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Sarah (7800 KP) rated Insomnia in Books

Jun 17, 2020  
Insomnia
Insomnia
Stephen King | 2011 | Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
8.7 (25 Ratings)
Book Rating
Reading this would be a great cure to insomnia...
This book has been on my shelf for quite some time. Mainly because it's a beast of a read - a huge 650 page hardback book - and I've not had the inclination to read. As my pile of unread books is dwindling drastically, I finally decided to give it a go and overall I was pleasantly surprised.

My biggest surprise when reading the first few chapters was the realisation that this book isn't what the Christopher Nolan film Insomnia was based on. I cant even tell you why I thought this in the first place 😕 Once I got over this, I really got into the book or at least the first few hundred pages. As always with King, the book is very well written with a likeable protagonist and well developed secondary characters. The problem is that the story is maybe a little convoluted and isn't helped by the sheer length of it all. 200 pages in I was wondering how this could be dragged out for 650 pages and whilst it never gets as tedious as you'd imagine, this is definitely longer than it needed to be. Whilst the plot is typical King, it gets a little confusing and 'out there' even for him and I think he could've simplified this a little. Because of this I could only read up to 100 pages at a time as it made me feel rather sleepy - a perfect cure for insomnia I'm sure.

By the end of the book I did come to at least enjoy this story more than I thought I would, and even shed a tear or two. This definitely isn't a book for casual readers though and not one of King's best. But if you're looking for a door stop sized challenge, you could do much worse than this!
  
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Ross (3284 KP) Jun 17, 2020

I'm sure your shelf breathed a sigh of relief!

The Lighthouse (2019)
The Lighthouse (2019)
2019 | Drama, Horror
The Lighthouse is destined to be one of those polarizing art house films that splits opinion straight down the middle, and it's easy to see why. I found it captivating, but I imagine some people would find it boring. I found it relatively haunting, but I imagine some people found it pretentious, and that's ok, I can see why.

It's bleak and minimalist, boasting a cast of two for 98% of the films runtime, it's completely open for interpretation, and poses more questions than it answers, and after a fair bit of thought, I think I actually loved it.
Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson are unarguably fantastic. There is nothing less than full commitment to what they're trying to do.
Robert Egger's shooting style is great as well. The whole movie is presented in a black and white 4:3 ratio. Some of the grainy framing shots littered throughout echo of old 40s and 50s horror classics, and everything else presented to us feels fresh and new, whilst being fed undertones of Greek mythology and H.P. Lovecraft.
The script is modest and subtle with flashes of intensity, a particular highlight is Willem Defoe's terrifying monologue after his cooking is criticized...

As for the plot, it's anything but straightforward. As I said, open for interpretation, but what starts off as a slightly off-feeling drama snowballs dramatically into something quite disturbing and tense. This is aided by a sporadic but great music score, and the constant noise of the lighthouse engine room (reminded me of the logging mill from Twin Peaks!)

The Lighthouse certainly isn't for everyone, but if you like a challenge with your horror then make sure you check it out.
  
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Robert Eggers recommended Mary Poppins (1964) in Movies (curated)

 
Mary Poppins (1964)
Mary Poppins (1964)
1964 | Classics, Comedy, Family

"Another movie that takes place in the Edwardian era, but in the country where Edward was actually reigning. It was an important movie for me as a kid and it continued to be something that I revisited again because it’s just good. Good storytelling, quite beautiful. You’ve got to love the matte paintings of the London rooftops. You’ve got to love a movie where a witch is your nanny. Obviously, no challenge to Dick van Dyke’s Australian Cockney accent, but his performance in that movie is really incredible. He is such a good physical comedian and when they’re in the chalk painting — which is also just lovely, the live action mix and the animation — he often has the same dance choreography as Julie Andrews. And he interprets it incredibly differently. It’s not that he can’t do them, it’s that he’s interpreting them in a different way, for humor, with his body type and so cleverly. It’s a movie where kids have power. They understand some things that their Edwardian dad doesn’t. And we use a Mary Poppins-esque weathervane shot in The Lighthouse. And then also, as much as it is a very, very satisfying narrative, the movie’s not without mystery. What is Mary Poppins’ backstory? What is her relationship with Bert? She creeps me out. Like when her reflection in the mirror keeps singing after her. The way she’s a little bit austere with the children and then the next minute she’s super cuddly, it is a little creepy. And then it just isn’t her, but when the kids get lost in East London, and there’s the dogs barking, and the old beggar woman who’s like, “Come here, children” or whatever. That was incredibly terrifying as a child."

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Falling (Fall or Break, #1)
Falling (Fall or Break, #1)
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
DNF @ 37%

This had been on my Amazon wish-list for quite a while before I bought this and then even longer before I got around to reading it. (Another of those A-Z reading challenge reads.)

We start by learning about Malachi and how he's struggling to find a job and living with his sister and her rather mean husband who has a set of rules that Malachi must abide by if he wants to stay there. He does find Malachi a job and in the process Malachi meets the guy he's been obsessing over at the local shop. In rolls Harper, recently released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, he's renovating his old home with his dads money and Malachi ends up working on the house. They both have an attraction to the other but try to ignore it for their own reasons but it's impossible.

I don't know about this one. I can't say I ever really got into it. I carried on for a while longer but it never really...picked up for me. I didn't feel like I cared enough about the characters to carry on so I finally gave up.

The only thing I felt a little interested in was the fact that Harper had been put in prison for a crime he didn't commit and then spent ten years in prison, every appeal shot down in flames, because everyone thought he was guilty. I did feel like an injustice had been served and those two boys needed some sort of karma to come bite them in the arse for the lies they told.

And I liked that it was set in the UK. Most of the books I read are set in America so it's nice to read something set somewhere different.