Boys Next Door Reviews

Rating: ♦♦♦

The death of the French aristocracy, rogue thieves and a boat load of angst. Sounds like something Charles Dickens would have a field day with. Well, if you ignored the massive homoerotic undertones. Welcome to You Higuri’s Gorgeous Carat. It’s pretty, it’s fluffy, and that’s about it.

It centers around Florian, the only son of an impoverished novel family. Florian is forced/tricked/compelled to work with Ray Balzac Cortland, a.k.a. Noir, an accomplished thief after the family treasure goes missing. Add in a good whipping, mistaken identity, treacherous family members and there is a semblance of a plot here under all the pretty drawings.

It’s a rather addicting series, even though it reminds me very much of a bodice-ripping romance novel. The art is nice enough that people who are on the fence on this one might want to consider picking it up. It’s not high literature, but it’s good for a quick read.

As per usual, BLU has done a great job with the translation and with the print quality. The full color insert in the front is making me a very happy fangirl.

All in all, it’s a cute series. I don’t think I’ll be waiting on bated breath for the next book to be released, but I’ll definitely be picking up the rest of this series at some point.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Take some treasure-hunting pretty boys and you’ve got a decent plot line right there. Add in foreign locales, a few bits of intrigue and it gets even better. Add in a sadistic, tyrannical character with no morals and an eye-patch and I’m in heaven. We’re back to the overblown world of Gorgeous Carat.

When we last left our intrepid heroes, Florian has been taken hostage by the Black Hand organization. We all knew that Nor was going to go and save him right? Because if he didn’t, we really wouldn’t have much of a story to go from.

Once Florian is safe and sound, it’s time to go on another mission and put him right back into danger. This time the troupe is going to Morocco to help out a friend from Nor’s past. The friend seems all right at first, but he seems to be playing everyone around him to get what he wants.

Put your knowledge of history aside. Forget just how grandiloquent the plot line is. This is all about having fun and getting sucked into the drama. Oh, and there’s drama galore. This series reminds me at times of a daytime soap opera with all of the twists, turns, characters back-stabbing each other and being kidnapped and having all kinds of not-nice things done to them.

And much like a daytime soap opera, it’s absolutely addicting. Complete with a massive cliffhanger at the end, just to ensure that I’m going to have to go out and buy volume three, just to see what happens.

Kudos to BLU for including the full-color inserts in the books. One of the things that I’ve always loved about You Higuri is her lush colors and details that are put into all of her illustrations. Each time you look at one of her drawings something new catches your eye that you missed the first time you looked at it. It’s just all kinds of gorgeous.