"You are not prepared."

Mark Reads, along with Mark Watches, is a site based on Mark Oshiro's reading of various books, and viewing of various television shows.

In 2009, Mark Oshiro, then an editor at blogging and social networking site buzzfeed, decided to read Twilight, thinking that he wanted to see what the book was like, separate from the hype, controversy and rabidity of its fanbase. His format was to read it one chapter a day, and to write a review of it chapter by chapter, which his followers would then comment on. Many of these reviews, and the attendant comments, would become wildly digressive, and to devolve into the posting of animated gifs and comment spam. Because of his political and social leanings (Mark is homosexual, and disliked the regressive social messages he saw in the book, as well as just generally not being fond of its simplistic writing), he disliked Twilight. But even his hatred was entertaining to his readers.

After finishing Twilight, he moved on to the Harry Potter series, which he also knew nothing about. Although his experience with Twilight had made him wary of popular book series, he quickly (by Chapter 6 or so of the first book) decided he really liked Harry Potter, and most of his reading of Harry Potter (which took him the better part of a year) was him gushing about how much he liked the series, and his readers gushing about him gushing.

After he finished Harry Potter, he got his own domain name, and proceeded to watch, and view, large parts of the geek canon. So far, some of what he has read and reviewed is:

And some of what he has watched includes:

Mark's reviews can still be wildly digressive, and even when they are about what they say they are about, they can take many different formats. Some are straight reviews, while some are retellings of the chapter as a play, or from one character's point of view (such as Severus Snape's livejournal). Other entries use the plot of the story to launch into Mark's discussion of his own life and own experiences, which often focus on his time as a gay youth growing up in a conservative community. And sometimes he just mashes buttons and shouts out catch-phrases. It is usually great fun. As long as you are careful not to spoil him.

The sites can be found at http://markreads.net and http://markwatches.net

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