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Anxious for Nothing Study Guide: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
Book
According the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders are reaching epidemic...
Member of the Family: Manson, Murder and Me
Book
Following the recent death of Charles Manson – the leader of the sinister 60s cult – Dianne Lake...
biography crime
Sicily, a Captive Land
Book
Part political critique, part travelogue, Sicily, a captive land will evoke compassion for ordinary...
3,096 Days
Book
3,096 Days is the remarkable and shocking true account of the kidnap of Natascha Kampusch in 1998,...
Old School (2003)
6.7
Rate It
Movie Watch
Three men relive their carefree college years by killing off as many brain cells as possible in this...
Jesters_folly (230 KP) rated Ju-on: Origins in TV
Jul 15, 2020
Contains spoilers, click to show
Ju-on: Origins is the prequel to the original Ju-on The Grudge on Netflix.
The story mostly follows two story lines:
The first is of paranormal author, Yasuo Odajima and T.V. Hostess Haruka Honjo and follows Yasuo as he tires to find the cursed house to write about.
The second is Kiyomi Kawai who is taken to the house by two of her new classmates.
The series shows how curse of the house affects the two main characters but is also interspersed with snippets of the lives of other people who have lived in the house and flashbacks from the memories of other characters and, at times this can make the show a bit hard to follow.
Ju-on: Origins has an 'Amityville' vibe to it but more so, as in the original films the cures is not restricted to the house, meaning that, even if you get out you may not be safe.
The series is very atmospheric but , although there are ghosts it does focus more on the people who have lived in the house which makes this very grim in parts.
There was something familiar about some of the scenes in Ju-on: Origins, at least part of this is due to the original film, the scene where Kiyomi and her friends first go the house is slightly reminiscent of the school girl sequence in the first film although it does go in a different direction.
Now for some warnings. As i said Ju-on: Origins has some grim sequences. It's a Netflix series and, almost as soon as it went on (At least here in the UK) there were complaints about the auto start trailer which skirts around one of the main scenes which involves rape.
As well as rape there are murders (It makes 'American Horror Story; Haunted House' look tame) violence towards women, children, men (although i don't recall any animal abuse), sex and implied, possible incest so you have been warned
The story mostly follows two story lines:
The first is of paranormal author, Yasuo Odajima and T.V. Hostess Haruka Honjo and follows Yasuo as he tires to find the cursed house to write about.
The second is Kiyomi Kawai who is taken to the house by two of her new classmates.
The series shows how curse of the house affects the two main characters but is also interspersed with snippets of the lives of other people who have lived in the house and flashbacks from the memories of other characters and, at times this can make the show a bit hard to follow.
Ju-on: Origins has an 'Amityville' vibe to it but more so, as in the original films the cures is not restricted to the house, meaning that, even if you get out you may not be safe.
The series is very atmospheric but , although there are ghosts it does focus more on the people who have lived in the house which makes this very grim in parts.
There was something familiar about some of the scenes in Ju-on: Origins, at least part of this is due to the original film, the scene where Kiyomi and her friends first go the house is slightly reminiscent of the school girl sequence in the first film although it does go in a different direction.
Now for some warnings. As i said Ju-on: Origins has some grim sequences. It's a Netflix series and, almost as soon as it went on (At least here in the UK) there were complaints about the auto start trailer which skirts around one of the main scenes which involves rape.
As well as rape there are murders (It makes 'American Horror Story; Haunted House' look tame) violence towards women, children, men (although i don't recall any animal abuse), sex and implied, possible incest so you have been warned
Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Tradition
Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Kari Vogt
7.0
Rate It
Book
Gender equality is a modern ideal, which has only recently, with the expansion of human rights and...
Hazel (2934 KP) rated Silent Night in Books
Nov 8, 2020
This is the second book featuring the British Sign Language interpreter, Paige Northwood, and the second I have read and although you don't particularly have to have read the first (The Silent House), it does help.
Here we have a complex story of the murder of a teacher and the disappearance of one of his pupils; the police employ Paige as the interpreter but she soon becomes embroiled in the investigation whilst she is also having to deal with a lot of angst in her own life and herein lies the problem for me. The story already covers a lot of themes; the deaf community, bullying, coercion, domestic abuse, relationships and that's before we get to the murder and the missing child! On top of all this, there is a lot of time taken up about Paige and, I felt, it was just too much and I found it became more and more tedious, repetitive and annoying so by the end, it had an impact on my enjoyment of the book. I am sure however that there are many out there who will find this focus on the main character and her story appealing as opposed to the crime itself but it just spoiled it a bit for me I'm afraid.
Putting that aside, the twists and red herrings were excellent and I was constantly trying to guess who-done-it. The characters were well developed and interesting. The pace was a little slow to begin with but picked up in the second half/final third. The look into the frustrations experienced by the police when witnesses/suspects don't cooperate and withhold vital information was infuriating and probably pretty accurate!
Overall, a pretty solid book but just a bit too much focus on the main character for me.
Thank you to Avon Books UK via NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in return for an unbiased review.
Here we have a complex story of the murder of a teacher and the disappearance of one of his pupils; the police employ Paige as the interpreter but she soon becomes embroiled in the investigation whilst she is also having to deal with a lot of angst in her own life and herein lies the problem for me. The story already covers a lot of themes; the deaf community, bullying, coercion, domestic abuse, relationships and that's before we get to the murder and the missing child! On top of all this, there is a lot of time taken up about Paige and, I felt, it was just too much and I found it became more and more tedious, repetitive and annoying so by the end, it had an impact on my enjoyment of the book. I am sure however that there are many out there who will find this focus on the main character and her story appealing as opposed to the crime itself but it just spoiled it a bit for me I'm afraid.
Putting that aside, the twists and red herrings were excellent and I was constantly trying to guess who-done-it. The characters were well developed and interesting. The pace was a little slow to begin with but picked up in the second half/final third. The look into the frustrations experienced by the police when witnesses/suspects don't cooperate and withhold vital information was infuriating and probably pretty accurate!
Overall, a pretty solid book but just a bit too much focus on the main character for me.
Thank you to Avon Books UK via NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in return for an unbiased review.
ClareR (5721 KP) rated The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion in Books
Jun 22, 2021
The Devil You Know is a series of case studies of some of the patients that Dr Gwen Adshead has worked with in her role as a forensic psychiatrist. I don’t know quite what I expected from this: perhaps a dry, academic-type book. It was nothing at all like that. It’s a book full of compassion for the terrible mistakes, acts and choices that these people have made. And this is what’s made clear in this book: we (or rather, I) have always been led to believe that people who murder, stalk or destroy others lives are sub-human, have no empathy, no guilt or reasons for their actions. But there are those who have made terrible, unforgivable, life-changing decisions and must now live with those choices. Some are wracked with guilt, others aren’t.
It’s really interesting to read about this diverse group of people - they were in Broadmoor, secure prisons or units, and some had been released back into society and were experiencing the world again after serving their sentences.
If you’ve always wondered what motivates people to commit violent crimes, then this is, in part, the book for you. I found it quite reassuring to know that there are people like Dr Adshead out there who listen to perpetrators of crime, who want to learn what it is that causes them to make that fatal decision. I found the part about early childhood neglect and abuse and its impact on brain development particularly interesting (I work in Early Years), and the fact that it is potentially within society’s power to prevent crime before it has even been thought about was sobering.
I could go on, but I won’t. Just to say that I found this whole book fascinating - it’s such a well-written, accessible and interesting read.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne for reading along with the Pigeons!
It’s really interesting to read about this diverse group of people - they were in Broadmoor, secure prisons or units, and some had been released back into society and were experiencing the world again after serving their sentences.
If you’ve always wondered what motivates people to commit violent crimes, then this is, in part, the book for you. I found it quite reassuring to know that there are people like Dr Adshead out there who listen to perpetrators of crime, who want to learn what it is that causes them to make that fatal decision. I found the part about early childhood neglect and abuse and its impact on brain development particularly interesting (I work in Early Years), and the fact that it is potentially within society’s power to prevent crime before it has even been thought about was sobering.
I could go on, but I won’t. Just to say that I found this whole book fascinating - it’s such a well-written, accessible and interesting read.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne for reading along with the Pigeons!
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated If I Stay (2014) in Movies
Sep 21, 2020
Gross. My undying love for these disgustingly quirky YA slops renders me unable to rate this the easy one star it most definitely deserves - but make no mistake, this is the worst one since... maybe 𝘔𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶? The type of movie that does everything wrong: sterile visually, stagnant structurally, humdrum narratively, and it doesn't help that Stacy Keach (so wonderful here) is the only one in the entire movie giving a good performance - watching the normally capable Moretz attempt to emote in this is downright hysterical, that supposedly emotional hallway screaming scene had me *cackling*. Also I'd be willing to put serious money down against anyone who can find a film with worse dialogue. "Guys play music for two reasons: to get laid, and because they got rage" is an actual piece of speech uttered in this. Much of the hilarious cringe (see: the aforementioned awful dialogue) and endearing oversentimentality I find a warm familiarity with in this genre is intact, but the sickening fetishization of death and child abuse (cardboard cutout love interest: "My parents were never there... everyone leaves me...", what the movie wants us to be like: "W O W … he's so deep and profound 😍😍") in this make it feel closer to some sick exploitation piece that also isn't good. Even if that weren't the case, this relationship and its characters are lifeless even before the death plot hits and the guy is a faceless asshole that the Moretz character is just expected to bend to the whim of - and his band is fucking *horrible*. Speaking of which, funny how cultured this thinks it is because it never shuts up about punk and classical music even though it doesn't have a precious clue about either. Should have been a slam dunk, don't know why they decided to play it so indifferently. Written by that outcast from your high school who growled at people and drew Harry Potter porn at lunch.