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Becs (244 KP) rated Final Draft in Books

Oct 29, 2019  
Final Draft
Final Draft
Riley Redgate | 2018 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+, Young Adult (YA)
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
female body positivity (0 more)
MC overshadowed plot (2 more)
secondary characters were dry
self-hatred pushed onto others
Not my favorite read
You can also find this review on my blog: bookingwayreads.wordpress.com

I listened to the audiobook of Final Draft and it was honestly not my favorite. The whole thing was out of order and there were a variety of things that made me extremely uncomfortable with the plot.

Firstly, the relationship between Laila and Mr. Madison was a massive cringe-fest. It crossed a lot of lines, not sexual in any way, but it went from a professional student-teacher relationship to something more personal. Laila would email Mr. Madison things that just shouldn’t have been said to a teacher. It made the rest of the book awfully weird.

It was also difficult to relate to Laila as she seemed to overshadow the plot of the story more than was needed. Many of her actions were selfish and she projected self-hatred onto others. The secondary characters weren’t even fleshed out and the relationships between each of the characters were poorly written. The plot didn’t even stick with the whole creative writing aspect and was mainly more drama than anything else.

The ending was rushed and too much happened within the last few pages. Although Laila does explore her sexuality, she never officially comes out. There was a lot of female body positivity which is really nice to see in a book! But I feel that was about the only thing going for this story.
  
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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016) in Movies

Sep 19, 2020 (Updated Nov 26, 2020)  
Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016)
Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016)
2016 | Comedy
Once again I appreciate Kevin Hart's energy and strong presence as a performer, but this just felt like a first draft for a weaker Chris Tucker set. The 'movie' bits didn't really do a whole lot for me but I admit it's a clever idea that maybe would have landed harder if not for Tim Story's flat, chintzy coverage. I like the black and gold aesthetic, and the tour itself has a handful of mild laughs - albeit sporadically. But my main problem with this is that there's a surfeit of innately hilarious setups followed almost exclusively by not-so-funny payoffs. Setting up jokes where he asks an audience member if they'd still be with their partner if an orangutan hopped the fence and stole his kneecaps or a genius segment about Hart's wife sucking all the numbing cream off his dick should by all accounts be comedy gold in their own right... but not when they're followed with ungodly long Katt Williams-esque tangents about how funny it would be to pretend to walk like you can't bend your legs like you're that annoying kid who thinks he's funny in second grade - complete with the same obnoxious running jokes repeated seemingly 500 times over and appallingly bad impersonations or whatever. By the end I just didn't care. The notion of a stand-up mogul - as boasted in its advertising - certainly is an intriguing one, though this seems like such a lukewarm set to peddle that distinction. But with some greater optimization this could have been epic.
  
This is, for all intents and purposes, as close to identifying, or, at the very least, understanding who the Enemy is. The stories that make up the whole of this collection is as follows: Subjective

<b>"Interlock" and "The Annotated Autopsy of Agent A" Simon Bucher-Jones
"Cobweb and Ivory" Nate Bumber
"The Book of the Enemy" Andrew Hickey
T.memeticus: A Morphology" Philip Purser-Hallard
"The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale" Simon Bucher-Jones
"A Bloody (And Public) Domaine" Jacob Black
"Life-Cycle" Grant Springford
"First Draft" Nick Wallace
"Eyes" Christian Read
"We are the Enemy" Lawrence Burton
"Timeshare" Helen Angove
"A Choice of Houses" Simon Bucher-Jones
"Houses of Cards" Lisa Sarah Good
"The Enemy - The Hole in Everything" Simon Bucher-Jones
"The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy" Jay Eales
"No Enemy But Despair" Simon Bucher-Jones
"The Map and the Spiders" Wilhelm Liebknecht</b>

I quite enjoyed the book as a whole, even though there was some weak pieces that did not really seem to fit, like Helen Angove's "Timeshare". Overall, it was a fitting collection for what it was intended to be. Of particular interest were Simon Bucher-Jones' interconnecting briefs that tie it all together. Quite brilliant, despite some of the weaker stories.

And, yes, as some people have remarked in their reviews, there were some noticeable punctuation and formatting errors. However, the stories are good enough to overlook and not focus on those shortcomings.

Recommended to all fans of Faction Paradox as a whole!!
  
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Christine A. (965 KP) rated Crossings in Books

Jul 31, 2020  
Crossings
Crossings
Alex Landragin | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Clever story that can be ready 2 different ways
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review. The opinions are entirely my own, and any quotes are taken from the ARC and may be different in the final published copy.

I loved reading "choose your own adventure" books. Everyone started reading at the same place, but you could decide how the story played out. You could spend hours rereading without taking the same path twice. In Crossings by Alex Landragin, there are two paths to choose from, the linear path or what is referred to as the Baroness sequence. I followed the Baroness sequence and was in for quite an adventure.

Crossings is the first novel I read that can be read in two ways. It can be read straight through which contains a collection of loosely connected stories. You can choose to follow the Baroness sequence and follow an alternative page sequence that cleverly reworks the stories into a single novel.

I was going to read Crossings both directions it can be read but decided to wait a few months to read the linear version. The concept of writing the novel is imaginative and creative, and I added a star because of how well it works.

The e-book links to the next section in the sequence were not always accurate. If that occurs in the final draft, go to the "note to reader" and click the links from there.

This 200-word review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 7/30/20.
  
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review. The opinions are entirely my own, and any quotes are taken from the ARC and may be different in the final published copy.

Somebody's Daughter is the 7th book in Carol Wyer's Detective Natalie Ward series. If you have read my reviews of her earlier works, you know I enjoy her series. Somebody's Daughter is no exception.

This time, significant changes have shaken up and changed the dynamics of the team. Detective Natalie Ward has been promoted to DCI and Lucy Carmichael is now the DI for the team.

The new team's first case finds Natalie not sitting behind the desk as much as she should. But would anyone expect anything else from her? At first, the killings seem unrelated, and Lucy is unsure if it is even one murderer or two. The bodies pile up, and the team begins to doubt themselves and feel pressure from the top to close the case.

Wyer's police procedurals are well-written with relatable characters. She focuses on solving the crime but also on the police team's interactions with each other and with their home life. By now, they are so familiar they feel like old friends.

No future books are listed on Goodreads, but Wyer recently tweeted she completed the first draft of her 25th novel! Of course, I will be on the lookout for it.

This 200-word review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 7/15/20 and updated on 8/24/20.
  
    TINYforming Mars

    TINYforming Mars

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    Tabletop Game

    TINYforming Mars is a 1-2 player game set in the distant future when mankind has mastered the...