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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Garden State (2004) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020 (Updated Nov 26, 2020)  
Garden State (2004)
Garden State (2004)
2004 | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Whole quirk, probably just a feature length "Try not to cringe" challenge if I really think about it - which as a cringe connoisseur I always have a soft spot for and you will too if that's your thing - but this taps into something buried deep in the psyche, with an almost primal force. Not only does this capture how fucking insufferable "Hey, how've you been?" small talk can be, but this does better than most movies before or after it in depicting that time in your life (late adolescence/early adulthood) where you were the center of your own moody universe and nothing else mattered - when you thought that's how life would be forever and you just Felt So Deeply™, for good and for ill. It has this authentic, free youthful energy about it but it also has a pretty mopey demeanor to it as well. Hence why I think this would work better if these characters were a bit younger, but I digress - it does that so impeccably well that all of its other blatant shortcomings are easy to forgive (for instance I still can't decide if Braff nailed the emotionally detached, despondent aura of his disillusioned lead character... or if he just sucked). It's so magnetic stylistically (soundtrack is stacked and the cinematography rules) I think it does its job more than capably. Pretty mesmerizingly walks a fine line between "What the fuck is this?" and "Hey who left this bowl of onions here?". Portman is the final boss Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
  
The Foster Child
The Foster Child
Jenny Blackhurst | 2020 | Contemporary, Horror, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This story is told from multiple perspectives, but mainly, Imogen and Ellie are the ones sharing their feelings and thoughts. I liked Imogen as a character, but sometimes her actions and decisions were silly and not very thought through. Ellie was a mystery from the beginning till the end, and I kind of liked that the author left this mystical aura surrounding Ellie until the last sentence of the book. All the characters in this book were quite disturbed, carrying some baggage from their pasts.

The narrative of this novel was quite tense, there always were little incidents related to Ellie, that made this book very absorbing. I liked the topics this book discussed, such as pregnancy, parental love, bullying, fighting your fears, child’s behaviour problems, attachment, and many more. I enjoyed all the little twists and turns the author threw in this in this book, it made this book a true page-turner.

The writing style of this novel was easy to read, but quite confusing. Till the last page, I could not understand what was going on with Ellie. In some places, it seems that she was supernatural, and in other places, it was brushed off as fabrication, so this thing did leave me baffled. The chapters had a very decent length and they didn’t leave me bored. The ending of the book was quite surprising but it rounded the story very nicely and left me satisfied with the outcome.

So, to conclude, I really enjoyed this psychological thriller, it has very complex and disturbed characters, as well as the plot that is always trying to confuse the reader, and filled with turns, twists and very important topics.