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Familiar Diversions

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Reading Challenge 2024

1523 BOOKS

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How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 1
Dojyomaru, Fuyuyuki, Sean McCann
Progress: 103/374 pages
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeff Lindsay
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Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story
Mary Downing Hahn
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Parental Guidance
Avery Flynn
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Julia Quinn
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The Twisted Ones
T. Kingfisher
Progress: 385/385 pages
Educated
Tara Westover
Progress: 315/730 minutes
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 2
Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka
Progress: 24/171 pages
Graphic Medicine Manifesto
MK Czerwiec, Kimberly R. Myers, Scott T. Smith, Michael J. Green, Susan Merrill Squier, Ian Williams
Progress: 26/172 pages
Ao Oni: Mutation
Kenji Kuroda, Karin Suzuragi, Alexander Keller-Nelson
Progress: 30/152 pages

Recently added

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 1 - Dojyomaru, Fuyuyuki, Sean McCann
Heart Change - Robin D. Owens
The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 1 - Carlo Collodi, Emily Balistrieri, Kevin Steinbach

Arisa (manga, vol. 3) by Natsumi Ando, translated by Andria Cheng

7:05 pm 9 December 2017
Arisa, Vol. 03 - Natsumi Ando, Andria Cheng

Tsubasa thinks that Mariko is the King, but it turns out that Mariko was just being used by them. She was jealous of Arisa's relationship with her boyfriend, Midori, because she was always so easily forgotten by friends and classmates in the past. Mariko gets made "invisible" by the current King and ends up transferring - "Arisa" (aka Tsubasa) tells her they can still be friends. Midori looks like another likely King candidate, but Tsubasa thinks he's genuinely nice. Then Rei Kudo transfers into the class. He seems potentially suicidal, and certainly physically fragile. The end of the volume indicates that he's likely the King.

(show spoiler)


This quote from Mariko to Tsubasa made me headdesk: "I forgot that you can get the things you want without asking the King." So this is apparently the excuse that Arisa's classmates are using for overlooking the damage the King is doing. "If I don't get the King to grant my wishes, then my wishes will never come true."

Although the indications that Mariko was the King turned out to be a fakeout on the author's part, her behavior was so over-the-top that I'd still say she probably needs therapy.

(show spoiler)

Anyway, I was happy that Tsubasa and Akira added Midori to their list of King suspects so quickly, but I was not happy with the way Ando added Rei Kudo to the top readers' list of suspects practically the instant he appeared. This series had better not be 100% fakeouts, but if Rei Kudo isn't a fakeout then Ando has pretty much mined all of the series' suspense already. There's no buildup, no tension, just boom, new developments.

I'm also wondering what happened to Takeru, Tusbasa's friend. And it bugs me that Tsubasa is already falling for Midori, her twin sister's suspiciously perfect boyfriend (who has somehow still not figured out that he isn't talking to the real Arisa).

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

mystery thriller Manga Natsumi Ando arisa andria cheng
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