Writing about the pile of books I've read and yet to read, and just plain and random writing

Scott Pilgrim’s life is totally sweet. He’s 23 years old, he’s in a rock band, he’s “between jobs,” and he’s dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, until a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott’s awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona’s seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes.

I first heard about Scott Pilgrim from a couple of friends who kept raving about the books from 2 years ago. Now when I recently saw the trailers, it got me interested and wanted to read the books first before being able to watch the recently released movie¹.

Hubby was lucky enough to get the first volume from a bookstore, despite the sudden growing the demand. Most specialty stores we’ve gone to were out of stock already!

It is a graphic novel of 6 volumes, which recently concluded with the release of the last volume the same week as this year’s SDCC².

It’s not immediately obvious, but reading the story shows the anime influence— the panels, the character expressions, the effects; a number of characters are even stated as having watched anime or read manga.

Story is fine and playful. Characterizations has also been done well. O’Malley has introduced a lot of characters (and I mean A LOT), but you don’t get confused on who is who.

I don’t want to anything that may give away important plot points, but I really love the “dark space inbetween”, the “transitional space” you can enter via a door. It is also amusing that it is just an everyday occurence (or more appropriately, normal) for any of them to obviously level up and actually earn coins or items. I also like that despite some difficulties, friendship wins, and love— cliche as it is,— “seemingly” prevails.

Collectively, I give this series a rating a 4 out of 5 stars. It’s not perfect, but it is definitely an awesome and fun read.

The Books

1. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
2. Scott Pilgrim vs the World
3. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness
4. Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together
5. Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe
6. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour

Rating: ★★★★★ 4 of 5 stars [?]

52 Books

books: 26 / 52 (50%)

1. which is yet to be shown locally, to our dismay [↩]
2. Which was 21 to 24 of July [↩]

I feel awful not being able to update this one as much as I can, but I haven’t read a book or stopped reading a couple on hand due to work and other things. I can’t even go through the rest of the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ books! *le gasp*

I’m still planning to finish what I’ve started though, just that am having a bit of trouble on what to focus on lately. I do hope I get back to reading as it is one of my escapes.

For the meantime, I leave with you a book trailer for Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Because seriously, one of the most-loved US presidents as a vampire hunter? What is cooler than that?

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut–young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Back on Earth, Peter and Valentine forge an intellectual alliance and attempt to change the course of history.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Orson Scott Card‘s Ender’s Game, ever since I started getting into sci-fi many years back. Hailed as one of the must-read science fiction novels of all time, I had to know what the fuss was all about. But I haven’t been able to read as every time I go to the book store and browse the sci-fi/fantasy section it’s not there. So I end up buying something else. I chanced upon a copy of it earlier this month and decided to go finally get it, because I might not have a chance anymore.

And it didn’t disappoint. When I did pick it up two nights ago, I couldn’t put it down. I was dreading that it would be a hard read, since it was a sci-fi classic and all that, but I was surprised that it was easy to read but still very deep and engaging.

The only thing that bothered me was that the main characters are children, as young as six years old— Not little adults, but believable young children that are very intelligent for their ages. And this is a violent and dark future, which is also believable. If you keep on thinking that, it makes you wince a little. But since the story was very engaging, the circumstances that lead to it explain a lot. Otherwise, it is good! It goes beyond locker room bullying, questions child-labor ethics and still tackle a frightening possible future. No wonder it’s a sci-fi classic. Now if only I read this book years ago and didn’t wait too long, the supposedly twist ending could’ve been not so… familiar to me. On it’s own though, it works.

I’m still thinking if I’d buy the rest of the saga, as some reviews only point to this and ‘Speaker of the Dead’ as the must-read from the rest. But so far, am satisfied with this book— start, middle and end. And I highly recommend it to sci-fi lovers everywhere, also one of good introductory piece for non-sci-fi readers.

Rating: ★★★★★ 5 of 5 stars [?]

52 Books

books: 18 / 52 (35%)