Huggles!

"Dear friend, when was the last time you hugged someone?"

A parents' love is when they buy you books in languages you don't know, and then they translate and read it to you afterwards. It's not an easy thing to do, but that's love. And that is apparently how far my parents love can extend.

Even without anyone translating for me, I'm quite content to just admire the pictures, because Jimmy Liao is amazing ^O^.

So his new book (40th in the series of books) is called Hug, and it's about a sleepy lion with a red mane. Much huggles is given out in this book, involving a great variety of animals, from a pink elephant to a starfish. I've gone through half of the book so far (courtesy of my dad the translator of course), and I'm enjoying it. I want to know what happens to the lion in the end, though right now I can only guess what will happen.

I find it peculiar though. Somehow, the structure of the book reminds me of the fictional book in the book 'I Capture The Castle' (confused yet? =P); the one that Cassandra's father wrote: Jacob Wrestling. Hugs is oddly cryptic- or maybe I am thinking too much, haha. There are little twists to the story; not in plot, but in the way the words are presented. One page is written in the form of a song, and in another the sentences are arranged to form an 'X' shape. And some characters are not typed, but 'written', not sure if just a stylized whim or it has some sort of meaning to it. But anyhow, it all seems to set the mood just right, and the result is a pretty, colourful book that is just brimming with Jimmy Liao's amazing style and characters! I especially love the pastel mint and pink of the front cover. So so pretty ^O^.

Popular bookstores always has a promotion whenever a new Jimmy Liao book comes in. This is the only book of Jimmy's that I got in hardcover, because!! It comes in this gorgeous plastic folder with all the huggable characters on it! Also, inside is a detachable poster with said characters and a printed autograph. So happy ^_^. If ever I have kids, I'm going to read Jimmy's books to them. Of course that means my dad has a serious translating job to do =P. That or my husband has to be proficient in reading and translating Mandarin, lol.

The holidays are almost coming to a close! I hope everyone's been enjoying themselves. I've been watching a hell-load of movies. The Princess and The Frog was really good! My sister and I howled in laughter almost all of the time- the other times were just wowing over Disney's classic ingenuity and creativity. I am very much looking forward to the Dark Knight Rises. It's probably the only movie I've urged and pestered my sister to go watch (usually it's the other way XD).

It's the weekend again! TGIF everybody! Go hug someone! Your parents, your dog, the person sitting across you beating yo ass out at chess- anyone! Have fun ^O^.

Starry Nights

Starry starry night~

Jimmy Liao is THE BOMB. No, really. He's one of the best artists I've ever come across. Got my hands on his latest book, The Starry Starry Night. From sources off the Net and my dad's pretty good translating sK!llz, I gather the story's about a young girl whose parents do not pay much attention to as they are too busy earning money. As a result, her parents hardly talk to her and only shower her with materialistic things. She met this boy in school, who's a loner and most of the other boys made fun of him. I think he likes drawing/painting, judging by the sketchbook he appears to be holding most of the time (God, I'm screwing up on tenses, aren't I? DX). He also seems to have quite a fascination to whales and dolphins. Anyway, a buncha boys were beating him up in a back alley one day and the girl intervened...somehow. Both of them got badly hurt, but they became friends through that incident, I think. After that they left the town and travelled to the countryside where the girl's grandparents lived. I think. I'm not sure about this part. But when they got back the girl fell sick and lapsed into a drowsy almost comatose state. During that time she dreamt of a whale swimming out towards the wide open sea. When she woke up and school reopened, she realised that the boy was gone. She went to his house and his grandmother told her that the boy's father's boat/ship was not in the port, hence assuming that father and son were gone for good. Grandma insisted that the girl went to the boy's room to have a look at it, so she did. And in the boy's room, was, well, nothing. But the walls were covered ceiling to floor with pictures of whales and dolphins. And right in the middle was a picture of the girl herself. Anyway, she never saw the boy again. Yeah. The end. I thought the story was really sad (I actually thought that the boy died, judging by the pictures and stuff. I guess my morbid mind just likes interpreting things differently XD), most of Jimmy Liao's books are. But that is what makes his books so fantastic. The illustrations are so colorful and vivid, yet when you look closer you realise that it's actually not so happy after all. Ah. The joys of artistry. Haha.

I'll blog about my trip to Krabi and the school anime convention later. Right now my lust for blogging has been satisfied. Lol.

I still love Gackt-sama by the way <3 br="br">