Major – DaneCobain.com

Tupac Shakur – The Rose That Grew from Concrete | Review

Title: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Author: Tupac Shakur

Type: Poetry

Page Count: 154

Rating: 3/5

I was quite exciting to get to this one because I’d heard someone talking about it on BookTube and I like Tupac’s music as much as the next person. Unfortunately, it got off on a bad foot to begin with thanks to four or five different introductions, each of which tried to paint Shakur’s poetry as being worthy of being included amongst the top ranks of contemporary literature.

But the poems themselves just feel like incomplete song lyrics. Half of them are just love poems for various different women, and a pretty sizeable proportion are about a god that I don’t believe in. Plus I got annoyed by him writing “2” instead of “to” and “4” instead of “for”. So yeah, only worth reading for major Tupac fans.

Learn more about The Rose That Grew from Concrete.

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata – Death Note Black Edition: Volume V | Review

Title: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Author: Death Note: Black Edition Volume VI

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 426

Rating 4/5

I’m almost at the end now, and I’m pleased to report that it’s picked back up a little bit and I enjoyed this one more than the last. It’s still not quite as good as it was when it first started out, but it’s still good enough and it’s definitely worth reading, especially if you’ve made it this far.

I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this was that you could tell that we were getting near the end game and so the stakes felt a little higher. The authors have also shown by this point that they don’t mind killing major characters when it serves the story, which leaves you as the reader feeling like pretty much anything could happen.

Other than that, I’m not too sure what else I can say that I haven’t said in previous reviews. As always, the artwork is gorgeous, so big props to Takeshi Obata for that. Tsugumi Ohba does a great job with the story, too. He’s clearly a master storyteller, and it’s impressive how much he manages to convey through just dialogue and the image briefs that he gives to his illustrator.

If you’re thinking about reading Death Note, I’d definitely recommend picking up the Black Edition books. They’re not super expensive (I think I paid around £30 for all six of them), and they’re beautiful little artefacts in their own right. They’ll look great on your shelves, but they also look great in your hands and the quality of the print is good enough to highlight all of the details from the original comics.

The only thing that I will say is that when I first started reading the series, I didn’t know who I wanted to win because I liked both sides. Now, though, I don’t know who I want to win because I don’t really care for either side, which is probably a bad sign. I’m just not as invested in the series as I was when I first started out, and I can’t tell whether that’s because of the story or just that I’m flagging.