The Empty Empire 1-2, by Naoe Kita

I read the first volume way back when, but the second one only recently. Perhaps I was put off, despite the appealingly deranged story, by the art style (skinny bodies and bobbleheads.)

Once there was a great, great, great-- no-- phenomenally amazing man, the Emperor Idea! He ruled the world! (Except, as we learn later, a city called Disorder.) But now he is dead, leaving all in confusion and sorrow.

Until his amnesiac, telekinetic clone named Rose is created. Rose (yes, male) is taken in by a mysterious man named Eiri who rather resembles a bobbleheaded Hakkai (polite and kind yet vaguely sketchy; missing an eye, wears a monocle) and Eiri's companion, the thoroughly badass whip-wielding Ririka.

Rose's main goal is not to be Idea-- to have his own personality and be accepted as an individual. And yet everyone, except perhaps Ririka, is only interested in him insofar as he might take Idea's place. He's taken into the palace, where assorted solicitous butlers and coutiers attempt to make him into the new Emperor, and others try to assassinate him.

And then the plot get even wackier...

( Artificial fairies, clonecest, and random Latin )

The Empty Empire 1-2, by Naoe Kita

I read the first volume way back when, but the second one only recently. Perhaps I was put off, despite the appealingly deranged story, by the art style (skinny bodies and bobbleheads.)

Once there was a great, great, great-- no-- phenomenally amazing man, the Emperor Idea! He ruled the world! (Except, as we learn later, a city called Disorder.) But now he is dead, leaving all in confusion and sorrow.

Until his amnesiac, telekinetic clone named Rose is created. Rose (yes, male) is taken in by a mysterious man named Eiri who rather resembles a bobbleheaded Hakkai (polite and kind yet vaguely sketchy; missing an eye, wears a monocle) and Eiri's companion, the thoroughly badass whip-wielding Ririka.

Rose's main goal is not to be Idea-- to have his own personality and be accepted as an individual. And yet everyone, except perhaps Ririka, is only interested in him insofar as he might take Idea's place. He's taken into the palace, where assorted solicitous butlers and coutiers attempt to make him into the new Emperor, and others try to assassinate him.

And then the plot get even wackier...

( Artificial fairies, clonecest, and random Latin )

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Teenage Miles Halter, who is obsessed with the last words of famous people, goes away to boarding school in Alabama and becomes even more obsessed with one of his classmates, troubled wild girl Alaska.

If you have read a lot of YA novels, I bet you can correctly predict exactly what happens just from that one-sentence description. Party game: comment right now, without reading the rest, with your prediction of what happens!

It's a well-written novel which I didn't like as much as it probably deserved, primarily because I have read so many YA novels with nearly identical plots, characters, and themes that I always knew exactly where the story was going. For a novel with this plot to really stand out to me it would either have to be extraordinary rather than merely good, or have a narrative voice which I fall in love with, or have other elements which I enjoy for their own sake, like psychic powers.

( The totally unsurprising outcome! )

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Teenage Miles Halter, who is obsessed with the last words of famous people, goes away to boarding school in Alabama and becomes even more obsessed with one of his classmates, troubled wild girl Alaska.

If you have read a lot of YA novels, I bet you can correctly predict exactly what happens just from that one-sentence description. Party game: comment right now, without reading the rest, with your prediction of what happens!

It's a well-written novel which I didn't like as much as it probably deserved, primarily because I have read so many YA novels with nearly identical plots, characters, and themes that I always knew exactly where the story was going. For a novel with this plot to really stand out to me it would either have to be extraordinary rather than merely good, or have a narrative voice which I fall in love with, or have other elements which I enjoy for their own sake, like psychic powers.

( The totally unsurprising outcome! )