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Virgin River (Virgin River, #1)
Robyn Carr | 2007 | Fiction & Poetry
8
9.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
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#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3099359251">Virgin River</a> - ★★★★

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I am so thankful to the team at Mills & Boon for letting me a part of this amazing blog tour. It is an honour, and a pleasure! <a href="https://diaryofdifference.com/2020/01/29/virgin-river-by-robyn-carr-blog-tour/ ">Click HERE to read the first chapter!</a>

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<i>When recently widowed Melinda sees an advert for a midwife in the quiet town of Virgin River, she decides this is the perfect place to escape her heartache and to revitalise the nursing career she loves. 

However, her dreams are shattered as soon as she arrives. The cabin is uninhabitable, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor has nothing to do with her. But when a tiny baby is abandoned on a front porch, Mel needs to make a decision.

Helped by a local barman and former marine, Jack Sheridan, Mel has to face her past, and realises that there may be a future in Virgin River after all. </i>

<i><b>First Impression</b></i>

I don’t usually go for the drama romance stories. But I do love a bit of new town girl, and I also love watching medical shows, despite knowing close to nothing about medicine. Grey’s Anatomy, The Resident, Doctor House, The Good Doctor, ER, etc. fans - please let yourselves known! :)

I loved this book. It has a very good vibe about if from the beginning until the end. First of all, I fell in love with Virgin River. A lovely quiet place, with amazing selfless people living in it. I would love to live in a town like that! The author described the place so well, that it made me feel like I was there, in the pub, in the doctor’s office, by the river…

<i><b>Characters</b></i>

We found ourselves to have Mel as a main character, followed by Jack. However, we had a lot of side characters, who actually played a crucial role in the development of Mel and Jack and their story.

<i><b>Mel is a city girl, born and raised.</b></i>

Always lived in big cities, most recently in L.A. and she is used to all the poshy posh stuff that come along with such a lifestyle. She was married to Mark, an emergency doctor, who recently passed away. We never get to meet Mark, but we get to know him through Mel’s memories of him. 

Wanting and needing change, she sells everything and moves to Virgin River, a promising quiet town, where she can start again. But things don’t go as planned. They never do. When struggling with challenges, she has to find a way to cope with her pain, then learn how to live with it, so she can move on and be happy in life. 

<i><b>Then we have Jack, who owns a bar in Virgin River, and who is the person that helps everyone around.</b></i>

When Mel arrives, he is determined to make her stay and show her that this place is not so bad after all. But as a former marine, he also has his demons, and as much as he will help Mel, he also needs her to help him get over his pain as well. 

From the side characters, I really loved Doc, the sassy old doctor, Preacher, Jack’s friend from the marines and Joey, Mel’s sister. Even though I hated Joey at the beginning, she started to grow on me as time passed by. 

Very interesting story, a lot of dramatic events that change our characters and teach them something. The plot was predictable in the sense that I knew there would be a love story between Jack and Mel, but it was still adorable and cute to read how both of them grow by each other. 

<i><b>The Netflix Show</b></i>

You might have heard, but now Virgin River also has a TV show as well. My plan was to read and watch them simultaneously, and I did watch the first few episodes. I love the show, and I will definitely continue watching. However, the plot is changed a lot and it is quite different from the book, so I suggest you read the book first before watching the TV show. 

<i><b>Have you read this book? Have you read something similar? I would love to read your thoughts. :) </b></i>

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21 Jump Street (2012)
21 Jump Street (2012)
2012 | Action, Comedy, Crime
7
7.6 (36 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Back in 1987, the fledgling Fox Network debuted, offering entertainment on Saturday and Sunday evenings aimed at a younger audience. One of the network’s first breakout shows was a police drama with young cops and plenty of action, a show named 21 Jump Street. The show featured a cast of largely unknowns who quickly bolted to overnight notoriety, most notably its star Johnny Depp who, much to his chagrin, became a pinup boy and sex symbol for the show.

The show mixed humor, action, and romance. It followed a team of young officers who were part of a special undercover unit that infiltrated high schools and colleges where they posed as students to solve various campus crimes. Johnny Depp left the show after the fourth season, wanting to be taken seriously as a legitimate actor. The show soon ended one year later. Despite having run only five seasons and having a short-lived spinoff series for star Richard Grieco, “21 Jump Street” remained a pop-culture hit 25 years later.

As such, I had a lot of skepticism when I first heard that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum would be bringing an updated, raunchier version to the big screen that was heavy on laughs and would definitely aim for an R-rated. This theatrical version stars Hill as Officer Schmidt and Tatum as Officer Jenko, two young officers who met while in high school and, despite being on opposite ends of the social spectrum, bonded and became close friends during their time at the police academy years after graduation. When the duo find their lives as bike cops not as exciting as they had hoped and after they bungle their first chance at a significant arrest, the duo find themselves reassigned to the revived Jump Street project.

Schmidt, in spite of his misgivings, decides to face his fear of the horror that was high school decides to give it another chance. Jenko is soon horrified to see that the social structure that he dominated back in his day has clearly turned upside down. Jocks are no longer the big men on campus, replaced by sensitive New Age types. Nerds that he preyed upon are now the cool kids in school.

After the death of a student who took a new designer drug he bought at school, Schmidt and Jenko are assigned to find the dealers, infiltrate the gang and get to the bottom of the drug distribution ring and stop it at all costs. This proves to be easier said than done, especially for Schmidt. He begins to really relish his new found popularity in school and he starts to live the high school experience that he only dreamed about back in his day. Further complicating matters is Molly (Brie Larson), an attractive high school senior who quickly catches Schmidt’s attention and becomes a focal point of his day-to-day activities.

Jenko, on the other hand, finds himself struggling as the former high school kingpin now finds himself a social outcast, spending much of his time with the chemistry nerds trying to find a way to work the social structure to get to the bottom of the school’s drug trade.

Now what would be a simple assignment for two seasoned cops becomes completely unhinged for the to raw recruits who become more obsessed with social status than their mission and take extreme measures to ingratiate themselves with their new classmates. This all comes at a cost as their bond becomes strained due to Schmidt’s rapidly ascending social status and their continued inability to crack the case.

Now this is a premise that has been done countless times in numerous cop films. “21 Jump Street” has a bold and fresh formula that deftly mixes elements of the gross-out teen comedy with an action-adventure film. While the film drags a bit in the middle, there are some incredibly funny jokes throughout the film. The action in the film is solid and fits well with the story rather than trying to spice things up with random explosions.

I loved how the film, based on a story co-written by Jonah Hill, and produced by both Hill and Tatum, took a fresh approach to the subject matter but also respectfully made fun of the source material, banking on nostalgia while updating it for a younger audience.

I can easily say this was probably Jonah Hill’s best comedy to date as they were numerous laugh out loud moments in the film and he and Tatum make a fantastic duo, playing extremely well off one another. There are also several cameos in the film and strong supporting work from Ice Cube, who plays the extremely agitated captain of the inept cops placed under his command. The film sets up very well for a sequel and I understand that there’s already preparation underway should this one do well at the box office.

“21 Jump Street” is easily the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. I have not laughed this much, for all the right reasons, in quite a long time. Hip and fresh again, there’s plenty of bounce left in “21 Jump Street.”