A to Z book survey

I saw The Perpetual Page-Turner's book survey on On The Shelf so decided to give it a go myself! I hope you guys join in too - being a writer I love to know the kind of books my followers read :-)

Also I have a Goodreads account - let's be friends there too!

Author you’ve read the most books from:

 

Haha this shows my age! R. L. Stine, who wrote amongst other things the Goosebumps series.

 

Best Sequel Ever:

 

Phantom by Susan Kay which is theoretically the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I remember crying as I read the end.

Currently Reading:

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Drink of Choice While Reading:

 

Cranberry and raspberry juice. I live off it.

E-reader or Physical Book?

 

Physical! I like touching and smelling the pages :D

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated In High School:

 

Back in secondary school I was madly in love with Anne Rice's vampire Armand (and maybe even more so Marius). Out of teenage characters I imagine I would have been horribly in love with Rafael from Alisa Kwitney and Joëlle Jones' Token and Utena from Chiho Saito and Be-PaPas' Revolutionary Girl Utena series. These days it's obviously The Riddler XD

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

 

kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich

Hidden Gem Book:

 

Café Nervosa: The Connoisseurs Cookbook by Julie Fisher - café style recipes and excerpts of Frasier scripts all in one book! Heaven!

Important Moment in your Reading Life:

 

Wanting to be all grown-up and read one of the old books in my mum's bookshelf only for it to be Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It provided me with a role model and a whole new level of imagination to culture.

Just Finished:

 

Well the last book I 'finished' was The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs however by 'finished' I mean got to the end of chapter two before deciding I really didn't enjoy a page of it and didn't want to inflict a single word more of it on myself.

Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:

 

I have an instant desire to run the other way from chick lit romance books however I appreciate that to some people (like my mum) they are great and if a book encourages a person to read who otherwise wouldn't then I'm more than happy for it to exist in the world! I also refuse to read anything which was once fanfiction and is now an 'original fiction' such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Mortal Instruments series. I very much enjoy fanfiction but I think it is both a huge disservice to the original author and your readers if you take a fanfiction and change the names then call everything about it your own. If you are a good writer you should be able to come up with your own characters and scenarios with no problem.

Longest Book You’ve Read:

 

Ulysses by James Joyce.

Major book hangover because of:

 

Wet Moon by Ross Campbell - it feels like such a cool place to live - alternative heaven! Volume seven can't come soon enough (if it comes at all)!

Number of Bookcases You Own:

 

Four in my office and two downstairs.

One Book You Have Read Multiple Times:

 

Alice Through the Looking-Glass never gets old for me.

Preferred Place To Read:

 

In the bath. It has got to the point that I can only read Wet Moon books in the bath. Weirdly I can also only read Neverwhere in London...which is why it's taking me so long to finish it!

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you’ve read:

 

Grammar Nazi time...the correct word is quotation - easy way to remember it is "I quote a quotation" *hides* 

"We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter" - Alan Ginsberg, Howl (part III) 

The moment I read that line it stuck with me. It spoke to me so much about that indestructible friendship that forms when you meet someone who has suffered as much as you have and has survived. Just being with someone who has survived makes you want to keep on surviving.

Reading Regret:

 

Can I say spending good money on The Soft Machine? Actually a bigger regret is that I buy books faster than I am able to read them.

Series You Started And Need To Finish(all books are out in series):

 

The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor. The Looking Glass Wars is by no means my favourite book however I feel I owe it to myself as such a big Alice fan to read the whole series and then maybe even the Hatter M graphic novels.

Three of your All-Time Favorite Books:

 

Oh no! Choices! Erm....Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell and Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston.

Unapologetic Fangirl For:

 

BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In particularl Paul Dini's various forays into Batman. He writes characters that are so often reduced to stereotypes (aka villains and females) with amazing depth and humanity. I absolutely applaud his numerous attempts at creating more female characters who actually are characters rather than arm candy for Bruce Wayne and eye candy for the male readers.

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others:

 

Oh gosh I don't know! I'm not very informed with new releases, I usually get tempted in by good reviews, pretty covers and recommendations.

Worst Bookish Habit:

 

I'm not sure how bad this is really but I'm a terribly slow reader. I can't skim read. I like every word to really sink so that the book becomes a memory rather than just a stack of paper. I guess also I get horribly freaked out when I lend someone a book and it comes back to me with the tiniest scuff or bend. It's my OCD.

X Marks The Spot: Start at the top left of your shelf and pick the 27th book:

 

I tell no lie - on the first bookshelf it was Impossible Spaces. On the other shelves in my study it is: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Walt Disney's Peter Pan and a 2002 Digimon Annual........

Your latest book purchase:

 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

ZZZ-snatcher book (last book that kept you up WAY late):

 

Hehe probably browsing the erotica samples on the iBooks store.

Minx Reviews: Emiko Superstar

Sorry I forgot to do this last week - when I start writing I get completely carried away sometimes! Anyway, I thought I would start with my favourite Minx graphic novel Emiko Superstar by writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Steve Rolston.

Emiko is the kind of girl who drifts through life. Bad things happen but she's always too scared of the repercussions to ever try to shake things up...that is until she sees Poppy, a beautiful, alternative teenage performance artist, at the mall. She is faced with a choice: attend young executive summer school with her 'safe' frenemies (but the closest she has to friends) or explore an alternate side of herself at the not-so-legal performance venue 'The Factory'. At first Emiko is fine just watching the performances but soon finds herself performing pages from the diary of the young mother she babysits for. She is an instant success but soon finds all that glitters isn't gold when 'The Curator' of The Factory (and Poppy's sleazy older boyfriend) comes on to her.

I think out of all the Minx heroines Emiko is the one most appealing to the intended readership. She is an everyday, intelligent, slightly introverted girl (much like the average Minx reader) who decides to leave a world and friends that dissatisfy her and reinvent herself for the summer as a character with no restraints on her freedom of expression (probably the biggest angst a teenage girl has) . Because The Factory is not some alternate world, just a hidden place on the other side of the tracks, it makes the idea that anyone can explore a different side of themselves much more accessible. Mariko doesn't try to over glorify the alternative scene though. Yes Emiko makes good friends there, but she also finds parts of it unnatural to her nature / personality and is especially unsettled by the motives and pushiness of The Curator. Mariko and Steve depict life at The Factory as beautiful but transient with those unable to move on paying the price. The biggest example of this is Poppy. Poppy is Emiko's idol and appears to revel in her role at The Factory and with The Curator but is also the most unhappy. She is like a butterfly trapped in her chrysalis with the lifestyle that created her slowly suffocating her and her life's full potential.

The art is also very likeable. Everything has a gentle roundness to it like the character designs for Lilo and Stitch. The panels are characterful and detailed without being crowded. Emiko is also a refreshing character design being short and curvy rather than tall and skinny or massively out of proportion like a your usual DC female.

The only niggle I have with Emiko Superstar (and it is a small one) is that Emiko refers to her school friends as being geeks (and she does not mean the cool kind like yours truly ;-) ). I'd say the people she hangs out with aren't geeks but friends of convenience (we've all been in that situation where you haven't managed to make any real friends so hang out with the first group willing to take you). Mariko somewhat assumes that if you're a geek you're uncool and unpopular (therefore lumping the three together) but that really depends on what circles you move in. I'm happy being a geek and *shocker* I have friends who *bigger shock* think I'm cool(ish). Being a geek doesn't necessarily make you uncool. Being a douchebag does. I think the best way to perceive it is that Emiko is a geek AND unhappy with her position in life. Throughout the story she remains herself (therefore remains a geek) but comes to understand herself and her needs better.

You'll like Emiko Superstar if you like:
Andy Warhol and his Factory, Kids on the Slope, Adventureland and modern American poetry and prose such as the work of Jack Kerouac, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg etc

Also by Mariko Tamaki:
Cover Me, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice, Fake ID, Skim and Set Me on Fire.

Also by Steve Rolston:
Jack Spade and Tony Two-Fist, Queen & Country, Pounded, Mek, One Bad Day, The Escapists, Tales of the TMNT #28, Degrassi: Extra Credit vol. 4, House of Mystery #4 and Ghost Projekt.

Friday Feature - Graphic Novels for Female Readers 2: Minx



Minx was an imprint of DC Comics for teenage girls but sadly only ran between 2007-2008. It was aimed at intelligent and creative young women who enjoyed manga and indie graphic novels but felt too intimidated to read more mainstream American graphic novels such as Batman or Wonder Woman. Unfortunately due to factors such as mainstream booksellers placing Minx graphic novels with the 'boys comics', manga readers often shunning manga-style comics and the majority of Minx's creators being male the whole 'alternative graphic novels for young women' idea was considered not worth the trouble and Minx was cancelled.

To begin with each Minx graphic novel was a one-shot (single issue comic) though sequels were planned. The protagonists were always female (high school - college age) with their stories often being slice of life (though some had fantasy elements) sometimes featuring romance and always featuring personal growth. Though aimed at teenage girls the stories were never sugarcoated with the aforementioned life lessons often coming the hard way.

Due to the desire to attract readers of manga and indie graphic novels each book was A5 in size with a colour cover and greyscale pages. At the back of each book were samples of other Minx titles and three pages of blank panels to draw your own comic.

The Minx graphic novels were:

• The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg - the artistic exploits of a group of high school misfits all called Jane.
• Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel - a young martial artist learns that there is much more emotion involved in the art of giving than just passing an object from one person to another.
• Clubbing by Andi Watson and Josh Howard - a city goth discovers a sleepy village's creepy secret.
• Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm - a girl encounters three different versions of herself.
• Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey and Aaron Alexovich - a young blogger learns you shouldn't write up every thought that pops into your head unedited.
• Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich - a 23rd century girl investigates the suicide of a friend she has only met on the internet. 
• Burnout by Rebecca Donner and Inaki Miranda - a young girl literally plays with fire when she starts dating a new boy.
• Water Baby by Ross Campbell - a surfer girl who lost her leg goes on an ill-fated road trip.
• The New York Four by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly - explores both the glamour and loneliness of moving to the famous city that is New York
• Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston - a sheepish girl creates a new persona for herself during the summer holidays as a performance artist but learns glamour is subjective.
• Token by Alisa Kwitney and Joelle Jones - when a single father starts to date his secretary his already awkward daughter vents her feelings of rejection and frustration by taking shoplifting lessons from a handsome stranger.

Unfortunately all the graphic novels only had single print runs and you probably won't be able to get them in a book or comic book shop anymore (I pretty much looted Forbidden Planet London...sorry guys) however you can still get them for reasonable prices from places like the Amazon Market Place and eBay.

I plan on reviewing each of the titles separately but if I had to pick one favourite it would be Emiko Superstar which features an extremely shy Japanese-American girl getting drawn to the surface glamour of an underground alternative performance art scene. Desperate to be cool for a summer she finds a way to join in but realises all that glitters isn't gold and that to maintain her fame she will have to compromise her morals...and I will leave the rest of that for its review!

I think it's a terrible shame that Minx didn't succeed. The reason more young women (or females in general) don't read graphic novels is because they don't feel many are aimed at them. This in turn creates a feeling that if a female IS interested in graphic novels she is being fake and doing it because that is what is cool with menfolk (which of course well all know is a load of guff). I sincerely hope that at some point DC does try Minx again...and when they do I want to be there writing for them.

Next week: We explore another of Ross Campbell's works further as the last (for now) of my graphic novels for female readers series!