[Manga Review] Orange Volume Two by Ichigo Takano

An Epic Love Story Across Time

Naho immediately feels a connection to the new boy who has transferred to her class. Kakeru is calm, kind, and seems to like Naho as well. But their relationship gets thrown for a loop when Naho receives a letter from the future. The letter explains that Kakeru will die unless Naho does exactly as the letter says. But changing fate is no easy task. When the letter starts to get things wrong, Naho worries that she will still lose Kakeru forever. Luckily, Naho has her friends to back her up. Not only do they want to see Naho and Kakeru get together, they also have time-traveling letters of their own...

Orange: The Complete Collection 2 also includes a bonus story, Haruiro Astronaut. This five chapter story is about a pair of twins who discover that they can't share everything in life--or at least not an alien that suddenly becomes a part of it.

[Book Review] The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

[Book Review] Final Girls by Riley Sager

Ten years ago college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation to Pine Cottage with five friends and came back alone, the lone survivor in a horror movie style massacre. It was in that moment she became a Final Girl, a club of survivors of similar tragedies. Now, Quincy is doing well, she has a food blog that she loves running, her love of baking giving her a sense of purpose and normalcy. She has a great boyfriend, Jeff, a beautiful apartment, and a friend in Coop, the cop that saved her the night of the Pine Cottage massacre. That is until one of the other Final Girls is found dead in a bathtub and another arrives on Quincy's doorstep forcing her to relive the past, something she's buried deep inside of her. So deep she cannot remember what happened that night at Pine Cottage, or even say her attacker's name.

[Book Review] The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

WARNINGS: Attempted Suicide, Suicide, Depression, and Attempted Rape.

2.5 STARS

 "The more hopeless you were, the further away they hid you."

The Bell Jar is about our main character Esther Greenwood who wins a dream assignment in a New York fashion magazine but between that, her home life, and school she starts to get deeply depressed. Her mental state deteriorates and we follow her struggles and the way she deals with society and her mother's standards placed on her.

This book is a hard one to review because on one hand if I was reading and analyzing this book for class there's a chance I would have gotten more out of it. I tried to be analytical while reading because it's a loved classic especially when it comes to the themes of depression and mental health. 

The message and the story were good, the last half being the stronger section of the book. The writing was well done but very straight forward. There wasn't a lot of descriptions or imagery to help the reader feel like they were in the story. For me it very much felt like I was being told everything instead of shown. Because of this, I felt distant from the characters and the story and it made it hard for me to genuinely be worried about the characters. The straightforward writing doesn't invite the reader into the story and because of that, anytime something important happened I didn't feel anything.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my eyes and all is born again."

That doesn't mean I didn't understand Esther's actions. I understood why she tried committing suicide. The Bell Jar is written really cleverly when it comes to building up Esther's character. The reader learns about Esther's mother, her friends, the pressure she's under, and it makes it easy to understand Esther's motives. From her mother's nonchalant "this is a phase" attitude about Esther's depression, to her doctor not listening to her at all and trying to prescribe a quick fix instead of figuring out the perfect treatment for her, to society's standards she felt she had to live up to, and etc. I sympathized for her.

Esther's ideas and thoughts seemed very strong and independent all the way through the story. She rejected the sexual standards put on women versus men. She also didn't like the idea of having to keep herself "pure" for a husband, which leads her to make dangerous decisions for herself.  Although her ideas are very progressive when it came to standards put on woman, but she didn't have much self worth or care for her health. Once the reader starts seeing signs of her depression her actions become more dangerous. She likes the feeling of skiing because there is a possibility she could die and she finds some sort of freedom in that feeling. That possibility of death is what keeps her motivated to keep skiing over and over again. When she goes out with Marco and he bruises her, throws her drink, and even attempts to rape her she doesn't have enough self preservation to get away from him. She sees the signs and ignores them. It definitely shows Esther's lack of self worth and numbness to things happening to her.

Because this book is partly autobiographical of Plath's own depression and experience it all seems very real. I never thought this book sounded fake or unrealistic. I am not sure if because of that autobiographical part of the story is why it makes it so hard for the reader to connect with Esther, but I definitely think it hurt my overall opinions about The Bell Jar. However, I felt a bit of sadness at the end because it leaves on a hopeful note. Which is sad because Plath committed suicide only a month after the publication of The Bell Jar.

"I couldn't see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to."

Overall, I do not regret reading this book. I have wanted to read it for a while and I am happy I finally was motivated to do it. This is the kind of book where star ratings don't feel right. Because 2.5 stars feels like a low rating, but I don't feel comfortable giving it a 3. I enjoyed the message behind the book and the symbolism but I didn't enjoy the book enough to give it anything higher than a 2.5. However, I do recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading it. I wouldn't mind reading some of  Plath's poetry after reading this.

Thanks for reading! 

Have you read The Bell Jar? Have you read any of Sylvia Plath's poetry? Do you recommend it?

[Book Review] More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

 

4 STARS

Before I start the review I want to add a TRIGGER WARNING on this book. It deals with topics like depression, suicide, self harm, and homophobia. Please read at your own caution and stay safe.