manga: Seimaden Vol 6

Poisonous flowers! Cured amnesia! Flowers that represent “the barometer of one’s life”! Roddrick joined the ranks of the sexually confused! Laures becomes kinkier!

( Spoilers involve misguided expressions of love. Very misguided. )

Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas

With the main story set in 1893, Gigi Rowland and Camden Saybrook have been married for ten years. Society regards their marriage as courteous because they neither fight nor act too fond of each other. They’ve also been living on separate continents since the day after their wedding, for reasons known only to them.

Gigi, however, is through with that, and wants a divorce from Camden so that she can marry Freddie, a sweet but somewhat dense artist. He reminds me of a puppy, which I suspect is why Gigi liked him in the first place. Camden returns to England and agrees, on the condition that she agree to stay married for a year, during which time, they will try to produce and heir.

So, uhm, I hate this plot. Some of the most horrendous “alpha male who needs a restraining order” romance novels I’ve read over the years have had this plot, and in every one, it’s seemed to involve some poor woman forgiving the bastard for his horrible behavior due to good sex and angsty past (usually, he’s also been whoring his way through the world while she’s either been chastely wasting away at home, or dying of guilt due to one indiscretion), or getting blamed because of someone else’s manipulations. Thomas was recced to me by very reliable sources, and I thought it had to be the wrong author when I found the book at the bookstore. I was assured that it wasn’t what it seemed to be, and was actually pretty good, so I timidly went back and got it.

Thankfully, the reliable sources were right. The incident that drove them apart was actually Gigi’s fault, something that actually took me a while to get used to, as it defied every genre precedent I’ve encountered. And it wasn’t some Big Misunderstanding, but a terrible mistake that escalated, and the way things play out paints Camden in just as bad a light, and the outcome is as much his fault as Gigi’s. In fact, Thomas seems to be very aware of the inherent problems of this type of story, and strives to keep Gigi and Camden as close to equals as she possibly can at all stages, including their lives in the ten years they were separated.

( cut for length )

(no subject)

One of the nice things about preordering manga from Rightstuf is that I tend to get Viz manga a week or two before the actual release dates. *taunts people with new volumes of Skip-Beat, Mixed Vegetables, High School Debut and Wild Ones...and a few others*

Ayway, the reading backlog has been updated. i'm fairly certain that it's slightly smaller that it was when I first put it up.

Also, books that I've acquired over the last few weeks, mostly at the used bookstore, if anyone wants to see that without having to tackle the whole backlog to look for anything new, and/or wants to offer opinions.

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Gossip Girl 1.1

Yes, I, too, have fallen victim to seeing whether or not Chuck Bass's clothing is worse than anything kdramas can come up with.  So far, kdramas are still winning.

So, uhm, this is about as far from anything I normally watch as it gets.  But Certain People Who Shall Remain Nameless (calixa and oxymoronassoc) spent about 6 months talking to me about it nonstop.

But you know, I actually find spoiled and backstabbing rich kids more entertaining than the angsty "my parents are evil and expect so much" rich kids/a-bit-older-than-kids that are so popular in manga and doramas.

Main thoughts:

1.  Wait, Kelly Rutherford is old enough to be playing the mother of a teenager now?  Did she have Serena at 13?  (Yeah, I have no idea how old KR is, but I still think of her in her 90s roles.)

2.  Were Serena and Blair male, 15 shipper communities dedicated to their foeyay would have been created within two hours of the pilot airing.

( rest involves spoilers and virtually no context )

Even though I kinda am spoiled, no spoilers!

P.S.:  Hey, I already had a Gossip Girl tag!  (I have no idea what for.  Maybe a picspam of Chuck's clothes?)