World War II stories are hard to write well, as this one shows all too clearly

I don’t often get stuck in the middle of a book that I just can’t stand. I can usually shift them out a mile away, and then avoid them like the plague. But when a plurality of the people I know started reading Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, I ignored all those signs that it wouldn’t be worth reading and I gave it a try.


I should have listened to my gut.


Sarah’s Key is the intertwining stories of a modern American women whose marriage to a French man and the skeleton’s in their closets, and the story of a Jewish girl and her family who lived in the same house during WWII.


What follows could have been a compelling story if I didn’t find the current day characters to be so repelantantly stereotypical. You have the American women who is self centered and knows nothing of history out-side of the US. You have her French husband and family, who are condescending and nationalistic, and have no problem pretending that the less pretty in their past never happened. And of course she has a young daughter who is wise beyond her years that she looks to for support during her trying times.


I will admit that the chapters from the past are quite well written. But that’s the point: she can write as a young girl who has seen too much and and grown up too fast, but she can’t use that same voice with the modern day, spoiled daughter of our main charcter. It just sounds wrong coming from her.


So beyond atrocious pacing, unpleasant stereotypeing, and unsympathetic charactors, what do you have? You have a WWII holocaust story with an interesting setting that I haven’t seen before, but it’s absolutely not worth reading the rest to get to it.


Highs: The past story is engaging and heartbreaking that might have made a decent story on its own


Lows: The entire storyline that takes place during the present, along with the poor quality of writing and unlikable main character


Verdict: Pass


Further Reading: Maus, Diary of Anne Frank, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

Manga Monday: Meet the Red Ribbon Army

Last time, in Dragon Ball VizBig 1

We've met Goku, our pint-sized, monkey-tailed adventurer, and now he's entered the “Strongest Man in the World” competition. He's been training with his new pal Krillin under the tutelage of the hermit Muten Roshi. And who's this Jackie Chun guy anyways? He looks kinda familiar...

The great thing about Dragon Ball, as well as anything else written by Akira Toriyama, is that you know what you're getting when you pick up his books. This is shonen at its best. Strong little boy fights bad guys and monsters, and occasionally saves the world in the process.

That's not to say that this book is by any means generic. This is the book series that helped to form the genre. The characters are well thought out, each with their own backstory. Even the characters that are destined to only be around for a short while have their own motivations. Even one of the tournament participants is there for the prize money to bring water back to their village dying of drought. And the Red Ribbon Army is hilarious to watch, with layer upon layer of assassins and other baddies working for them, as well as conflict on the highest levels. This is what happens when a group of chaotic neutral and chaotic evil people try to work together.

But still, at its heart, this is still a book about a boy and his cloud, adventuring through the world, defeating bad guys and saving the day. Even when it looks like all is lost and one of the good guys goes down, there's always a way to make it right, if everyone works together.

Highs: The final round of the Budokai Tenkaichi tournament

Lows: In traditional shonen fashion, quite a few pages of fighting, which can just be skimmed through to get back to the story

Verdict: It's exactly what you expect, with the addition of a lot of heart

Further Reading: Dragon Ball VizBig Volume 3, One Piece

Manga Monday: A martial arts dojo where literally ANYTHING goes

It must be hard to be a dojo leader and only have had daughters.  Eventually, he’ll need to find an appropriate boy to take over the leadership of the dojo, and then he has the unenviable job of convincing one of his daughters to marry him.

Of course, it doesn’t help when the boy and his father show up as a girl and her panda.

And when the youngest girl Akane goes to bathe with her, and finds that she’s turned into a he?  Still not helping.

Welcome to the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū Tendo Dojo (Anything Goes Martial Arts Tendo Dojo of Indiscriminant Grappling) and Ranma 1/2 Volume 1.  Soun Tendo may not have been blessed with any boys, but he does have three beautiful daughters. He even believes that he has found the perfect husband for one of them, when he hears of Ranma Satome. He and his father have been training in China for the last while, though. And while they were there, they fell into cursed springs, and now whenever they are splashed with cold water, they take on the form of the being that drowned there.

So Ranma mainly wants to not become a girl anymore, but there is not much that he can do in town about that, so he might as well start up at the local high school with Akane.

Akane herself is the most eligible bachelorette in school.  Every morning, she has to fight her way through the throngs of guys trying to ask her out.  Of course, now that guys see her with Ranma, they aren’t too fond of him either.

We also get to meet Ryoga Hibiki for the first time.  Accidently slighted by Ranma several times in their last high school, he is now questing to defeat Ranma in battle.  Unfortunately, his sense of direction is so bad that he gets lost for days just getting across town to where they are supposed to fight.

As always, with the first volume in a series, quite a bit of this book is introduction to the characters and other back story elements.  Because contrary to the premise, the story mainly takes place in common times with little magical elements, most of the world works as one would expect it to.

Besides the pesky body-switching problem the Satome men have, this is the epitome of the the common day dojo and high school manga.  If written today it might not be given so much credit since it’s such a common genre now.  But the reason it’s as common is because authors like Rumiko Takahashi created stories such as these.  An iconic manga, this helped form several genres while providing a hilarious story and memorable characters.

Highs: Dr. Tofu Ono and his unfortunate nearsightedness

Lows: The boys battling for Akane is a little unnecessary

Verdict: A classic manga that sets up the series well

Further Reading:  Dragon Ball VizBig 1, Rurouni Kenshin

An outspoken, brazen girl grows up during the Islamic Revolution

Many memoir writers are not terribly good at really being honest with the reader. While writing a memoir should be a reflective exercise, oftentimes the writer simply justifies past actions, rather than admitting when those actions were wrong.

Marjane Satrapi is brutally honest about herself, and this is what helps make The Complete Persepolis an interesting, and important, read.

Marjane was born into a very interesting time and place. Raised in Iran during the Iran/Iraq war, even as a young girl she has had strong opinions and convictions that didn't always match up with the popular opinion. In the first story, when she is now required to wear a veil in the newly conservative school, she needs to come to a decision on her own about what is right and wrong with her relationship to God. While throughout her life how her relationship with God changes and grows, the relationship is always there.

Being an outspoken opinionated female in any Muslim country is a perilous prospect. When the country the girl is in is undergoing a fundamentalist revolution, the situation becomes more dire. In fact, as Marjane becomes older and even more rebellious, her parents arrange for her to live in France. While there, she rebels even more strenuously, even going so far as to move to Amsterdam for a short time.

One of the most painful scenes in the book shows when Marjane points out a random, innocent man on the street to divert the attention of the police off of herself. She absolutely deserves the shaming she receives from her mother when she returned home. In the way of most young adults, she really didn’t think of the consequences her actions might have on that man and his family. It would have been very easy for Satrapi to leave this event out, but putting the story in helps to show the growth and maturity Marjane gains later in the story.

It would be very easy for Marjane to justify her rebellion and bad choices on anything from the Islamic Revolution to bad parenting. However, Marjane takes full responsibility for her decisions. This changes the book from the story of a spoiled, bratty child and young adult, to the story of a woman who looks back at her life with a more experience eye, and has learned from both the good and bad choices she has made.

Persepolis also has a special place in literature as one of the first biographical graphic novel to get both critical and popular acclaim in the US. While the WW II stories Maus and Maus II came out well before Persepolis, the story of Persepolis got more mainstream media attention upon release due to its subject matter, as well as a considerable publisher push and movie tie-in. For many pop lit and book club reader Persepolis was probably the first “comic book” they have read in decades. If the surge in graphic novel memoirs as well as nonfiction graphic novels in general is any indication, Persepolis must have made a good impression.

Highs: Little Marjane's conversations with God

Lows: Watching Marjane rebel against what she still knew was wrong in France and Amsterdam

Verdict: A painfully honest look at the life of an upper-class women during the Islamic Revolution

Futher Reading: The Complete Maus, Pyongyang

Manga Monday: Why is it that no one seems to get a reward that they actually want when they do something good?

In the anime movie Whisper of the Heart, there is a scene where we meet a grey cat statue wearing a tuxedo. Later on, the main character Shizuku writes a story featuring this cat, named Baron von Gikkingen. Baron The Cat Returns, by Aoi Hiiragi is that story.

On the way home from school one day, Haru uses her friend's lacrosse stick to save the life of a cat about to be run over by a delivery truck. When she runs up to the kitty to make sure that he's all right, he not only bows in thanks but also promises to show his gratitude at a later date, as he is pressed for time.

Unfortunately, the crown prince of the Kingdom of Cats and his father the King have a very distinctive, very cat-like way of showing their appreciation. After a very strange day of cat-presents such as wafting catnip and cases of canned mice, Haru is kidnapped to the Kingdom of Cats, where she is slowly transformed into a cat herself, and finds her betrothed to Prince Lune.

Thankfully, before she is taken, she manages to make a few friends that could help her. A voice leads her to Baron Humbert von Gikkigen, as well as Muta, a rather fat, piggy-looking white cat. The Baron lives in the world of objects with souls. If an object is created or owned by someone who pours the hopes and dreams into it, it eventually develops a soul of its own, and that aspect lives slightly out of sync with the rest of the world, in the world of objects with souls.

She has a few allies already in the Kingdom of Cats as well. Not surprisingly, Prince Lune has his own preference as to who he wishes to marry. And this female kitty has a connection back to Haru as well.

This is very much a children's fairy tale in the same vein as Alice in Wonderland or Kiki's Delivery Service. Besides the standard morals of doing what's right, there really isn't anything to learn or a deeper meaning to the story. It targets the same audience as Whisper of the Heart, but with a much lighter tone. Still, as long as that's what the reader wants out of the book, it's a very nice read.

Highs: Haru meeting Lune's girlfriend

Lows: The edition that I have, instead of translating sound effects in panel has a list of them in the back of the book. In a book where many panels only have sound effects instead of dialog, this becomes very frustrating

Verdict: Worth reading when in the mood for a light, fluffy fairy tale

Further Reading: Castle in the Sky, Alice in Wonderland

When a beauty named Rose meets a half-man, half-beast in early 1900s San Francisco...

Books based on fairy tales tend to be a very relaxing type of story.  We already know the basic structure that it will have. The settings or side characters may change, but Snow White will encounter a poison apple, and Sleeping Beauty needs to beware spindles. By placing Beauty and the Beast in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, and making magic both esoteric and a subject that can be studied empirically, Mercedes Lackey has created The Fire Rose, the first book in the Elemental Masters series.

Rose has a problem. Her doting father a professor in Chicago has died suddenly. But not, of course, before losing all their saved money in a series of bad investments and mismanaged banks. So now the debtors have landed, she can no longer pursue her doctoral degree, and there is not many avenues left for an over-educated woman.

Out of nowhere, a notice of possible employment appears at the office of her mentor at the university. A rather rich man named Jason Cameron has sent word that he needs a governess and tutor for his two young children. Even though it would be a drastic fall in status, with no where else to go, she took the train tickets and headed west.

Upon arrival, she learns the true nature of her employment. Jason Cameron tells her that he has had a disfiguring accident and can no longer study his books by himself. He tells Rose that he needs her to read to him through a speaking tube between their rooms. While unconventional, Rose has no other options, and so accepts the new job description.

This story, like all good fairy tales, has all the characters types one would expect in a fairy tale. We have the flawed hero with the sidekick-turned-equal girl. We have a turncoat former aide to our hero, as well as an unquestionably evil nemesis. There is never really any question as to who should come out on top, and while the manner in which things wrap up might not be how the reader expects, it’s still a very satisfying conclusion to our story.

As the first book in the Elemental Masters series, it also has to set the world and possibilities for all the books to come. While this is the only book to be set outside of Britain, it does a fantastic job of explaining how magic works, what generally is and is not possible, and even opens up the possibility of Eastern magic vs Western magic with Master Pao, the herbalist in Chinatown. It does use the fairly standard teaching a new Apprentice method of explaining what’s going on to the reader, but Rose is quite intelligent and only needs to be told something once, so it doesn’t get annoying as with other books.

This quality of writing is what makes Mercedes Lackey such a well-respected name in fantasy. Throughout, I was kept up later than I should have, wanting to know what happened next, and that’s how good fantasy should be.

Highs:  It’s always fun to hear a Master Magician’s familiar talk back to them

Lows:  Rose’s despair and cynicism at the beginning could be grating but it didn’t last long

Verdict: Great reading for anyone who likes a good fairy tale

Further Reading:  The Serpent’s Shadow, The Dragon Boy

Manga Monday: Can a street girl be taught the same way as the upper class?

Maids have a strange place in Japan pop culture. Maid cafés are fantastically popular in the big cities, especially Tokyo. They seem to have taken the place of tea house among the younger crowd, with hostess bars filling the gap for older businessmen. These maid girls, especially in manga and anime, are often hyper-sexualized and this genre has taken the place of the school girl fantasy manga of a decade ago. They have little or no relation to the era from which the maid costume originated.

Emma: A Victorian Romance, is not one of these manga.

Emma had a hard start to life. Kidnapped from her home as a young girl and sold to a brothel, she managed to escape on her way there, but ended up lost on her own in London. After escaping, she lived the life of a street child in Victorian London selling flowers and the like, until she met the women who will change her life forever.

Kelly Stowner is a former governess who now lives in retirement. Upon stumbling on a fairly charming little flower girl, and about to leave her last posting as a governess, she decides to take her in as her maid. She also took the time to really pay attention to her new little charge. Young Emma didn’t leave dust on the banisters and cobwebs in the corners just because she was a lazy or sloppy cleaner.  It turns out that she simply can’t see well enough to do any better. And in an act of charity nearly unheard of at the time, Mrs. Stowner takes Emma to get a pair of glasses.  

Having been a governess, and because a household of one does leave some down time for a maid, Mrs. Stowner took the time to educate Emma as well. In her care, Emma learns to read, write, and speak properly. She also learns to read a bit of French, which implies that she was taught the classics as well. Along the way, although very shy and unsure of herself, she learns proper comportment, which in as stratified and formal a culture as Victorian England, is of the utmost importance.

In this volume, one of Mrs. Stowner’s former students, William Jones, comes to visit. He has something of a…run-in …with Emma, and is immediately smitten with her.

What follows is an amazingly accurate depiction of Victorian England, and what might happen in a romance between two people of dramatically different social classes. A self-admitted Anglophile, Mori did an amazing amount of research for the series, and it shows. She took painstaking steps to make sure each line of dialog is accurate to the period as possible. The love that went into this series shows.  And with paired with pleasant characters and a truly Victorian style romance, you get perhaps the most charming romantic story to come out in recent years.

Highs: The folks that hang out at the pub are great fun

Lows: Probably too slow-paced for some

Verdict: A very lovely series for all ages

Further Reading:  Honey and Clover, Maison Ikkoku