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The Brighton Mermaid
8.5
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Her murder was only the beginning… Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and...
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Convenience Store Woman in Books
Oct 7, 2023
143 of 235
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Convenience Store Woman
By Sayaka Murata
⭐️⭐️
Meet Keiko.
Keiko is 36 years old. She's never had a boyfriend, and she's been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years.
Keiko's family wishes she'd get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won't get married.
But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she's not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store...
This was a strange strange little book. I guess it shows one thing that no matter how different we are someone always has a place and who cares if it doesn’t fit into “normal “ society. I don’t even know if i liked it or not!
Kindle
Convenience Store Woman
By Sayaka Murata
⭐️⭐️
Meet Keiko.
Keiko is 36 years old. She's never had a boyfriend, and she's been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years.
Keiko's family wishes she'd get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won't get married.
But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she's not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store...
This was a strange strange little book. I guess it shows one thing that no matter how different we are someone always has a place and who cares if it doesn’t fit into “normal “ society. I don’t even know if i liked it or not!
David McK (3425 KP) rated Red Notice (2021) in Movies
Dec 12, 2021
Wonder Woman.
Deadpool.
Black Adam.
All in the same movie; a wannabe twisty-turny crime thriller in which a framed FBI agent (played by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) has to team up with his former notorious art thief target (Ryan Reynolds) to clear his name and to catch the new '#1 art thief in the world' thief aka The Bishop (Gal Gadot).
I found this to be reminiscent of the Nic Cage starring 'National Treasure' series, with the main characters all globe-trotting around the world in pursuit of the McGuffin, and with the interplay between Johnson and Reynolds raising a few laughs/raised eyebrows along the way.
In short: good, but not brilliant.
Deadpool.
Black Adam.
All in the same movie; a wannabe twisty-turny crime thriller in which a framed FBI agent (played by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) has to team up with his former notorious art thief target (Ryan Reynolds) to clear his name and to catch the new '#1 art thief in the world' thief aka The Bishop (Gal Gadot).
I found this to be reminiscent of the Nic Cage starring 'National Treasure' series, with the main characters all globe-trotting around the world in pursuit of the McGuffin, and with the interplay between Johnson and Reynolds raising a few laughs/raised eyebrows along the way.
In short: good, but not brilliant.
The Other Woman
7.0
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Newly engaged, Ellie is thrilled to be accepted into the loving Cooper clan—which seems like the...
Batgirl & the Birds of Prey Vol. 2: Source Code
Shawna Benson and Julie Benson
8.0
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The origin of the new Oracle—the super-hacker who has become an invaluable ally to the Birds of...
Awix (3310 KP) rated Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) in Movies
Dec 17, 2020
The first big superhero movie of the summer arrives - if you're in Australia, anyway. (Cheers, 2020.) The setting has been updated to the mid 1980s, which in no way resembles the present day, of course: Wonder Woman must enter the White House and do battle with a failed businessman, TV personality and con man who has stolen the power of the US presidency. Of course there's a bit more going on to dress this up and stop the cute-little-red-cap crowd from getting pouty and boycotting it, but that's the most striking element of the plot - interesting to see a blockbuster with a political edge to it, even if that edge is somewhat disguised.
Apart from that, this is a good, slick, lively blockbuster, very colourful and with a nicely positive outlook to it. Some of the characterisation perhaps undercuts the film's feminist agenda - Wonder Woman's chief character point is that she's sad because she's got no boyfriend, while assistant villain Cheetah's big issue is basically being jealous of women who can walk in heels - and Chris Pine is an absence of hiatus, as usual, but in every respect this is a decent blockbuster.
Apart from that, this is a good, slick, lively blockbuster, very colourful and with a nicely positive outlook to it. Some of the characterisation perhaps undercuts the film's feminist agenda - Wonder Woman's chief character point is that she's sad because she's got no boyfriend, while assistant villain Cheetah's big issue is basically being jealous of women who can walk in heels - and Chris Pine is an absence of hiatus, as usual, but in every respect this is a decent blockbuster.
Sarah (126 KP) rated Justice League (2017) in Movies
Aug 25, 2018
Very Weak
Upfront, let me say that I'm neither a Marvel nor a DC girl - to be honest, I would struggle (in the past) to differentiate one universe from the other, so there's no bias - in that sense - to my review.
For family film night we decided to watch Justice League - we'd all really enjoyed Wonder Woman (me, in particular) so figured a superhero film with the lovely Gal Gadot back again would be a good choice.
Oh how wrong we were.
The whole thing, from start to finish, is just exceptionally weak. Almost the complete opposite of Wonder Woman, neither the story or action were sufficient to capture any of our attention. The plot, with the boxes was rather vague and not compelling, too much time was spent on "getting the gang together", with very little happening, and not enough on the actual story itself.
One observation was "what's the point of Aquaman?" - other than having another location for a box, this was quite a good point. It felt like we spent a fair amount of time on setting the scene with him, but for very little in terms of what he could do or offer the Justice League.
To be completely honest, the whole ensemble seemed to be lacking - we didn't see the gadgets of Batman, the awesome power of Wonder Woman, anything very much at all of The Flash or Victor Stone - speaking of whom, for people like me who don't know the comic books, a bit of an idea of who these characters are wouldn't go amiss! My husband even asked "so, is he a knock off Iron Man?"
Then we come to Henry Cavill's face. Reading another review, I now understand he had a moustache which was digitally edited out - when watching I actually asked did he die part way through filming so they had to CGI him in? (Jokingly, I knew he didn't but the CGI was THAT bad!)
There is so much CGI in the film, it begs the question why not just make an animated film? It's so badly worked in at times, and so poorly done (see Henry Cavill's face).
I was so disappointed in this, not even topless Jason Momoa or stunning Gal Gadot could save it for me. But at least we had a laugh working lines from 'Born to be Wild' into our commentary of the film...
For family film night we decided to watch Justice League - we'd all really enjoyed Wonder Woman (me, in particular) so figured a superhero film with the lovely Gal Gadot back again would be a good choice.
Oh how wrong we were.
The whole thing, from start to finish, is just exceptionally weak. Almost the complete opposite of Wonder Woman, neither the story or action were sufficient to capture any of our attention. The plot, with the boxes was rather vague and not compelling, too much time was spent on "getting the gang together", with very little happening, and not enough on the actual story itself.
One observation was "what's the point of Aquaman?" - other than having another location for a box, this was quite a good point. It felt like we spent a fair amount of time on setting the scene with him, but for very little in terms of what he could do or offer the Justice League.
To be completely honest, the whole ensemble seemed to be lacking - we didn't see the gadgets of Batman, the awesome power of Wonder Woman, anything very much at all of The Flash or Victor Stone - speaking of whom, for people like me who don't know the comic books, a bit of an idea of who these characters are wouldn't go amiss! My husband even asked "so, is he a knock off Iron Man?"
Then we come to Henry Cavill's face. Reading another review, I now understand he had a moustache which was digitally edited out - when watching I actually asked did he die part way through filming so they had to CGI him in? (Jokingly, I knew he didn't but the CGI was THAT bad!)
There is so much CGI in the film, it begs the question why not just make an animated film? It's so badly worked in at times, and so poorly done (see Henry Cavill's face).
I was so disappointed in this, not even topless Jason Momoa or stunning Gal Gadot could save it for me. But at least we had a laugh working lines from 'Born to be Wild' into our commentary of the film...
Fred (860 KP) rated Black Widow (2021) in Movies
Jul 30, 2021
Mostly bland
Watching Black Widow was like watching one of the G.I.Joe movies, but not as enjoyable,. The story was nothing special & quite frankly, uninteresting and forgettable. The characters fit that description as well. Johansson was very good, as usual. David Harbor's Red Guardian was interesting enough, but in the end, utterly useless & underutilized. The biggest drag-down was Florence Pugh's Yelena. Wow! So wooden! I've seen more emotion from a merry-go-round horse. They chose her to take over the Black Widow character? Black Widow is not that interesting a character to begin with, but to replace her with Yelena, is just bad. I have no intention or interest in watching a movie with that character as the lead. It was bad enough to watch her in this movie.
That's not to say the movie didn't have it's good parts. Some of the action scenes were great & there was enough of them to break up the dull parts scattered throughout the movie. Ray Winstone was great but again, not really a supervillain worth watching. The movie suffers from the same problem both Wonder Woman movies had, which is a supervillain not strong enough to carry the story.
In the end, Black Widow is better than both Wonder Woman movies, but that's not saying anything. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not. Did I waste my time watching it the time? Meh. Yes & no. It's an unimportant addition to the Marvel Universe, so at least I got it out of the way.
That's not to say the movie didn't have it's good parts. Some of the action scenes were great & there was enough of them to break up the dull parts scattered throughout the movie. Ray Winstone was great but again, not really a supervillain worth watching. The movie suffers from the same problem both Wonder Woman movies had, which is a supervillain not strong enough to carry the story.
In the end, Black Widow is better than both Wonder Woman movies, but that's not saying anything. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not. Did I waste my time watching it the time? Meh. Yes & no. It's an unimportant addition to the Marvel Universe, so at least I got it out of the way.
ClareR (5726 KP) rated Mrs Death Misses Death in Books
Feb 15, 2021
This is such an original idea: Mrs Death. Death in this book is a black, working class woman. This turns on its head everything we’ve all grown up believing about Death, and I love this. Why shouldn’t Death be a woman? As it says in the book:
“For surely only she who bears it, she who gave you life, can be she who has the power to take it.”
Seems logical to me.
“And there is no human more invisible, more easily talked over, ignored, betrayed and easy to walk past than a woman; than a poor old black woman.”
The thought of walking past death on a daily basis and not realising that’s who you’re passing, is rather a disconcerting thought!
I liked the playful language, starting with the title and moving on through prose mixed with poetry, and parts were written in script form too. This wasn’t reading for the lazy: it kept me on my toes. The historical deaths seen from Death’s point of view were fascinating too.
I did find myself wishing that Mrs Death had found herself another ghost writer, because Wolf Willeford is clearly a vulnerable person with mental health issues - I did wonder if it was written to illustrate a form of psychosis.
Either way, I loved it and read it FAR too quickly. If this is Salena Godden’s first foray into prose, I will be looking out for what she writes next - and looking out for some of her poetry too, when I can get back in to a library!
Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-copy of this book through NetGalley.
“For surely only she who bears it, she who gave you life, can be she who has the power to take it.”
Seems logical to me.
“And there is no human more invisible, more easily talked over, ignored, betrayed and easy to walk past than a woman; than a poor old black woman.”
The thought of walking past death on a daily basis and not realising that’s who you’re passing, is rather a disconcerting thought!
I liked the playful language, starting with the title and moving on through prose mixed with poetry, and parts were written in script form too. This wasn’t reading for the lazy: it kept me on my toes. The historical deaths seen from Death’s point of view were fascinating too.
I did find myself wishing that Mrs Death had found herself another ghost writer, because Wolf Willeford is clearly a vulnerable person with mental health issues - I did wonder if it was written to illustrate a form of psychosis.
Either way, I loved it and read it FAR too quickly. If this is Salena Godden’s first foray into prose, I will be looking out for what she writes next - and looking out for some of her poetry too, when I can get back in to a library!
Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-copy of this book through NetGalley.
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated He Said/She Said in Books
Aug 26, 2017
Gripping, horrific look at victim blaming of women
There are so many twists that your head will keep spinning. However, each one has been laid out carefully so it doesn't seem frivolous. The story plot is coherent and the author has done a great job of keeping it together without going completely over the top Hollywood style.
It's a rather sad look at how much victim blaming there is in society especially surrounding violence against women. The woman in this case is Beth, a troubled young girl, and you wonder if she's telling the truth even right near the end. She's portrayed as slightly psychotic while the defendant is "good young boy with a solid reputation ". An important read and completely relevant our times.
It's a rather sad look at how much victim blaming there is in society especially surrounding violence against women. The woman in this case is Beth, a troubled young girl, and you wonder if she's telling the truth even right near the end. She's portrayed as slightly psychotic while the defendant is "good young boy with a solid reputation ". An important read and completely relevant our times.