Whisper Me A Love Song - Manga Monday

 

An adorable new yuri manga for fans of Kase-san and Yamada and Bloom Into You. One day, high school girl Himari sees a girl, Yori, sing in a band, and it awakens feelings she doesn't understand... but Yori does!

Bubbly, energetic first-year high school student Himari falls head over heels for her senpai Yori after hearing her band perform on the first day of school. Himari tells Yori she just loves her, and, to Himari's surprise, Yori says she loves Himari back! But when Himari realizes that she and her senpai are feeling two different kinds of love, she begins to ask herself what "love" really means...

Manga Breakdown

I hate to admit this but I've never read an f/f manga. I know! What took me so long! So I set out to change that by picking up this Yuri (what the Japanese call f/f manga) book and give it a go! It's cute and follows our two girls: Himari and Yori when they first meet each other and from there the story goes on. The art is stunning, a little bit childish looking to my eyes but it's pretty. 

Not too much happens in this volume because the mangaka was really setting up the characters but I feel in the next volume the story will move along nicely and we'll get to see just what is in store for these two. 

***This title was given to me in exchange for an honest review***

Video Game Nonesense - Urbz: Sims in the City

The Sims have moved to the City where there's always action and where reputation means everything. In the Urbz: Sims in the City, you can go to work at such locations as the Sushi Bar, Chop Shop, or Bootleg Fireworks, Inc. Success at work brings promotions, access to new power socials, and gear to influence your new lifestyle. It's up to you whether your Urbz become big-time players on the street or are lost in the crowd. It's all about reputation as The Urbz are living the dream in a City that never sleeps.

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This was a game I played as a little one back in the day. It was released holiday 2004 and I didn't get it till around 2007 when I saw my friend playing on her Game Boy Advance. My parents ended up getting me a DS and I played that version of the game. Which isn't much different. This was the first time I ever got to play the Sims but not the first I'd heard of them. I'd had a friend three years older who had gotten the PS Sims game but her parents had taken it away from her because the Sims characters can have sex. Nothing graphic at all. I know in Sims 3 and 4 they just hide under the blankets or go under the water. 

It didn't matter though because we both grew up in a very strict religion and it just wasn't allowed. This game was rated E (Everyone) instead of T (Teen) so my parents thought it would be okay. They were right. This game is safe for all ages and so much fun to play! 

I spent two or three months on this game and fell in love with the Sims because of it. It's a pretty easy to play game. With the Sims you have to care for their needs and that's true for this game but you've also got missions you need to complete that move the story along. Which is different form other Sims game where it's just open to whatever you want. 

In every Sims game you have to have money and here is a really cool system that I love to this day, fun little mini games! From card games, to hidden objects, shooting hoops, and doing a stand up comedy routine. It really breaks up the game and is fun to play. 

The game strongly encourages you to make friends with everyone and it some missions you have to reach a certain level of popularity before you can continue. Which I think is good, the characters here are all different and some are quite weird. I think it shows that you can be friends with anyone, you don't have to stay in your own friend group. 

Now, being a game that came out in '04, it's not the best looking game but I don't care. Even when I recently played it, I still loved it. It was sure easier to beat this time around though! That's for sure! This game will always hold a place in my heart and it got me to love the Sims! 

Music Monday - Icon for Hire

This meme is hosted at Always Me

How is everyone doing this week? I've been so busy with my new seasonal job that I've not been really doing anything but working and sleeping. To go from being a stay at home mummy to 40 hour week was a little rough on my body but I'm slowly adjusting. Thanksgiving is this week! I hope you're all going to stay safe and sound. This will be my first Thanksgiving without my father so I'm going to try extra hard to make it special for my mum and sister. Wish me luck! 

I hope you enjoy these two songs by one of my favorite bands, Icon for Hire. They've been having some new stuff come out and so far I've liked most of it. I'm not the biggest fan of seeds because I just don't like how they choose to do the word seeds and how it fits with the music, plus it reminds me a lot of BMTH with Kick Me When I'm Down. That's just me, it's still a decent song, just not one I'll replay a lot. I do love that the two of them have decided to go heavier, it's really working for me.

Hope you enjoyed these! Have a great week! Stay safe!  

3 Mini NetGalley Reviews ( Memory Lane, Insatiable Hunger, & The Haunting of Beatrix Greene)

Beatrix Greene has made a name for herself in Victorian England as a reputable spiritual medium, but she’s a fraud: even she knows ghosts aren’t real. But when she’s offered a lucrative job by James Walker—a scientist notorious for discrediting pretenders like her—Beatrix takes the risk of a lifetime. If her séance at the infamously haunted Ashbury Manor fools him, she will finally have true financial freedom. If she fails, her secret will become her public shame.

But James has his own dark secrets, and he believes only a true medium can put them to rest. When Beatrix’s séance awakens her real gift—and with it, a vengeful spirit—James finds that the answers he seeks are more dangerous than he could have imagined. Together, with a group of supernatural sleuths, Beatrix and James race to settle the ghost’s unrest before it strikes— or else they might not make it out of the haunted manor alive.

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins, along with Ash Parsons and Vicky Alvear Shecter, weaves darkness, death, and a hint of desire into this suspenseful mystery for fans of Sherlock Holmes and Crimson Peak. 

Mini Review 

Yes! It's been a while since I've read anything by Serial Box but this was AMAZING! It's creepy, romantic and wonderfully gothic! What more could I ask for?

A strained mother-daughter bond. An experiment with memory implantation. A murder.

New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars series Sara Shepard teams up with author Ellen Goodlett (author of the Rule duology) for this sci-fi thriller perfect for fans of Inception and Blake Crouch’s Recursion.

Mini Review 

DUDE!!! This was epic! It feels a lot like Assassin's Creed with a wonderful touch of family drama that kept me on the edge of my seat! This is worth the read!

His unbridled appetites

could cost him everything.

She’s just a friend…

But he craves so much more…

Ryan Hathaway isn’t about to let his friend marry the wrong guy—not when the right guy is him. But getting out of Jessie Acosta’s friend zone could destroy his plans to become Black Crescent’s CEO. He can’t afford to give in to the overwhelming temptation of wanting her. But with another man looming in Jessie’s life, Ryan can’t afford not to…

Mini Review 

A second chance romance. If you like those, you'll like this. It's well written and flows fast. Nothing to write home about but it will pass the time.

***All these titles were given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an HONEST review***

A Five Star and One Star Review

A Sensual, Powerful, And Thought Provoking Tarzan Retelling

Eden Matthews stumbled upon the discovery of a lifetime while photographing wildlife deep in the heart of Africa…

A gorgeous god of a man living in the wilds of the African jungle among a family of gorillas…

When he saves her life she’s compelled to uncover the man’s tragic past and the fate which led him to grow up in the wild.

But Eden soon learns she can take man from the wild, but she can’t take the wild out of the man…

When her savage savior soon shows her just want he wants of her…her sensual surrender, she finds she can’t resist him teaching her how to love…in the wild.

Mini Book Breakdown

So.... no. I didn't like this one. The writing was great. It flowed perfectly, I never had to stop and wonder what I'd just read. But what got me was the story itself... insta-love, magic caves, and really not much character development. This was basically a worse version of the Disney movie but with sex and weird magic stuff.

It's a no for me.

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Prepare to dip your toe into the biggest adventure of your life, Cancer. There's romance in the air, and it smells deliciously salty.

Dumped by the fifth girl in two years and abandoned by his best friends, Reid Glover is alone and in need of a home.

Desperate, he interviews to become a live-in manny aboard widowed Sullivan Bell’s yacht, the Aquarian.

The job? Not to look after thirteen-year-old Joanna. No, this child-mastermind needs Reid to befriend her dad, urge him to participate more in family life, encourage him to date, oh, and become his closest confidant and help him unleash his bottled emotions.

No pressure.

At least he’s not entirely out of his depth.

Okay, so he may have a slight aversion to the ocean. And possibly attract more than his fair share of misadventure.

But he is a pro at crying.

Watch out, Sullivan. Reid is on his way with a family-sized carton of tissues. He will help Sullivan through his fears. Will help him find love again.

Will absolutely not fall for him in the process . . .

Caution, Cancer, how long will you fool yourself?

Mini Book Breakdown

Why oh why did I take so long to read this one!?

I've never disliked an Anyta Sunday novel. Not once. So I knew I was going to love this as soon as I saw it was coming out. And surprise, surprise, I loved it!

Reid is adorkable and so sweet that even Sullivan can't seem to resist him. We get to watch this clueless young man fall for a single father who lost his husband. Don't forget the teenage daughter! She's freaking awesome! I loved this book so much I read it all in one day, just couldn't put it down! Don't sleep on this series if you love m/m romance!

Amazon's Censorship

 If you've been around my blog long enough, you'll know that I hate censorship! I believe that we have the right to express our artistic views however we wish. It should be a personal choice or a parent's choice for their child. But a company making my choices for me? Or a book reviewer who didn't like a book getting the choice of deciding if that book is now even going to be published? NOPE! 

   But we're not talking about a person today. We are talking about the company. Not just any company; Amazon. 

   Yes, I know that they are allowed to sell or not sell whatever the heck they want and we can shop somewhere else. 

   BUT

   Where does it end? And is this the start of something? Also, if big companies start censoring things, it makes them harder to find and thus the creator might not be able to continue doing what they love if not enough people know about it and support it. Lastly, why is it only certain titles that get this treatment?

  What started this was a manga series that my partner got me last year for Christmas. 

Blurb: At an all-boys’ boarding school deep in the mountains, hapless transfer student Takashi Tono joins the Photography Club, only to learn too late that the club’s main extracurricular activity is offering its sexual services to the student body! Now that Takashi’s surrounded by bedroom aces, can this virgin survive a day—much less the whole school year—as part of the school’s most lascivious club?

    This manga is rated M for Mature. It says on the front explicit content. You can tell just from reading the back of the manga that this is not for young ones. But Amazon deemed it inappropriate and now you can buy it on their website. Only the first and third volume are available, the other is not. Actually, I take that back, you can get volume 2 in German. 

    BUT

    This isn't the first time I've seen this happen! It was with another m/m manga that I was reading at the time. 

    

BLURB: Aidan has always dreamed of a different life, one that was somehow more than what he knew. Desperate times force him and his adoptive family to move to Grandfather Patrick’s house on Devil’s Ridge, a tiny, rural town, that is far more than what it seems.

    On the Ridge, Aidan finds a world filled with magic, monsters and terrifying beauty. He has discovered his “different life” but it isn’t at all what he expected, and not all of it is good.

    With most of the townspeople involved in the Clan, a dark cult, and Grandfather Patrick as the Clan’s head, Aidan knows he isn’t just imagining that the whole town is out to get him. When Aidan is lured by an ancient force literally in his own backyard, he is rescued by the mysterious and handsome Asher Vane, who his grandfather calls a “demon”. Is Asher something terrible? More importantly, is Aidan?

     This manga has to be censored because there was male nudity. Also one of the volumes was too racy for Amazon. 

  Which makes me wonder... I've read a manga where there were uncensored topless women that I bought from Amazon. Not to mention all the erotic sold on Amazon. Why is it different? I want to know why is it okay to have smut in written books but not in manga? I've read far more raunchy things in books I've bought from Amazon than what The Dark Earth showed. 

  So my question really boils down to two parts. One, why is just the m/m stuff? If there is f/f or m/f stuff I'm missing please let me know! But I've personally not seen any. The other is where do we draw the line? Sex in manga is too much but hey, sex in this book is totally fine! Even sex with more than one partner! But not this manga that shows two guys together! That's too much!

  Am I just reading too much into this? Have you come across any titles that Amazon won't sell that you want? Let me know your thoughts on this whole thing. 

   Stay safe, stay happy! Read a good book! 

 

Music Monday - She Wants Revenge

 

This meme is hosted over at Always Me

    If you've been around here long enough, you'll know how much I love goth music. The themes just speak to my little black heart. So I wanted to share two of my favorites with you today. I hope you had a great weekend and stayed safe! Without further ado, let's get to the tunes! 

    So what did you think? Let me know below! Have a great week! Happy Reading!