Christmas Book Review- The Nightmare Before Christmas

Title: TheNightmare Before Christmas

 Author: Tim Burton, Jun Asuga

Published: August2005 by Disney  

Length: 176 pages

Warnings: Clean.8+

Source: ForbiddenPlanet

Other info: Basedof film. There’s a tonne of other stuff around too.

Summary : JackSkellington's got the blues. He's sick and tired of his hometown holiday,Halloween, and is longing for something new. But when his soul searching leadsto his good-intentioned kidnapping of Santa, things start getting pretty hairy!

 Review: A longtime ago, longer now than it seems, in a place that perhaps you've seen in yourdreams, the King of Halloween Town is bored, gets lost in his own forest, andfinds an even stranger town than his own. Before he knows it, Jack's got histown working hard to give Sandy Claws the day off this year. Only rag-dollSally is objecting, and no-one listens. Plans are made-make gifts, build therain gear(reindeer) and whatever happens, keep the Oogie Boogie Man out of it!

This is a manga adaptation of one of my favourite films.Halloween and Christmas together = awesome. There's not much space for you togo wrong here.

Give you a review of the story? Well, why not. It's reallycute, combines two great holidays and has a nice clear message that you shouldfollow your heart and that evil does not win.

The character designs are the same, and we still get closeto Jack and Sally and Zero the dog. Yes, one of my favourite characters is thedog. I wish we'd gotten to see a bit more of Oogie Boogie and the Trick orTreaters though.

The art lacks a little something. I say this because when Ithink of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I think of the slightly whimsical artfrom Burton. The art in this, provided by Jun Asuga/Kodansha seemed a littlebit too clean, but was a very good imitation of Burton's style, with the styleof the eyes and  the scenery and so on.

As with almost any adaptation, you're going to lose a fewthings in the crossover. The songs have all been dramatically condensed, ashave the less important parts to the story. The good thing is that it retainsthe signature lines, such as the opening, the cry of "snakes eyes"and other familiar things, all while, more importantly, still making sense.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a must-read for fans of theseries.

Links: | Goodreads| 

P.S. That's my last post before Christmas. Then you'll have next week full of my look at 2011. Happy Christmas everyone!!

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End of Year List #4- Favourite Books Read in 2011 published before

I read a lot of great books in 2011. Many of which weren’tbrand new, but still. In no particular order, here are the best books that Iread this year that weren’t fresh off the press.  Links go to the review on Death Books andTea.  

• ChainMail Addicted to You by Hiroshi Ishizaki
• Nekropolisby Tim Waggoner
• Unwindby Neal Shusterman
• Christineby Stephen King
• TheDeclaration  by Gemma Malley
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (did not review)
• TheBell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• BoysDon’t Cry by Malorie Blackman
• Revolutionby Jennifer Donnelly
• HetaliaAxis Powers #2 by Hidekaz Himaruya

What did you think of all these books? Did you read themwhen they were out, or only recently, or not at all? Do you agree with me onthese?

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End of Year List #3 -Waiting on Wednesday #31 EXTENDED

WoW Exteneded – 10 books I’m looking Forwards To in 2012

I know I regularly participate in this...and normally Ifeature one book. But this time, as it’s my week of lists, and it’s the lastone in 2011, I’m featuring ten. Links will go to either where I featured themin individual WoWs or to goodreads if I didn’t.Therefore, no reasons! 

• Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
• Unwholly by Neal Shusterman
• Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel
• Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
• Team Human by Justine Larbalestier
• Undeadly by Michele Vail
• Partials by Dan Wells
• Libriomancer by Jim C Hines
• Croak by Gina Damico
• A White So Red by Krystle Jones

 Any here on your list for 2012? Any that I've not heard of? Any that you've only just heard of? Comments are appreciated.

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End of year list #2- I should have read this, but I didn't.

And carrying on our lists of things, now for “The bookspublished in 2011 that I got excited about along with everyone else, but didn’tread for some reason or another.” Hopefully in 2012 I’ll get round to readingthem... any suggestions as to what I should mark as priority-obtain? No linksin this one because I’m lazy. Sorry.

• The Girl in the Steel Corset byKady Cross
• 0.4/Human.4 by Mike A Lancaster
• The Pearl Savage by Tamara RoseBlodgett
• Shut Out by Kody Keplinger
• Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts
• Enclave by Anne Aguirre
• Every Other Day by Jennifer LynnBarnes
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Dark Angel by Eden Maguire
• The Pearl Wars by Nick James
• Angel Burn by L A Weatherly
• The Pledge by Kimberly Derting
• Across the Universe by Beth Ravis
• Wither by Lauren DeStefano
• Clockwork Prince by CassandraClare
• Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
• The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore
• The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer byMichelle Hodkin
• The Restorer by Amanda Stevens
• Anna Dressed in Blood by KendareBlake

Any of these that I should prioritise getting? Any of these you want to read some day too? Share your thoughts please!

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End of Year List #1- New things I've discovered in 2011

So, this week is going to be full of lists to do with 2011 and 2012 and possibly other things...

So to kick it off, here’s a list of five  awesome new things that I’ve discovered in 2011.
1. Dystopia. I was reading dystopia a little before, such as The Hunger Games, but only in 2011 was I aware that it was an actual genre, that more people were writing it, and that it was awesome!  It also helps that there’s been a tonne of new stuff out this year, such as Divergent, Delirium and so on.
2. Indie authors.  I knew they existed, but never cared about them, due to the fact that I never spent my life on the computer reading/doing booky related things, so I never looked beyone the books that were in my library, to see if there was a sequel, and to then force the library to buy those books. Now I know about these, I now read a lot more stuff. And cost the library a lot more. Dear Bethany (woman who I think is the person who deals with item requests), thank you!
3. The joy of book trailers. I still don’t understand why a book (paper based) would have a video (multiple picture based) promotional tool, but i do watch them sometimes and think how the director has seen it differently, something quite interesting.
4. Goodreads. Actually, I discovered Goodreads ages ago, when I was playing around with my hotmail account and found there was something called goodreads. And so I signed up, spammed my friends who also had hotmail with the information that I wanted to read all these books, then didn’t understand why you’d put as you were reading it that you were reading it, and forgot about it. Then, when I started blogging, I realised this would be something useful, so I signed up again, and used it properly. And I don’t know how long I’ve spent my life on that site...
5. How amazing you guys (the blogging/publishing community) are! You’re all so nice and welcoming and willing to talk and be friends and so on. when I started, I wasn’t really sure as to how we’d be perceived- two teenagers that read weird stuff and feel the need to have a grim reaper at the top of our blog. But you guys are all so nice, and it’s been a great year!

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Follow Friday (1)

I'm back in the hop! Kind of... Joined Alison and Parajunkee because the other one died...For consistancy, I'm tagging this with Book Hop though. Hope you don't mind. In case you don't know me, I'm Nina and I blog here with Katy. We read young adult of most types, with heavy emphasis on the slightly more fantastical. Steampunk, fantasy, dystopia, paranormal romance, horror, manga, we'll read most things if they look interesting enough to us.
Please stay around with us-next week looks to be good, as does the year ahead!

And on with the question...

Q:  If you had to spend eternity inside the pages of a book which book would you choose and why?


I think I answered this once before... I still say in the world of Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji. Demons mixed into your semi-traditional Victorian time? My thing exactly. If not, then the world of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan-Steampunky goodness and a tonne of adventure! (I know I kind of cheated here but it is hard to decide between these too). Somehow I sense a theme running through here...

What do you say?

Random fact- If I could get to 300 GFC followers before 2012, that would be awesome.
Random fact II - If you want, subscribe in a reader too! (Cos GFC is dying)

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Book Review- Chibi Vampire Airmail by Yuna Kagesaki

Title: Chibi Vampire Airmail

 Author: Yuna Kagesaki

Series:  Chibi Vampire side

Published:  2010 by Tokyopop

Length: 180 pages plus lots of bonus material

Warnings: (tokyopop’s view)Older Teen. (My view) Vampires, occult, cannibalism

Source: Tokyopop’s “Get rid of everything” stall at Expo

Other info: Chibi Vampire/Karin is a semi-popular manga/anime that you may have heard of. I reviewed some other related things earlier.

Summary : A collection of touching manga stories that follows the con;tinuing adventure of our favourite vampire, in these sweet tales and scary legends, discover what happned to Karin and her friends all while getting aglimpse of some mysterious vampires from the Marker family that were never befor9e seen in the main series. Also included are special bonus manga strips detailing Yuna Kagesaki’s trip to Seattle’s Sakura-con.

Review: I really enjoy this series, and before I’d heard of this Airmail book, without really understanding what it was/what the point was/what would be in it/many other things that you tend to find out before reading it. So when I saw it on sale, I just thought “get that! Why not?”. And so I did.

The first two stories I weren’t expecting at all, because I’d thought it would be entirely featuring Karin and her motley crew. It wasn’t a bad thing, and who knows? These characters might have featured at some point in the manga. I read volumes 1-4, and then 11. So I didn’t get the best idea. Anyway, story one features Marimo and Takuma, the second of which unexplicably regresses to baby-personality (explained by end) and their friendship. The next story features a fortune  teller who is asked to look for a missing girl by her boyfriend, and her shocking discovery by the end of it. Both of these stories are interesting, sweet with characters I feel somewhat attached to by the end of their 40 page stint of fame.

The second two feature the Markers, one being the tale of Friedrich Marker and his friendship with an otherwise solitary nun built on shared love of manga, and the other chronicling Maki and Kikuchi’s romance, and a little of Kenta and Karin too. Both were incredibly cute and gave a good sight to the world of Chibi Vampire. The family tree that was included was very helpful, and also reveals that Karin and Kenta had a child, something I wasn’t really expecting.

All the plots included were woven well, which is saying something considereing they each take less than fifty pages. Especially with Friedrich and Ren, the family resemblance was distinct, which I think says a little more about the art, and with Friedrich and Rosary and the fact their relationship goes back further than she knows, it adds a little something.  

Overall:  Strength  3 tea to a lovely collection of sidestories.

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