Manga Classics: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Goodreads Synopsis:    Chafed by the -sivilized- restrictions of his foster home, and weary of his drunkard father's brutality, 14 year-old Huck Finn fakes his own death and sets off on a raft down the Mississippi River. He is soon joined by Jim, an escaped slave. Together, they experience a series of rollicking adventures that have amused readers, young and old, for over a century. The fugitives become close friends as they weather storms together aboard the raft and spend idyllic days swimming, frying catfish suppers, and enjoying their independence. Their peaceful existence ends abruptly, however, with the appearance of the King and the Duke, an incorrigible pair of con artists who take over the raft. After many difficulties, Huck and Jim escape their tormentors, and with the help of an imaginative rescue by Huck's old friend Tom Sawyer, Jim gains his freedom. Manga Classics breathes new life into this American Classic with a faithful adaptation of Mark Twain's masterpiece. 

My Thoughts:

-    I first read Tom Sawyer when I was in middle school, and I've loved the story ever since. Yes, I read it because of Wishbone. I've always wanted to read Huck's story, but I could never get into it. It has a different feel to me.

-    I've been loving these Manga Classics, and I thought this would be a good way for me to finally read the story. I still struggled. I had to push myself to finish.

-    I thought Huck's adventure down the river would be more adventurous. It was more like a series of meetings with terrible people. The "duke" and the "king" were the worst. Huck should have ditched them WAY sooner. I wish the story had focused more on Jim and reuniting him with his family. 

-    A lot of the dialogue is spelled phonetically, and I struggled to understand what a lot of the characters were saying. There is a note at the beginning of the book explaining that they were trying to preserve Mark Twain's original works and the dialects and accents of the time. I get why they did it, and I can appreciate it. I just had a hard time translating it sometimes. I had to have my hubby help me with a few panels.

-    The overall story isn't terrible. There are a lot of good things that happen, and I liked Huck and Jim a lot. This story just isn't as fun to me as Tom Sawyer. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall TBR

Created by The Broke and The Bookish in June 2010 and moved to The Artsy Reader Girl in Jan 2018

Books On My Fall 2019 TBR

I haven't done a TTT for a while. I almost forgot it existed. Whoops! I hope I can get to all of these!

 
 
 
 
 

Pumpkinheads

My Thoughts:

-    When I saw that Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks had made a book together, I was SO excited! I love both these authors, and I knew anything they did would be good. It didn't disappoint. 

-    Combine Rainbow Rowell's fab characters and wonderful friendships with Faith Erin Hicks's colorful and fun illustrations and you have a mix for magic. Add everything wonderful about fall, and you have Pumpkinheads. 

-    The story was very simple, and I really enjoyed it, I did. I just wanted a little bit more. I also wanted to know more about that hilarious goat. 

-    I loved the characters. I love the contrast between Deja's outgoing spontaneousness and Josiah's stick to the rules shyness. 

-    This is the perfect book for fall! The food, the pumpkins, the corn mazes, etc. This book has it all, and I loved it. 

-    I really hope there is another book in the works because I want to know more about Deja and Josiah as they go off to college. I can just imagine the shenanigans. If there isn't another Pumpkinhead book, then I hope these two authors collaborate again in the near future.

Pikmin

My Overall Thoughts:

-    I played, nay, conquered Pikmin 2 and 3. I've played them both several times through, but I've never picked up the very first Pikmin game. After watching Arlo play through, I had a major itch to play Pikmin. Luckily our friend had a copy, and I was able to play. 

-    You can tell it is an older game, but it holds up alright.

My Thoughts on Game Play:

-    The story is fun, and Pikmin 2 picks up the story perfectly. Olimar crashes on a planet, and he needs to repair his ship by collecting all his ship parts. The catch is you only have 30 days to collect all the parts. Some of these parts aren't necessary, but it isn't hard to collect all 30. 

-    At first I thought the 30 days would be hard to beat, but it wasn't. I was playing pretty casually, and I was able to collect 1-3 parts a day. I had plenty of days left over when I finished.

-  There are no extra pikmin in this one. There are just the standard red, yellow, and blue pikmin. I loved how quickly I was able to collect all three. 

My Thoughts on Control:

-    I will admit that I didn't pick up the first Pikmin game because I was afraid the controls weren't going to be as good as 2 and 3. It wasn't too bad. The pikmin were a little dumber, but it was okay. For instance, when you throw a pikmin on a pellet, it doesn't automatically take the pellet back to the onion, you have to throw another pikmin to pick it up. Also, when going over a bridge, some of the pikmin fall off the sides. The pikmin controls just weren't as intuitive as 2 and 3. After I got used to it though, it was fine. I was still able to thoroughly enjoy the game.

-    It was fun picking up that gamecube controller again. I loved it! It is my favorite Nintendo controller. I was so excited to have that c-stick again! Being able to move my little army around me and run them into things with the c-stick was pure joy.

-    Sometimes the camera was in an awkward position and it took me a few tries to get it where I wanted, but for the most part, the camera controls were great.

My Thoughts on Graphics:

-    The graphics are older, but I think they still look great. Pikmin has great environments and characters. If they ever remaster this for Nintendo Switch, it wouldn't take much. They would need to up the graphics to HD and fix some of the lighting. I know that is a big job, and it will take a while, but I don't think anything would need to be re-rendered or re-created. I would LOVE for Pikmin 1 and 2 to be remastered!!! 

My Thoughts on Sound:

-    The music was good ole Pikmin music. It is very soothing and fun. I enjoyed it. I think the music is broken in places though. Sometimes when I was just walking around, the boss/baddie music would just start playing, and I'd look around, but nothing was there. It weirded me out.

-    The Pikmin don't sing as they walk like they do in Pikmin 2. I missed that.

Arlo

I'm a gamer. I love video games. I have a lot of fond memories of playing them with my family, my husband, and now I play them with my kids. Well, I haven't played for a while because I can only juggle so many things at once, and my down time was consumed with reading and knitting/crocheting. Lately, I have been playing a ton, and my reading and knitting are suffering for it. It is all because of Arlo.

My husband discovered Arlo's YouTube channel a while ago, and he will talk about him occasionally, but I never really watched Arlo myself, until now! One day, not so long ago, I decided to watch Arlo's review of a game I was interested in, and now I am SO hooked. I love Arlo. I watch Arlo videos every day now, and I want to talk about him all the time. I have to admit, I'm even a bit Arlo brainwashed. If Arlo likes it, I want to play it. If Arlo tells me to get on Twitter and tweet about remastering Thousand Year Door, I will go and do! 

Why do I love Arlo so much?

-  I feel like we are kindred spirits. He loves animals and Pikmin, and he is blue.

-  He is an all around nice guy. 

-  He isn't another game reviewer who just swears and rants about video games, just to swear and rant about video games. 

-  Arlo always finds good things to say about something, and when he has a criticism, he always mentions how it could be better. 

-  He is happy just stating his opinion and hearing about other's opinions. He doesn't think his opinion is law or truth or a commandment, it is just his opinion.

-  When he doesn't like something, he can usually see how someone else might like it.

-  He randomly breaks out into song!!! I love this!

-  He is clever and funny. 

-  He knows who is audience is, and he caters to that. 

-  He tells me how awesome, fantastic, and beautiful I am and sends me his love every day.

-  He does his research, is very knowledgeable, and has a passion for what he does, and that passion is contagious. 

If you love video games, and if you love Nintendo, please go check out Arlo. He is awesome! I just love him!

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August Stats

Books Read: 21

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Pages Read:  6,115

1 Star:  2

2 Stars:  1

3 Stars:  9

4 Stars:  4

5 Stars:  5

I read the same number of books in August and July. That is pretty cool. My page count is higher for August though. Woohoo! I'm trying to be more dedicated to my goals, and I think it showed. Hopefully I can keep up the pace and momentum for the rest of the year.

Goal Progress:

I am only 13 books behind on my Goodreads goal! I'm catching up, so hopefully I'll be on track soon. (94/160)

4 of the books I read last month were from my nightstand. Huzzah! I made a small dent to my nightstand stack.

I read 2 Newbery books! Yay! (6/20)

I re-read 4 books from my shelves! Also yay! (10/20)

I finished 6 books from the Pioneer Book Reading Challenge. I'm getting closer to finishing. (27/44)