
• Just One Day by Gayle Forman
• The Language Inside by Holly Thompson
• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
• Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil
• Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan

Sci-Fi / fantasy

• Cress by Marissa Meyer (3rd in a series; read Cinder first)
• Basically all of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan
• Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier (3rd in a trilogy; read Ruby Red first)
• The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski

Also, I set up a book tumblr as a Christmas gift to my grandmother, which can be found here. I've tried to make it as user-friendly as possible in terms of finding books within certain parameters. It's still in an alpha phase, but I'm hoping that it'll be useful!

Books I've Read -- December

I'm gonna break away from trying to do single-paragraph reviews. Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can post some individual reviews in the next few months. I only got to finish books the first half of the month, since I did almost no reading over winter break. (I did end up buying more books, though ...)

Neverwas by Kelly Moore, finished 12/5. I read Amber House last summer, so there was a really big window between books for me. I thought Neverwas was pretty good, and it gave me enough information that I didn't feel lost or that I'd forgotten any specifics from the last book. I loved the concept of how much things had changed from a fairly simple thing that Sarah had done. (I really really wish there'd been a map in the book. I want to learn about their geography soooooo much, and the book didn't give me enough of that.) It's also fairly relevant considering all of the protests recently -- Sarah's inadvertent changes caused segregation to still be an issue in Neverwas, and the protests that Jackson was involved in reminded me a little of the ones recently that are in the news for both Ferguson and New York.

Neverwas didn't really have the same kind of impact that I remember from Amber House, though. It also was a little hard to keep straight what they were trying to accomplish, since the whole plot of the book was basically the two timelines crossing over each other and the two of them trying to fix everything back to how it had been in Amber House. The ending was a little disappointing, too.

In looking at Goodreads, I found a bunch of one-star reviews that didn't explain anything about why they'd rated it so low, but one post did suggest something about controversy with one of the authors. I want to know what happened, but at the same time, I really don't. So keep that in mind I guess.

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor, finished 12/7. Days of Blood and Starlight is dark. Really dark. Which I guess is to come with the territory of long-standing war and genocide. It was just as good as Daughter of Smoke and Bone, though, if not better with everything that went down. (I haven't read the first book in a while. Keep that in mind.) I really love all the characters, and the book was pretty easy to pick up even without remembering what exactly had happened in the previous one. There are huge content warnings for blood / violence, death, and an attempted sexual assault pretty late into the book. I'm really excited to see what the ending will be like.

The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski, finished 12/12. The Winner's Curse was a very ... slow-burning book? It was interesting enough for me to continue reading it all the way through, but there was almost no real action up until the end. And I was okay with that. I liked the slow build of everything. Some people on Goodreads apparently didn't. So don't go into The Winner's Curse expecting anything super duper action-y. Because it's definitely more focused on romance / interpersonal relationships than it is fighting. The ending was super wow, also, which is a lot of the reason why I rated it so high.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrell, finished 12/13. So as compared to The Winner's Curse, All Our Yesterdays is action basically from the start. I ended up reading the second half of the book in one sitting because it was more interesting than the internet on a Saturday afternoon. That said, it made me feel really anxious. I've put a considerable amount of thought into what happens regarding time travel, and the time travel in All Our Yesterdays created a pretty negative reaction in me just because of all the tension I felt. I mean, it's a good book, and I would have rated it a lot higher if I didn't feel so shaky for upwards of an hour after I finished the book. So it is a really impactful book -- I just didn't have a very positive experience related to it. I really don't do well with high-stakes situations like what the book was about.

Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan, finished 12/17. This was actually a really great book to read after All Our Yesterdays. It was just the amount of fluffiness I needed to recover. I also really loved Josie -- her stubbornness, her sarcasm, her commentary on code-switching, everything. All the characters were pretty well thought out. I really had trouble liking Kate and her fiance at first, but that was the point. A big part of the plot is actually Josie's relationship to Kate and how it starts to break down when Kate announces she's getting married to a guy Josie doesn't like. A lot of the negative reviews on Goodreads were mainly because of the characters being "shallow", and while I can agree with that at some points in the book, I think it's a pretty standard amount for a fluffy standalone. And I also really like how Josie's own romantic subplot to the book builds up over the course of the story -- it wasn't her pining over guys, and I really appreciated that. I liked reading about a character that was just as clueless about romance as I am.