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Haven’t They Grown
Haven’t They Grown
Sophie Hannah | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
A compelling story, with an unguessable ending - well, for me, anyway!
Haven’t They Grown starts off with what can only be described as a bizarre incident. Beth decides to go and see what her rich ex-best friend’s house looks like before she drops her son off at his football match - after all, its kind-of on the way. What she is confronted with though, is unbelievable: her friend, Flora, with her two children. Her two SMALL children. Which sounds perfectly normal, but the children look exactly the same as they did 12 years ago.

Beth becomes obsessed by this conundrum, and is determined to find out what is going on. Honestly, at several points I thought I might have picked up a science fiction novel, and there was going to be some rational, clone-based explanation (of course these kinds of explanations are ALWAYS rational in my world!). But there wasn’t. There is a perfectly TWISTED reason behind all of this (and you’ll have to read it to find out!). I didn’t for one moment guess the reason behind the ageless children.

Beth is a determined woman - luckily she seems to have a husband who backs down, supports her and lets her get on with it. Her daughter seems as persistent and driven as her mother - except for when her GCSE revision is involved. Living with a teenager in his final year at school, I can empathise with Beth here - my son will do anything to avoid his revision as well! But Beth’s daughter is a good sounding board for her, and pushes her to do things and ask people questions that her character probably wouldn’t have done on her own.

I really very much enjoyed this. The big reveal at the end completely floored me, and I most definitely hadn’t seen it coming. This is a great, entertaining story, and had me gripped throughout.

Many thanks to Readers First for my copy of this book to read and honestly review.
  
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Johnny Marr recommended Slider by T Rex in Music (curated)

 
Slider by T Rex
Slider by T Rex
1972 | Rock
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I always say that T. Rex were my band when I was a kid. What I mean by that is so much of my identity was about being a T. Rex fan. A bit like choosing your colours as to which football team you would support, when I was nine or ten I found T. Rex. I was obsessed with Bolan. At that point, coincidentally, they were about to hit their stride as a commercial and artistic force. They had released Electric Warrior and they were on the precipice of being the most important band around. The Slider came out and it had 'Metal Guru' on it. It was a song that changed my life as I had never heard anything so beautiful and so strange, but yet so catchy. 'Telegram Sam' was also on that album and the whole thing was unusually spooky and had a weird atmosphere, considering it was a number one record and they were essentially a teenybop band. It's another one of those records that what you get on the cover is what you get inside. I was a teenybopper at the time. I was ten, eleven, buying lots of records and loving the pop music I heard on the radio. I consider myself very lucky that what was on the radio at the time and the music being made for very young children happened to have some substance to it. T. Rex was pure pop, but it was coming from someone who had had a go at being a hippy and being a mod. The album was very much of its time, and had a sexuality to it that I didn't understand at that age. There is an aspect of the sound that Tony Visconti must have had a large part in, and Flo [Mark Volman] and Eddie [Howard Kaylan] from The Turtles on backing vocals added this odd, druggy spook to the whole thing."

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Zach Galligan recommended The Thing (1982) in Movies (curated)

 
The Thing (1982)
The Thing (1982)
1982 | Horror, Sci-Fi

"A perfectly executed movie; flawlessly executed. Incredible movie. And the thing — haha — the aspect of it that I like the best, is that I love the ending. I absolutely adore and love the ending, where you’re left ambiguously hanging and wondering what’s gonna happen. Kurt Russell is so underrated as an actor; he’s such a great anchor in every movie. I love him in just about everything he does. I remember one of my fondest memories of shooting Gremlins. I’ve never really talked about this. Right next door to Gremlins was the movie that Kurt Russell met Goldie Hawn on, a movie called Swing Shift. Their trailers were right next to us, so we were on Stage 16, and Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn were on stage 15, and we were literally 20 feet away from each other. You would exit the stages and walk towards the commissary and you’d have to walk past them. We’d have frequent breaks from Gremlins because the special effects would snap sometimes and there would be fixes that were needed and whatnot, so I would go outside and get some sunshine because it’s LA and it’s beautiful. So I’d go outside and sit on the steps and play with my Calico football or whatever game thing I had, and because I loved Kurt Russell already from The Thing and I loved Goldie Hawn, I was this interloper. Somehow I’ve managed to star in a movie — I don’t know how I did it — and I would watch Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn and their relationship unfold. I’d see them chatting a little the first couple of weeks, and the next couple of weeks they would go to the commissary together. A few weeks after that, they’d walk to the commissary a little slower holding hands. I thought even then, “That’s some chemistry right there.” And they’re still together. You’d see bits and pieces everyday, and if you had any inkling about how to read body language, it was pretty self-evident."

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