Books and games!
Books:
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf: This was a fun dystopian YA. Ashala is a teenage Aboriginal girl who leads the mutant...sorry, Illegal rebels and starts the book dealing with being captured by the government. The science was all incredibly fluffy (there are sentient dinosaurs) and the worldbuilding reminded me a lot of Obernewtyn and the Crysalids (and probably other books that have come out since I was a teen) but I still really enjoyed it despite having a very low tolerance for YA tropes. The society and characters are well drawn (the government's reasons for oppressing the Illegals aren't nonsensically evil and have a really obvious paralell with Certain Current Australian Policies) and the plot runs along at a cracking pace, I read the whole thing in one sitting and wasn't bored once. It does a good job of balancing the emotional arcs of the characters with the bigger picture. There's apparently more coming but the end of this was pretty satisfying in a "this was the first step towards bigger things" way YA dystopian way. Also yayyyy being set in WA, it was great recognising the plants, it's not clear but I have decided it's set in Post Apocalyptic Fremantle.
Earth Logic: Decided to put off reading this until the whole Elemental Logic series is done. I liked the ending to Fire Logic, why read aboutnthings going wrong until I can see everything get fixed for good?
Anime:
Love Live: cute femslashy highschool comedy/drama about a group of girls who decide to form an idol group to rejuvinate interest in their school. I'm a couple of episodes in and enjoying it well enough but not in love.
Free Endless Summer: Why do I find this anime so charming? Fanservicey teen boy sports is really not my usual genre.
Sailor Moon Crystal: The animation is pretty sub par, the soulless eyes are really putting me off. Otherwise seems much like the original but a bit less dated/cheesy, and hopefully with less filler.
Games:
The Blackwell Legacy: So I couldn't remember why I decided not to play this game before, then hit the "family history of psychosis" bit. But it didn't take long for it to turn out to be Actually Ghosts(*) and overall it was an enjoyable, moody-but-optimistic old school point and click adventure game with a really well drawn female protagonist. (She's so grumpy and awkward I love it)
Blackwell Unbound: Prequel game. Ok so far but it's about the aunt who dies after a sad life at the start of The Blackwell Legacy, which means no matter what happens I'm going to be sad at the end.
So. Much. Triple Town. Omg, the number of hours I have played of this game are ridiculous. It's like a cross between Bejewelled and 2048, except with cute little castles and villagers and every game adds to your overall score, even the ones where you do badly. And then you use your winnings to get further in future games or buy cute little decorations! If it had dragons I might never stop playing.
(*)Despite all the time spent in a mental hostpital there are zero actual mentally ill people. Also there's a lot of mention of suicide, if that's an issue for you.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/541302.html. There are
comments.
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf: This was a fun dystopian YA. Ashala is a teenage Aboriginal girl who leads the mutant...sorry, Illegal rebels and starts the book dealing with being captured by the government. The science was all incredibly fluffy (there are sentient dinosaurs) and the worldbuilding reminded me a lot of Obernewtyn and the Crysalids (and probably other books that have come out since I was a teen) but I still really enjoyed it despite having a very low tolerance for YA tropes. The society and characters are well drawn (the government's reasons for oppressing the Illegals aren't nonsensically evil and have a really obvious paralell with Certain Current Australian Policies) and the plot runs along at a cracking pace, I read the whole thing in one sitting and wasn't bored once. It does a good job of balancing the emotional arcs of the characters with the bigger picture. There's apparently more coming but the end of this was pretty satisfying in a "this was the first step towards bigger things" way YA dystopian way. Also yayyyy being set in WA, it was great recognising the plants, it's not clear but I have decided it's set in Post Apocalyptic Fremantle.
Earth Logic: Decided to put off reading this until the whole Elemental Logic series is done. I liked the ending to Fire Logic, why read aboutnthings going wrong until I can see everything get fixed for good?
Anime:
Love Live: cute femslashy highschool comedy/drama about a group of girls who decide to form an idol group to rejuvinate interest in their school. I'm a couple of episodes in and enjoying it well enough but not in love.
Free Endless Summer: Why do I find this anime so charming? Fanservicey teen boy sports is really not my usual genre.
Sailor Moon Crystal: The animation is pretty sub par, the soulless eyes are really putting me off. Otherwise seems much like the original but a bit less dated/cheesy, and hopefully with less filler.
Games:
The Blackwell Legacy: So I couldn't remember why I decided not to play this game before, then hit the "family history of psychosis" bit. But it didn't take long for it to turn out to be Actually Ghosts(*) and overall it was an enjoyable, moody-but-optimistic old school point and click adventure game with a really well drawn female protagonist. (She's so grumpy and awkward I love it)
Blackwell Unbound: Prequel game. Ok so far but it's about the aunt who dies after a sad life at the start of The Blackwell Legacy, which means no matter what happens I'm going to be sad at the end.
So. Much. Triple Town. Omg, the number of hours I have played of this game are ridiculous. It's like a cross between Bejewelled and 2048, except with cute little castles and villagers and every game adds to your overall score, even the ones where you do badly. And then you use your winnings to get further in future games or buy cute little decorations! If it had dragons I might never stop playing.
(*)Despite all the time spent in a mental hostpital there are zero actual mentally ill people. Also there's a lot of mention of suicide, if that's an issue for you.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/541302.html. There are
comments.