Tempest Rising: A Novel

Book Description

It is 1965 in Philadelphia. Clarise, Finch, and their three adolescent daughters are living the dream life of the black financially privileged. Then everything changes with the suddenness of a violent summer thunderstorm. Finch's lucrative catering business falls on hard times. Finch is lost at sea, Clarise suffers an apparent nervous collapse, and the girls -- Shern, Bliss, and Victoria -- are discharged into the foster care of politically connected cardsharp Mae and her beautiful, dark-spirited daughter Ramona. A world rich in love, pride, and joy has been abruptly exchanged for another -- one coarser and meaner, suffused with an air of jealousy, malignity, and brutal secrets that permeate every room of Mae's unhappy home. But pain and cruelty cannot destroy a determination to survive -- and a driving need to recapture a wounded lost thing called family.

Customer Reviews:

**SPOILER** The ending was WACK!!!.......2006-01-21

To anyone who has read this book, I want you to be really honest with yourself. If YOUR mother was abusive to you AND opened up credit accounts around town in YOUR name...would you really collapse in her arms and say mommy I love you? Or would you take a bat and collapse her skull?

Just askin'.

The ending was totally unbelievable...meaning I didn't believe it one bit.

Redemption.......2005-08-19

I liked Tumbling so much that I wanted to read all of McKinney-Whetstone's books - but I was prepared to dislike this one because of several reviews on this site. Surprise surprise! I liked it better than Tumbling. Sure, the beginning was slow, because she was setting up the perfect family situation, only to see it fall and rise again in a different way, including a totally different family in its circle. Yes, Ramona is the center...but the book is not just about one character but about walls falling inside people, walls that they have built up to deal with what life has dealt them. Ramona's growth, from a person that you find it hard to like, to a person that you truly love and empathize with, is the center of the book. This is a heartfelt book but it's not sappy. It's harder to appreciate because it's a lot more complex than Tumbling. There are characters who just stay the same (Addison) and characters whose growth surprises you -- Mae. There are characters who rise to the challenge to be better than they are -- Tyrone's daddy Perry. The rich girls turn out to be survivors, even though they ARE kinda spoiled -- this is a rare and realistic portrait of sisters whose personalities complement each other, even though they are all quite different. McKinney-Whetstone IS deep, and she is wise. Her writing takes you back in time but leaves you with hope for the future. And I congratulate her for writing the people inside her and making it work, even when the relationships are complex.

It was alright.......2004-05-04

I like the whole sixties concept but it needed some energy this book seemed to be so slow, yet it had good parts to but
I wouldn't suggest you rush to the store to get it it's not that wonderful.

Blood is thicker than water.......2003-01-02

In Tempest Rising, Dianne McKinney Whetstone brings back the same indelible knack for superb characterizations that was evident in her debut novel, Tumbling.

Set in Philadelphia in the 1960's, Tempest Rising is the tale of three sisters forced to live in foster care because of their mother being erroneously diagnosed with mental illness. When these sisters meet up with their foster family, they are distraught and stricken with the reality of being separated from their kin. The girls endure hardship after hardship, but manage to stick together in their time of trial.

Ramona, the foster "sister", if you will, is cold and emotionless toward the girls as well as toward her beau, Tyrone. She is forced to do all of the "grunt work", while her mother, Mae, takes all the glory of caring for the fosters that pass through their home. However, we are enlightened as to the demons haunting Ramona and Mae, and taken deeper into a secret that has permeated her being for decades.

Bold, lively characters such as the girls' aunts Til and Ness and uncles Blue and Show, the mysterious Mister who helps them out in times of danger, and the whole cast shed light on the plot, rather than deter the reader from it.

A delightful, suspenseful, emotional read, Tempest Rising ranks among the best.

Reviewed by CandaceK

Heartwarming!.......2002-06-20

(originally posted June 2, 1998)

I read this wonderful novel in 2 days! This tale shows us that love is tie that binds strong families. This is a heart-warming story of a family's love, pain and jubilation! An excellent and creative work of art that brings the characters to life. They become so real, you even feel their love, joy, fear, passion-without vulgarity, and anger-without too much profanity. Creatively and vividly written for appreciative audiences (thirtysomething and up).

Diane, I wish you wrote them as fast as we read them. You are a gifted artist, and hopefully you will include Atlanta on your tour. How about a collection of short stories? I love your writing style.

Book Description

After all the studying he did for his exams, sacrificing time with his boyfriend Yuichi, Wataru gets a measly C-average on his summer prep test. Yuichi's college classmate Asaka offers to tutor him, and he eagerly accepts. Wataru finds Asaka's cool beauty and attitude strikingly similar to that of Yuichi's, and subconsciously becomes vulnerable to his advances. For the first time in their relationship, Yuichi becomes enraged. Will they be able to overcome this new obstacle?!

Customer Reviews:

only the ring finger knows volume 3: the ring finger falls silent.......2007-09-26

It was awesome!!!!!!!! i loved it! at was like new when i go it. and it was one of the best books i ever read. it wasn't actual manga 'cause it not a comic but it was just like reading a manga as far as plot and stuff. and the art was fantastic.

Must read it.......2007-01-19

I like this books because it thaks me in. I'm not a big reader but I read it in 2 days. The story flows and I want to know what happens next.
A good advise read it!!!

If you've come this far, there is already no turning back: Resign yourself to this book........2006-11-02

Volume three of the Only the Ring Finger Knows novel series, The Ring Finger Falls Silent, suffers many of the same problems that its predecessor, The Left Hand Dreams of Him, did. Again it is translated by Duane Johnson, and again it suffers many instances of awkward sentence structure, and particularly very confusing dialogue and unquoted or even not so much as clearly defined thoughts. It is however an improvement in quality over the last volume (did DMP perhaps read my previous review and take notes? Too much to hope for, I know...), which was almost laughable for its many typographic and grammatical errors. There were also a number of instances of hyphens attached to the word "in" and a word to follow it, that seemed very out of place (was I the only one drawn to this?).

Odagiri's illustrations are again beautifully drawn, but of course, as in volume 2, they are out of place. Each of them seem to be several pages late in this volume, and in a few of the more pivotal moments, the allure that would have been added to the scene is lost and the scene has changed focus by the time the reader gets to experience the illustration. Very unfortunate.

That aside, this installment doesn't hold quite as much emotional power as the previous two installments. As the loyal readers, which if you have followed these awkward DMP localizations you must be to plow through a third book, we get our Yuichi/Wataru fix satisfied. Their love is as strong for each other as ever, but always at a difficult price. Their relationship is only known to a few, and the number of people who know and do not approve is on the rise, as we discovered in volume 2. Shohei in particular makes his intentions and reasonings behind his attitude towards his younger brother's relationship known and he hatches a plot to drive a wedge between them in part 2, Your Confession in Both Hands. For his part, Asaka in part 1, also makes his intentions, long suspected by Yuichi, and us, known to Wataru as well with some forward and desperate, and ultimately hopeless, actions. Don't worry though, everything, like it always does to fill our hearts with warmth reading the books of this wonderful series, works out just fine for our boys in the end.

The Ring Finger Falls Silent is quite a bit longer that the second novel, which itself was quite a bit longer than the first novel (about 50 pages increased each volume) and therefore took me an extra hour or two to get through. More for your money I suppose.

The love scenes are more descriptive in this volume, for those who are interested in the graphic romantic bits, but there are fewer scenes of Yuichi an Wataru's physical relationship. Instead of being merely flowery some actual spacial detail is provided, though it still retains the beauty of Kannagi's poetic style.

The afterward by Kannagi herself is probably the most hopeful part in the whole book, though. Within those few pages we are revealed that this storyline is not quite done with and we can look ahead to more novels from our fair author and her loyal illustrator chronicalling the deep love and bond of our heroes, Yuichi and Wataru, in the coming years.

Only The Ring Finger Knows Novel 2: The Left Hand Dreams of Him (Yaoi) (Only the Ring Finger Knows)

Average customer rating:

this book rocks
Why is it that sequels are never as good?
For all OtRFK fans.
Great story, but...

Only The Ring Finger Knows Novel 2: The Left Hand Dreams of Him (Yaoi) (Only the Ring Finger Knows)
Satoru Kannagi , and Hotaru Odagiri
Manufacturer: Digital Manga Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1569708851

Book Description

Yuichi, who has just been accepted into an extremely prestigious national university, has planned a vacation for his exam-ridden boyfriend, Wataru. Looking to raise money for the trip, Yuichi agrees to a short-term job with his college senior Asaka, whose cool attitude and mature personality makes for an uncanny resemblance to Yuichi himself. Taking a liking to Wataru, Asaka makes no effort to hide his interest and advances. How long will Yuichi be able to contain his frustration and jealousy?!

Customer Reviews:

this book rocks.......2007-01-07

i love this book you should totally buy it trust me you won't regret it.i would like to tell you more but i don't want to spoil it for you

Why is it that sequels are never as good?.......2006-11-03

I really enjoyed the first book much more than the sequel. The whole process of getting together and doing it for the first time is so awkward and goofy, it came across as being realistic and very amusing.

However, in the sequel our couple have been together for a year, but are still stepping on each other's toes. Wataru gets friendly with Kazuki's cool and smooth talking upperclassman, basically allowing the other guy to pursue him and rousing Kazuki's jealousy. You'd think that after a year Kazuki would know Wataru well enough to realize that he's just dense and naive, and go easy on him instead of stirring up needless drama. There is some really cheesy dialogue on par with Star Wars III. The ending is also unoriginal: they make up and make out, which is how the first two arcs ended.

In the next arc, our couple are on vacation. Maybe this is due to the lackluster translation, but the passages about their activities are quite dull and even boring. I got sick of reading about how cool Kazuki looks and how people always turn his way. There are some cute moments, like when Kazuki suddenly kisses Wataru in the car, shocking some grade school onlookers, but for the most part I would press fast forward, so to speak. When Kazuki's brother finally appears and declares opposition, it's rather anticlimactic. The narrative talks about how impressive and intimidating he is, but this did not come across in anything he says. The couple's reaction to the brother's threat is sweet, though. I don't want to give it away, but this arc has a very satisfying conclusion.

Overall I feel that the book suffers from inflated text and cliche situations, but the characters are just so appealing that I will have to read the third volume and reread parts of this one, too!

For all OtRFK fans........2006-08-02

First of all, I'm very disappointed with DMP's editing of the context... So many missing quotation marks... and some lines that are supposed to be /thoughts/ aren't even italicized or anything. Some of the translation was a bit rough and awkward in diction as well... but, that part I can excuse since they try to translate as literal as possible. Please keep in mind that English and Japanese writing styles differ, and it is impossible to translate so that it fits the English reading mind 100%. I do wish they keep honorifics though... One mistake they're still repeating is the placement of the illustrations... sometimes they appear few pages before the scene actually happens, and sometimes after it happens. At the very least, I was hoping the layout be correct, but apparently not.

As for the actual story itself, despite all those technical errors, I just totally love the couple even more now! Kazuki and Wataru in here is so... precious Kannagi-sensei's writing is romantic, deep, and insightful. The relationship between K and W is just so down-to-earth, and their worries and struggles are really realistic. (It is clearly an example that plot-movement is more important than loads of fanservice)

In the second chapter, for once we see Kazuki being troubled, and it's Wataru who reassures him - since it has always been the other way around. As LKK stated, we begin to see flaws in Kazuki's character, so now their relationship feels even more reciprocal. Not only that, but the new characters Asaka and Shohei feel very necessary to the plot even if they are side casts.

And as always, I love Odagiri-sensei's illustrations to death.

If you're looking for smut-type of plot, or even action filled drama, you definitely won't find here. Rather, the events that happen in the novel are really normal and typical, but it's how they effect Kazuki and Wataru that are the highlights - it's the ever fluctuating and strengthening of their relationship that really matters.

Great story, but..........2006-07-21

...DMP needs to proofread their novel translations! Geez. I can't tell you, since I actually lost count, how many easily identifiable mistakes were in this printed novel. I actually think this one had more than the first novel for this series. It wasn't that there were mispelled words, no. I'm sure DMP ran MS Word Spellcheck on it at some point, but that seems to be where they ended. There were words that were obviously meant to be other words and numerous mistakes that I could believe someone who did not read and write English as a first language would make grammatically. I would hope that a major publisher of yaoi manga in America would hire someone to do the job of an editor and fix these kinds of things, though. The translation was a little awkward, but I'm not about to blame the fact that English and Japanese are such different languages on the publisher. I can however complain that the writing style in the translation lacked cohesiveness. Sometimes thoughts were in quotations, but often they were not, and as the reader I had to spend more time trying to figure out who was saying what, or if they were saying it at all. It also seemed that in a number of the instances where thoughts were not quoted, that they originally had been, because the first letter in those thoughts was still capitalized. There were also a lot of punctuation mistakes. Some of them were unfinished sentences, and a few seemed to be the result of a paragraph or sentence being broken in the middle, but the punctuation to correct this not being added.

Also, related to this is the seemingly out of place illustrations in this volume. In the first volume the illustrations popped on the pages at just the right moments for the events they depicted, but in volume two they are often either several pages too early or too late. Odagiri does the illustrations again, and again they are beautiful. The color illustrations at the beginning of the book are even wonderful enough to make me want to have them as a poster on my wall.

Anyway, aside from my nitpicking it really isn't a bad read. My heart has a little place carved out for Yuichi and Wataru's love for each other (one of the more beautifully written in the genre), and I always enjoy reading their adventures. The story really is beautiful. It is not that anything is overwhelmingly surprising or exciting, but I would have to settle on "inspiring." This lovely couple makes you want to believe that everything, despite obstacles, fighting and misunderstandings, is going to turn out just fine.

The Left Hand Dreams of Him is a true sequel to the first novel, so if you aren't familiar with the first book, you might want to read that before giving this one a try. This one was written after the manga version, so that little extra side story that Odagiri wrote for the end of the manga makes some cameo appearances in this volume (a couple parts towards the end of the book were laugh out loud funny).

Volume two of the OTRFK novel series takes place almost a year after the first story. Yuichi is in college and Wataru is about to get busy with his exams in a couple months, much like Yuichi had been back in part two of the first novel, so Yuichi plans a vacation. To do this he has to make some money, so he gets a job working for his senior, who bears a striking resemblance to himself in both appearance and personality. This of course creates a lot of drama for the couple. Part two, Eternity of the Palm, takes place during the vacation itself, and another person comes to try to stand in the way of Yuichi and Wataru's relationship, so they have their hands full even as they try to relax and enjoy themselves away from the prying eyes of Tokyo and their lives there.

As far as graphic content goes, Kannagi has a beautifully descriptive style that lends itself to being vague enough not to feel erotic, but clear enough to be entirely romantic when it comes to the lovemaking scenes of our heroes (of which which there are numerous in this volume).

I give it four stars because of the awkward translation, but otherwise a wonderful story. If you liked the first novel, I highly recommend continuing through the series. I know I will be ordering volume three just as soon as it comes out.

Only The Ring Finger Knows Novel 1: The Lonely Ring Finger (Yaoi) (Only the Ring Finger Knows)

Average customer rating:

Lovely book tho DMP coulda done betta
Lovely!
An Absolute Must-Have!!!
the confusion's the best part!
Simply beautiful.

Only The Ring Finger Knows Novel 1: The Lonely Ring Finger (Yaoi) (Only the Ring Finger Knows)
Satoru Kannagi , and Hotaru Odagiri
Manufacturer: Digital Manga Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 1569709041

Book Description

It's the ultimate expression of love to wear matching rings with your significant other, showing the world that you are a couple. High school student, Wataru Fujii, also wears one even though he is single. When he accidentally switches rings with a popular and handsome senior, Yuichi Kazuki, they discover that their rings pair up! Since that moment, Kazuki - who is known for being kind to all - becomes strangely harsh to Wataru. They alternate between hot and cold, as in between clashes they begin to sort their feelings for one another. Are Wataru and Kazuki the worst of enemies or are they actually soulmates?

Customer Reviews:

Lovely book tho DMP coulda done betta.......2006-12-23

As DMP's first Novel translated because of its popularness as a Manga I would have expected DMP to take a little more time to make this Novel perfect. There are a couple of mistakes and whatnot and confusing areas (due to lazy translation) but overall it's a beautifully written story (mainly contains everything in the Manga of the same title) and the images are gorgeous.

It's a light BL Novel atm, doubt it'll reach a Yaoi Label. And goes for 4 volumes.

But this is a deffient buy for anyone who is looking for a Novel to add to their Yaoi/BL collection.

Lovely!.......2006-09-14

I guess most of us pick up this novel because we enjoy the manga version.
I like the manga but I love the novel more. This novelist's expression of the boys' budding love is simply beautiful. Thankfully the translation did not let us down even though more editing would have been appreciated. I could not help regretting not knowing Japanese (sigh!).
Vol 1 has 2 stories. The manga is based on the first story but even the pleasing graphics and faithful adaptation could not beat the expressive words depicting the angst and romance in the novel.
And of course there is the second story which is even more emotional and the last part when our 2 boys finally consume their love is touching and warmly romantic and described with a fluid grace. This second story was never published in any manga form.
For the price, the novel is definitely worth its weight in gold considering I have no qualm about spending close to $10 bucks for the manga.
Glad there are 2 more volumes to go in this beautiful series. After reading "Don't worry Mama" and this, I am hungry for more translated Japanese BL/Yaoi novels.

An Absolute Must-Have!!!.......2006-05-11

I absolutely love this novel! The story itself is great to begin with; not that the manga didn't do a wonderful job bringing the characters to life, but it didn't continue the second part of the novel which was about Wataru and Yuichi's time together as a couple.

The first half of the novel titled "Only the ring finger knows" is similar to the manga, so i won't elaborate more about this part. The second part titled "The lonely ring finger" is what you should look forward to (i know i did!).

"The lonely ring finger" is a continuation of Wataru and Yuichi's relationship after they became a couple; how they try to spend time together without revealing themselves to their peers in school, a bet that is out-of this-world, etc, etc; in my opinion, this second part tells more about their "human" side and their struggles to stay together (like how any other normal couples would) despite all the mishaps and lies.

Other than a few typo errors here and there, i find this novel a joy to read and have; it's a must-have for you yaoi fans out there! I can't wait for the second novel to be released in July!!!!

the confusion's the best part!.......2006-04-21

as the other reviews say, the first story is already manga, but the extra details make it worth rereading. and the second one gives a great view of japanese school life and makes you feel like you really are there. but the best thing of all is the confusion, and i'm not just talking about between the boys. wataru's confused by yuichi's actions... yuichi's confused by his own reactions... all the worrying, wondering.... but the thing i really love is that it's never really clear which one is the seme and which is the uke. scene by scene is changes as to which one shows more confidence, more belief in their feelings than the other one.
oh and i do agree, the last illustration is amazing! i'm just wondering if the other stories will be/are manga too.

Simply beautiful........2006-04-16

The original novel of the popular BL manga is finally on American shores. This has got to be one of the most anticipated BL releases of the year for me, and I was not disappointed. Setting aside the awkward cliches and predictable plot, the story is absolutely beautiful.

If you enjoyed the manga version of this story, you will definitely enjoy the novel. It is divided into two parts. The first part, Only the Ring Finger Knows, follows very closely the story of the manga. Or, should I say, the manga followed this story very closely. This was fairly refreshing, as often a story gets condensed when it is transferred into a visual medium.

If you haven't read the manga, but are interested in the genre, you may very well still enjoy this title. The premise of the story is that Wataru Fujii, a second year high school student accidentally switches rings, a symbol of romance and fad at his school, with the very popular third year Yuichi Kazuki, who is renowned for his gentle kindness and good looks. Kazuki's attitude towards Wataru is anything but kind, and it leads the two down a two week long path of misunderstandings, confusion and heartache, all of which revolve around their "coincidentally" matching rings. Part one is very tame, only describing a couple of very sweet kisses and dealing primarily with the boys' conflicted emotions and their complicated relationship.

The second part, The Lonely Ring Finger, occurs less than two months after the first. Kazuki is studying for his practice entrance exams for college and this causes their already strained relationship to become even more difficult as the two are not as able to spend time together. Things are complicated further when Wataru "loses" the ring that Kazuki exchanged with him, and lies about it.

Part two is considerably more heated than part one was. If more graphic depictions of [...] romance make you sqeamish, I suggest passing on the novels and stick with the manga, which stops the story after part one. If they don't make you sqeamish, the end of part two will be a beautiful climax to a beautiful story.

The translation is lacking in some places, and the numerous typoes were annoying to someone like me who is a stickler for such things, but in all, the experience was not unpleasant. The illustrations were few, but they were in fact drawn by the same illustrator as the manga, and include depictions of scenes that are not in the manga.

The read actually takes some time. Most of the novelized manga I have read so far have been very quick reads, sometimes taking as much or less time to get through than their manga counterparts, but this smaller than normal sized novel took me several hours to get all the way through.

All we can really do now is wait impatiently for volume two to come out.

Average customer rating:

Love it
Absolutely beautiful
Cliched story made worse by bad editing/translating
disappointed
One of the most beautiful stories yet

Only the Ring Finger Knows (Yaoi)
Satoru Kannagi , and Hotaru Odagiri
Manufacturer: Digital Manga Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1569709807

Book Description

At Wataru Fujii's high school, it's all the rage to wear paired rings with the girl you love. Wataru wears one though he is single, and one day inadvertently discovers that his ring pairs up with that of tall, handsome, and smart Yuichi Kazuki, the senior classman idolized by the entire school. Though Kazuki has a reputation for being kind to all, when dealing with Wataru, he is strangely harsh. Their paired rings somehow draw them together and the two alternately clash and attract, as they must sort out their budding feelings for each other.

Customer Reviews:

Love it.......2006-12-22

Ahh, i love this manga. I got it last week and I was so excited that i read it right away. it took me one hour to finish it. i am reading it the second time. later, i am going to go buy the novels for it. *love it*

Absolutely beautiful.......2006-10-14

Absolutely beautiful story and georgeous art. Very romantic. I re-read this manga over and over again. I love it so much that I ordered the novels from Amazon to know how the relationship between Wataru and Kazuki progresses. I'm happy DMP published the English translation of the novels. I already pre-ordered the 3rd novel, which will be released October 30th. Can't wait!

Cliched story made worse by bad editing/translating.......2006-07-26

This manga is meant to be, on all counts, a cute, short, shounen-ai story. It's based on a novel series (released only in Japan, of course) that probably fleshes out the characters a lot better than what was managed in just one volume of manga.

First, about the manga itself. It's the story of a high school boy who randomly happens to have the same ring as one of the most popular boys in school (an upperclassman, at that). Since this upperclassman is constantly rude to our poor main character, he is of course completely bewildered, yet he slowly finds himself falling for the older boy. The two main characters are the only ones who really matter. The best friend completely disappears from the story after the first two chapters or so, and all females are delegated to either being "vengeful bitch" or "supportive friend." On top of that, there is a lot of that frustrating "He just confessed to me, but I wonder if he really truly does love me but I bet actually not" that goes on in a lot of shounen-ai manga.

I have to admit that Hotaru Odagiri's art style is gorgeous -- as long as you're only looking at the characters. The boys are as pretty as they come, and they like to stand in a lot of blank space. You will get maybe one shot of a background for each scene, and after that it's all screen tones of various kinds. To me, that just speaks of laziness on the artist's part.

Now, while I admit to having enjoyed the manga despite all of the flaws I've pointed out so far, there is one very jarring thing about this manga. The translators opted to remove all references to the Japanese language, which is usually a good thing -- no random "kawaii"s or "baka"s thrown in there (something I did see in the Marmelade Boy manga). However, since this is a Japanese high school setting, they stumbled across the problem of what to do with all the honorifics. Instead of just gracefully removing them and leaving it at that, they replaced them with English "equivalents." Now, "Mr. Kazuki" might be approriate in an office, but in high school... well, not even in college would I address my classmates like that. Girls with crushes on the main character would constantly swoon about "Mr. Kazuki." (Which, I will assume, was "senpai" in the Japanese version.) To top it all off, at one point the older character tells the younger one to call him "SIR Kazuki." While I realize he was trying to be obnoxiously rude, it sounds so completely out of place I just had to roll my eyes.

I thought it was a nice touch that they left the dustcover on the book, but would have liked it more if they hadn't oversized the book and had at least removed the Japanese text from the cover itself.

It's a cute read, but definitely not worth the $13 they want you to shell out for it.

disappointed.......2006-05-12

art: **** very pretty
production: ***** dmps manga are among the best!
story: ** 1/2
while the manga does have very pretty art, and the editing & printing jobs are top notch, i found the story to be somewhat dissapointing.although well self-contained, the story was cliche and a little too saccharine sweet for my liking; the lead may as well have been a girl (this coming from a fan of bl ^^;).
not to say the story is bad; just overhyped - if i knew what it was like, i would not have bought it...
recommended to people who like fluffy, cliche, utterly predictable, simple, sickly sweet, innocent stories; if ur tastes are a little more sophisticated, look elsewhere.

One of the most beautiful stories yet.......2006-03-20

It's been a year and a half now since I read it. It's about time I place a formal review on the manga.

All I can say is that the manga is beautiful, not only in artwork, but also storyline. It revolves around a boy-next-door type of character named Wataru who happens to share identical rings with Kazuki, the handsome, intelligent, and kind celebrity at his school. Rings have been a trend at their school, and if two persons share identical rings, that signified that they are a couple. Not only that, but although Kazuki is kind to everyone, he is especially hostile to Wataru. Of course... that's where all the misunderstanding came along. But needless to know... the rings slowly pull the two guys together in this subtle level of anguish feelings.

Although this is rated 16+, it is really pure, and more shounen-ai than yaoi. Nonetheless, OtRFK is a great example where smut is never the sole reason for getting anything Boy's Love genre, because the plot stands alone as the reason why one should get this manga. It's touching, moving, applicable, and sooo lovable. Odagiri Hotaru's artwork is clean and elegant, and it is the perfect illustration for such a beautiful story.

This manga, one-shotter, packed with good plot and good storyline, is a must-have for all yaoi fans.

Average customer rating:

Only the Ring Finger Knows

Manufacturer: DIAMOND BOOK DISTRIB
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GO95V0

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