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This Party’s Dead
This Party’s Dead
Erica Buist | 2021 | Mind, Body & Spiritual, Philosophy, Psychology & Social Sciences
10
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Well, who would have thought a book about death and death festivals would be so entertaining? We start the book on what the author calls the “Worst Tuesday” when her father-in-law to be is found dead in his house and has unfortunately been for over a week. What then follows is a series of events that although not funny at the time are funny when you look back – the funeral directors becoming locked in the room with the body, a sandwich throwing incident in the local shop and deciding whether food is a good enough reason to cure a case of agoraphobia.
In an idea to cure her agoraphobia and the death anxiety she has developed since her father-in-law-to-be passed, the author (Erica) decides to visit festivals around the world that celebrate rather than mourn death.
We start of in Mexico at the colourful Day of the Dead celebrations, and we are taken through the story behind La Catrina and the traditions that aren’t normally seen by tourists because it isn’t the party side. Next we are taken to Nepal and the Gaijatra festival which is led by a cow (or if a cow is unavailable a boy dressed as a cow). Next, we go to Sicily where there are biscotti specially made to represent bones and sugar knights. Madagascar’s Famadihana involves families “turning the bones” where they take their ancestors from the crypts and rewrap them and put their names on them before putting them back. China’s tomb-sweeping festival (Qingming) where they burn paper effigies of iPhones and money is next on the tour and then swiftly onto Japan’s Obon festival where they spend three days visiting their ancestors and honouring them with offerings. Finally we stop at Bali, where they can have a corpse resting in their house for years until family arguments are settled and they also will take them out of their tomb and hang out with them. Finally, we go back to the UK where Erica and her husband finally scatter her father-in-laws ashes.
Erica takes us through a journey of learning to accept death (unless you’re of the transhuman persuasion) and gives us a book full of humour whilst doing it. It’s definitely made me realise death shouldn’t be such a taboo subject and gave me a lot to think about. You can also visit her Instagram @thepartysdead for pictures of her journey!
  
A Touch of Death
A Touch of Death
Rebecca Crunden | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
New twist to the classic dystopians
Trigger Warning: Graphic gore, death, suicidal thoughts, torture.

When Rebecca approached me about reading A Touch of Death, I have to admit I was a little apprehensive. Dystopian is one of those genres that has been so overly saturated that nothing seems to be fresh. Luckily, my apprehension was unwarranted.

A Touch of Death is one of those books that will grab you the second you start reading it. This dystopian sci-fi novel grabbed me almost instantly. The plot was exciting and gave us a nice twist to the classic dystopian books. I liked all of the elements present, and they seemed to work pretty well together.

The main characters Kitty & Nate, were fascinating. I liked seeing how they interacted, and I loved the bit of bickering too. It did take me some time to warm up to both characters. I never seemed to connect to either of them, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book. The relationships in the book were interesting to watch evolve, and I liked seeing how both Kitty & Nate changed throughout the book.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. I would have liked to connect more with the characters, but this was a solid 4 star read for me!
  
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
2020 | Action, Comedy, Crime
Lots of action and comedy (0 more)
A shocking death (0 more)
They're baaack!!!
Contains spoilers, click to show
Me and my husband watched this at the cinema yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised. After such a long wait for this I half expected it to be disaapointing, but it was far from it. Shortly after the film starts you think it's the end of the road of one of the bad boys as he gets shot multiple times and ends up fighting for his life. Forward 6 months and you think it's his funeral but in actual fact it's a wedding and the character is there enjoying it, and you breathe a sigh of relief. The whole movie is fast paced, full of comedy at every chance they get and a lot more action than the previous movies. Only downside was the death of a certain character, I won't tell you who but in my husbands words "that was bang out of order". We find out quite quickly into the movie that Marcus had hung up his badge and retired and It's this death that forces marcus and mike back together doing what they do best. A very entertaining movie from beginning to end and one to add to the buy list.