September 6:

Shiloh - G.J Walker-Smith, #7 in Wishes

 

September 7:

Unbroken - Lisa Renee Jones, #4 in The Secret Life of Amy Bensen

Best Laid Plans - Stylo Fantome , #1 in The Mercenaries 

 

September 8:

Arata: The Legend - Yuu Watase, #23 in Arata: The Legend

The Arendelle Cup - Erica David, et. al., #6 in Disney Frozen: Anna & Elsa

Cheeky Angel - Hiroyuki Nishimori, #9 in Cheeky Angel

Dance of the Bones - J. A. Jance, #22 in J P Beaumont

Dark Ghost (Carpathian) - Christine Feehan, #27 in The Carpathians (Dark)

Deviant Warrior - Brenda Trim, Tami Julka, Amanda Fitzpatrick, #3 in Dark Warrior Alliance

Robert B. Parker's the Devil Wins - Reed Farrel Coleman, #14 in Jesse Stone

Evolution - Stephanie Diaz, #3 in Extraction

The Hanging Girl - Jussi Adler-Olsen, #6 in Department Q

Hell's Foundations Quiver (Safehold) - David Weber, #8 in Safehold

Hot SEAL - Lynn Raye Harris , #9 in Hostile Operations Team and #1 in Hot SEAL Team

The Keeper - David Baldacci, #2 in Finisher

Love - Caroline Kepnes, #2 in You

Make Me - Lee Child , #20 in Jack Reacher

3.5 stars.

 

Initially I had a little trouble getting into the story but the more I read, the more I liked it. The storyline was a little crazy but I've grown to like Night. He really is being the Absolute Boyfriend.

 

To me, it's obvious that the next door neighbour likes our girl, but she's being a bit oblivious at the minute.

 

And then that last page! Her "friend" of all people!

 

It has definitely made me intrigued enough to carry on the series. It's only in 6 parts so I wouldn't think it would take me too long to finish it. BUT I have a few other things on the go right now, so I may wait until I've finished those to carry on with it.

Ceres: essentially a goddess reborn on earth. Unstoppable reaper of vengeance. Protectress of children and celestial descendants. Absolute troll.

All joking aside, this is the volume where the story finally starts to form a concrete direction to go in. After quickly finishing up Suzumi's backstory, the story quickly shifts to the introduction of one of the final main characters: Chidori, who happened to glimpse Ceres' flying abilities in an earlier volume. She demands that the celestial maiden help her crippled brother achieve his dream of flying, although apparently Ceres would much rather run around and mess around with Aya's love life instead.

In her defense, both boys need and deserve the serious talking to that she gives them.

Speaking of which, since Aya and Toya can't physically be together nearly as much as before, it gives both of them needed time to reflect on everything that's happened between them and everyone else. Indeed, Aya actually acknowledges that her behavior around him since book one was kind of immature and shallow! Yuhi stays as jealous as ever, but in his defense, he's a stupid hormonal teenager with just as much stress on his shoulders over the Mikage situation as Aya and far less screen time to deal with it. Besides, any time that could have been devoted to him is instead given to Chidori, who is a breath of fresh air. While I don't like her personality very much, she does add a sense of brevity that's been sorely missed for the last couple volumes.

Ceres' character is actually written quite inconsistently in this volume. She emerges and disappears seemingly at random, and when shit hits the fan, she clearly knows about it... but instead seems to be content to let a series of emerging c-genomes devolve into unavoidable chaos while she chats with Toya and flies around with a child (who, I might add, is extremely vulnerable due to his inability to walk). Her incompetence clearly only serves to force Chidori to take the stage and stand for herself, but surely there was some better way to incorporate both this and her growing fondness for Aya and humans without sacrificing her intelligence.

Aki's exploration into his past life is brief, but it may be disturbing for some readers. Because after four volumes of death and destruction, clearly incest is what we needed to throw into the plot. I only note this because it only gets worse as the series progresses, and squeamish readers may want to take note before continuing forward.

In the end, this was a standard volume of the story thus far. Still good by shojo standards, but it's hardly anything to fangirl over.

Uuuugh, the needless love triangle is at its absolute worst in this volume. I might have been forgiving of it in the first two books, but by this point it's just not fun and distracting from the actually interesting plot going on.

First, there's Toya. Even ignoring the improbable rapid nature of their relationship, he's a grown adult. At the very least, he's mature and old enough to pass for a school doctor. Aya's sixteen. Knowing his backstory from later volumes doesn't make his conduct any less gross. To his credit, he does try to convince Aya that they're not a good match at the beginning of the volume, but it's pointless and forgotten by the next time they see each other. Everything about this relationship makes me uncomfortable, especially since Aya herself is still very immature. At least Toya's finally developing an actual personality as a result of all this shit.

Yuhi is hardly any better. Half the time he's the butt of a joke, and the other half of the time he's getting cockblocked by Toya. While I genuinely like him as a character, it's hard to root for him because he's so clearly the third wheel to Aya and Toya's romance. Even his own confession comes out of nowhere and seems to only exist to oppose Toya's growing relationship with Aya. So, in essence, Yuhi fans have to deal with Toya/Aya fanservice superseding their ship, and Toya fans have to deal with bad comedy and annoying jealousy. No one wins, Watase.

The only solace about all of this is that I know that it does improve from this point onward.

That said, there are very good things to say about the story. This volume takes the "monster of the week" formula established by typical magical girl stories and naturally twists it into something horrific. At this point, that should come as no surprise to this series. "Innocent girl turned into supernatural monster" is going to become a running theme, and Volume 3 milks the drama for all its worth. As a result of the mysterious C-genome project crafted by the Mikage corporation, both a young girl from Aya's school and Aya's new caretaker are adversely affected by the Mikage's mission to make their own celestial powers go haywire. These occurrences force Aya to grudgingly accept Ceres' presence, as the ancient celestial maiden is the only one with the power to set things right.

That said, things are still as dark as ever, even when Ceres emerges to save the day. Innocent people are hurt or killed in the crossfire, and Ceres' power has its limits-- it can't bring back the dead or save people who don't want to save themselves. It's been clear since the last volume that there's a sincere caring side to Ceres, and it's now properly on display for once. Like her namesake, she has a genuine motherly outlook towards celestial descendants, and it clearly bothers her when they can't be saved. As such, it's great to see her and Aya actually working together towards a common goal.

Finally, while the character was only introduced in order to explain the c-genome project, the storyline with the unstable celestial maiden student, Yuki, is quite moving. The power of friendship is not as powerful as fire, it would seem.

As I'm a sucker for character development, I can't bring myself to give this volume the two or three stars it deserves. Even when the romance is a major stumbling block, many of the events of this volume are key to developments later on. Almost everyone is fleshed out in some way or another, which only heightens the stakes when they're put in situations where they could easily die. As such, it's satisfying enough to warrant genuine praise.

In this volume, we learn more about Aya's superpowered alternate personality, who seems quite sweet when she's not pursuing the murderous revenge she's hellbent at achieving. Aya and her brother briefly reunite, but fate (and Ceres, for that matter) refuse to give either twin more than a moment of solace before violence tears them apart once again. The scientific side of the Mikage corporation makes its first appearance, who seem determined to throw in as many twists as there are pages into the plot.

What people remember most about this volume is, unfortunately, the romance. Aya and Toya barely know one another, and they're already moving their relationship along quickly. Toya still isn't given a real reason for liking Aya outside of vague desire, but Aya doesn't see anything fishy about this. While their moments together are (thankfully) short and sweet, it still feels strange that a girl who just lost both of her parents and hasn't dated before would so readily jump into the arms of a man like Toya. But, hey, at least he's handsome?

Oddly, the early books seem to be setting up Yuhi as a love interest for Ceres, making their interactions a bit of early installment weirdness. It does give Ceres some well-needed softer moments, though, so I can hardly complain. Yuhi has been little more than comic relief for most of the story thus far, so it's nice to see someone taking him seriously as well. Even if the relationship is essentially dropped after this and the next book, it adds enough to the characters that I don't mind its presence.

Of course, most of book is actually spent establishing that Aya's old way of life is over, whether she likes it or not. After disastrous encounters with her mother and brother, Aya is reasonably angry and upset-- and more importantly, determined to never unleashed Ceres if she can help it. That proves to be futile, but Watase handles the problem expertly by using Ceres' uncontrollable rage as the catalyst for the transformation. It's hard not to see both sides of the issue, as both characters justifiably want their old lives back. People just seem determined to remember all the kissing instead of character development, I guess.

All in all, CERES CELESTRIAL LEGEND: YUHI is a strong continuation of the suspenseful story establish in the first volume. While weak in the romantic department, it's not bad enough to derail the true focus of the story. Some of the mysteries behind Ceres may be solved, but the struggle is far from over-- just as it should be.