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Alice in Zombieland - White Rabbit Chronicles
Alice in Zombieland - White Rabbit Chronicles
Gena Showalter | 2012 | Fiction & Poetry
6
7.0 (9 Ratings)
Book Rating
This was an interesting re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. In Alice in Zombieland, Alice Bell's life has always been curtailed by her father's insistence that monsters exist. The family cannot leave the house after dark, she's been taught how to fight hand-to-hand and with a couple of weapons, and they never - NEVER - drive past the graveyard. All of this changes in one night - when Alice "falls down the rabbit hole" as it were - and discovers her father wasn't insane after all.

Now, living with her grandparents, haunted by visions of her little sister and glimpses of monsters in the dark, Alice - or Ali, as she insists on being called - finds herself being called on to fight the monsters alongside the roughest crowd in her high school. Falling in love with the leader of the bad boys doesn't help her social life, but might help her stay alive.

I enjoyed this book and will probably pick up the sequel, Through the Zombie Glass, if I can find it at the library. The writing flowed well most of the time, and while Alice began a little whiny, by the end of the book she was pretty bad ass. It felt.... a little more "young adult" than some young adult books I've read; the emotions seemed detached or damped down a bit. While she was dealing with grief over the loss of her family, and possible death at the hands of zombies, it just didn't feel as raw as I think those emotions should have felt. And the notion of a bunch of high school kids fighting zombies - with the support of adults, including the high school principal - was a little weird. Still an interesting book, and not a waste of time, but it felt a lot like "teenagers are special snowflakes!"

You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com
  
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Lenard (726 KP) rated Ma (2019) in Movies

Jul 2, 2019  
Ma (2019)
Ma (2019)
2019 | Horror, Thriller
Olivia Spencer gives a tour de force performance as a "unbalanced" veterinary assistant. I call it "unbalanced" because it is not really clear whether or not she is mentally ill, sociopathic, or just megalomaniacal. In Ma, a teenager moves back to her mom's hometown and makes friends with a group of teenagers who include the son of a prominent businessman. The friends with nothing to do in the town decide to get some booze and go down in the quarry to drink it, like a bunch of teenagers from the 70s. How to get the booze is the problem. Then, Sue Ann whom the teens start to call Ma, out walking one of the canine patients reluctantly agrees. Given how uncool she was in high school, she attempts to be the cool adult to these teenagers. However her social skills need a lot of work and she ends up seeming a little off to everyone. At this point, she goes off the handle and starts to torment the teenagers and all of her former classmates from high school, including Erica (the single mother), Ben (the divorced father), and Mercedes (Ben's slutty lover). She also for no discernible reason other than she just plain dislikes her murders her boss, the town veterinarian which seems irresponsible. In the end, the teenagers are able to save themselves from the twisted Ma, burn down her house, and Ma decides to cuddle up with the "love of her life" Ben who had raped her in high school. Maybe it is a comment on toxic masculinity and the effects it has on weaker women or the bonds formed between a rapist and his victim. Either way the film leaves many questions and is only saved by the performance of Olivia Spencer.