Book Review: Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls is one of those books that I added to my to-read list on Goodreads and then promptly forgot about it (probably because I have 300+ books on my to-read list. I work at a library ok? New books are always being added to the shelves and older books pass through my hands and I just can't help myself xD). Anyways, lucky for me, my older sister bought a copy of the book at a used book sale and told me that I should definitely read it. She dropped it off at my apartment and then proceeded to ask me everyday if I had started reading it yet. I had a stack of books from the library that I was trying to finish so it took me two weeks to get to it, but once I started reading, I flew through the book.

Shanghai Girls follows the story of Pearl and her younger sister May, two women living in 1930's Shanghai. As the daughters of the owner of a rickshaw business, they consider themselves to be very Westernized and well off. Ignoring the threats of an impending Japanese invasion, the girls continue to live their daily lives as if nothing could ever go wrong. All of this changes when their father admits that he lost his fortune and in order to keep their home, he has arranged marriages for both of them. These are not an ordinary arranged marriages as their father has decided to marry them to two American citizens. However, before all is said and done, Japanese troops begin to attack the outskirts of the city and both Pearl and May's worlds are further turned upside down with the start of the second Sino-Japanese war.

Tatakau! Shoten Girl [Fight! Bookstore Girl]

In my last j-drama blog post where I reviewed the drama Sunao ni Narenakute, I mentioned that I was watching 3 dramas. Tatakau! Shoten Girl [Fight! Bookstore Girl] is the second of the three that I have completed. To be quite honest, I finished this drama a while ago - about two weeks ago? Yeah, that sounds about right. However, I was unable to find the time to write about it. But luckily I found some time this week, so lets get on with it! 

Aki Kitamura [played by Watanabe Mayu] has just begun to work at the Pegasus bookstore where Nishioka Riko [played by Inamori Izumi] works as the vice-manager of the store. Aki comes from a wealthy family and rumors immediately begin to swirl around her, however, what really surprises the staff about Aki is her fervent love of books and her desire to make sure each and every customer is satisfied. Nishioka shares the same goal as her subordinate but Aki's ideas to attract and satisfy more customers often causes burdens on the other workers of the bookstore. Their different approaches to obtaining the same goal, has the two women often butting heads. 

Book Review: The Forbidden Library

Y'know those times when you're passing by the stacks in a library and you notice one particular spine - almost as if the book is calling out to you? Yeah, in the last 3 or so months, this has happened to me exactly 3 times. The first book that caught my eye was Time Snatchers and the second book is the one I will review today.

The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler is the first book in a planned series of 5. To my knowledge only the first two books have been published. I'll admit it, I was tempted to put the book back when I read it was the first book of a series. For the last few years I have mostly read YA books and that means series after series after series. There are some I didn't mind very much at all. Series like The Hunger Games and The Infernal Devices work well as series. But, there were some series that could have been much shorter (e.g. The Crossed trilogy, the Mortal Instruments series, etc.) So, being tired of series, I wasn't sure I wanted to pick up a jfiction series. But then I realized that I would probably finish reading the first book in like 2 days and thought, why not?

Well, it took me longer than 2 days to read the book, but that was due to a wide array of factors. But none of those factors includes disinterest. In fact, within the first 2 chapters, the book had caught my wholehearted attention. One day Alice stumbles upon a conversation her father is having in secret with what seems to be - a fairy? A few days later, her father sets of on a voyage at sea and is tragically killed when the ship sinks. Alice is shipped off to her uncle Geryon - a distant relation she didn't even know existed. A nighttime expedition into Geryon's fascinating library and a chance meeting with Ashes, a talking cat and a boy named Issac reveals to Alice that she is a Reader; she has the power to enter the world in books and in order to leave the book, she must defeat the creature inside. This realization brings forth many questions for Alice, especially when she finds out that the fairy that she saw that night speaking to her father is within the library as well.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Why yes, this is really late because like, this movie came out last year and yet here I am writing about it. Why? Well, simply put, I haven't watched it. Well, should I say, I hadn't watched until this afternoon. I was unable to see the final installment in The Hobbit in theaters and opted to buy it as soon as it came on DVD. Then, it promptly sat in my room for weeks because I refused to watch it. And I refused to watch it for one simple reason: I didn't want it to end.

There are times when a story captivates me so strongly and I am so emotionally invested in the plot and the characters that I refuse to see a story to its end. I will literally set the series/movie/book aside and wait a while until I finally gather the courage to watch the ending. This happened when I read the final chapter of the Naruto manga, when I finished reading the Harry Potter books, when I got to the end of the Rose of Versailles anime - I mean, this happens A LOT. A lot more than it should actually. But finishing this amazing journey into Middle Earth was one of the hardest to complete.