My review of vols. 9-10 of Ouran High School Host Club is now up at Manga Life.

An excerpt:

In early volumes, the clever use of shojo manga tropes made this series worth reading. Creator Bisco Hatori catered to her readers just as much as the Host Club catered to its paying customers. Just as there’s a host for every taste, there’s a shojo manga convention for every reader, such as “brotherly love,” megane, dating sims, cosplay, crossdressing, school festivals and trips, and bishonen galore. At the same time, Hatori’s use of these tropes was always sly. By taking those familiar plot devices to ridiculous extremes, Hatori created incredibly funny situations where sensible Haruhi was inevitably the straight man to her fellow hosts’ bizarre antics.