Manga versus Animé: xxxHOLiC by Clamp

Kimihiro Watanuki hates the fact that he can see the supernatural in our mundane world. One day a ghost chases him to a strange shop run by Yūko Ichihara, a femme fatale witch who grants wishes. After reading his fortune, Ichihara offers to stop his visions--but first he has to work for her. Ichihara has clearly taken Watanuki on as an apprentice, but Watanuki isn't clued into this fact as he follows her and learns the basics of fortune-telling and wish-granting.

This is a very fun, cute story. Watanuki overreacts to everything, which weirdly enough makes him endearing and a nice foil to the other characters. Ichihara and her little Mokona (rabbit thing) love to eat and drink, and they seem to ground the entire series in a state of earthly delight. The magical element is also really well-done: Ichihara's practices are clearly based in Buddhist philosophy, and the magic is unusual by Western standards.

That being said, I had trouble getting into this manga. I think it had to do partly with the art, which I occasionally found very confusing to follow, and partly with the fact that the storyline is integrated with Clamp's other mangas, which I haven't read. Sometimes trying to figure out where these stories were going was very tiring. There are explanations of Japanese culture and references from Clamp's other series at the end of the books, which was awesome, but that didn't help me much while I was reading; it only made sense at the end.

After about two volumes of the manga, I thought I'd give the animé series (available on hulu) a go. Although the animé compressed the story in parts and rearranged some plot elements, it was much easier to follow, particularly as far as the action was concerned. I wish I'd watched it before starting the manga, even though the animé came after the manga.

Despite my problems with it, I do think xxxHOLiC is definitely worth checking out, in either format.

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Listed: Vienna

I started reading The Reluctant Heiress by Eva Ibbotson yesterday, and this reminded me what a great setting Vienna is! Exotic and elegant, Vienna has become indelibly associated with high culture and the arts, especially music. Here are some other books and movies that take place in Vienna:

• The Illuuuusionist A great movie starring Edward Norton as a magician with a mysterious past who sets out to trick a Habsburg prince in order to save the woman he loves.
  
• The Little Book, by Seldon Edwards This is a time travel novel that I never finished. The descriptions of Vienna were fabulous, though.
  
• Charmed and Dangerous, by Jane Ashford One of my favorite romances of all time! I love this book! A governess follows her employers to the Congress of Vienna and meets a spy, resulting in adventures all over Europe.
  
• Vienna Waltz, by Teresa Grant Another novel that takes place during the Congress of Vienna. I haven't read this one, but the cover seems to suffer from Luxe syndrome.
  
• The Empty Mirror, by J. Sydney Jones There are a ton of mysteries that take place in Vienna! This one is set in 1899 and features Karl Werthen as the series detective.
  
• The Marriage Artist, by Andrew Winer This is an odd-sounding book about an art critic whose wife jumps off a building with an American Indian artist. So that's already really complex. It takes place in Vienna in 1928. Naturally, there are Nazis. There must always be Nazis.
  
• In Mozart's Shadow, by Carolyn Meyer A YA about Mozart's sister, Nannerl--who, you may recall, was said to be a greater genius than her brother.
  
• The Third Man A film noir about spies in Vienna heavily influenced by the work of Orson Welles.
  
• Airs Above the Ground, by Mary Stewart I forgot this book was set in Vienna! Actually, I think this may be one of the few Mary Stewart novels I haven't read. Shame on me!

Do you know of any good books set in Vienna? Have you read any of books listed above?

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Book Review: INSTANT ATTRACTION by Jill Shalvis

After surviving a terrible accident, Katie is determined to live "balls-out," which is more or less how she finds herself in the small mountain town of Wishful, working as a temporary accountant for Wilder Adventures. Then Cameron, one of the more wild Wilder brothers, shows up. Cam used to be an Olympic-level snowboarder, but after a terrible accident he went on a walkabout around the world for a year. *obvious connection made* They're attracted to each other, but can Cam overcome his Issues to settle down with Katie?

This book starts off really well, with a great meet-cute scene. The dialog is modern and amusing, and it's fun to read the interactions of the characters--not only Katie and Cam, but the secondary characters as well. For a good one hundred pages I thought I might actually enjoy this novel.

BUT THEN. What I'm starting to think of as the Two-Thirds Curse kicked in. The Two-Thirds Curse is where a book is really smooth reading for the first third--no continuity issues, a logical chain of actions and reactions, no draggy parts--but in the rest of the book? Not so much. In this case it wasn't as bad as it could have been: mainly the dialog became a little less snappy and the tropes got a lot more obvious. The big issue for me was that the particular trope used in this book is the one where the woman (it's always the woman) keeps denying her totally obvious and mutual attraction for the hero with no reason other than to drag the book out.

This is a really common romance novel trope. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's almost pervasive. But I just can't handle it anymore, especially in contemporary romances, and I think that's the main reason why romances haven't been working for me lately.

ALSO! I would never call myself an expert skier, but as someone who has skied, this book confused the hell out of me. I'm 80% sure Shalvis has never gone skiing a day in her life, nor even stepped into a sporting goods store, because there is sooo much stuff in this novel that would just never happen. My first clue was when Cam decided to hike to the top of a mountain taking some sort of secret back way so he could snowboard. Um. You do realize that snow is like really deep, right? Like REALLY REALLY DEEP. Unless this is some time between May and September, hiking up a mountain is total nonsense. You could snowshoe up the mountain, or take a snowmobile up a mountain, but hiking? In snowboarding boots? *picture extreme doubt face*

And then there were the ski pants, prima facie evidence of why I am totally against clothing descriptions in books. I didn't even think it was humanly possible to screw up not just a physcial description of ski pants, but a conceptual understanding of ski pants' function and mechanics, so thoroughly. It is truly mind-fucking; it's like if I were to try to describe a jock strap in action. I obviously would have nooo idea what I was talking about. Just so we're clear, this sexy beast (aka me) is wearing ski pants:



These are ski pants. They're designed like overalls so you don't get snow in your undies, which means they don't have zippers on the front like regular pants. And they are not tight because they are just a thin waterproof shell that you put over layers, many many layers so that you don't get hypothermia. As I once heard someone who didn't like to ski say, "Driving for 2 hours in 5 layers of clothing is no one's idea of a good time." Wearing ski pants with nothing under them would be utterly idiotic because their job is to keep wet snow off your warm pants. You'd be better off to go skiing in jeans than ski pants with nothing underneath them, okay? Like maybe we should have dropped by the REI and discussed the difference between ski gear and scuba gear before we wrote scenes where people dress like it's a chilly day in Los Angeles when they're supposed to be hiking a mountain in winter.

Honestly, the ski pants thing wasn't a huge part of the book; it was simply that whenever the ski pants appeared, they remind me of everything in the novel that was unrealistic and totally dumb. Other stupid things were Cam's ex, the sub-plot with Nick and Annie, and the way the whole Wilder family travels back and forth and back and forth between the lodge and Wishful one at a time, in different vehicles, constantly and for no reason.

I couldn't help but compare this book to Just Perfect by Julie Ortolon, which has a similar premise and takes place in Aspen. I freaking love that book, which noticeably contains no in-depth ski apparel descriptions and gives the reader a glimpse into how ski towns work and the social hierarchy that develops in ski resorts. Research! Knowing what the fridge you're talking about! It's a beautiful thing.

So if you want a great romance novel set in a glamorous ski town, I'd recommend Just Perfect whole-heartedly. This book? Mehhhh not very.



Musical notes: "Not While I'm Around" from Todd Sweeney

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Book Review: CONTROL by Manna Francis

In the fourth Administration series novel, Toreth and Warrick both face issues of control--or lack thereof--in their lives. For the most part these short stories address PTB's (for those of you who are not Buffy fans, that's the Powers That Be--the dominating forces of government and corporates that the average citizen in this dystopian world has very little protection against), but they also show Toreth and Warrick figuring out who is in control of their relationship, and which of the two men can better control himself.

Aside from the first story, I didn't feel like there was a lot of character development happening in this volume. At one point Toreth grumbles that he's bored, and I can't help but wonder if Francis wasn't thinking that herself while writing this. I hope that's not the case, but it definitely feels like there's not as much thought put into this book as there was in the other three. It seems like Warrick just gets more accommodating and Toreth gets more possessive, and everyone (except Annoying Dilly) is hunky-dory with that. That didn't bother me in the previous books because 1. I wanted Toreth and Warrick to stay together, and 2. I understood why Warrick put up with Toreth and vice versa. But in this book I had more and more trouble sympathizing with either of them or understanding why they're still together.

One of the more interesting revelations in this book was Toreth's attitude toward Warrick's job. It's been obvious since the first book that Warrick has major issues with Toreth working for I&I, for very good reasons as we find out; but in this novel it becomes obvious Toreth hates corporates as much as Warrick hates the Administration. Really both corporates and the Administration can get away with whatever they want, so there's not much difference between the two, other than corporates have more money.

Overall this book was okay, but I hope it's just an aberration in the series and the next novel is more interesting.



Musical notes: "Helena Beat" by Foster the People

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What Would Jane Austen Do?

Maybe I'm more of a Janeite than I realized, because whenever something in modern literature starts to annoy me, I ask myself, "What if Jane Austen were living today? How would [insert annoying trend here] affect her books?"

Take series, for example. It's getting out of control, people! Do stand-alone books even exist anymore?! Is there any reason beyond trying to make me buy more books that you've decided to stretch out this story over fourteen 500-page volumes? I think we both know there isn't.

As I was telling Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads the other night, if Pride & Prejudice was written today, it'd be a 10-book series and would go something like this:

• Book one, Darcy and Lizzie don't like each other, then fall in love.
• Book two, Georgiana's volume! She falls in love with the broody next door neighbor she's never liked. There's sex in this one because some people complained.
• Book three, Kitty's volume! She falls in love with an officer who rubs her the wrong way at the outset--until he rubs her right. heh
• Book four, Colonel Fitzwilliam! He's always been sweet on a girl he knows in London, even though she hates him.
• Book five, Mary's volume! She meets a roguish rake that she heartily disapproves of, and vice versa; but after his friends bet him that he can't convince Mary to "dance" with him, roguish rake sets out to woo her and falls in love after she gets a make-over.
• Book six, the return of Wacky Wickham! After therapy, Wickham decides to stop drinking and joins the Quakers, where he falls in love with a virginal miss who instantly dislikes him. Fortunately Lydia has fallen into the pit of convenient plot devices.
• Book seven, Caroline Bingly! Will her pride prevent her from seeing that a man below her station is in love with her? Or more to the point, will it stop her from caring?
• Book eight, we're running out of characters! Miss Anne de Bourgh! She meets someone her mother really likes but she doesn't! But then it turns out he's not that bad after all! And he's the first person she's ever had an opinion about.
• Book nine, Charlotte! Mr. Collins kicks the bucket by walking into a tree in Rosings Park and Charlotte runs away with a smuggler! Whom she doesn't like, until they have sex.
• Book ten, there has to be some character left to hook up. Oh, hey, Mrs. Philips! She decides to travel the world and marries an Italian whom she at first didn't like. Lucky they both speak the language of looove.

In case you didn't notice, these are all basically the same book! And just think, if Jane Austen had spent her time rewriting P&P in these progressively more terrible books, then she never would have written Emma, or Mansfield Park, or Persuasion. Her entire legacy would be ONE great novel and a bunch of sad-going-on-pathetic imitations. Yes, the one great novel is enough, but how many series today have one great book in them?

Out of curiosity, are there any other characters we want to hook up from P&P?

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Book Review: DEMONGLASS by Rachel Hawkins

After a challenging first year at Hex Hall, Sophie Mercer is going to England to spend the summer with her father and have her powers permanently Removed. But seeing as she's staying with the rest of the Council in the same house where her grandmother was turned into a demon, chances are good that Sophie will stumble upon some dangerous secrets.

I read Hex Hall, the first book in this series, when it came out, and here's what I remembered from it: Hex Hall is a high school. For... witches? Otherwise, my recall was embarrassingly blank. I remembered liking Hex Hall but thinking it was fairly predictable. Nevertheless, I heard a lot of good stuff about Demonglass, so I decided to keep on going with the series, and I'm definitely glad I did. Demonglass develops the story in new directions and is a big improvement from the first novel.

One of the things I really liked about this book was the "love triangle" between Sophie, Cam, and Archer (don't pretend you didn't know there wouldn't be a love triangle). Sophie knows both Cam and Archer from Hex Hall, but for various reasons, Archer is extremely unsuitable as boyfriend material--so, naturally, he's the one she's attracted to. Cam is Hex Hall's adorable groundskeeper who likes taking his shirt off (*rowl*), and the guy Sophie's best friend is rooting for. Sophie should really spend more time listening to her bestie. I love Cam so hard... but Archer is pretty awesome, too. Gah! Such a difficult decision!

As for what I didn't like, Sophie's relationship with her dad didn't make a lot of sense to me. She says herself that the only contact she's ever had with him during the entire course of her life are birthday cards obviously picked out by his secretary and tersely signed, "Your Father." WOW. Given that, I would think there'd be way more tension in that relationship than there was, especially with his super-sketchy behavior and the fact that he never explains why he's ignored her existence for the last seventeen years. It also bothered me when Sophie would think something along the lines of, "Oh, I'm seventeen now, so I have to respond to this like an adult." How realistic. Yes, by all means, consciously decide to deal with something as an adult, despite the fact that by our cultural and legal standards you are not.

Aside from that, this was a very quick, fun book, on the edge of being unputdownable (unfortunately I had to put it down because I have job. Stupid job). Outside the walls of Hex Hall, the books' world of magic feels much broader and more developed, and Hawkins really ups the ante for the main characters in this volume. The last fifty pages are incredibly intense, and the ending was a cliffhanger that left me wanting the third book in the series like NOW. I also love Sophie's humor and snark, which keeps the book feeling light even with all the serious events happening around her. I definitely recommend trying this series or the second book if you haven't already!



Musical notes: "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga, mainly because Sophie mentions she was "born this way" (i.e., with demon powers) several times during the course of the novel.

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Book Review: SIN IN SOFT FOCUS--PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD by Mark A. Vieira

Aside from being vaguely aware that there was some sort of up-tight rule book preventing nudity, sex, and cursing in olde timey movies, I didn't know much about the Hays Code or anything about "Pre-Code" Hollywood until I picked up this book. To say a movie is pre-Code is something of a misnomer: there had been guidelines governing so-called decency in film since the 1920s, and the Hays Code (nick-named after William Hays, but officially known as the Motion Picture Production Code) was instituted in 1930. However, Hollywood completely disregarded the Code and did mostly whatever they wanted up until 1935-ish, putting the onus of censorship on pre-production hand-wringing by the studios and SRC (a studio-sponsored censorship board), as well as locally--meaning a lot of films were cut down by state and municipal censorship committees before being shown. In many cases, these cut versions are the ones people are familiar with, not the director's original vision. If you're watching a movie from the 1930s and it feels like there are scenes missing, that's because there probably are.

Using contemporary reviews, scripts, production photographs, and--when available--the complete uncut film itself, Vieira reconstructs for us these pre-Code films and how they were made. I adore the idea of this project and Vieira executes it beautifully: the book is filled with fabulous stills from pre-Code movies; and while Vieira's writing style is probably more academic than most people are used to, I wouldn't say it's dry. It's filled with juicy gossip and portrayals of all the major early Hollywood players. Vieira also isn't afraid to give his personal opinion of a film and whether it worked or not, which is great because I've never even heard of most of the movies in here, and have seen less than a handful.


Dorothy Mackaill as a secrety-turned-prostitute in Safe In Hell, 1931.

One of the more interesting threads in the book is the history of censorship in Hollywood. Whatever happened to free speech, you're no doubt thinking. In fact, free speech didn't apply to movies because they were considered a commercial product, like chewing gum or cigarettes, not an artistic statement (of course, nowadays corporations are considered "people," so that argument wouldn't hold water). This adds a whole new layer of understanding to the films of auteurial directors like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, who wanted to prove that film can be an art form. Censorship began before a film was even shot (the suggested subversion of Norma Shearer, known for her good-girl roles, starring in Divorcee gave the SRC fits), and was applied regardless of taste. To the censors, it didn't matter if a movie was good or not, as long as it didn't portray something someone disagreed with or was afraid of. Fortunately, there were people in Hollywood who did care about making good movies, and supported those who wanted to make them.


The "grapefruit scene" in Public Enemy depicted domestic violence.

So what were the censors cutting? Girls in skimpy clothes, people saying "Dammit to hell!" and whatnot? There was some of that, yes, but also orgies, homosexuality, prostitution, drug use, abortions, transgender issues, sexually transmitted diseases, bestiality, violence--you name it. The U.S. in the midst of the Great Depression wanted to see gritty "reality," not be fed platitudes. And the reality of pre-Code movies heroized sexually aggressive and confident women, violent gangsters, and general rule-breaking.

If you're interested in Hollywood history, this book is a delicious and interesting read. It's worth getting for the film stills alone, I think, but contains tons of information about a fascinating period of time filled with awesome creative talents who were constantly pushing the envelope. After reading this book, I'm amazed any picture ever got made; but they did and they continue to, and I think it's safe to say the world is a better place with pre-Code films than without them.

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