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Amanda (96 KP) rated Solitaire in Books

Jun 20, 2019  
Solitaire
Solitaire
7
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
"As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain."
"As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain."

A while back, I read an online comic strip by the same author, Heartstopper Volume 1. I found it by chance and I literally flew through it. I adored it and I went ahead and TBR’d some of her other books. I found this one on Scribd and come to find this was her baby. This was her debut novel. The story was pretty good, it is NOT a love story, but I sometimes found myself getting frustrated with the main character. Reasons why are listed below.

The story is told from a teenager named Victoria ‘Tori’ Spring. She has two younger brothers and she is quite…indifferent. She has one best friend, and honestly one friend only, and she’s very much the pessimist. I can’t fully fault her for that, but some things that I just CANNOT tolerate. I found myself gasping and GLARING at the words as I read them.

She hates books. Yes, she said she hates books (-1 point). She knows the name of each book and the author who wrote them, but she won’t actually read them.

Though she loves film so I’ll give the point back to her (0).

"When you watch a film, you’re sort of an outsider looking in. With a book – you’re right there. You are inside. You are the main character."

She thinks Pride and Prejudice is ridiculous and boring…she gets positive points for that (+2) – I’m sorry I’m in the minority. I do not care for Jane Austen and find her so called romance novels dull and boring. Not sorry!

She despises Disney because the movies are total fake and unrealistic. WELL NO SHIT! It’s DISNEY! (-200) – I’m a Disney nerd and while I don’t agree with sugar coating the original fair tales, I still LOVE Disney. You can’t fault me for that!

Anyway…

Tori is highly cynical and while I can appreciate that in her, sometimes she made my favorite cartoon character, Daria, seem like a sweetheart. Two guys come into Tori’s life. One was an old childhood friend, Lucas, and the other is someone she met before, Michael. At the same time, a blog group called ‘Solitaire’ starts making trouble…almost in Tori’s honor.

I won’t go into great detail, mostly because I would definitely give more away than I want to. I breezed through this story quickly, but there are just some things in the story that just didn’t sit well with me.

This guy Lucas was so sketchy that he nearly drove Tori crazy with his change in personality.

Her parents…they literally do not seem to care. Her mother most of all. She is mostly on her computer and seems to kind of be absent, mentally, as a parental figure. That never gets resolved, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. In the end, it really bothered me at how disinterested her parents really were. I get that perhaps it’s something you do when you’re bringing up teenagers, but damn!!

"I swear to God I’m a freak! I mean it. One day I’m going to forget how to wake up."

You’re probably thinking that this really doesn’t seem like it would be in the mental health genre. It is. Tori goes through an awful lot in this story, not to mention the mental strain with her brother, Charlie. I will say there are some MILD trigger warnings regarding implied self harm.

I was kind of left with mixed emotions with this book. I have great respect for this author and this being her first story. I know it’s near and dear to her heart. I wouldn’t say that this was at the top of my list, but it’s not at the bottom either. I definitely appreciated it NOT BEING a love story. Although it seemed like it would, despite the subtitle of the book, but I’m glad it wasn’t.
  
TT
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
If you were to ask me right now, what my favorite book of the year is...I would mumble and grunt for a few minutes and then rattle off a list of at least 10 books. But without a doubt, The Thorn Keeper will be at the top of the list.

The Thorn Keeper posses a certain eloquence that enraptures you from the very beginning. I can't count the number of times that I had tears in my eyes as I read (tearing up right now in fact, thinking about the message of this story), or squealed with delight, or wanted to purse whomp someone, and there was one instance that I was in such shock, I literally felt like I was going to hurl. Out of all the books that I have read this year, The Thorn Keeper is the one that touched the depth of my soul in a way that completely turned my world upside down. The romance is so sweet and quite passionate (all clean of course), but that only scratches the surface of the content of the book.

Whether through decisions in our past or reasons unknown to us, sometimes we have been given difficulties that we have to walk through. We would not recommend making those choices and hope that others are spared the pain and suffering we have endured. Yet even though it is hard, we would not be the people we are today if we had not gone through it. God has brought us through the valley...Not so that we can look over our shoulder and long to be back on the other side, but to look forward and press onwards. Do not let your dreams be forgotten along the way. Even if it doesn't seem as if they can or will ever come true. If God has placed a dream in your heart, never let go of it. Whether it is ministry, missions, art, dance, fashion or family.

In conclusion, I would have to say that Pepper Basham's books are among the best I have ever read. Filled with hard lessons and real life, balanced with passion and faith. Only a very talented author can take someone whom I despised in book one, bring them to redemption, and within 36 pages of the book they find a way to worm their way into my heart. Catherine and David's journey of discovering true love is so very tender. When life throws them a curveball, will they rely on their own strength to make it through, or will they trust in the love of the Father to carry them? In order to truly understand and appreciate Catherine and David's history, I highly recommend reading The Thorn Bearer first (which is another favorite of mine).

I purchased a print copy of The Thorn Keeper for my personal enjoyment. I was not required to write a review, positive or otherwise. All opinions expressed are mine alone.
  
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Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated 22 July (2018) in Movies

Oct 22, 2018 (Updated Oct 22, 2018)  
22 July (2018)
22 July (2018)
2018 | Drama
7
8.3 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Good Direction (1 more)
Well Acted
Lacks Purpose (0 more)
An Important, If Terrifying Recent Tragedy
22 July is a Netflix film directed by Paul Greengrass about a brutal 2011 terrorist attack in Oslo.

This film is hard to watch.

I'm a guy that loves gory action flicks and intense horror movies, but something like this is far more disturbing to me. The film is so well made on a technical level, that at some points it actually feels like you are watching the real life massacre play out, which to me felt a little bit too real. Thankfully, I have never been affected by an act of terrorism, nor has anyone that I know, but if I had, I'm not sure how I would feel about someone making a movie like this retelling the trauma that those people went through.

I appreciate that this is an important event in recent history and shouldn't be something that is easily forgotten, but the brutal realism of this film is hard to stomach at times. It really puts you in the shoes of the victims and let's you imagine the terror and crippling fear that they must have felt.

The actor that plays the perpetrator of the attack, Anders Behring Breivik, (played by Anders Danielsen Lie,) has to be commended. He was so believable in the role that I ended up getting really angry every time that he appeared in a scene. I don't even want to know what an actor has to do to get into that headspace, but he put in an absolutely sublime performance as a deplorable scumbag.

The other standout role was Jonas Strand Gravli as Viljar Hanssen, one of the victims of the attack. He is the audience's main conduit into this horrific event and he is brilliant throughout the film.

The main criticism that I have is that we are shown this horrific attack in brutal detail and the aftermath of the event, with no real purpose. I am not sure what the point of this movie was other than to retell a gut wrenching, terrifying story of a real life terrorist attack. I guess, if you were to do some reaching, you could say that the fact that the film has no point echoes the fact that this brutal act of mass violence also had no point and sometimes these horrific things just happen with no real reason.

Overall, this is a very well made movie. It is full of heavy emotions and will make you think about the nature of the human mind. This is if you can get through it though, the movie is very hard to watch and I can see a good amount of folks turning off because they can't handle it, which I can totally understand.
  
The Monstrous Child
The Monstrous Child
Francesca Simon | 2016 | Children
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I finished this on Tuesday but have had some technical problems, which is why I'm posting it now. (Sorry.)

Apparently this is book #3 in the Mortal Gods series - but I read it believing it to be a standalone novel and really enjoyed it like that. It's another short, new YA book, which a pretty large font to fill up more space. I never used to like short books, but I've found some I've really enjoyed recently, including this one.

One of Loki's (monstrous) children is Hel, a girl with a perfectly normal human body... except her legs are dead. Like, full-on decaying dead. Still, she's a goddess, even if she's never treated as one.

Hel has learned to just deal with what she's got in life and carry on. But when she's kidnapped and taken to Asgard - the home of the gods - she finds an unexpected light of hope. His name is Baldr, and he's the only one who's ever treated her like she's normal. The only problem is that he's married.

And then, just to make matters worse, Hel is literally thrown into the underworld, sentenced to be the queen of Nifelheim for all of eternity. It's cold, smelly, and soon enough, full of dead people. She's alone, plotting her revenge on the gods, with no chance of escape - but at least it's hers. She can build her own fortress without anyone guiding her; she can order the dead around however she pleases. And she can have a high seat ready, beside hers, for when Baldr inevitably comes for her.

What she wasn't planning was a third seat...

Anyway, Hel has created Hel for the dead, the End of Days is drawing nearer, and dear old Dad has dropped by for a favour. All very... fun. 

I thought this was a really different kind of book. The narrative voice is really sarcastic and youthful, pretty funny too, as well as still sounding like a Norse goddess. She also sounded somewhat modern, too - which I suppose would be the case if you were immortal. Sometimes I found her to find a little too sarcastic and bitter, a little too chatty and "different". I don't know, it just didn't sound all that natural sometimes.

The whole Norse theme was refreshing - not some paranormal YA romance that you see everywhere - and really well told. Hel was a really interesting character, too; modern enough to relate to yet still believably a Norse goddess.

As I said, I read this without realising there were other books before it in the series. I didn't realise that at all while reading - I didn't feel like I was missing anything and still enjoyed it plenty. I'm going to say 3.5 to 4 stars for The Monstrous Child. I'll have to look out for the other books.
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) rated Cats (2019) in Movies

Jan 15, 2020  
Cats (2019)
Cats (2019)
2019 | Musical
Stuff of nightmares
From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew I wasn't going to like this film. Having never seen the stage show, I went into this completely blind and to be honest, after 100 minutes of this nonsense I wish I was blind.

Usually I'll try to find something good to say about a film, but I'm really struggling with this. I feel like giving it a 2 is rather generous. Other than appreciating the amount of effort on the CGI and the song Memory, I really cannot identify any other good points whatsoever.

Now where do I start on the bad? The cats themselves are beyond disturbing. People dressed as cats in the stage show I can understand. Human features on cat bodies is just crazy and looks ridiculous. The fact that they alternate between 2 and 4 legged with human features, it beggars belief. I hoped I might get used to it, but i really didnt especially when they start hissing, preening and acting like real cats - it's terrifying and laughable all at once. The scaling of the cats against the scenery also looks a little misjudged, especially when they stand up.

The story and rest of the film doesn't fare much better. The songs (except for Memory) are surprisingly poor for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and no others are particularly memorable. The plot itself is also very thin and has barely any substance, the fact that they've managed to drag this out to 100 minutes is impressive. I also couldn't stand the words "Jellicle" and "Heaviside" - they sound like something from a kids cartoon and they began to grate on me very quickly. And the cast: James Corden, Rebel Wilson and Ray Winstone - just no. They are all so cringingly bad I could barely watch. And even acting royalty like Ian McKellen and Judi Dench don't survive this car crash intact. The final song and scenes with the direct address to camera is possibly the most embarrassingly cringeworthy thing I've seen in a long time.

It may only be January, but I doubt anything else I see in 2020 will be worse than this. I would have happily walked out of this 15 minutes in and never thought twice. The fact that I've sat through the entire thing made me want to claw my eyes out. I cannot unsee this.

If you want to watch a film musical about cats, watch The Aristocats. Do not waste your time on this!
  
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Nick Beaty (70 KP) Jan 15, 2020

"After 100 minutes I wish I was blind" 😂 Brilliant quote

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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays in Books

Oct 20, 2017 (Updated Oct 20, 2017)  
Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays
Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays
Rebecca Solnit | 2016 | Essays
7
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Some interesting points but doesn't connect together
Having read many of Rebecca Solnit's works, this is not one of the better ones. While there are some thoughtful ideas, the essays are disjointed from one another, so it seems to be lumped together.

That being said, some of the essays have some important points. This includes marriage equality between same sexes, ensuring inequality from a patriarchal standpoint can be dismantled.

And there is a small amount of intersectionality, discussing the rape of Native American and Indian women as part of a pandemic of violence against women rather than isolated incidents. And while this was written several years before and some of it no longer applies (Dominic Strauss-Kahn) it is still valid as the issues still continue.

The less said about slutwalk, the better.

I would say this is a good introduction to feminism for those who are seeking to understand parts, but I would recommend books with a little more substance than this.
  
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Dean (6927 KP) rated Cloverfield (2008) in Movies

Nov 16, 2017 (Updated Nov 16, 2017)  
Cloverfield (2008)
Cloverfield (2008)
2008 | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Original (1 more)
Something for everyone
Immersive experience
WOW! This film is brilliant! What can I say believe the hype. This is such an engaging film you won't be able to take your eyes off the screen for a second. This is a mix of action, drama, disaster, and sci-fi all rolled into one and even with a touch of romance too. It was much better than I expected it to be given all the hype around it. The film is viewed through the playback of a camcorder after an event in New York, Kinda Blair Witch like but better. The first person feel of it really brings you into the action, panic and confusion as the events unfold. This is set to be a cult classic! If you haven't seen it yet put it to the top of your to watch/rental list! It feels like a roller-coaster ride you don't want to end!
  
Fighting with My Family (2019)
Fighting with My Family (2019)
2019 | Biography, Comedy, Drama
Characters are full and detailed. (1 more)
Story is heartfelt and relatable.
Though a true story, a lot of details are quickly glossed over. (0 more)
Great wrestling movie.
Been looking forward to this one and I wasn't disappointed. Granted, I have to say I'm a bit biased as a wrestling diehard. But, this movie is great. Paige and her family are full, detailed characters. You can relate from the onset. Sure, the story is a bit corny and many details and events are glossed over, but it's a story about family and the dream of being a professional wrestler. It fits perfectly with the subject matter. Like wrestling, we don't need all the deep details. You just tell a great story and get the audience to feel something. Which is what this movie does. Is it the next Best Picture Oscar winner? No. But it truly is a glorious tale of the importance of family and never giving up on your dreams.
  
Escape From Tomorrow (2013)
Escape From Tomorrow (2013)
2013 | Drama, Horror, Mystery
3
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Its imaginative, and surreal (0 more)
Virtually everything else (0 more)
Not a magical movie...
I don't like writing negative reviews, but this confusing story about a family visiting disney world is...well its a mess.

Its a Lynchian dreamscape of a film, which hints at a lot but doesn't really every explain much, other than to suggest there is a dark undercurrent to Disney.

The fact is though that the narrative is untidy and weirdly paced, and can't ever really settle on what it is that it wants viewers to feel.

You can argue thats the point of this sort of film, but there doesn't feel like there is any cleverness to the confusion, just a movie that deliberately tries to unbalance you for no other reason than to have you unbalanced.

I don't really want to say much more other than that there are many better films out there than this, so only watch this if you really fancy a challenge.
  
Because We are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
Because We are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
Lily Bailey | 2016 | Biography
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Lily Bailey (0 more)
A true Journey of the mind
Wow, what a tale of loss, love, and everything in between leading to ultimate redemption and recovery.
This will make you laugh, make you cry, you will feel sadness, empathy, sympathy and laugther all at the same time.
I would say this is majorly helpful to anyone suffering with ocd as it made me feel glad, almost like huh it's not just me, it was so relatable and you can get a very real sense of the author's pain and turmoil dealing with the rigors of daily life with ocd on her back.
From her days at school to uni to working and all the times between this has indeed been a roller-coaster ride of emotion especially considering the author is still in her 20s.
Hopefully she opens up again in future and shares more of her journey.
I am personally thankful lily Bailey shared this with us.