This is the second Manga story in the Vampire Kisses series. Graveyard Games. A little different Cinderella. Dark. Lovely. Fun. One sip and the whole book was 'read'. I really enjoyed it and look foreward to probably more of that.

This book is so freaking adorable. I've been wanting to check out the My Boyfriend's a Monster series for awhile and finally it came into my local library. Yay!

 

A Match Made in Heaven is a paranormal and geek twist. Morning Glory is a aspiring artist working on her first graphic novel and hoping to make a big splash at the local D.O.G (Do your Own Graph novel) festival. She isn't part of any of the popular cliques (all of which are ethnically diverse I might add), and gets harassed by wanna-be gangsters bad boys at school, but she doesn't care. Her best friend Julia is all the social circle she needs. Enter Gabriel, a gorgeous and mysterious new boy in school who at first seems interested in Julia, but quickly shows his intentions for Glory. Cue the swelling music and floating hearts filling the air. Ah young love. 

 

Let me straight with you, this is a standard manga high school dating story. Even the fact that Gabriel is an angel fits all the tropes of classic manga. The real twist here is that Morning Glory is black and this story doesn't have any explicit nudity or graphic violence. It is a sweet middle grad romance about an angel and human girl who fall in love. There are other parts of the story, a bit of drama with Gabriel's "cousin" Luci, and Julia's stepfather, but those are sorted out quickly in typical manga fashion. At its heart, the story is about Glory as it should be. 

 

The art is stunning. Both the hyper stylized manga-esque art in Glory's Steamgrrlz comic and the general layout of the book is gorgeous. You can see the influence of traditional Japanese manga style, but this book is unmistakable Western in it's style and specifically in it's distinct character designs. Not to mention the diversity captured in the scenes at Glory's school and the D.O.G. festival. Seriously, where has this series been all of my life? I wish I had something like this when I was a kid.

 

I would recommend this book to middle grade readers who like manga, fans of diverse kids books and lovers of paranormal romance. 

 

 

I don't know why I bought this. I know it was a used copy, and I think it was really cheap. That's still not a good explanation, because OEL manga adaptations of books don't generally have a good track record with me. Plus, I haven't even read any of Melissa Marr's books.

I thought this was an adaptation of Marr's Wicked Lovely, but then I spotted the “Desert Tales: Sanctuary” portion of the title and wasn't so sure. It turns out that it's actually a spin-off that uses characters from the Wicked Lovely world. The manga volumes were later turned into a novel, Desert Tales – not the usual way these things are done.

I don't know that I would have liked this volume any better if I had read the Wicked Lovely books, but, just in case, I'll start by saying that my review should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I had no idea who Rika or Keenan or Donia were, although apparently readers of the Wicked Lovely series would know. Character relationships and timelines were sometimes hard for me to follow. How long ago was Rika the Winter Queen (or whatever)? How long has it been since she was mortal? Who's Donia?

The story, as I understood it, was this: At one time, Rika loved Keenan, a faerie king. He convinced her to go grab some kind of scepter, something went wrong, and she carried the Winter Queen's chill (ice in her veins?) for...a while. I wasn't clear on how long. When the volume begins, it's been some time since Rika became free of Keenan and the ice. Now she lives in the desert and moons over a young artist named Jayce, who can't see her because she's an invisible faerie. The desert faeries threaten Jayce, because they hate Rika and she's shown an interest in him, so she reveals herself to Jayce in an effort to protect him.

I could not figure these characters out. Rika hated Keenan and swore she didn't need his help or protection. However, her life in the desert didn't seem all that much better. The desert faeries hated her and threatened her and Jayce, one of the two people she actually seemed to like. Then there was Sionnach. On the one hand, Rika seemed to view him as a friend and guardian. On the other hand, when he was away from her, it sounded like he might be the one arranging for the desert faeries to torment her. Was he a prankster with a wicked sense of humor, or was he a secret villain? And, if he was a secret villain, did that mean that, after having been tricked by Keenan years ago, Rika let herself be tricked by yet another faerie? Did her time with Keenan teach her nothing besides how to moon over and cry about boys?

Jayce was boring. Pretty-boy cardboard, basically. It didn't matter how much weird stuff happened around Rika, he barely questioned any of it. He just kept blindly following after her and doing whatever she asked. When, near the end of the volume, she told him she wasn't human, his only response was to kiss her some more.

The artwork was uneven. Some panels looked decent, some didn't, and characters weren't always consistently drawn. It definitely wasn't the worse-looking OEL manga I've ever seen, but it didn't look good enough for me to consider keeping the volume just for the artwork.

All in all, I doubt I'm going to continue with this series. If I ever read Marr's Wicked Lovely books and enjoy them enough to continue on, I think I'd prefer to read the novel version of Desert Tales instead.

 

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Ho appena finito di leggere questo volumetto e devo ammettere di non esserne completamente soddisfatta. Il tratto è molto bello e i personaggi sono molto ben disegnati, su questo nulla da eccepire, ma è la storia a non avermi convinto.Rika è una ragazza d’inverno che ora si ritrova a vivere nel deserto, lontana da tutto, in pace. Un ragazzo che passa spesso da quelle parti ha colpito la sua attenzione ma lei è un essere fatato e invisibile, non ha alcuna speranza, e poi non vuole fargli del male. Ma una serie di eventi, la porterà proprio in contatto con lui. Chiamiamoli generalmente eventi, anche se in realtà c’è qualcuno che ci mette le zampette. Fa inoltre una comparsata pure Keenan, spocchioso come al solito.Il volumetto si legge in cinque minuti ma alla fine rimane ben poco: quello che ci viene narrato si può riassumere in pochissime parole, troppo pochi i fatti, e oltretutto talvolta un po’ confusionari. Ci sta che, essendo un volume iniziale, introduttivo, la Marr abbia voluto svelare poco, ma così è davvero troppo poco! Spero in un miglioramento nei prossimi volumi!

It's the great Melissa Marr reread that won't die! Don't worry folks, I only have two more books to read after this, I swear! (Well, three if you count the third manga to this series coming out in 2011). I just finished the first of the manga spin off series - Wicked Lovely Desert Tales: Sanctuary. Volume 1. There, I think I got the whole cursed title.Rika was once a consort of Keenan, the infamous Summer Court King. When she picked up the staff of Beira she became of the Winter Court, intaking Beira's breath and ice into herself. Since then Donia (and who knows how many others) have been chosen to bear Winter's ice, and Rika is free to roam as a fairie. The trouble is she cannot be around iron, or cities... or people, so she has relocated herself to the desert. With a band of meddlesome faeries, and Sionnach, a friend, she tries to make a new life.She has become fascinated with a young man named Jayce who frequents her cliffs. One day he falls... well, in truth, the faeries have pushed him. Before she considers the alternatives Rika saves him. This sets in motion a series of events that only begin to highlight how different she is from him.These are fun. Brief and fun. They're manga, prettily illustrated by the Xian Nu Studio. I read this in about a 1/2 hour... they don't take much brain power, or time... but they look beautiful. and it's nice to see the characters in the flesh... or, at the very least in ink. This addition to the world of Marr's faeries is very entertaining. 5 out of 5 stars.- review courtesy of www.bibliopunkk.net