Wednesday, 10:00

Is it bad that I want to read this just because of the title?

re: Sekaiichi Hatsukoi - so, the anime did not make me like Chiaki. (I do think the voice actors' performances and the facial expressions of the characters helped me hate the episode less than the novel. But that's not saying much.) Also, I finished the second novel, which only confirmed my dislike.

THINGS I HATE, in no particular order:

1. "Jeez, Tori, why are you always so jealous of the guy who's constantly hitting on me? Don't be so possessive! PS I'm going on an overnight onsen trip with him on the day that I forgot is my birthday. Hope you didn't have any plans for us, even though you always do something awesome for my birthday and I never do anything for yours!"

A. That level of cluelessness is not cute, or funny, it's just annoying. How dumb do you have to be to not realize someone likes you when they are constantly asking to draw you nude? TAKE A HINT

B. When Chiaki was thinking about how Hatori always gives him some super awesome present for his birthday, and he hasn't done anything for Hatori since they were in college (what is that, almost 10 years ago??), just...UGH. THAT IS FUCKING TERRIBLE. CHIAKI, YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON.

2. As far as I can tell, Chiaki likes two things about Hatori: that he's crazy about Chiaki (WHY), and that he cooks really good food. Like, to the point that when Hatori says he can't come and see Chiaki for a while because he's busy with work, Chiaki thinks, "Aww, that means I can't eat his food." A relationship where one character is DEVOTED to the other, does EVERYTHING for him, is crazy about him, etc, and the other character is like, "Meh, he makes good food" is not romantic AT ALL and not enjoyable for me to read about. I get that some girls want the fantasy of a boyfriend who is perfect and will love them no matter how much of a screw-up they are (or think they are), and that's fine, but dude, I would hope that in said fantasy you would LOVE YOUR BOYFRIEND BACK, JEEZ.

Once in a while Chiaki wonders what Hatori sees in him, and I seriously wish he would ask, because I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, TOO, WTF. Though no doubt Hatori's answer would be "everything" or some shit, ugh.

A few weeks ago, when I ordered the new Nightrunner book, Amazon, in its infinite wisdom, started recommending other gay fiction to me. I'm pretty starved for BL lately, as my monthly manga order just hasn't been lasting long enough, so I cautiously tested the waters with some of the offerings from Blind Eye Books. I found the water very fine indeed (I will totally pimp these books later, I've been meaning to for a while now), so I waded a little deeper, ordering what I thought was a gay Regency romance, Standish. Alas for me, I can honestly say right now that I can't remember the last time I read a book this bad. I mean, it is seriously, horrendously, BAD. The writing (one of the 17 Amazon reviewers to give this book 5 stars describes it as "beautifully written," which makes me wonder what in god's name this person has been reading in the past) is reminiscent of bad fanfic, with what I found to be a jarring and disorienting third-person voice (Switching POV mid-paragraph? Really?), and chock-full of garbage like "All the while he spoke the traitorous words, his own heart was stabbed through and through, and his member throbbed beyond anything he had felt before." The descriptive passages ("the man stretched on his back like a sensuous, oblivious lily") reminded me of that old list of bad high school essay analogies that used to float around in e-mail forwards. The story...*shudder* What can I say? The first half of the book is so full of romance novel cliches it's almost like a parody, and the second half (which admittedly, I did not read most of) is melodramatic angsty garbage that made me want to throw myself in front of a bus.

...In a nutshell, this is one of those books that makes you want back the hours you wasted reading it. I'm going to go attempt to purge it from my brain now. >.<

ETA: From another Amazon review: "Very well-written in the style of the period, too--no anachronisms like you so often see." Yes, yes, it was so authentic of the author to include the 19th century style of ending sentences with "you know?"

Son of ETA: Scrubbed brain with new short story by Ginn Hale (conveniently available for free on her website), which was so freaking adorable it hurt. The only bad thing I have to say about it was that it was too short.