Beast - Erin Bedford

Anna May comes to visit her grandmother in the nursing home. Isaac sees her and can't stop looking at her. He goes into her grandmother's room when Anna May's grandmother freaks out. Isaac leaves but Anna May runs into him later. She apologizes and asks him on a date. What caused Anna May's grandmother to freak out? Will Isaac and Anna May get together?

While I enjoyed this story, it was entirely too short to get into before it was over. Isaac and Anna May could have a fun story, but this just introduces you to them. The story is a series of vignettes with Isaac and Anna May starring in them. I hope this author expands these characters and this story.

Rogue Beast by Kylie Gilmore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Rourkes go out the way they came in. With heart, humor and irresistible charm. I'm more than a little sad to say goodbye, but anxiously awaiting what comes next. Rogue Beast is a comedy of errors that gives emotions a reason to smile. Garrett and Harper are a mistake in the making that somehow turns out to make perfect sense. Even as your heart breaks and your eyes well up with tears, Gilmore finds a way to make you laugh with more than a little heartwarming cheer.



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This was and enjoyable read and we loved Virgil,Mila and Devon and their story.

I always pick a favorite character that stands out and my favorite this time around was Virgil because he always seemed almost unapproachable most of the time but, when it came to spending time with both Mila and Devon he was anything but.We loved Devon and Virgil's interactions and so forth whether Virgil realized it or not he was taking on the role of a parent while also extending friendship to a boy who seemed to be a little bit lost.

We loved the chemistry between Mila and Virgil because if you just entered a room you could feel it between them but, Mila is constantly Waring with both her heart and mind but, with very good reasons to be that way after the situation she has found herself in but, one thing is for sure is Virgil has met his match in Mila and he is addicted to her sassiness.

I really loved Mila and Virgil together they were super sweet together and even when she was trying to avoid him she was constantly drawn to the cocky alpha biker so much so her attempts made us smile.

Overall we felt it was a heart felt story and the characters we easy to love and as always we love all the teasing and so forth among the clubs members added with a bit of suspense and bitter betrayal and unanswered questions about Virgil's brother created a bit of a mystery so much so we want answers too it was the perfect read to pass the time.

Yuiko loves all animals...so much so that she scares them away with the intensity of her affection. One evening, while trying to get her cat home after accidentally scaring it up a tree, she encounters a wild-eyed boy covered in blood. The next day at school she learns that he's Leo, a new transfer student in her class.

Leo is rumored to have gotten into a fight with a group of thugs and won, and everyone's scared of him. Everyone, that is, except Yuiko, who's fascinated by and jealous of the way animals trust him and easily come to him. She approaches him and quickly finds out that he's actually very gentle and sweet, if unused to living among people. Apparently he used to live on an uninhabited island.

However, Leo has a problem. Anytime he sees blood, he blacks out and turns violent - possibly a defense mechanism he developed while on the island, to help him survive against predators. When Yuiko witnesses one such incident, she learns that she can do something no one else has been able to do: tame the beast inside Leo and get him to calm down.

This wasn't a bad volume, although some of the over-the-top details were a bit much for my current mood - things like the stupid blowgun, the repeated appearances by "Boss", the tough-looking softie, and the as yet unexplained detail about Leo having a Japanese-German mercenary as his guardian. Yuiko also drove me a little nuts - she demonstrated that she knew how to coax animals to her but would then screw everything by grabbing the animals and trying to cuddle them like a little kid who hadn't been properly taught how to treat other living beings.

I'm not all that wild about the premise. Leo is a gentle guy, except when he sees blood, at which time he turns into a scary killer who may once have ripped a leopard's throat out during one of his blackouts. And of course Yuiko turns out to be the only person in existence who's ever been able to calm him down with her presence and voice alone. The first time she tries, though, she doesn't manage it until after Leo has bitten her hard enough to draw blood.

There's a bit at the beginning of the volume that irked me: Yuiko's classmates, and even Yuiko herself (that bugged me the most), think it's strange that Yuiko is 17 and is more interested in cuddling animals than chasing after boys. People were literally telling her to stop wasting her time with animals, and I had to grit my teeth.

Throughout most of the volume Leo and Yuiko's relationship is more sweet and platonic than anything. Leo comes across almost like a child. Then things shifted a bit at the very end, and suddenly Yuiko thinks Leo has "a faint manly scent that I hadn't noticed before," and ugh. Really?

I wasn't originally planning on continuing on, but as I was doing a little research prior to writing this review, I noticed that the series is only two volumes long. It feels weird quitting when I'm technically halfway through, so I might see about getting volume 2 from the library at some point.

Extras:

An extra unrelated short manga called "Fly" from early in the author's career. It's about a girl named Yui who's struggling because she wants to become a pilot even though her family expects her to go to medical school. She's convinced that if she sees a rainbow again before she graduates, her dream will come true, and her best friend Arata supports her. The story is pretty weak, although not as bad as the author's embarrassed one-page introduction led me to expect.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

It's not bad, but it's over-the-top in ways that don't really work for me right now, and I'm a little uncomfortable with the premise for reasons I'm not sure I can articulate. The artwork looks like a million other shojo series.