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Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
2019 | Horror, Mystery
There is enough increasing absurdity in Happy Death Day 2U to ensure that it's just as fun and entertaining as the first movie. It's sadly less rooted in horror this time around, and instead opts for a sci-fi/comedy approach, with the occasional sprinkle of PG-13 slasher tropes.

Jessica Rothe is honestly, for a second time, fantastic. Neither of these films would work half as well without her. Her character Tree, is hugely likable, and has great chemistry with the other cast members. This goes double for when director Christopher Landon decides to blindside the audience with an emotional beat. There's one scene in particular with Tree and her Mother that has all the potential to be a cheesy mess, but thanks to Rothe and Missy Yager, hits all the right notes. It's all good stuff that is unexpected from what is a standard family friendly Blumhouse flick on the surface.

As mentioned, the plot is so silly, but it's attempts to explain how the events of the first film even happened are admirable, and shakes up the formula enough to ensure it doesn't get boring, even though it has familiar moments. Some of the twists are a little convoluted, and the comedy aspects go a tad overboard sometimes, but overall the dumb narrative works a treat.

Happy Death Day 2U is a great if flawed switch-off popcorn movie, that's frequently funny, and has just enough horror elements to belong in the genre. Worth checking out!
  
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Little Ray Of Sunshine (41 KP) rated A Monster Calls in Books

Jan 11, 2019 (Updated Feb 10, 2019)  
A Monster Calls
A Monster Calls
Patrick Ness | 2016 | Children
10
8.6 (40 Ratings)
Book Rating
Book Review | A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Blurb
An extraordinary novel of love, loss and hope. Conor has the same dream every night, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient,elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.


It wants the truth.

Review
I read this book with my friend/sister Christine. We read a few chapters a day. But we wanted to read more as this book is beautifully written. The story is about Conor he's mother is ill with cancer and hes dad as a new family in America. I felt really sorry for him as the one person who should be there is hes dad. But it had to take care of hes mum and get is self to school. School as been tough as people make him feel invisible and 3 lads bully him and while this is happening he's mum aint going to get better and he have to live with hes Grandma who he doesn't like. All these problems make him have a dream of a Yew tree that starts to talk to him and tells him 3 tales and the Yew tree tells him when he tells him the 3 stories he need to tell him the fourth story and it will be the truth.
I feel the Yew tree is making him stronger and face what is going to eventually happen to him. I won't tell you what happens as you will need to read it for yourself.
I felt this book made me realise what every child is going through while their loved ones are going through cancer, I hope it does for you.


Patrick Ness took Siobhan Dowd idea and helped by writing and publishing this book to show what she went through. As she sadly died from breast cancer back in 2007. All the royalties from this book go to the Siobhan Down Trust www.siobhandowdtrust.com

Thanks for the read x
  
The Island of Missing Trees
The Island of Missing Trees
Elif Shafak | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
How come this is only the first book I’ve read by Elif Shafak?! This is a book full of heart, feeling and imagination - it’s just beautiful. The Island of Missing Trees has taught me far more about what happened in Cyprus and the war/ dispute between Cypriots and the Turkish invasion.

There’s a feel of Romeo and Juliet about this: a Greek-Cypriot boy (Kostas), and a Turkish-Cypriot girl (Defne) fall in love - something forbidden in the climate they’re living in. They meet in secret in a tavern that has a fig tree growing through the centre of it. This is a significant tree - it’s one of the main narrators of this story. And what a story it has to tell. It talks about the natural world in which it lives, the humans that it comes into contact with, the conflict it lives through, the sorrow, the loss.

This book describes the fracturing of a country, people forced to leave the country they love. Kostas is one of these people. He moves to London to live with his uncle, but he never seems to feel as though he fits in in there. He does follow his passion though, and becomes an expert in Natural History: the trees and plants around him, around the world, and in his native Cyprus. Which is what brings him and Defne back together, and reunites them with the fig tree.

The three of them return to London together, all cast adrift from their homeland.

Later, Kostas and Defne’s daughter carries this feeling of not quite belonging as well, but her father doesn’t seem to be able to give her what she needs. She knows nothing of her roots: she has no contact with her Cypriot family - until the day her aunt arrives.

The way that Shafak writes about loss and the pain of loss is visceral, but there’s a great deal of hope and the promise of healing. This book just has it all. I was completely enveloped in this story, and I’ve been left with a pressing need to read everything else that Elif Shafak has written!
Many thanks to Jellybooks and Penguin for providing me with a copy of this book to read.