Category: Arc Review

NetGalley eArc Review: The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky

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This is going to be a short review, because honestly I don’t have anything to say about this book other than why I didn’t like it.

I try to find the good in books, but this is probably the worst book I have ever read.

Title: The Seventh Perfection
Author: Daniel Polansky
Page Count: 176
Genre: Fantasy Novella
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

When a woman with perfect memory sets out to solve a riddle, the threads she tugs on could bring a whole city crashing down. The God-King who made her is at risk, and his other servants will do anything to stop her.

To become the God-King’s Amanuensis, Manet had to master all seven perfections, developing her body and mind to the peak of human performance. She remembers everything that has happened to her, in absolute clarity, a gift that will surely drive her mad. But before she goes, Manet must unravel a secret which threatens not only the carefully prepared myths of the God-King’s ascent, but her own identity and the nature of truth itself.

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The Seventh Perfection was 176 pages of a waste of time. Throughout the entire story I didn’t figure out what the point of the story was, where it was going, or how any of the stories overlapped.

I had no idea what was happening at any point, I wasn’t even sure if our main character was male, female, or human half the time.

When I thought I understood what was happening, something would happen in the story and I would be more confused and lost than before.

I’ll give the author credit for writing a story in the second perspective. It’s a very rare situation, but honestly not sure it was worth it.

Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was the reason the story didn’t make sense, but I can honestly say the only thing that I liked from the book was the idea that people spent their lives learning these different “perfections” to serve the ruler.

I am sorry to disappoint everyone with this review. I don’t have the best luck for books I look out for on NetGalley, I seem to always be disappointed in them, but one day I will find one I enjoy!

One Piece Arc Review: Amazon Lily

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Amazon Lily is one of the last One Piece arcs before the time skip takes place, and it is one of the smallest cannon arcs in the story.

It stands as a unique role in the story, because it isn’t an island that is used for a main story. Instead it is used as a jumping off point for upcoming arcs.

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Was humor the intent?

Amazon Lily is an island entirely of women. Men are not allowed, and often killed whenever they step foot on the island.

Luffy lands on the island when is sent there by Kuma, and the women have no idea what he is (a man).

Their naivety leads to a lot of child-like humor, mainly focused on Luffy and his rubber penis.

It’s innocent and there are a few jokes that are a bit funny, but after an entire island population being entirely captivated by Luffy, I was a bit bored of it by the end. It was no longer funny, and it hasn’t aged too well.

An Island of Women

Being an island of women, Amazon Lily introduced another Warlord: Boa Hancock. She is an interesting character that adds more depth to the world.

If you can ignore her creepy level of love for Luffy, her slavery background makes the One Piece world that much more interesting.

Her and her sisters were kidnapped and sold into slavery to the Celestial Dragons. This makes Boa more interesting than her lovestruck story that is forced down our throats. The slavery adds a continuation to the Sabaody Archipelago story with the Celestial Dragons, and makes us hate them even more than we already did the more we fall in love with Boa.

Slingshot into the future

Amazon Lily is used as a home base for Luffy for the next arc, so the introduction makes a lot of sense in this part of the story.

If it had been introduced any later than this, we wouldn’t have been able to get as rich of a story, and Luffy’s story would feel a lot more like he was getting plot armor benefits and not actually telling a story.

There isn’t a lot that happens on this island, but we do get to explore the idea of Haki more, building up on the past few arcs.

Final Thoughts

There isn’t a lot that happens in Amazon Lily. It does what it was designed to do, and keeps the story going. It does slow the intensity of the last arc a bit, but it sets up the next arc nicely.

I wouldn’t consider this one of my favourite arcs in the One Piece story, but I don’t really have any negative comments about it.

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One Piece Arc Review: Thriller Bark

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Hello dear manga readers, we have another One Piece Arc review today. We will be focusing on the Thriller Bark Arc.

Arc focuses on the Straw Hat Crew finding Gecko Moria, one of the Seven Warlords of the sea, and his crew on the Thriller Bark.

Though this arc came out over 10 years ago, and I won’t be ruining much, I guess I will give a SPOILER WARNING ⚠️!!!

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New Crew Member

More often than not, Luffy and his crew pick up a new crew member on almost every island. The ones they don’t seem to be the ones that hold a very important place in the story.

There are rumors floating around the internet about how many crew members Luffy will end up with, and who those crew members will be, but we won’t know for sure.

Brook, a shadowless revived skeleton of a pirate that died over 50 years before we meet him, is the next crew member in line to join the Straw Hat crew, and unsurprisingly, the reason he is a revived skeleton is half the reason Luffy wanted him on the crew; being a musician is the other half.

Obviously Luffy is a child at heart, and would want a skeleton on his crew any day, but being a musician was also a key factor, since that was one of the first positions he wanted filled.

Brook doesn’t bring much to the table now, other than the most emotional backstory of the crew in my opinion, but he keeps growing stronger and he has become one of my favourite crew members.

Brook can’t leave Thriller Bark (for story reasons) but I like the obstacles he had to try and overcome this arc. Though he isn’t entirely able to do that, the enemy pushes him to become stronger, and eventually to join the Straw Hats.

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Setting Up Future Events

Not a lot of future events are set up in the Thriller Bark Arc. Gecko Moria comes back a few times throughout the story, and Zorro’s sword plays a key part in the current arc in the manga, but otherwise Thriller Bark stands on its own.

Despite that, it fits nicely into the story. Thriller Bark isn’t really anyone’s favourite arc, but I don’t mind it. It’s a lot less stressful and almost calming than the two arcs it is sandwiched in between.

Another Warlord

There isn’t a multi-island set up for Moriah when the Straw Hats show up on Thriller Bark, but they quickly learn why he has earned the title of Warlord. He is a tough opponent, and actually requires the entire Crew, plus a bit of an enhanced Luffy, to defeat him.

It is a rare moment when we get the entire crew to fight just one member. A lot of the time we don’t even get two crew members teaming up to defeat one guy.

I really enjoyed seeing the StrawHats interacting with each other in a fight, and their dynamics with each other even though they don’t often see any of the others fight.

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The Fights

We get a few good fights, though I wouldn’t say any were overly memorable. Perona is probably the most memorable, only because of the comedy that comes with her fight vs. Ussopp. Otherwise, it is the Crew fighting against Moria and Oars that really stands out this arc.

At the end of the arc there is another big enemy that shows up, when the StrawHats are near death, and after only a few moments of fighting, the crew was able to survive and leave the island.

One of the Best Moments in One Piece

I don’t want to talk too much about this moment, because it will give it away, but if you’ve read this arc, then you know why it is so amazing. It is still one of the best moments in the whole show, and it is what made the crew member involved my favourite of the entire crew.

Final Thoughts

Many One Piece fans don’t have a lot of positive thoughts on Thriller Bark, but I honestly don’t mind it. It’s over quickly, and doesn’t drag on longer than it needs to. The arc sets up some future events, but not too many. It is a nice, small addition to the overall story that I think is put in the perfect spot in the story.

What did you think of the Thriller Bark arc, and its moments? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
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Book Tour: Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis

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Hello dear readers, before I begin I want to just let you know that I received this book as part of a book tour with The Write Reads in exchange for an honest review.

Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker – she thinks nothing can scare her. But when her father is brutally attacked in their New York apartment, she’s swiftly packed off to live with a grandmother she’s never met in Harrow Lake, the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot.

The locals are weirdly obsessed with the film that put their town on the map – and there are strange disappearances, which the police seem determined to explain away. 

And there’s someone – or something – stalking Lola’s every move.

The more she discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. Because Lola’s got secrets of her own. And if she can’t find a way out of Harrow Lake, they might just be the death of her…

Title: Harrow Lake
Author: Kat Ellis
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

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The Horror Genre

So I am still new to the horror genre. It’s not a genre I have read a lot of books from, so maybe I have set the bar too high, I’m not really sure.

When I thought about horror books, I had assumed that I would be losing sleep, seeing things in the dark, and being generally scared by what I was reading.

When I was reading Harrow Lake, I never really had those moments. I never felt like this Mister Jitters was going to keep me up at night. I never felt the fear.

On the shorter side

I am still on the fence on how I feel about the length of Harrow Lake. Coming in at 368 pages, that is plenty of time to scare someone, but it’s not too long that the horror turned into annoyance.

Harrow Lake didn’t seem to find a good balance in my opinion. There were times where I was annoyed, but then moments later I felt like I had hope that there was going to be something scary just around the corner.

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Felt empty

The overall story itself felt kind of empty and full of holes. The whole premise of the story makes no sense. I don’t think the protagonist would be sent off to her grandmother’s house when her father got hurt.

If he was going to get better in just a few days, she could have stayed at home and someone could have watched her.

Even if that was the case, and she was shipped off to her grandmother’s, there are too many moments in the story that happen just for the sake of happening. There isn’t much rhyme or reason to it all, and the most description we get is “this place turns people bad”.

Scares seemed vague

The most “scared” I ever got when reading Harrow Lake was one of the first scares. The evil monster was still new, and we didn’t understand it yet.

After that, the scares seemed excessive, like they could be avoided with a bit of reason from the protagonist.

When a “scary” moment did happen, it felt like the writing just wasn’t developed enough. Like we were only getting the very surface of what was going on, and that didn’t go deep enough for me.

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t like this book. I always feel bad when I get a book from an author and didn’t like it.

If you enjoyed Harrow Lake, let me know why! I want to hear your thoughts about it.
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One Piece Review: Enies Lobby Arc

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Hello dear readers, it feels like it has been a long time since I reviewed a One Piece Arc. It is by far still my favourite manga, and there is still so much to cover!

The Enies Lobby Arc is one of the most popular arcs among One Piece fans, so I’ve been waiting at the edge of my seat to talk about it.

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Title: Enies Lobby Arc
Author: Eiichiro Oda
Rating: ★★★★★

The Straw Hats, Sogeking, the Franky Family, and the shipwrights of the Galley-La Company arrive at Enies Lobby aboard Rocket Man to rescue Nico Robin and Franky. Standing in their way, however, are the forces of the World Government, including its deadly assassin organization, CP9. A massive battle ensues between the two sides when Luffy declares war against the World Government by having its flag shot down by Sogeking.

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The Fights Get More Intense

In Enies Lobby, the Strawhat crew, especially Luffy, have the most difficult fights to date. Their main enemies are the soldiers of CP-9, which is a secret Marine group that were discovered in Water 7.

Each arc introduces tougher and tougher enemies for the Strawhats and their allies, but they never really seemed like a real threat.

I would say that the only other instance where they faced any real threat was Alabasta, but the external forces of Enies Lobby made the threat much more real to me.

Each of the Strawhats get an exciting fight of their own, but what I really like is that we get development of everyone’s fighting abilities in this arc. We get to explore their capabilities a bit more, and we discover a few new interesting techniques from the crew.

Robin’s Story

Robin’s story is the driving force for the Enies Lobby arc. She has been taken in by Marines, and the Strawhats fight for their lives to save their crew member.

To me, Robin never quite felt like a crew member until Enies Lobby. I know she has been with the crew since after Alabasta, but she just joined on her own volition, she was never really asked.

She is accepted by them over time, and it seems that after Skypeia, the rest of the crew is perfectly fine with having her around, but Enies Lobby is when they fully accept her as a crew member.

Without giving anything away, she definitely has the saddest backstory of all the tragic backstories the crew has. That’s why the Enies Lobby arc is so heartbreaking and emotional, but powerful and uplifting at the same time.

Best Moments

Enies Lobby is full of amazing moments that make Top 10 Lists to this day. This section will likely contain spoilers for the arc, but seeing as this arc is basically 15 years old, its up to you to read it at this point.

There are three moments that really define this arc for me, but there are still plenty of others.

Robin’s “I Want to Live” moment is still in my top three One Piece moments to this day. It sends chills down my spine and it is the moment Robin chooses to be a Strawhat.

Sogeking shooting down the Enies Lobby flag is another brilliant moment. Not only does it look great visually, it is a defining moment for the Strawhats and their war against the World Government.

The last moment on this list is technically in Post-Enies Lobby, but it is when the Going Merry is destroyed. It actually causes a bit of a rift in the crew, but I never for a second thought I would have a strong emotional reaction to a ship being destroyed.

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Post-Enies Lobby Arc

With the post Enies Lobby arc, the Strawhats head off on their quest with a new crew member, and all seems right with the world again. They’ve conquered their enemies, saved their friends, and have a new adventure on the horizon.

PLUS, we get to see the new bounties for the Strawhats, which is something I really like every time it happens.

How the story is affected

Enies Lobby is a rollercoaster ride of emotion. It has a big impact on the future story of One Piece, and it sets up a lot of different story lines. There are things to this day that were introduced in Enies Lobby that we haven’t seen a conclusion for, and many other story lines were added to or completed.

Overall it is a fun read. I remember flying through this arc in only a few days. It was a tremendous amount of fun and if you do decide to pick up the One Piece manga, you’ll want to get to Enies Lobby as quick as you can.

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One Piece Manga Review: Water 7 Arc

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Hello dear readers, it’s that time of the month again where we review another manga arc in the One Piece series.

We’ve covered a lot of the story so far, with Skypeia being the last arc we reviewed.

We are going to skip over a few arcs, because if you’re a real One Piece fan, you know how awful they really are.

We are going to skip all arcs related to Foxy, because they are literally unbearable.

That leaves us with this month’s arc: Water 7.

Water 7 is one of the best arcs in the entire series in my opinion. It doesn’t add a whole lot to the overall plot of the story on its own, but tied together with Enies Lobby, the two are probably some of the most important arcs to date.

We get introduced to Franky, a ship building cyborg and future member of the Straw Hat Pirates.

What I like about Franky’s character is that we initially see him as a bad guy, and we almost believe that he will be the villain of the arc.

He starts off as bad, but the further the arc goes on, the more we realize he is actually a really good person.

I also like the design and the feel of Water 7 visually. It very obviously represents Venice, with a bit of a One Piece twist to it.

The story and the characters don’t mix in with the visual elements much, but I love how Oda can come up with such unique settings over and over and give them a bit of a One Piece feel to them all.

There are no big fights in this arc, well not in terms of big bad guy vs. Luffy.

We get some of the Straw Hats versus carpenters and some regular riff raf, but it’s not until Enies Lobbie we got some real fights.

There is one really important fight in this arc though, and I would say that it’s one of the most impactful fights in the entire story.

Luffy vs. Usopp.

If you’ve seen it, you know what it’s all about. You know the emotions behind it, you know why it’s happening, you know how powerful it really is.

It’s not a long fight, but it’s important to the story, and it constantly makes Top 10 lists for emotional anime moments.

Luffy vs. Usopp. Saddest fight ever.

It’s not a long fight, but it’s important to the story, and it constantly makes Top 10 lists for emotional anime moments.

Like I mentioned before, Water 7 isn’t an entire story on its own. Sure, it has its own characters and storylines, but none of it would be quite complete without Enies Lobby.

We lose one member of the crew; The Going Merry, but by the end of it we get the Thousand Sunny; a ship built by a Franky and his life-long friend Iceberg.

What did you think of the Water 7 Arc? It’s in my top 5 arcs, and if I thought about it, I’d probably put it in top 3.

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One Piece Arc Review: Skypeia

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Hello my manga lovers, it feels like its been too long.

I know I’ve done a manga review for Pygmalion last month, but I feel like its been years since a One Piece Arc Review.

This month’s manga arc review is all about Skypeia, which is a little controversial for some One Piece fans. Some like it, some don’t.

I think for the most part people like it, and I tend to agree for the most part, so let’s get into it!

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The Skypeia Arc is important for a few reasons. It gives us a better understanding of what Haki is, or will become once we hear about it, and it gives us an understanding of the Poneglyphs, which will definitely become important the more the story progresses.

Though it’s not called Haki yet, we see Enel and his Priests use Mantra as they battle the Straw Hats.

It’s the same idea as Observation Haki, and it shows how devastating it can be in battle.

We also get to see the Poneglyphs. They’re not wholly important yet, but as each arc comes into play they become more and more important because they hold the truth to a lot of questions that have been popping up as the story continues.

Skypeia is often seen as a microcosm to the entire One Piece World. It’s a sea on its own in the sky, and the Straw Hats travel to it, fight the bad guy, save the oppressed, and leave.

It wholly represents what the Straw Hats go through when they come to each island.

The arc has some good history to it, that I have a feeling might come into play later, but I am not entirely convinced.

There is one thing that really stands out about this arc though, and thats we get to see Robin actually fight one on one against someone.

Every other time she fights she is either the one to take out all the lackeys, or she is supporting someone else. She never fights someone on her own.

I think that it is an important part of the arc, but that same ideal gets lost as we continue with the story.

It gets harder and harder for Oda to write a fight scene for each of the Straw Hats. There are just too many of them, and not enough bad guys. It gets to the point that the crew needs to split up because the enemy numbers just aren’t living up to the Straw Hat’s.

Overall, the arc was good in my opinion. I enjoyed it, even if it had a little too much backstory to it.

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What did you think of the Skypeia arc? Let’s talk about it in the comments or on social media.
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