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Alison Pink (7 KP) rated Deadly in Books

Jan 15, 2018

This book tells a fictional account of real life events that center around Typhoid Mary. It is based on the actual life of Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant living in New York City in the early 1900s. Mary worked as a cook for a number of wealthy families in the area while she was a healthy carrier of the typhoid bacteria. She would spread the disease to the families she worked for, even killing some of them. The thing is Mary didn't know she carried the disease...she had never even had symptoms.
The main character, Pruedence, is a 17 year old girl who leaves school to accept a job with the Dept of Health & Sanitation. It is written as a series of journal writings she makes & tells the story through her musings. She gets swept into the case & it ignites in her a passion for medicine & figuring out how the body works. Prudence makes the story. Without her character struggles this book would be forgettable. It's redeeming quality is the fact that you want to see her reach her dream.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Chocolate (2008) in Movies

Mar 2, 2018 (Updated Mar 2, 2018)

Chocolate (2008)

2008 | Action, Thriller

8.0

(4 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Mmm, Chocolate

Yet another film about an autistic girl with prodigious martial arts skills forced to beat the living daylights out of dozens of gangland thugs in order to pay for her mother's cancer medicine. But a really good one, by the standards of the kung fu movie genre at least. From the director of Ong-Bak, Prachya Pinkaew, who almost single-handedly seems to have put Thai martial arts movies on the map.

The plot is, as you can probably tell, somewhat eccentric and quite possibly in dubious taste (the final boss battle sees the autistic kickboxing girl facing off against a teenage capoeira expert with Tourette's syndrome), but this just adds to the distinctive flavour of this particular chocolate. Terrific performance, both acting and athletic, from Jeeja Yanin. The fight scenes are stupendously well-choreographed, especially the climax (a vertical fight up and down the side of a building). I don't know which is more surprising: that this movie exists at all, or that it's real and also really lives up to its potential.

Kudos

Donna C (199 KP) rated Listening to the Animals - becoming the Supervet in Books

Jan 22, 2019

Insight into early life (0 more)

Sometimes a little repetitive (0 more)

Autobiography of the “Supervet”

Didn’t we all want to be a vet when we were little? Well Noel Fitzpatrick held onto that dream and is now the well respected and amazing Supervet.
It was quite surprising to read how he was bullied relentlessly at secondary school. He grew up on the family farm where his passion for animals began, but this was quite an isolated start in life apart from his many siblings. He had to work hard on the farm.
Moving to secondary school meant meeting more worldly boys from the towns and he didn’t fit in. But he found ways to cope and threw himself into his studies which he still does even now.
His strong working life has come at a cost to a personal life but he does go into past relationships and regrets.
Noel Fitzpatrick has a vision for veterinary and human medicine to be able to work together and is determined to work towards that goal.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this autobiography.