Shinkai's Graphic Journey - Byousoku 5 Centimeter

5 Centimeters per Second by Makoto Shinkai

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's supposed to be 5-stars but you made an alternative ending - leaving it open-ended, instead. Why did the creator do that? Why didn't he stay loyal to what was in the movie?

But the feels. The lines. The panels. And the kiss. It remained melancholic and romantic. :)



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Kidism in Action - Hector's Travels

I first found this in Lucy's store (@_FullyBooked) 

And the book was so simplistic, written in the style of The Little Prince, but his adventures were so vast, you cannot just write a true review. So there you go, for one to appreciate happy-ness, one has to embark on a journey to search for its meaning. 

As we go along with life, we get tangled in a variety of emotions, of which, happiness seemed hard to find but easy to forget.

Homage to Murakami? No.

Utsubora - The Story of a Novelist by Asumiko Nakamura

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"That misaligned dual viewpoint is what allows for a three-dimensional field of vision. That you have two points of view - subjective and objective. It's through sustaining the misaligned pair in tandem that our world becomes real."

Delivered via Royal Mail (view spoiler)[thank you, Book Depository (hide spoiler)], this one-volume manga by Asumiko Nakamura explores the visions of a writer being tangled in a crime. One has to be challenged in a non-linear writing style, in its gothic strokes of black and white, and in its sensual experiment of drawing a scene where an intercourse is not done, but still made it amorous.

The first read is a challenging, all the while I thought I was able to solve the mystery, but it left me with questions of WHYs. What is the relationship of the author with the woman? What is the relevance of the phone? Why is the police so attached to the case? Why is the editor so puzzled? The graphic novel gave a hangover, more than a day and compelled me to do a re-read.

The second read made me understand some of the shouts, and of reflections (or you may call it introspection, I guess?) I cannot spoil the reader much, one has to be curious enough to read the book and join the adventure. :)



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Valentine Read for Two Years

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base?”

In the first read of the book, I made it part of the 2013-reading challenge and a Valentine read. Curious of the genre called dirty realism, it gave me a hangover by having the collection of stories ending abruptly - or not even ending, at all. It's just there - stuck in you. Later did I know (view spoiler)[thanks to Mr. Wikipedia for having some info database (hide spoiler)] that this is one effective literary device to engage the readers to think deeper and introspect, and maybe, to sympathize with the characters in the short story.

In the second read of the book,(view spoiler)[and as part of a required read for a book discussion (hide spoiler)] I even considered the tonality and the technicality of the short stories. I appreciated the usage of alcohol as a literary device. In addition, it amused me how one statement can change a mood, from melancholia to angst. Imagine the power of words and its capability to make the reader think.

Disclaimer: I still love Viewfinder, as one of my favorites in the short story collection. And I learned to love Everything Stuck To Him. While when asked for the least favorite, it was Popular Mechanics



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Ten Months Of Choleric Reading

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.”

After six failed attempts of fast-reading and more than ten months of patiently and painfully reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his writing, I can so declare that this book is so great, it spanned two lifetimes of two lovers, their hardships and their joys, and how they lived and continuously lived on their lives.

There are stories that are so boring ang dragging it can bring you to sleep, but there are redeeming points that will make you gush and feel that love is far beyond the feels, it spanned rivers, technological updates, epidemic catasthropes and of years. I survived 10 months understanding how they go on with their lives and how did they prepared themselves to take a risk - after all were said and done before.

The feeling of intense joy after reading the last statement is priceless.



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Enough With The Mommy Porn!

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


A slappy romance full of word vomit, inexplicable pasts and "victims" that are not justified. This literotica is nonsense.
AND THIS HAS A SEQUEL UGH. I cannot even -

GAH.



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Power of Imagination

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It was an American classic, a short story written in 1930's. I love how the prose became poetic, and how the author switched Mitty from an ordinary husband doing a weekly chore to become a surgeon. And a hero - inscrutable to the last.

There is something about onomatopoeia that made the short story appealing. It adds up to the reader imagining how Mitty quickly triggers a daydream. At one moment he is an assassin. And then he became a surgeon.

The thing with this short story is it leaves you a sort of a plot hang-over. He just waited. Stood there. And just like death via firing squad, he stayed motionless. Yet proud.

I guess this is what the author wanted to impart to the reader. Once the pen stopped he became still. And he was proud of his creation.

(view spoiler)[Thanks for the free audiobook and the newyorker archive. :) (hide spoiler)]



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Additional Brain Cells to Understand Men

The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I believe that learning about the male brain can help men and women feel more intimacy, compassion, and appreciation for each other."

And it really helps you - on how to deal with adventurous boys, of hormonal-driven teens, of sexually-driven young men and or compassionate-yet-problem-solver dads.

It was a series of visits to the writer, and as she puts along her sentiments and her anecdotes, and her researches, she was able to narrate the genetics and the chemicals and all those scientific blah-blahs that makes the men tick.

I get bored with some of the stories, but hey, it was informative.



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That Hole, Up In The Mountain

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.”

And that, my friends, is how people have dreams. The hole that will never be filled may linger for years. It will haunt you. It will be part of your system. It will eat your resolve.

Brokeback mountain is a short Wyoming cowboy story. But this is not just a story of two cowboys who herded sheep, but also a prose of their love and of their unfortunate ways to keep its warmth. At first you may get bored on the setting and their mundane tasks, but as you go along, you start to feel whatever they felt when they became close. You started to feel their frustration, their fears, and their hope to make their plans work.

But as the story end, you cannot just help them. Because that open space will never be filled by anyone, it can be only done by the one.



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Manga Perspective of Hiroshima

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"May you grow as strong and as gentle as the sakura tree."

In this simple author's note at the end of the manga, she was able to portray the lives of the people years after the World War. In this simplistic pastel colors and 1980's style of art, she was able to convey the message of hope and its absence to people, as well as how the Japanese were recovering from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

I may not understand other references like the baseball, the pop song and the radio show, but in one panel it tugged my heart to cry and appreciate the peace that we possess today.

This book gave me a reminder to be grateful for I never have to re-experience their pain to achieve the state of peace we have today.



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