Title: He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not (My Boyfriend is a Monster #7)
Author: Robin Mayhall
Illustrator: Kristen Cella (with others)
Publisher: Graphic Universe (Imprint of Lerner)
Copyright: 2013
Price: $9.95 paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7613-8548-6
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: Oh football. For the little town of Rojo, Texas, that is everything. When there is a game, the whole town can be found at the game. Rather, most of the town can be found at the game. New student Serena Stevens is not in the mood to watch football. She misses her old town and hates that her family moved her to a small town. Luckily for her, her best friend from her previous school still talks to her, but she’s the one that convinces Serena to go to the football game that changes Serena’s life.
At the football game, Serena meets Cam, epic smart student who occasionally shows up at school. After that, she meets Lance, the captain of the football team. As the story progresses, Serena starts to date Lance, but begins work on a project about Jekyll and Hyde with Cam. Unfortunately, Lance has a “thing” against Cam and as time goes on Lance gets violent and only wants to focus on football, leaving Serena sad and confused.
Serena's love triangle adds another strong entry in this series with the added bonus of more dialogs from Mr. James and Mr. Barry. See my further thoughts below.
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Recommended Audience: high school
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Things to be aware of: emotional abuse; mild violence;
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Further Thoughts: Finally! Another volume with the strong heroines that drew me into this series. I missed the spunk and sharp wit of the girls and something about volume 8 left a bad taste in my mouth after reading it (review forthcoming).
That’s not to say this volume didn’t make me uncomfortable. When I grabbed this book from our “holds-waiting-to-be-filed,” the person processing holds that day made a comment that she was worried this series was all about boyfriends who were horrible to their girlfriends, like emotionally or physically abused. I assured her this was not the case and then read this one at lunch.
WEEEELLLL. It does have emotional abuse it in, which is very interesting, yet it is how this volume handles it that makes this a stronger graphic novel. Serena does continue dating Lance in the story. She wants to get more from him, but he’s upset when she won’t talk about football. As his anger issues come to light, he grows even angrier at her when she doesn’t go to the games. Her parents try to support her, but they ultimately leave her to start figuring this out on her own. I do feel that if a real issue came to light, they would intervene. I did find myself wanting to yell at Serena for putting up with Lance. She should have dumped him. She was smarter than that, but she was smitten with Lance, even if it wasn’t convincing.
This is probably my only issue with this story. Serena seems smart enough to step away, and I couldn’t figure out why she was staying. She seemed to see the signs, but somehow she convinced herself to stay. I think I needed to see more of her thoughts and how she really justified it, but somehow I couldn’t really believe the back and forth between her and Lance.
Now, about Barry and James. Oh boy! They finally do more than just hang out on the sidelines. Mr. James quips about “you girls” which speaks to me in this culminating with a huge event involving the girls and the boys of previous volumes (especially when some disappearing). Barry’s office is shown more with the famous X-Files poster “I want to believe.” That somehow speaks volumes about him to me. His posters are so…mixed. He is definitely traveling around with Mr. James which he hints as much.
If you’ve missed something from the previous volumes (I know I did), its back in this one. An enjoyable read, and I forgot to mention that our girl is a little curvy in this one. Keep the monster loves coming!
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Bonus: Not so much as a bonus, but something confusing. Kirkus has this volume in their reviews, but the publication date says “May 1, 2013.” This is not exactly true as I found it in my library system, on the shelf, and Amazon (sorry, it’s the be-all/end-all on publication dates for me) says it is all ready out, so…maybe a misprint?
Source: Library copy.
Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Sense & Sensibility Marvel Adapation
Title: Sense & Sensibility
Author: Jane Austen (Adapted: Nancy Butler & Sonny Liew)
Illustrator: Sonny Liew
Publisher: Marvel
Copyright: 2010
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4829-7
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: After the death of their father, the Dashwood daughters and their mother relocate to a small college. This is mainly due to their half-brother’s manipulating wife, but that’s ok as they will live happily there and marriage prospects look good. This is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, their friendship and their romances. This is just an adaptation of the classic and collects the single issues published in fall 2010.
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Recommended Audience: Middle, high school, and adult
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Things to be aware of: None.
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Further Thoughts: Let me begin this by the fact that I was thoroughly expecting to snark my way through this book. Seriously. After the horrendous adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (click for my review), I expected to read this for the inconsistencies and the annoying, horrendous art.
Um. I was wrong. I was so crazy wrong. I’m so glad that this one is much, much better than the first which I still can’t believe actually made the New York Times Bestsellers (according to the back cover of this one).
Full disclosure: I have not read Sense & Sensibility, but have watched a few adaptations so I know the general story…sorta.
First, the art. I expected the art not to match the covers since that was obviously what happened with the first Austen adaptation. Nope. The art on the covers totally matched what was in the comic and I was thrilled. For me, half of the story is made up in the art from the nuances to the faces, the placing of characters, and how the scene is to be understood. One highlight of this work is that the characters are somewhat like caricatures, so when we slip into chibis (tiny bodies, large heads, in manga used to convey humor and cuteness) it was a natural shift and helped to add to the scene’s humor. I also never grew tired of the possibly screwed-up proportions. It just added to the story and the illustrator did a fantastic job conveying how the characters were feeling. My only complaint is how flushed everyone looked for most of the time. Occasionally I thought “who is going to be sick now?”
The text of the story is a bit wordy for a comic, but I’m not sure if there was any way to get around that. The narrated bits seemed out of place, but necessary. Having not read the text though, I cannot tell you where the liberties were taken for this story and what was original. I did feel that there were no essential parts left out this time like the major plot point missing in the Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
I’m impressed. I look forward to the next adaptation of Austen into comic style and hope that this success is only the beginning of more. Considering I’ve never read any other Austen (only got half-way through Emma), I’m hoping for an adaptation of Persuasion, as that movie adaptation only confused me. I’d also like to see how Mansfield Park could be improved upon as I tried to read that and couldn’t believe the stuff that character went to.
If you’re looking for more girl-centric stories and something that is mostly clean, this is a good selection. Well done Marvel. Not what I expected at all.
------
Source: Library copy.
Author: Jane Austen (Adapted: Nancy Butler & Sonny Liew)
Illustrator: Sonny Liew
Publisher: Marvel
Copyright: 2010
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4829-7
-----------
Summary and Quick Thoughts: After the death of their father, the Dashwood daughters and their mother relocate to a small college. This is mainly due to their half-brother’s manipulating wife, but that’s ok as they will live happily there and marriage prospects look good. This is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, their friendship and their romances. This is just an adaptation of the classic and collects the single issues published in fall 2010.
---------
Recommended Audience: Middle, high school, and adult
--------
Things to be aware of: None.
----------
Further Thoughts: Let me begin this by the fact that I was thoroughly expecting to snark my way through this book. Seriously. After the horrendous adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (click for my review), I expected to read this for the inconsistencies and the annoying, horrendous art.
Um. I was wrong. I was so crazy wrong. I’m so glad that this one is much, much better than the first which I still can’t believe actually made the New York Times Bestsellers (according to the back cover of this one).
Full disclosure: I have not read Sense & Sensibility, but have watched a few adaptations so I know the general story…sorta.
First, the art. I expected the art not to match the covers since that was obviously what happened with the first Austen adaptation. Nope. The art on the covers totally matched what was in the comic and I was thrilled. For me, half of the story is made up in the art from the nuances to the faces, the placing of characters, and how the scene is to be understood. One highlight of this work is that the characters are somewhat like caricatures, so when we slip into chibis (tiny bodies, large heads, in manga used to convey humor and cuteness) it was a natural shift and helped to add to the scene’s humor. I also never grew tired of the possibly screwed-up proportions. It just added to the story and the illustrator did a fantastic job conveying how the characters were feeling. My only complaint is how flushed everyone looked for most of the time. Occasionally I thought “who is going to be sick now?”
The text of the story is a bit wordy for a comic, but I’m not sure if there was any way to get around that. The narrated bits seemed out of place, but necessary. Having not read the text though, I cannot tell you where the liberties were taken for this story and what was original. I did feel that there were no essential parts left out this time like the major plot point missing in the Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
I’m impressed. I look forward to the next adaptation of Austen into comic style and hope that this success is only the beginning of more. Considering I’ve never read any other Austen (only got half-way through Emma), I’m hoping for an adaptation of Persuasion, as that movie adaptation only confused me. I’d also like to see how Mansfield Park could be improved upon as I tried to read that and couldn’t believe the stuff that character went to.
If you’re looking for more girl-centric stories and something that is mostly clean, this is a good selection. Well done Marvel. Not what I expected at all.
------
Source: Library copy.
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