Favorite book read: Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
I was a huge fan of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and these two great authors (each with their own great books) hit it out of the park again.
Favorite television watched: It’s a tie (since it’s season premiere time! yay!): Heroes and House.
Both were just what I wanted after a summer of no new TV—Heroes was great, and I love Hiro even more, and House was incredibly funny.  Sometimes I think it should just be the House and Wilson show.
Favorite comic read: Cantarella (volume 8 preview!) by You Higuri
This series, all about the devious and magnetic Borgia family during the late 1400s in Italy, just gets better and more creepy.  Not for the faint of heart, but beautifully illustrated and researched by You Higuri.
I’ve not done much online this week, except email, so I’m taking a break from the website portion of the update.

Favorite book read: Montmorency on the Rocks by Eleanor Updale
For me, this is one of the most entertaining period caper novels—will Montmorency, once a thief and now a gentleman spy, get away with it once again?
Favorite television watched: Noein (Japanese anime)
Beautiful and yet incredibly creepy, this is a students-trapped-in-sci-fi-landscape at its best.
Favorite comic read: Buffy Season 8 (in comic book form)
Joss Whedon and now Brian K. Vaughan?  How can you go wrong?  Plus the gorgeous Jo Chen covers.
Favorite online (practical): Anime News Network
The best place online for anime series, films, voice actors, and news.  When I want to know how many sequels to Death Note there are, this is the place to find out the answer.
Favorite online (fun): Set Game
I’m not a huge gamer, and this one is not at all complicated, but it’s definitely a challenge to see how fast you can do it.

Favorite book read: Midnighters: The Secret Hour (Midnighters Book 1) by Scott Westerfeld
So creepy, but in the best way.
Favorite television watched: Friday Night Lights
I know a lot of you probably had to read the book for required reading, but this show is incredibly good.  And I don’t even watch (or really understand) football.
Favorite comic read: Emma Volume 5 by Kaoru Mori
Favorite online (practical): Students.gov
Embarking on planning your educational future?  This site covers everything, from how to get to school to how to pay for it.
Favorite online (fun): Tomato Nation
If you have cats, you’ll love her tales of her cats’ escapades and battles with her Roomba..  If you don’t care about cats, you’ll appreciate her ability to whittle down celebrities to hilarious commentary.

Favorite book read: The New Policeman by Kate Thompson
Favorite movie watched: Zodiac
Favorite comic read: Translucent by Kazuhiro Okamoto
Favorite online (practical): Wikipedia (I know Wikipedia gets a lot of flack, but for pop culture info, it can’t be beat.
Favorite online (fun): the new Apple iPod touch (drool!)

Favorite book read: Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks
Favorite TV show watched: Supernatural Bloopers for season 2
Favorite comic read: Blue Beetle: Road Trip by Keith Giffen
Favorite online (practical): Internet Movie Database This site truly gives you everything you ever wanted to know about a TV show or movie.  I couldn’t watch TV without it!
Favorite online (fun): Television Without Pity Speaking of TV, my favorite spot for TV-related snark.  Check out their great book, too: Television Without Pity : 752 Things We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) About TV by Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting.

Favorite book read: The Fox by Sherwood Smith
Favorite TV show watched: Psych
Favorite comic read: Demon Flowers by Mizuki Hakase
Favorite online fun: Cat Macros for every occasion. Have a blog or use twitter?  Check out this great meme that pairs up your text or subject lines with random cat pictures.  I laughed for about 20 minutes at mine!

Shy Aki is struggling with her perfect older brother’s death.  Her parents offer little aid in recovery, and she constantly feels the pressure of comparisons to her dead sibling, both externally and internally imposed.  As a victim of escalating bullying, she retreats further and further into silence and shadows.  Her longing for her brother’s protection is threaded through every scene as she sinks farther and farther away from reality.  Then suddenly up pops Kai: a confident, brash girl who swaggers through Aki’s life, dealing out justice to her tormentors.  The problem is: where did Kai come from?  As Aki experiences longer and longer periods of blackout, it becomes all too clear that her savior may be very close indeed.  Is it her brother’s spirit come back to defend her?  Or is she simply losing her mind?  Does it matter, if in some small way she can get her brother back?

Sho Murase fills her pages with swirls of gray tones, blacks, and lines with remarkable style, and depends a lot on her superlative sense of design to carry the emotional weight of the story.  The dialog and text retreads a familiar tale of dual personalities, but the art elevates it into a moody examination of isolation and the need for a hero.  ME 2, a psychological mystery, will appeal to teens who want something a little less frothy than the usual manga romance.  The mystery is not so much who Kai is but more how her presence will affect Aki’s place the in world and her recovery from grief.

Originally written for No Flying, No Tights, a graphic novel review website