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Lenni Reviews: “Confessions” by Kanae Minato & Stephen Snyder (Translator)

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After the death of her daughter Minami, Yuko resigns from her teaching job. As part of her parting lecture, she tells a twisting story about how the death of her child was no accident. It was murder. And those to blame are in that room.

This one horrible incident spirals from one woman’s revenge to a twisted child’s desire to be seen. I mean, I totally understand why Yuko is out for revenge after reading everything she’d gone through, but wow. She may have taken it a little too far? It’s just sad overall, but it drags in the middle; it made me feel like I needed to get those parts over with to get back to Yuko and her plans, but the payoff at the end? That fucking gut punch made it all worth it. If you don’t mind that slow part, I say check it out. 3 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Manhole” Vol. 1, by Tetsuya Tsutsui

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*This book is recommended for mature audiences.

After a sick naked man collapses in the street, the police try to track down where he came from, leading to a blood trail coming from the sewers. Meanwhile, whatever he was afflicted with seems to be spreading.

The parasite/virus is gross. If you don’t like body horror, skip this. It’s not a bad opener to a plague/zombie/infected type story but it’s pretty typical. The infection is slowly spreading, an investigation, creepy source of all the chaos; pretty standard for the genre. The two cops on the case. Nao and Ken, are the gruff experienced one, contrasted with the plucky newbie. The art can really get your stomach churning, showing postules, the parasite squelching under the skin, close-ups of bugs and blood… I am waiting for something to make this stand out from the rest. 3 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews Challenge Edition: “The Groomer” by Jon Athan

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Andrew McCarthy and his wife, Holly, have a typical life with their kids, Max and Grace. That is, until they notice a man named Zachary sniffing around, and Grace goes missing. Frustrated with the police, Andrew embarks on his own violent mission to find his daughter.

Well… Overall, this is Taken, but if we spent more time on the most awful parts of human trafficking, torture, murder, and snuff (trigger warnings for all of that, by the way). We don’t get the catharsis of a “win” after going through all this darkness; just bitter emptiness. A family is destroyed, and all the revenge gore in the world won’t make the demented fruits of these monsters go away. It’s just a downer, especially with what’s going on in the world now (perhaps that impacted my experience). Even if it’s not the perfect ending where everything is fine, there could have been some kind of hope at the end. The writing is fine, the descriptions of violence are visceral and real, but I can’t say I enjoyed this. 2 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews – Challenge Edition: “100% Match” by Patrick C. Harrison III

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*This book is intended for mature readers only.

At 30 years old, Bart is looking for his perfect woman, a match for him in every way, and is obsessed with the statistics around what women want. But with a dead-end job, rotund bod,y and suspect habits, how would he find such a woman?

The horror comes from Bart’s proclivity for contaminating customers’ food at his fast food job and murder. My first complaint is the physical book:

This story was originally part of an anthology, and as you can see in comparison to my hand, it’s really small. I am shocked I was able to get this, as in my professional librarian’s opinion, books like this are a shelving nightmare. I expect them to vanish either by being stolen or lost among the regular-sized materials.  What does this have to do with the content? Nothing, I walk about what I want. Deal with it. If the author wanted this as a physical copy on its own, I don’t see any better way of doing it other than a pamphlet or holding on to it until you write a bunch of other stories to pad things out to a regular-ish sized book. This is a very mild complaint, and I don’t hold it against the story itself.

Reading this gave me the same sort of feeling I had when I watched August Underground, only this was significantly less boring. The same casual tone used when speaking of his normal actions, Bart uses with the obscene acts he commits. It’s not poorly written, and the twist ending gave me a chuckle, but overall, this was just an okay read. 2.5 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Battle Royale: Enforcers” Vol. 3, by Koushun Takami & Yukai Asada

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review and is for mature readers.

The various squads of children deal with their deadly predicament in different ways, either embracing the chance to kill, abhorring the violence, or coming to terms with the hopelessness of their situation.

This volume cycles through each group who, as stated, are all handling things differently. I think the group that’s painting their faces and acting super edgy (very The Jokerz) were a bit silly. Even when they’re threatening violence, I couldn’t quite take them seriously. As such, there’s not much battling going on. It’s mostly talking and strategizing with the resident loony character committing the only violence in the book. It’s not bad but if you’re looking for a bloody mess, this isn’t it. 3.9 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Battle Royale: Enforcers” Vol. 1, by Koushun Takami & Yukai Asada

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review and is recommended for mature readers.

After a two decade ban, Program 68 is restarted and the newest crop of ill-fated kids are Daito Academy’s Class F. Now, they will be forced to kill their fellow classmates in order to be the last one standing.

Now, it’s more understandable to have the info dump at the beginning of the story because the games in universe haven’t been a thing in a long time and it’s been awhile since the original series came out. Other than being some creepy masterminds making this decision, we don’t know why this class was chosen to bring this program back but I’m sure the reason will come out later on.

Our cast is the typical school student collection: the idealistic lead, bitchy girls, uncommonly good at killing quiet guy, etc. But it doesn’t waste time getting to the bloodshed. I’m sure we’ll get to know the students better as the series goes; probably right before they’re brutally killed. 3.7 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Alice in Borderland” Vol. 9, by Haro Aso

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

For Arisu and Chishiya there is only one face card left after their final confrontation with Niragi.

Niragi is one of those characters that makes me go “Why are you still here?” The entire time of the last appearance, I was just metaphorically tapping my foot for the Queen if Hearts part. I did wonder if the source material would have the same ending as the show and (spoilers, I guess???) it’s pretty much the same and I do like the way it’s handled. It’s creative and I think it’s more interesting than some huge ass battle or another game with math that gives me a headache. These omnibus editions were really satisfying and I had a lot of fun reading them. If you like these survival game stories, this is a good series. 4 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Alice in Borderland” Vol. 6, by Haro Aso

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

This volume features the climactic ending of the King of Clubs game, then begins the Jack of Hearts game; where the players have to trust each other to read their assigned card suits on the back of their necks.

I like this section but I feel like the tension in the show for the Jack of Heats game was much higher than in this manga. It’s still amazing and a nail biter; providing the same thrills despite Arisu taking a breather for most of it. The Jack of Hearts game is less gruesome than others as in there is less on “screen” violence and it’s more implied. But as usual, there is plenty of death. 4 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Parasocial” by Alex de Campi & Erica Henderson

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

His acting career fading and marriage ending, Luke attends a convention to sign things and take pictures to earn money for his upcoming child support payments. After an exhausting day, he has a car accident and a fan of his stops to help, only for her to take him prisoner.

It’s no Misery but this is a freaky read. It’s very story driven and shows the dangers of obsessive fans but it’s too short. It says a lot and deals with how social media plays into these things, it has some legitimately scary moments but I think there should been more story and less creator notes at the end. 3.5 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Tista” Vol. 1, by Tatsuya Endo

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

By day, Tista is a college student studying to become a teacher. But by night, she is Sister Militia, The Grim Reaper of New York, a deadly assassin.

While I liked this series so far, it’s one hell of a downer. There’s tons of action and drama but it is violent and dark. Imma go ahead and put in a trigger warning for dead kids. Tista is not mentally well and the imagery conveying that is fantastic. The art easily goes from cute slice of life to gritty and tortured. Also, at least at the end of this volume, a few tropes I was expecting to happen didn’t. I genuinely did not know where this was going to go which makes it intriguing. 3.8 out of 5.

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