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Tessa Ever After (Reluctant Hearts, #2)
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This one starts with Tessa late to pick up her daughter from day care as she struggles to adjust to life since her older brother, Cade, moved away and left her alone with everything. Cade used to be babysitter, chef, chauffeur, DIY-er and many other things that made Tessa's life much easier and she's struggling to get herself in gear. She's also online dating, trying to find the older guy who'll be there and treat her right...when maybe the guy she really wants is a little closer to home.
In walks her brothers best friend, Jason, who Cade has tasked with keeping an eye on her. Jason's view of Tessa has slowly been changing from "best friends little sister" to gorgeous woman and mum and after some warnings from Cade and encouragement from their joint friend Adam, he decides to pursue Tessa.

First things first, I feel like I need to let you know that I have a big weakness for super cute children in my romances and Haley is certainly that. There were some really cute scenes with her and Tessa and Jason. She was super cuteness personified.

I did like their relationship. It was cute how it progressed and I'm glad they stuck with each other despite the obstacles that popped up here and there. And of course there was a misunderstanding that caused a slight rift but luckily they got around it and became a very cute little family unit.

Some of the secondary characters like Adam and Paige grew on me in this. We got to know Paige more than Adam but she seems to need to find that special someone and I think sparks may be flying between her and Adam in the next one. I'm not sure if I'll read it though.

I think I missed some of the angst that can happen in the romances I like with this. It was a little too nice. I like the bad boy type to be full of tattoos and dirty mouthed so they can rile their love interest up enough for her to answer back and sparks to fly.
  
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Alex Kapranos recommended Something Else by The Kinks in Music (curated)

 
Something Else by The Kinks
Something Else by The Kinks
1967 | Rock
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"It’s a record that always puts me in a good mood whenever I play it. Loved The Kinks when I was a kid and I learnt how to play guitar by learning from a Kinks songbook. I think if you are learning to play acoustic guitar, then The Kinks are a great place to start. Ray Davies makes the songs sound deceptively simple. There’s elements that are coming from blues or music hall or whatever, but he tends to modulate the chord progressions in really weird, unpredictable ways that are so fresh on the ears when you hear them even now all these years later you think, ""How did you come up with that?"", but at the same time they also had these pure pop melodies over the top as well. He didn’t sound like he was a smart-arse, he sounds like he has a very lateral imagination and also quite unconsidered as well in the way he must have written those songs. You can imagine him sitting there thinking, “I’m going to try this one now”. You can explain it in terms of music theory and it would sound complex, but he was “Why don’t I try this?” Dave Davies is also a total star of this record: there’s a couple of really good songs like 'Death Of A Clown' is on this record too. 'Waterloo Sunset' is on here, as is 'David Watts' and so you have those classic Ray Davies songs about social observation, but my favourite song on the album is 'Two Sisters', and it’s about two sisters, one who has this mundane life who is jealous of the other one who has this carefree existence, and I might be reading too much into it but I sometimes wonder if it was ""Raymond looking in his washing machine"". I don’t know these guys, but I get the sense that Dave was a bit wild and Ray had a family at that time, and that the two sisters were in fact two brothers. It also has this heartbreaking melancholia running through it which I think The Kinks capture so well, like very few bands can. It’s saturated with a sweet melancholia, and I think that song captures it."

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Thundercat recommended Aja by Steely Dan in Music (curated)

 
Aja by Steely Dan
Aja by Steely Dan
1977 | Rock
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"What don't I say about Aja? We all have our different experiences with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, but everything that they've created throughout the years is really awesome. I have a few albums of theirs I love; Can't Buy A Thrill, Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic, but there's a number of reasons why I am totally in love with Aja. It stems from the personnel, the feel, and how much it was a stab in another direction of pop culture. It was anti-pop, it was a bit on the outskirts of everything, I think. It's always funny listening to Donald Fagen singing about stuff because it's like, 'what's the guy rambling on about?' sometimes. A couple of my favourite musicians are on it; like Steve Gadd and, again, Michael McDonald. When I realised this was Michael McDonald singing background I lost my fucking mind, like, straight up. I always loved the Doobie Brothers and I knew his hits because of hip hop and stuff, but I remember being like 'Who's this magical person singing these dissonant chords behind the changes with ease with this weird timbre of voice?' – and you look at the credits and of course it's Michael McDonald. Aja, if I can't listen to it in its entirety then I get mad; I get pissed because I want to go through the whole album every time. One of my favourite moments on the album is Steve Gadd playing out on actual song 'Aja'; the way that just like the drum feels and everything – I don't know how to play drums but I love to try to act like I play drums to that one moment when he takes a slight solo at the end. Steve Gadd was always one of my favourite drummers ever because of the choices of records and stuff that he would do. Aja is he was he was one of those moments that it spanned out to everybody at that point. It was like at the height of their popularity. That was what happened and it was perfect."

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Nancy Whang recommended Kinda Kinks by The Kinks in Music (curated)

 
Kinda Kinks by The Kinks
Kinda Kinks by The Kinks
2001 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The Kinks were one of my favourite bands while I was growing up. I was introduced to them by MTV and the video for 'Come Dancing', which they'd play all the time. I really liked the video and the boy in that video really reminded me of one of my brothers. So I got into them through that and I also had a 'Best Of The Kinks' which I wore out because I listened to it so much. But Kinda Kinks, I didn't really listen to that record until much later. I think I was maybe in college, or after college, but it became one of those records that I would listen to all the time with James [Murphy]. We'd be at the DFA studio which, before it officially became a record label, always had the studio there, and it was a gathering place where something was about to happen. It was right around the time that James and Tim [Goldsworthy] were producing the Rapture record, I was hanging around there a lot and James was actually living in the office for a period of time too. And on Sunday mornings we'd sit around and listen to music. Kinda Kinks was one of those records. I love every song on that album but it does contain my least favourite song in the world: 'Dancing In The Street'. It's so bad that it's seeped into every other version that's ever been made, including the original version. So now all of them are ruined for me. It is the worst song. There was a brief period when MiniDisc players were kind of popular, and I loved MiniDiscs. I really wish they'd taken off because it's such a great format; it's this compact, digital format that can be edited very easily. You can make a mixtape, it was super easy to record onto, super easy to rearrange and me and James would make a lot of MiniDisc mix tapes for each other. One of the greatest things though was that I was able to make a version of Kinda Kinks without 'Dancing In The Street'."

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A Thousand Ships
A Thousand Ships
Natalie Haynes | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
How could it be anything other than ‘Epic’ when it’s Greek Mythology involved?
A Thousand Ships is the story of the Trojan War as experienced by the women. Greek mythology is always centred around the men - after all, it was men who original myths down (The Iliad and The Odyssey both having been written by Homer). Women are side characters who have things done to them, rather than them being the ones doing things - unless they’re a goddess or a witch. Although witches and nymphs don’t seem to come out of these stories particularly well either 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve always loved reading Greek myths and legends, and I’m really enjoying the resurgence of these tales. Told with a modern eye, they can tell us something about ourselves today. We still experience war and loss (there has clearly been no learning experience over the time span between Troy and the modern era), and women are still the ones who shoulder the worst outcomes during and after a war.

It was fascinating to learn about these women, and I particularly liked Penelope’s letters to her husband Odysseus, relaying information about his unbelievable voyage and rather circuitous route home: all information gleaned from bards and their songs. A sensible person would want to know how the singer got the information to write the songs!

The Trojan women sections were really where the true heroes were. These were the women who had lived through a ten year siege, lost their husbands, brothers, sons and families, and were shared as slaves amongst the conquering Greeks. And that includes the poorest as well as the richest of women - Hecabe, Queen of Troy, amongst them.

This book was on the shortlist for the Women’s Prize 2020, and it deserved to be there. I loved reading this, and I now need to read the book written before this (The Children of Jocasta - it has sat patiently waiting on my bookshelf!) to get ready for Haynes’ book about Pandora and her jar!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.
  
The Sisters of the Winter Wood
The Sisters of the Winter Wood
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I'm going to avoid discussing the plot too much so I don't spoil any potential readers (and I do recommend you read this!).

This book is set in Dubossary, narrated alternately by Liba and Laya. Liba is the older of the two, the only children in their family. They are Jews, and while this book was hugely about their faith and discrimination against them, it is not only about that. This book was like a new fairytale. It had magic in every page, and was genuinely exciting to read. There were tragic elements, tons of romance, and even a sense of suspense.

The girls are left in their home alone when their parents rush off to Kupel in a family emergency. But just as they plan to leave, the girls' Mami decides it's time to tell her daughters who they really are: a bear and a swan.

As I said, I will not delve into the story too much. But I really loved the story involving Laya and the Hovlin brothers, as well as Liba's own internal struggles. Laya's romance at the end of the book was, in my opinion, a little rushed and unexpected, but that's the only real downside I have.

The writing was lovely - it included Yiddish and Hebrew dialect, which was translated in the Author's Note at the end. (A quick side note; I actually read the entire Note, which is really quite rare for me.) And Laya's account, in particular, felt so poetic. She was definitely my favourite character, as much as I love Liba, too. And the relationship between the girls is so, so lovely. No matter how much they try to push each other away, they are always there for each other in the end.

As I enjoyed this book so much, I tried to talk about it with my boyfriend. However, I soon discovered that describing this story is really quite a feat. It was full of little details and twists that just made the story.

I really liked this book. As I only received an ARC and not a final edition, I didn't have the official layout, which I can imagine may add to it also. Even so, I'm easily giving this 4.5 to 5 stars.
  
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The Iron Giant (1999)
The Iron Giant (1999)
1999 | Animation, Family, Sci-Fi
A Warm Tale of Friendship
In the 1990's, it was rare for a studio besides Disney to release an animated film. So when Warner Brothers (home of Bugs Bunny) decided to release an animated film, everyone expected it to be some sort of "Looney Tunes" and were sorely disappointed when it was not.

And that is too bad...for the film that was released - THE IRON GIANT - is a wonderfully warm and heartwarming tale of friendship, acceptance and, yes, intolerance of those different from you, set against the backdrop of the Cold War of the 1950's.

Marking the full length feature animation Directing debut by Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES), THE IRON GIANT tells the tale of young Hogarth, who finds a...well...Iron Giant... who has fallen to Earth from Outer Space. Hogarth befriends The Iron Giant and helps to hide him from Military-types who see this as a threat to the safety, security and superiority of the United States.

Featuring the vocal talents of Jennifer Aniston, John Mahoney, Harry Connick, Jr., Christopher McDonald and Eli Marienthal (as Hogarth), this film is warm and inviting, showing "good characters" that you want to root for and spend time with spar with "bad guys" that you want to see defeated. All of this over a character that is naive to what is going on around him. Special notice should be made of Vin Diesel's vocal work as The Iron Giant. He says very few things, but the words that he does say, convey strong emotions.

You can see the seeds of THE INCREDIBLES in this work of Director Bird. The action sequences are fun and effective and are off-set by slower, more personal, scenes of the characters getting to know - and interact with - each other. He shows a deft touch in balancing these items, finding the right amount of pathos and pace throughout.

The main themes in this film - fearing that which you do not know/do not care to understand resonates to this day and is a reminder that kindness can go much further than fear/ignorance/intolerance.

Letter Grade: A-

8 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)