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Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated Once Upon a River in Books
Oct 2, 2020
’A river no more begins at its source than a story begins with the first page.’’
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield is a story that had the perfect plot potential to be amazing, but it didn’t deliver at all. As a huge fan of storytelling, this was a big disappointment for me, the biggest one so far in 2019.
‘’There are stories that may be told aloud, and stories that must be told in whispers, and there are stories that are never told at all.’’
The story happens in a small city, on the river Thames. It features the pub Swan, where people gather every night, and everyone knows each other, and they all tell stories all night and enjoy their company.
If you have ever been to England, it is so easy to imagine the setting of a pub, warm place, crowded with people laughing and talking loudly, glasses clinking and people singing random songs in the background. A lot of positive noise and enchanting atmosphere.
And one night, the usual setting is being disturbed, when a man enters the pub with a little girl in his arms, and then passes away. The girl appears to not be breathing for a while, and everyone thinks she is dead, but suddenly, she is breathing again. And the man that is with her is not her father.
As the town is used to, they make stories of it. How it happened, who is the father, does she have a family, why was she drowning in the river… The plot entangles when the family is to be found of the little girl, but a few people claim she is their relative.
‘’Something happens and then something else happens and then all sorts of other things happen, expected and unexpected, unusual and ordinary.’’
The storytelling and the writing of the author was beautiful. At times. The beginning was a paradise for book lovers. The best first chapters I read this year. But after the plot opening, everything started going downhill.
It felt like being on this roller coaster, excited, going slowly upwards, slowly reaching the top, ready to fall so fast, ready for an adventure, only for them to tell you that there is a fault, and you have to get back and exit the ride without even making the adventure out of it.
I wanted to love it. The writing at parts was great, and I am including a lot of quotes throughout the review, because I loved those parts. But the chapters and characters were too many, and things were happening too fast and without a purpose, that it was hard for me to pick up the pace. I had to leave the book and pick it up again, and it took me three months to complete it. A hard book to swallow and process.
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield is a story that had the perfect plot potential to be amazing, but it didn’t deliver at all. As a huge fan of storytelling, this was a big disappointment for me, the biggest one so far in 2019.
‘’There are stories that may be told aloud, and stories that must be told in whispers, and there are stories that are never told at all.’’
The story happens in a small city, on the river Thames. It features the pub Swan, where people gather every night, and everyone knows each other, and they all tell stories all night and enjoy their company.
If you have ever been to England, it is so easy to imagine the setting of a pub, warm place, crowded with people laughing and talking loudly, glasses clinking and people singing random songs in the background. A lot of positive noise and enchanting atmosphere.
And one night, the usual setting is being disturbed, when a man enters the pub with a little girl in his arms, and then passes away. The girl appears to not be breathing for a while, and everyone thinks she is dead, but suddenly, she is breathing again. And the man that is with her is not her father.
As the town is used to, they make stories of it. How it happened, who is the father, does she have a family, why was she drowning in the river… The plot entangles when the family is to be found of the little girl, but a few people claim she is their relative.
‘’Something happens and then something else happens and then all sorts of other things happen, expected and unexpected, unusual and ordinary.’’
The storytelling and the writing of the author was beautiful. At times. The beginning was a paradise for book lovers. The best first chapters I read this year. But after the plot opening, everything started going downhill.
It felt like being on this roller coaster, excited, going slowly upwards, slowly reaching the top, ready to fall so fast, ready for an adventure, only for them to tell you that there is a fault, and you have to get back and exit the ride without even making the adventure out of it.
I wanted to love it. The writing at parts was great, and I am including a lot of quotes throughout the review, because I loved those parts. But the chapters and characters were too many, and things were happening too fast and without a purpose, that it was hard for me to pick up the pace. I had to leave the book and pick it up again, and it took me three months to complete it. A hard book to swallow and process.
Awix (3310 KP) rated Conan the Barbarian (1982) in Movies
Feb 22, 2018 (Updated Feb 22, 2018)
Well-remembered fantasy movie isn't very similar to Howard's original stories, but gets the tone more or less right and made Arnie into a proper movie star. Strapping barbarian lad's family is murdered, spends montage sequence growing up while strapped to a capstan, escapes, sets out for revenge, and so on.
Dodges most of the more tedious fantasy-movie cliches by being about a straightforward hunt for revenge rather than a quest for plot coupons. Arnie isn't quite up to portraying Conan's inner life, but hits people with an axe very capably. It's all very staunchly right-wing - opens with a quote from Nietzsche and continues in a similar vein - but the results are campy more than actually problematic. Bombastic score from Basil Poledouris is a major plus.
Dodges most of the more tedious fantasy-movie cliches by being about a straightforward hunt for revenge rather than a quest for plot coupons. Arnie isn't quite up to portraying Conan's inner life, but hits people with an axe very capably. It's all very staunchly right-wing - opens with a quote from Nietzsche and continues in a similar vein - but the results are campy more than actually problematic. Bombastic score from Basil Poledouris is a major plus.
Lindsay (1812 KP) rated Botticelli's Bastard in Books
Aug 30, 2018 (Updated Apr 9, 2019)
This my first in this kind of book dealing with art and history. It a good book and interesting. It deals with Germany and take over of Europe in the 1940's. I liked the idea of the painting talking and telling detail about his owners. That what is been so neat about it. I love the fact that Giovanni started with a discovery of stolen art.
Giovanni has some family problems that it so funny in a way that he find a discovery to lift his spirit. The author was good and i enjoyed the book. I rate this book at 4 1/2 stars. Those the painting stories about himself is so funny that you want to laugh. It makes you want to find out more of they mystery of the painting.
Giovanni has some family problems that it so funny in a way that he find a discovery to lift his spirit. The author was good and i enjoyed the book. I rate this book at 4 1/2 stars. Those the painting stories about himself is so funny that you want to laugh. It makes you want to find out more of they mystery of the painting.
Dianne Robbins (1738 KP) rated Below Stairs: The Bestselling Memoirs of a 1920s Kitchen Maid in Books
Sep 3, 2018
Margaret Powell's memoir Below Stairs is growing up in a poor in money but rich in love with her family in a small village near London, England and her life in domestic service in the 1920s. It is simply wonderful. Her other memoirs Climbing the Stairs and Servants Hall and her Cookery Book are next on my list. It's more like listening to your favorite aunt sitting at the kitchen with you over fresh-baked cookies and glasses of homemade lemonade while retelling stories of her childhood and life in the early part of the 20th century. You HAVE to read it!. Julian Fellowes read her books and they were the inspiration behind the extremely popular BBC series Downton Abbey, that is watched by us in the states on PBS Masterpiece.
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