Review: Bleach vol 36 by Tite Kubo

Bleach: volume 36 Turn Back The Pendulum by Tite Kubo

I love Bleach. It's my first anime and favorite anime. Maybe not my absolute first but it tops the list. I had been reading the manga online up till the vizards kicked Aizen's butt, then there  was this new thing about fullbring, but since my favorite manga site went down . I've stopped reading and I'm well behind on whats happening.

Although I've already read The Pendulum arc.  I still bought the manga because it's my favorite arc. I really like the vizards. Compared to the soul reapers they're more badass, they're like delinquents you can't help but love. and they're badass.

This volume goes back 110 years into Soul Society history, when Shinji was captain, and the other vizards were apart of  Soul Society. It tells the story about them before and how they became vizards. And how Aizen was even then conspiring against Soul Society . Shinji was always suspicious about Aizen. So was kyoraku. I love this arc because you also get to see the other characters like a young hotheaded Byakuya different from the cold and calm one we know, also Urahara as captain of squad 5 and his relationship with Hiyori, and how Mayuri becomes head of his division, the origin of the 69 tattoo Hisagi has. This edison  of the manga (or maybe all editions ), I wouldn't know, this is the first manga  I've ever bought. I love how it's backwards (the manga binding) true to manga style reading you have to start at the "back" and read from right to left. Things I didn't like is the fact that it ended too quickly and this volume doesn't contain the whole pendulum arc, the rest of the story continues in volume 37, guess I have some saving up to do.


Grade: O

Dirty Little Secret

Dirty Little Secret is a weekly meme hosted by us at Under the Covers. Every Thursday we get to know other bloggers and our readers more intimately by asking them a question hoping to reveal their dirty little secrets.  We hope that you will all join us!

To participate in the meme all you need to do is:

1. Be a follower of Under the Covers.
2. Create a post in your blog taking the meme image (code above) and copy instructions. 
3. Answer the question we propose! This can be done in any way you like, post a video, write a post etc.
4. Then add your link below.




This week's question:

In honor of the recent release of LOTHAIRE by Kresley Cole and our love of G.A. Aiken's Dragon Kin series, we want to know...
What moniker would you have if you lived in those worlds? 

This seems like a lot of fun . At first I couldn't think of anything ,so I asked my friends: Risma the (book)worm, Risma the forever alone, Risma the Librarian they said. Yeah my "friends" couldn't possibly pass up a chance to bug the hell outa me. They did help  me to think of a few. like: Risma the dreamer, the loner, the solitary, the immature.

But i think the one that wins out is
"Risma the Librarian"

Nice to meet you

Review: A Hollow Cube is a Lonely Space by S.D Foster

A collection of twenty-three bizarro fables in which you'll meet Nobody, a performing primate who wants to chew your children's lips off; pontificate with the Stork, philosopher and feces-eater; rejoice as Nordin "The Noggin" Nobel, noted socialite, is reconciled to his estranged head; share the existential despair of Slothra the suicidal kaiju; celebrate the love of Violet and her rotting lover; explore the meaning of life with Dr. Ebenezer A.T. Horkenheimer, sociopath, and the geography of heaven and hell with Ted the mangled toy. And so much more...It's Aesop, as imagined by John Waters.

With this book I enter the world of bizzaro. While this book confused and disgusted me, it was really worth  reading. The stories are short, ranging from 4-8 pages a story. Finally a book of short stories that are actually short!. The stories all seem like these very odd, twisted tales somebody would tell a kid to get their attention or give them weird disgusting dreams.

 S.D Foster is a new author and he's writing is great, it has a flow and reads well. I enjoyed reading these bizzar stories. Some of them are amusing  , some disgusting, others confusing, because although I think there's something there, the meaning eludes me. Some are even very sad.

The amusing ones:
The first story is about an orange: The Course of Clementine, an orange who's purpose is to be consumed. I hate oranges! Then there's also the case of the dude who wants to look so good he quiet literally loses his head (The Marvelous Head), the monkey who wants to be famous, a girl who wants to be a "quadriplegic motivational speaker", a very sheltered kid, and a suicidal freeloader. There's also one about a crazy doctor who wants to take over the world by populating it with his own offspring and killing all others.

The Disgusting ones:
Mr Rat is married to Mrs Rat, who eats all her infants, she attempts to civilize Mr Rat. Their favorite food of choice is "aborted baby spread thick with bacon grease". Then there's this chick who gets raped by eh...Frankfurt's,chocolates and other things edible you'd find in a supermarket  and somehow gets impregnated by said food group, there's also incest involved. You have been warned.

There are stories about love even. Odd, sad, disgusting love, but love in some kind of form. There's the story about the woman who carves a tree a heart, the tree then comes to life, and the woman then marries it. But in the end terminates her marriage. A story I enjoyed, "“Please don’t carve me another heart—‘tis easier to photosynthesize than to love”  says the tree in the end before the woman removes his mouth. The story about the woman who marries the guy she ran over, who is literally rotting. Unconditional love or desperate much?. The story about the snowman , who's the ladies man, poor guy loses his "assets". 

The best story is "unbreakable" it reminds me of The Velveteen Rabbit. Other good stories worth mentioning are "Silk Flower" and "War and Peace'. I like the play on Hellen Kellers name , but the meaning of this particular story , if it even has one, escapes me. The story about The (not so quiet) Corpse and The Stork is also a great one.

This was a fun and different book to read and I'm happy I got the chance to read it. Some stories gave me the nostalgic feeling of reading The Brothers Grimm. It also makes for good conversation , that is if you're out to disgust or amuse your friends. Although this is my first book of this genre I have nothing to compare it too. But as a reader of stories. I'd say it's full of damn good stories, so I'm giving it 4stars.

Grade: 

    E

Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the vast spaceshipGodspeed. She expects to awaken on a new planet, 300 years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed's scheduled landing, Amy's cryo chamber is unplugged, and she is nearly killed.

Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense.Godspeed's passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader, and Elder, his rebellious and brilliant teenage heir.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she? All she knows is that she must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

" If you want to know anything, observe it's beginning and it's development" 

~Aristoteles~

This book is just great!  I fully enjoyed reading it. It's well written . Easy to understand, honest expressions and amusing curse words "frex " and "chutz"  and gives you a lot to think about. This book made me feel. It took me out of the numbness of routine life. It frightened me, it saddened me and it angered me. Any such book should be on your TBR list! 

The 3 causes of discord

1. Differences ~Apparently differences are bad and cause chaos. The people on the spaceship "Godspeed" are "monoethnic". Basically they all freaking look alike. They have no physical differences.

 Then Amy shows up. A girl with red hair and pale skin. She is deference. The people on the ship see her as a freak and are kind of hostile towards her.  Except the people on the  mental ward in the ships hospital. It's all upside down. The people who work and maintain the ship are crazy and the people on the mental ward are in fact the sane ones. It's infuriating as it is frightening. I live among differences. To me it's the epitome of beauty.

2. A lack of a strong leader~ Eldest is the leader of Godspeed. The guy is a crazy, menopausal tyrant. He runs the ship on lies and drugs.The man is insane as he is frightening. Although what he's trying to do is to protect the people on the ship, his means aren't right. He keeps the inhabitants of the ship in a passive state by drugging their water supply. The inhabitants are complacent, they question nothing and blindly follow Eldest's leadership.  Orion, the person who was suppose to take Eldest place . This guy doesn't agree with Eldest's way of doing things but his ways aren't better either. Then there's Elder, who at the end of the book becomes the new leader of Godspeed. He has an understanding of  what it takes to be a good leader. "being a good leader does not mean using your strenght to make people do things but to lend people your strenght so that they can do things"

Fun Fact: Eldest/Elder and Orion are clones. They are technically the same person.This raises the question. If they're the same person, if they're based on the same DNA . Then won't they make the same mistakes? 

3. Individual Thought ~  This is the scariest.  Not being able/allowed to think for yourself. The people on Godspeed are being drugged into a complacent state, this prevents individual thought. They are passive and think everything is alright they question nothing. They are empty. Their passiveness is creepy.  

Everything on Gospeed is fake. It's all artificial. The air,food,animals,water,rain. Not real. The characters feel trapt in a metal box, it's suffocating. It would kill me never to see the sky again. While the book is told from Amy's and Elder's POV you can feel the confinement from their POV"S. Their longing to feel something "real". You can also see the difference between Amy and Elder. Amy is from earth and knows what she's missing, she knows that life on godspeed isn't normal, she sees the lies. In the end she opens elders eyes to them aswell. 

Although I've developed a disinterest in YA books I' have to admit I'm glad I read this one. It wasn't what I had expected. Death, suicide, attempted rape,clones,conspiracy! yeah definitely not what I had expected.

I give this awesome book 4 stars and thank the dude from the blog " Roro Is Reading " for lending it to me.


Grade:   E

Dirty Little Secret

Dirty Little Secret is a weekly meme hosted by  Under the Covers. Every Thursday we get to know other bloggers and our readers more intimately by asking them a question hoping to reveal their dirty little secrets.  We hope that you will all join us!

To participate in the meme all you need to do is:

1. Be a follower of Under the Covers.
2. Create a post in your blog taking the meme image (code above) and copy instructions. 
3. Answer the question we propose! This can be done in any way you like, post a video, write a post etc.
4. Then add your link below.

The Question:  Do you prefer your heroes dark and broody or blond and boisterous?


Really? come on. Of course I like, no LOVE the dark and brooding ones. The bad boys because they're the ones that get your attention. The ones that intrigue you. They just draw you in with their bad sexiness( thinking of Jaden from Dark Hunters) . And make you wonder what secrets they're hiding in their heads *cough* or body *cough* ( thinking of Adrian Vogel from Fallen Angels serie......mmm so many piercings......I still wonder.......). And the oh so sinfully sexy ,smart mouth ones (thinking of Lassiter from BDB, I'd love to watch Oprah with him.......shirtless........).

Jaden :) ...........

Lassiter <3

 Addy :D

On that note. I'd like to say I really hate clothes :(

~ Genre's ~

I like to read. My favorite genre would be Fiction/Fantasy. Lately I've read a lot of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. But also some Young Adult, Contemporary, Thrillers, Romance, Literature, Philosophy, Children's and a lot more. There are so many genre's out there I've yet to explore. I don't wanna stay in one genre . I want to mix it up. I'd like to explore some Sci-Fi and Historical maybe. Oh and some Steampunk and Dystopian.

I was browsing through the genre's list on goodreads, when i found a genre called "Bizzaro fiction" a sub genre of horror i think. "Bizzaro" yeah you've guessed it right : weird shit!

"Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre, which often utilizes elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque, along with pop-surrealism and genre fiction staples, in order to create subversive works that are as weird and entertaining as possible". 

Great odds that's it's about crazy people doing crazy ,disgusting,scary-crazy-disgusting things. Of course this is mere speculation on my part from the many titles I've seen on goodreads. 
Like:  
 -A Bear is Eating Me 
- A Haunted Vagina
-The Menstruating Mall
-Satan Burger (followed by the cover, of a naked guy crouching over a plate he's I assume about to SHIT on)
- The Baby Jesus Butt Plug
-Ass Goblins of Auschwitz 
-Sausagey Santa ?

 Some of these titles bug me to a certain end, that would make me not want to read the book. Of course there were other books with less freaky titles . this genre seems interesting enough. I found one book that  interested me  and added it to my TBR list. "Armadillo Fists" by Carlton Mellick III

It's about a woman , Psycho June Howard, aka Armadillo Fists,  who replaced both of her hands with living armadillos. Bizzar? oh i know.

What's your favorite genre? are you exploring any new genre's?