Something Awesome #36 - Mark Reads

*Apologies. It seems that after I wrote this Monday I forgot to publish it. Whoops.*

As I haven't done a real, full-length Something Awesome in a while and have said on many occasions recently that I have had many ideas for weeks...it makes sense that I decided to instead discuss something which I only discovered a few days ago, while referencing the subject in the intro! Intrigued? Then it's time for AwesomeJohn22 to talk about Mark Reads.

Mark Oshiro, a former Buzznet contributor who has since established his own review blog site, is the type of internet personality that I strive to be. He is a skilled writer with obvious natural skill above and beyond my own, who is entirely comfortable with who he is as a person, and strives to be as fair and non-biased as possible in his everyday life toward as many of his fellow humans as possible. He can go from humorous overreactions, to deep, critical analysis, to somber emotional examination in the span of just a line or two. I truly envy his abilities, and while he goes deeper into the narratives which he reviews and analyzes them more deeply that I likely ever will (I'm willing to turn my brain off to enjoy a movie if that was the intention, for example, where he seems to be in the opposite camp, over thinking everything and analyzing themes everywhere), I look up to this particular writer, and have already begun to learn some things from him. I haven't really even begun to dig into the Mark Reads (and corresponding Mark Watches) content, and I look forward to that journey, but I have taken time to examine (the majority of) three of Mark's prominent series, and I want to talk a bit about them here, starting with the best of the three.

Mark became famous, as far as I can tell, thanks to his series Mark Reads Twilight. While I appreciate this series, it isn't my favorite, because in terms of my opinion on Twilight as a series, I'm pretty content to say that I don't care enough to say "meh" let alone openly hate it. Mark, however, hated it vehemently, and was very open about it. We'll get into that in a minute, but let's just say that because I don't have really any opinion on Twilight at all, his reviews of said "literary" series neither infuriate me or validate me, so I don't get as much enjoyment out of them as I could. The case is not true of Mark's second series, done in his same typical one chapter per day review style, Mark Reads Harry Potter. As someone who came into the Potter fandom late, Mark was able to write his reviews for an audience that he knew had read and enjoyed the books, and by doing so, we were able to relive the first time that we read through them through his fresh eyes and opinions. Combine this with the fact that Mark's tragic past often mirrors that of the title character, allowing him some pretty distinct insights, and you get a truly memorable review series that is simultaneously funny and heart-wrenching, studded with some of the most creative theme reviews that I've ever read. Everyone who enjoys Harry Potter should read these reviews, and anyone who enjoys good writing should at least give them a chance.

Of course seeing someone enjoy themselves, as fun as it, is overshadowed on the internet by seeing someone suffer, which is why, despite the fact that I don't get into it as much as some others, Mark Reads Twilight is the second best and most enjoyable of his series which I have actually read. As I mentioned above, I don't give two Twilights about Twilight (in case you didn't catch it, in this sentence, I used "two Twilights" in place of "two shits"), finding it mediocre at best, and stupid and/or offensive at worst, so I don't care to deeply analyze the narratives (if they can be called such). There are moments in the books and movies which I do enjoy, but only because I purposefully go out of my way not to think about the stories. Like, at all. Mark, however, does care to dig deep into these stories, tearing into them and analyzing them relentlessly. It's funny, and it's interesting, but if you, like me, don't care enough to, well, care, you will have a hard time getting through them.

And finally, another series that I like almost as much Mark Reads Harry Potter, not quite because it's as good overall, or as fun, but because it mostly validates my own opinions (I'll admit this freely). One of Mark's more recent series (I'm not actually sure what he got up to after this), and my second favorite of the bunch, is Mark Reads The Hunger Games. As a fan of dark fiction, The Hunger Games series is perhaps the perfect series for Mark to review. Again, he came late to the party, but not as late as he did Harry Potter, into a series with a strong fanbase. However, in the case of this series he is not as forgiving of some of the literary pitfalls as he was with the Potter books, and so analyzes the writing more, making the series more intellectual overall. There is also less joy in these books, so the reviews are overall much more somber and serious. What I like about them, though, is that Mark went into the series as a fan of Battle Royal, a Japanese manga/movie property which The Hunger Games is often accused of ripping off, and Mark often defends the latter for taking things in a very different direction and pointing out that they are hardly the same at all outside of the initial concept. I greatly appreciate this, as the endless accusations and comparisons by many other reviewers get grating.

Overall, as I said before, Mark Reads is great. I love it, and I expect to go back and reread entire series at a later date. Mark has read and reviewed, in his typical chapter by chapter style, books that I've never read, and I look forward to being introduced to said books through Mark's blog. If you are a fan of reviews of literature, or of "literature" (*cough* Twilight *cough*), or of reviews in general, you should check it out, immediately, and come back later for another Something Awesome.