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The Dark Heart
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A chilling true crime story of poisonous family secrets, love gone wrong, and a cold case that...
Animal Planet Baby Animals
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With more than 200 adorable photos of baby animals and their families, there's serious "aw" factor...
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China Room
9.0
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Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, the breathtaking story of a woman and a man in pursuit of...
Historical fiction Literary fiction India
ClareR (5950 KP) rated The Walking People in Books
Dec 14, 2022
It’s the 1960’s, and Greta and Johanna Cahill leave their farm and sail away on a ship to New York. They leave with Michael, a ‘Tinker’ who wants to settle down once he’s there, and make a life for himself.
Greta makes a life for HERself once she’s in New York - out of the shadow of her more confident sister, but in doing so, she ends up keeping secrets that I wondered would have been better shared. But these are people constrained by the times they live in and the place they come from.
I really enjoyed following the lives of Greta and Michael as they struggled (and succeeded) to make lives for themselves. Part of me wondered why anyone would want to leave the beauty of rural Ireland for the hustle of New York, but in reality there was nothing there for a lot of young people. If they wanted to earn money and have a job, they left for America and the UK.
It’s just a lovely story, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story of a family that loses touch and finds one another years later - with a bittersweet ending.
Recommended.
Greta makes a life for HERself once she’s in New York - out of the shadow of her more confident sister, but in doing so, she ends up keeping secrets that I wondered would have been better shared. But these are people constrained by the times they live in and the place they come from.
I really enjoyed following the lives of Greta and Michael as they struggled (and succeeded) to make lives for themselves. Part of me wondered why anyone would want to leave the beauty of rural Ireland for the hustle of New York, but in reality there was nothing there for a lot of young people. If they wanted to earn money and have a job, they left for America and the UK.
It’s just a lovely story, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story of a family that loses touch and finds one another years later - with a bittersweet ending.
Recommended.
Merissa (13176 KP) rated Farm to Fabre in Books
Dec 2, 2022
A warm and gentle love story
FARM TO FABRE is a gentle love story between two asexual people during a time when the world was in crisis. Andie and Doc had a moment under the apple trees before Doc fled. Andie carried on as usual as Doc travelled the world, trying to understand what happened and find his missing words.
I loved the pacing of this story. It continually moves you forward, without the frantic scenes that sometimes happen. Andie is a wonderful character who doesn't hold grudges, accepts people for who they are, and tries to make the best of any situation. This is completely character-driven, with Andie, Doc, and Rupert being the main ones we interact with. The other characters are seen through zoom, email, or mentioned in passing.
A brilliant standalone story that mentions covid but doesn't allow it to take centre stage. Absolutely recommended by me.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
I loved the pacing of this story. It continually moves you forward, without the frantic scenes that sometimes happen. Andie is a wonderful character who doesn't hold grudges, accepts people for who they are, and tries to make the best of any situation. This is completely character-driven, with Andie, Doc, and Rupert being the main ones we interact with. The other characters are seen through zoom, email, or mentioned in passing.
A brilliant standalone story that mentions covid but doesn't allow it to take centre stage. Absolutely recommended by me.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Outback Sisters
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Cafe owner Frankie has been unlucky in love all her life. It's hard in a small town like Bunyip Bay...
Captured by Love (Michigan Brides, #3)
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Michigan Territory, 1814 A voyageur and a young woman swept up in a time of upheaval and danger ...
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated 1922 (2017) in Movies
Oct 24, 2017 (Updated Oct 24, 2017)
Solid Performances (1 more)
Believable Set Design
Sometimes Your Own Demons Are The Hardest To Escape
1922 is the second Stephen King story adapted for Netflix in the last two months and it is very different to the adaption of Gerald's Game we saw back in September. The movie is set up nicely, showing an older, shaken man writing out his confession in hopes of appeasing the guilt that has plagued him since he murdered his wife Arlette. We then see a younger version of the man, Wilfred and we learn that he is very protective of the three things that he feels, 'belong,' to him; his son, his wife and his land.
Arlette professes a desire to sell the farm and move to the city, an idea that he outright refuses to go along with. The land that the farm is on belonged to Arlette's father and so it is now in her name, meaning she has the final say officially on selling the land. Wlifred tries to bargain with her, saying that he will buy the land off of her in installments, but Arlette knows that she can get a better price elsewhere and won’t have to wait years to receive the payment. This leads Wilfred to start planning his wife’s murder. Wilfred knows that his son wants to stay on the farm as well and so he manipulates him into helping him carry out and cover up the murder.
From this point on we have our ghost story. I’m actually rather hesitant to call it a ghost story, even though strictly speaking, it is one. This is more a tale of how guilt haunts a man beyond carrying out the heinous deed and how no bad deed goes unpunished. I don’t want to spoil too much here for those who haven’t yet seen the film, but what follows is a relentless and depressing tale of regret and loss.
The cast in this film are great, Thomas Jane does a great job in the lead role of a man willing to go to any morbid lengths, in order to retain what he believes belongs to him. Molly Parker and Dylan Schmid also do well in their roles as Arlette and Henry, respectively. The supporting cast is also solid. The other stand out thing in the movie for me was the set design. I found the farmhouses and barns to be extremely believable and the sets really added to the overall tone that the movie was going for and sold the era effectively as well.
My main complaint of the movie is the lack of any significant scares. The movie sets up a fairly creepy atmosphere at times, but never capitalizes on it. A Stephen King ghost story released the week before Halloween should be way scarier than this. I thought I was getting a truly chilling movie to sink my teeth into and instead I got a movie showing a desperate man’s fractured psyche and the guilt he has to deal with in the aftermath of a despicable deed, which is an interesting idea, it’s just not what I wanted out of this movie.
Overall this is a well made movie and for what it is it’s great, it just didn’t meet the expectations that I had for it and maybe that’s my own fault more than the movie’s. As with any Stephen King story, it makes for an interesting adaption and takes you on a dark journey and leaves you wondering about you own moral decisions in life. The film is no doubt successful in what it sets out to do; I just wish that it had scared me a bit more.
Arlette professes a desire to sell the farm and move to the city, an idea that he outright refuses to go along with. The land that the farm is on belonged to Arlette's father and so it is now in her name, meaning she has the final say officially on selling the land. Wlifred tries to bargain with her, saying that he will buy the land off of her in installments, but Arlette knows that she can get a better price elsewhere and won’t have to wait years to receive the payment. This leads Wilfred to start planning his wife’s murder. Wilfred knows that his son wants to stay on the farm as well and so he manipulates him into helping him carry out and cover up the murder.
From this point on we have our ghost story. I’m actually rather hesitant to call it a ghost story, even though strictly speaking, it is one. This is more a tale of how guilt haunts a man beyond carrying out the heinous deed and how no bad deed goes unpunished. I don’t want to spoil too much here for those who haven’t yet seen the film, but what follows is a relentless and depressing tale of regret and loss.
The cast in this film are great, Thomas Jane does a great job in the lead role of a man willing to go to any morbid lengths, in order to retain what he believes belongs to him. Molly Parker and Dylan Schmid also do well in their roles as Arlette and Henry, respectively. The supporting cast is also solid. The other stand out thing in the movie for me was the set design. I found the farmhouses and barns to be extremely believable and the sets really added to the overall tone that the movie was going for and sold the era effectively as well.
My main complaint of the movie is the lack of any significant scares. The movie sets up a fairly creepy atmosphere at times, but never capitalizes on it. A Stephen King ghost story released the week before Halloween should be way scarier than this. I thought I was getting a truly chilling movie to sink my teeth into and instead I got a movie showing a desperate man’s fractured psyche and the guilt he has to deal with in the aftermath of a despicable deed, which is an interesting idea, it’s just not what I wanted out of this movie.
Overall this is a well made movie and for what it is it’s great, it just didn’t meet the expectations that I had for it and maybe that’s my own fault more than the movie’s. As with any Stephen King story, it makes for an interesting adaption and takes you on a dark journey and leaves you wondering about you own moral decisions in life. The film is no doubt successful in what it sets out to do; I just wish that it had scared me a bit more.
Kyera (8 KP) rated The 5th Wave: Book 1 in Books
Jan 31, 2018
What do you do when the Others come? You can't trust your senses, you can't trust anyone. Your only goal is to survive and maybe keep some of your humanity intact. When you can't trust anything or anyone - do you shoot first or take the chance when that hesitation will probably mean your life?
When the first wave comes, all technology is gone in a moment. An EMP takes everything out. The second wave caused massive tsunamis and destroyed the coasts of the world. The third wave infected and killed 97% of the remaining population in brutal fashion. The fourth wave destroyed all trust in humanity and introduced the constant threat of drones. The wave that makes you question every action... and the fifth wave... is us.
Cassie must survive in this strange world with no mother, father or brother to care for anymore - fighting and living because if she is the last human on Earth she refuses to go out with a whimper. She will fight until she can fight no longer. But she is not the only body left, even if she may be the only one with her own mind left. It is possible that one in every three people left is an Other. A Silencer. An Imposter. Has your mind and body been hacked? Do they look like us or can they make themselves look like us? Or maybe they've been here all along. Waiting. That's when you can't trust your eyes. You may be looking at an Other and not even realize it.
We next meet Ben, who must rediscover his fighting spirit if he wants to survive and survive he must. After not succumbing to the virus that infected him, he cannot give up. Taught to fight and given a new name, he must battle for his place.
Part III shows us a new perspective, an Other awakened in a human body and given a mission. To kill. To finish the human race, one by one. He has been tracking Cassie for a while and takes aim. Shoots. Traps her, but for some reason cannot bring himself to finish her.
Hunted. Shot. Then saved? Cassie wakes up being tended to by Evan on the family farm. He is the only one left of his family. Evan helps to nurse her back to health, bakes bread, carves walking sticks and wants to help her rescue her brother Sammy. What can't this farm boy do? And why does this make us so suspicious? Even Cassie can't quite bring herself to trust him. There are just little things that seem off, like a life-long farm boy with smooth hands and perfect cuticles. No callouses to be found. There's a small nagging feeling in her mind that asks- what if he's an Other?
The characters are well written and believable. You feel for them. Root for their successes and hurt when they fail. You wish for their survival despite the current chaos and destruction of the world. The world is familiar and yet fundamentally altered by the Others.
The book draws you in from the start and you puzzle over people and motives. Who will survive and if the human race survives this destruction, how will this ordeal fundamentally change the survivors? I am constantly questioning my conclusions and re-evaluating what I believe i happening. A great book is able to reveal just enough that the entire plot is not given away by page ten. This post-apocalyptic, alien-invasion novel is highly recommenede, especially if you plan to watch the movie. I cannot wait to read the next book, Infinite Sea!
When the first wave comes, all technology is gone in a moment. An EMP takes everything out. The second wave caused massive tsunamis and destroyed the coasts of the world. The third wave infected and killed 97% of the remaining population in brutal fashion. The fourth wave destroyed all trust in humanity and introduced the constant threat of drones. The wave that makes you question every action... and the fifth wave... is us.
Cassie must survive in this strange world with no mother, father or brother to care for anymore - fighting and living because if she is the last human on Earth she refuses to go out with a whimper. She will fight until she can fight no longer. But she is not the only body left, even if she may be the only one with her own mind left. It is possible that one in every three people left is an Other. A Silencer. An Imposter. Has your mind and body been hacked? Do they look like us or can they make themselves look like us? Or maybe they've been here all along. Waiting. That's when you can't trust your eyes. You may be looking at an Other and not even realize it.
We next meet Ben, who must rediscover his fighting spirit if he wants to survive and survive he must. After not succumbing to the virus that infected him, he cannot give up. Taught to fight and given a new name, he must battle for his place.
Part III shows us a new perspective, an Other awakened in a human body and given a mission. To kill. To finish the human race, one by one. He has been tracking Cassie for a while and takes aim. Shoots. Traps her, but for some reason cannot bring himself to finish her.
Hunted. Shot. Then saved? Cassie wakes up being tended to by Evan on the family farm. He is the only one left of his family. Evan helps to nurse her back to health, bakes bread, carves walking sticks and wants to help her rescue her brother Sammy. What can't this farm boy do? And why does this make us so suspicious? Even Cassie can't quite bring herself to trust him. There are just little things that seem off, like a life-long farm boy with smooth hands and perfect cuticles. No callouses to be found. There's a small nagging feeling in her mind that asks- what if he's an Other?
The characters are well written and believable. You feel for them. Root for their successes and hurt when they fail. You wish for their survival despite the current chaos and destruction of the world. The world is familiar and yet fundamentally altered by the Others.
The book draws you in from the start and you puzzle over people and motives. Who will survive and if the human race survives this destruction, how will this ordeal fundamentally change the survivors? I am constantly questioning my conclusions and re-evaluating what I believe i happening. A great book is able to reveal just enough that the entire plot is not given away by page ten. This post-apocalyptic, alien-invasion novel is highly recommenede, especially if you plan to watch the movie. I cannot wait to read the next book, Infinite Sea!