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Her Perfect Life
Her Perfect Life
Hank Phillippi Ryan | 2021 | Thriller
5
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
This Book Doesn’t Turn Out to be Perfect
Lily Atwood is living a charmed life. A TV reporter with awards and millions of fans by day, she is a devoted single mother to a charming seven-year-old daughter by night. Her fans think she has it all, and Lily works hard to project that. Things take a turn when her latest anonymous source starts feeding her secrets from her own life. Can Lily keep her perfect life?

The book started well, and I was quickly pulled in. The use of multiple narrators and a large chunk back in the past was easy to follow thanks to headings at the start of every chapter. However, as I got further into the book, I started to get more frustrated. A whiney character was annoying, and I felt like some of the book was driven by manufactured suspense. If the characters would just listen to each other, they’d get the answers they wanted. Having said that, one twist got a gasp out of me near the end. The ending was a bit of a letdown since it left me wondering what the point was. All told, this was a mixed bag.
  
The Lighthouse Witches
The Lighthouse Witches
CJ Cooke | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Liv Stay rents a Scottish lighthouse on the island Lion Haven, despite the fact that it carries a decidedly spooky reputation involving witch hunts and islanders who have disappeared. She doesn’t believe in these things, and only wants a home for herself and her three daughters. But soon, only one daughter will remain: Luna’s mother and two sisters will have disappeared without a trace.
And then one day, twenty years later, someone resembling Luna’s sister turns up - and she hasn’t aged a day.

This is an eerie, unsettling story, packed with history, ancient beliefs and paranoia.

There are three timelines: the 17th century explains the origins of the witches and their slaughter; 1998 where Liv comes to live on the island with her daughters; and the present day, when Luna returns to the island as an adult. These timelines are expertly woven together, and they explain what has happened in the past to form the opinions of the future.

I couldn’t put this down! The more ominous and creepy it became, the more I wanted to listen to it. You certainly won’t want to be visiting caves or lighthouses anytime soon after reading this!
  
Homefront (2013)
Homefront (2013)
2013 | Action, Drama, Mystery
6
6.8 (8 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The new movie Homefront stars Jason Statham (Phil Broker), James Franco (Gator Bodine), Winona Ryder (Sheryl Gott), Kate Bosworth (Cassie Bodine), Chuck Zito (Danny T), Omar Benson Miller (Tito), Izabela Vidovic (Maddy Broker).

Written by Sylvestor Stallone. The film opens with a major drug bust going down, and inside undercover DEA agent Phil Broker (Statham) gives chase to the head of the drug ring and his son. While trying to arrest the father and son team, the son is shot to death, and his father promises to kill Broker and his children.

The rest of the movie takes place a few years later in a small town in Louisiana, where a now widowed Broker and his pre-teen daughter have moved to rebuild their life. An entire series of events is set off by Broker’s daughter standing up for herself against the school bully. The bully’s mother Cassie, demands an apology and doesn’t get one enough to her liking. She escalates the situation by going to her brother, Gator, who is the town’s resident “drug kingpin”.

After Gator discovers that Broker is actually an ex-undercover DEA agent, he tries to use that information as leverage to gain business ground for his drug running enterprise, and that’s where the rest of the movie plays out.

There are a lot of action and shooting scenes, which is what one would expect from a Statham movie, but it is still pretty predictable. Once Gator brings in the “big dogs” from the city, things quickly escalate and spin out of his control. The remainder of the movie is one gun fight after another, interspersed with chase scenes, swearing, explosions and hand to hand fighting. If you’re a fan of Statham, then there are really no surprises here. If you know to expect the movie’s complete predictability and his somewhat stiff acting, you’ll enjoy it.
  
A Nearly Normal Family
A Nearly Normal Family
M.T. Edvardsson | 2019 | Mystery, Thriller
8
8.8 (5 Ratings)
Book Rating
As it is said in the blurb, this book is told from three different perspectives: father, daughter, and mother, all three are sharing their sides to this story. The father’s part was the least interesting to me, he sounds quite boring and not very eventful. We do find out some interesting aspects of their life, but otherwise, he mainly seems lost and confused. The daughter’s part was the most interesting to me, we have the chance to see what the accused murderer is actually thinking, and what was her take on the life she is living. This part shines a different light on her father and other very important events. The mother’s part was the most logical one, I believe. She is a lawyer, so she knows how to deal with evidence. I liked her side of the story and the thoughts she shared from her life. The characters are well developed and intriguing, but sometimes some of their thoughts about “I need to save my daughter, it wasn’t her” felt repetitive and overused.

The narrative of this book keeps changing, depending on the characters views, and that was what got me going throughout the book. We do find out some spicy and interesting details throughout each part, that makes this book deeper and more personal. If you ever have read Nordic Noir, most probably you noticed, that this genre has a specific feeling about it. It normally involves exotic names, woods and coldness. This book for some reason managed to avoid that feeling. It is a Scandi Noir and it does have those exotic names of the places, but this book feels modern and doesn’t have this gloominess surrounding it.