The Virtues - Season 1
7.5
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TV Season
`The Virtues' is an emotionally charged drama that teeters on the edge of total self-destruction....
The Adventures of the Crumpsall Kid
8.0
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Book
Mike Harding has made generations of us laugh and cry at his stories of real life and growing up in...
Manchester Post-war Crumpsall
Fugitive 13
10.0
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Book
Aydin Torkal - aka sleeper 13 - is on the run. Hunted not only by the world's intelligence...
Merissa (12861 KP) rated A Summoner's Tale (Knights of Black Swan #3) in Books
Apr 3, 2023 (Updated Apr 10, 2023)
You also get the chance to catch up on "old" favourites and enjoy as they all intermingle with each other.
Definitely one of the best series I've read in a while. Can't wait for Book 4!
* Verified Purchase - May 2013 *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
April 10, 2021
A Certain Hunger
8.0
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Book
Dorothy Daniels has always had a voracious - and adventurous - appetite. From her idyllic...
Feminism Literary Fiction Dark! Cannibalism
Terra incognita
5.0
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TV Show
After his parents mysteriously disappeared eight years ago, young Eric Dalaras embarks on a search...
Run, Run, Baby
Book
Only I can hear your screams and decide your fate... As the chatty classroom of kindergarten...
horror
tapestry100 (306 KP) rated The Marsh King's Daughter in Books
Aug 2, 2017
Helena Pelletier's life is more or less exactly what she wants: a husband and two daughters she loves deeply, a home business that keeps her busy during the days, her past a secret that she keeps hidden from everyone. Helena has worked hard for these things and she prides herself in her accomplishments, until the day her father escapes from prison and she immediately understands that her past is going to catch up to her, whether she wants it to or not. She also knows that the only way to keep her family safe and put her father back in prison is to find and deal with her father herself, since he was the one who trained her to live in the marshes of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where he was keeping her mother captive after he had kidnapped her as a young girl.
With the main part of the story taking place over 24 hours "real time" with Helena tracking her father, the actual meat of the story all takes place in flashbacks as Helena thinks back on her childhood in the marshes of the UP and how her father treated her and her mother, who her father kidnapped as a young girl and made his wife. As she closes in on her father, she goes over various aspects of the only life she knew as a child, until her mother's past starts to catch up to her and Helena realizes that much of her life has been a lie perpetrated by both her father and mother and isn't exactly what they told her it was. As she grows older and finally starts to understand that even though this is the only life she's ever known, it may not be the life that either she or her mother deserves, and when she finally escapes her father's control she discovers that there is in fact an entire world she never knew about outside the marsh.
To be honest, the story of Helena's childhood is what really makes this book. Personally, I felt the entire portion of the book that is taking place in "real time" where Helena knows that she's the only one who can find her father, regardless of the large police force searching for him, and that she knows exactly where to look for him in the entire area surrounding her home and the prison he escaped from all seemed far to convenient, and only plausible in order to make this portion of the story move forward. Helena's memories of her childhood and the psychological aspects of being a child who has been raised in an extreme situation, but one that seems normal to her only because it's all that she knows, was fascinating. Her recollections of her father teaching her how to hunt and live in the wilderness, and her childhood idolization of him in this respect juxtaposed against her later feeling towards him as she starts to mature and gain some sense of adolescent independence, and her eventual discovery that her whole life has been based on lies and the kidnapping of her mother, was remarkable storytelling, and Karen Dionne delivers this entire sequence of events deftly and with sharp storytelling. While the "real time" story requires quite a hefty amount of suspension of disbelief, the background story well makes up for this and creates a truly mesmerizing and atmospheric story that will keep you up late into the night, turning the page for more.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated The Butterfly Effect (2004) in Movies
Aug 14, 2019
Sadly, not everyone has fond memories of their childhood as for some; the years of joy and laughter are filled with pain and sadness. Such is the case of Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) a gifted and caring individual who suffers from memory lapses much like his institutionalized father before him.
A series of traumatic events occur forcing Evan and his mother to move from their home leaving his best friends Kayleigh and Lenny behind.
Years later Evan is a successful and popular student at the state college and has not had a blackout for seven years, which is about the time his mother, moved him from the old neighborhood. Evan is persuaded by a friend to read his old journal entries and in doing so starts to recover some of his lost memories.
With the understanding that he has blacked out traumatic events in his life, Evan returns to his old home to seek out his friends with the hope that his missing memories can be restored. Sadly Evans return does not go well and his questions cause consequences for those who can remember what exactly happened.
Desperate to make sense of what is happening, Evan studies his journals and discovers that he is able to travel back to the time he has blacked out, and proceeds to make changes that he believes will improve the long-term outcome.
Evan awakens to find himself with Kayleigh (Amy Smart) and learns that the two of them have been an item ever since his childhood. What at first seems like a dream come true soon sours when Evan realizes that the ripple effects from his changes in the past have affected others around him. Desperate to undo a situation that now threatens him as well, Evan begins a series of trips into his past in an effort to recover his memories and right the wrongs that he is slowly starting to remember. Evan soon finds himself in a situation gone wild as no matter what Evan changes in the past, things are not put right as improving things for one person often makes others suffer as a result of the altered history.
Skillfully written and directed by Eric Bress and J Mackye Gruber The Butterfly Effect is a stunning look into a troubled psyche and a study in the effects of childhood trauma. The film is equally gripping and disturbing and tackles a wide-range of controversial topics. There is no sugar coating to the film as the depths of Evans repressed memories are explored making the film one of the best Dramas in recent memory.
Kutcher is amazing as he handles a difficult and complex role with skill and passion showing that he is capable of so much more than the brain dead beefcake roles he has been cast in previously. Kutcher is the key that makes the film work as the entire film and supporting cast center on him and he pulls it off brilliantly. Strong supporting work by Amy Smart, Ethan Suplee, and Eldon Henson keep the film gripping and tense.
The only issue I had with the film was the ending, which seemed to me like a tacked on Hollywood ending and not in keeping with the tone of the film. That being said, “The Butterfly Effect is a strong film and one that will not easily be forgotten.