Review: Not Your Typical Yaoi!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 21, 2012
If you are an avid Yaoi fan like I am and you read this book, then you should already know how different this book really is. For those of you who haven't read much Yaoi or this is your first one - people, this story is a tough act to follow in the genre.I've been reading Yaoi for at least three years and in three years I have never read as dramatic a story as the ones in Ms. Rochelle Ragnarok's Boys in Love series (with the exception of Ms. Yamila Abraham's Incubus Master and Maelstrom series, another favorite Yaoi author of mine). Most Yaoi is very sappy and kind of dull in the plot department. I only read the stuff because I have a thing for pretty boys (snicker). That's not to say they aren't interesting overall, but they just aren't that dramatic.Bringing it back to the current book at hand, The Boy with the Koi Tattoo is a direct continuation from Ms. Ragnarok's first book in the Boys in Love series, Game Boys. I don't like giving away spoilers when I give a review so I won't get too much into the specifics, but if you read this first book and it left your head spinning - you are in for a real treat with this second one. If you haven't read Game Boys - go read it and then get this one.Again, I don't like giving things away but just to give you a little heads up on plot itself - The story starts off with Dai brooding over his failed romance with Kane (the guy he was with in Game Boys)where he then once more finds himself in a fateful, yet compromising position that introduces him to his soulmate, Shi, that has a deadly connection with the yakuza and ends up on bad terms with a sadistic gang leader hellbent on ruining Shi's life - not to mention Dai's friend, Shouta, who was a member of a street gang called the Grim Riders said to be a minor branch off from the yakuza. Both boys owe a debt to Miki, the Grim Rider's gangleader and son of a yakuza boss, and has a violent way about himself that ensures his compensation.The story just gets really wild as Dai and his friends once more find themselves in life and death situations trying to cover each other's asses. That's what really gets me about this story because in it, you'll find that Dai and Shi really have to go through a lot to be together and, honestly, some of it didn't sound terribly realistic. But that didn't make it any less intriguing and downright touching.In the end, it was just a damn good story. It was so upbeat and fast-paced in the drama department that, frankly, I think even someone who isn't a fan of Yaoi could enjoy it - that's of course if they could tolerate the erotic scenes between the guys. Unlike most Yaoi I've read, this particular story was about so much more than the sex. Ms. Ragnarok did an excellent job developing an actual story to carry the sex instead of some that stories that only seem lead from one sexual encounter to another. In fact, this would have been a good story even without the sex, in my opinion.I strongly recommend this story as well as the entire Boys in Love series. Much to my delight at the end there's mention of a third up and coming book in this series so I can't wait for that. I don't know if this will focus on Dai or not, but based on the way The Boy with the Koi Tattoo ended, I can't see it being so.Lastly, I will say this - if you want to be petty like the individual who gave this exciting story a one-star review, then I guess I probably should mention that despite the superb story itself, there is a bit of an issue with run-on. But not with so much with the sentences as the reviewer so dramatically made an issue out of as it was with the paragraphs following a scene change.There were a few confusing occasions where you were reading about one person one minute and instead of there being a space signifying the scene change inside of the chapter, you suddenly found yourself reading about another person in another place. Still, it was hardly the end of the world that reviewer made it out to be. With so much action going on, I can forgive Ms. Ragnarok for being too excited to pay attention to such detail. However, some of you might not be so I just thought I would bring it up.