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LG

Familiar Diversions

I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.

Currently reading

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Vol. 1
Dojyomaru, Fuyuyuki, Sean McCann
Progress: 103/374 pages
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeff Lindsay
Progress: 424/470 minutes
Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story
Mary Downing Hahn
Progress: 184/184 pages
Parental Guidance
Avery Flynn
Progress: 40 %
An Offer From a Gentleman
Julia Quinn
Progress: 102/358 pages
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

Sea of Wind finished! First book of 2018

The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind - Fuyumi Ono, 小野 不由美, Akihiro Yamada, 山田 章博, Elye J. Alexander, Alexander O. Smith

I'm not going to write a full review for this, since I've already done that a couple times and don't have much new to say. Instead, here's this quick thing:

 

Just finished my most recent reread of this book. It's both one of my top favorite books in this series and one of my favorite books period. I consider it a comfort read, even though the "comfort" is a little muffled by the knowledge that the book's happy ending turns sour really quickly in the series' timeline. During this reread, I realized that I really connect with Taiki's feelings of self-doubt. I also found myself more angry at Gyoso than I was during past readings of this book.

Not long after admitting to the oracles that he was worried about Taiki's future since Taiki was so riddled with self-doubt and couldn't consciously access his tremendous power, he decided he'd give up his sagehood, leave Tai, and become a mercenary. He was too ashamed of the fact that he hadn't been declared the new king to stick around, even though he'd have been a great help to Taiki and his future king.

(show spoiler)

  Taiki had some serious weaknesses, but I'd argue that Gyoso did too, even though they weren't as obvious.

 

What my reading dates look like for this book so far:

 

 

Lol. I haven't checked, but I suspect that 2015 might have been the year I reread my hardcover copy rather than this one, my paperback copy, so it's pretty much been a reread a year for a while. (As usual with these Tokyopop editions, I highly recommend reading the paperback versions if you can, because there are fewer errors. If I remember right, this is the book where they accidentally used the wrong pronouns for one of the kirin.)