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This app helps you as a motorhome or caravan owner to find the nearest motor-home parking from your...

ClareR (5721 KP) rated Ashes in Books

Nov 24, 2022

Ashes

Christopher de Vinck | 2020 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

What it’s about:
Belgium, July 1939: Simone and Hava are best friends. Simone’s father is a national hero, a famous general, and Hava is a Polish Jew.
When the Nazis invade in Spring 1940, Simone and Hava flee Brussels and the rules that dictate that they shouldn’t be friends.

My thoughts:
This book was an emotional rollercoaster. When I started reading it, I knew that there was going to be a high possibility that Hava and her family would suffer under the Nazis, but I wasn’t prepared for Simone’s single-mindedness to try and protect her friend. The attitudes of some of the Belgians and the acts of violence, were harrowing.

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Lenard (726 KP) rated Tolkien (2019) in Movies

May 19, 2019

Tolkien (2019)

2019 | Biography, Drama

5.7

(18 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Tolkien is a biopic of author/professor JRR Tolkien, the writer of The Hobbit and other fantasy novels. The only reason it was greenlit was to ensnare fans of the LOTR. The film opens with Ronald in the trenches of Belgium during WWI suffering from trench fever. He is overcome with a need to find his friend who he learns is nearby and in dire trouble. We then flashback to his country childhood home located in a village reminiscent of The Shire from his novels. His father has died and left the family with little hope of survival. The church has found a new home for the Tolkiens in Lake-town, I mean Birmingham. Soon, his mother is dead, Ronald and his brother become wards of the Catholic Church and are moved into the home of elderly woman who already cares for a young female pianist. Tolkien earns scholarship to a local private school where he accidentally becomes friends with other artistically inclined young men. One of whom, the poet, is secretly in love with Tolkien. Thus, with a kiss, I die in the trenches of Belgium fron poison gas. The whole film spends so much time finding connections to his famous novels, it never really gets to know the writer himself. Plus, Nicholas Hoult does not help much playing the writer like a Hugh Grant rom-com character. He even does the squinting quirk multiple times to romance his boarding house companion.