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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated The Cutaway in Books

Feb 13, 2018  
The Cutaway
The Cutaway
Christina Kovac | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
4
3.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Virginia Knightly is a busy TV news producer. She's constantly juggling a million stories, cultivating her on-air talent, and appeasing whatever news director has been currently assigned to "revamp" her station and raise ratings. It's a typical day for Virginia when she sees a flyer come across her desk for a missing woman. But something in the woman's eyes in the fuzzy black and white poster haunt Virginia, and she becomes oddly attached to the case of Evelyn "Evie" Carney, a young, married lawyer who disappeared after dining with her husband (and informing him she wanted a divorce). It seems as if the DC police are more involved in Evie's case than Virginia would expect: perhaps even the Department of Justice. What happened to Evie, and is Virginia safe looking into her disappearance?

This seems to be yet another novel where I'm a bit of the minority here, but I just could not get into this one. The premise seemed intriguing (and of course, it was compared to all the popular thrillers du jour, which really doesn't do books favors these days). At times, I almost gave up on this book, which is not like me. First of all, instead of just focusing on the plot of Evie's disappearance, there is a ton (I mean a ton) of time focused on the in-fighting and arguing at the news station, which majorly detracts from the actual mystery plot. I found it juvenile and irritating. Because of this, quickly, I didn't like or care for any of the characters or their relationships whatsoever. Unfortunately, that never really changed. So much seemed to be going on in the book (including Virginia's own personal relationships: with the lead cop investigating Evie's case, her father, the main talent at the station) but so little of it related to Evelyn and her disappearance. A lot of loose ends never seemed to be tied up. I often found myself cringing at the dialogue.

It's sad, because, at times, the actual plot relating to Evelyn is good. I continually found myself wishing there was more of it. There's also a lot of telling versus showing, but I did find myself getting into the various pieces related to Evie. (It certainly makes you hope nothing bad ever happens to you, between the issues at the police department and various levels of justice.) I enjoyed that the story was set in a familiar location for me (Washington, DC). I did guess many of the main plot points, which was a little disappointing, including something you could see coming from the beginning of the story. The whole thing is so convoluted, with so many personal entanglements thrown in, that it's hard to believe at times. Virginia's obsession over Evie's disappearance is strange, and although a rather unbelievable reason will be given near the end, you spend the entire wondering why she's so fanatical. Apparently, while working in news, Kovac covered the Chandra Levy story, and you can see that in this tale at times. This is definitely a first novel, and there are glimmers of hopes for a second. Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley (thank you!) in return for an unbiased review; it is available everywhere as of 03/21/2017.

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The Rum Diary  (2011)
The Rum Diary (2011)
2011 | Comedy, Drama
For those unfamiliar with Hunter S. Thompson’s work (as I am), you may not recognize that this movie is based on his book of the same title, first published in 1998. Hunter S. Thompson is the same author who gave us the novel for which the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was based on.

The Rum Diary follows Paul Kemp (played by Johnny Depp), a failed novelist turn journalist, who finds himself at a critical turning point in his life. Having written two and a half novels that were never published, he was having trouble finding his voice, in that he needed to find a way to “write like him” as Paul put it himself. So he decides to do some freelance writing for a small publication located in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960.

The movie opens with Kemp waking up in a hotel, and you can immediately, and clearly, see that he partakes in certain pleasures of life. After reporting to work at San Juan Star, Kemp meets Sala (played by Michael Rispoli), the photographer for the Star who quickly becomes his cohort. The editor-in-chief of the San Juan Star, Lotterman (played by Richard Jenkins) indicates to Kemp that the publication is only a few months away from being closed down, and that there really isn’t much to look forward to. He assigns Kemp to do some fluff pieces and the horoscope section of the paper.

Kemp is not content with this as he is looking at this experience as a way to put his career back on track. Over the next few days, during his adventures with Sala, he comes across a few different story ideas that are immediately shot down by Lotterman, as they emphasize the things that are wrong with San Juan, and Lotterman feels that the focus should be on the good things (like bowling alleys).

During one of his nights of boozing, he meets Chenault (played by Amber Heard). She’s aloof, mysterious, and of course… Kemp falls immediately in love with her. She just happens to be the girlfriend of Sanderson (played by Aaron Eckhart). Sanderson immediately recognizes the talents that Kemp has and begins recruiting him for a real estate scam. The idea is to get a foothold and build a new hotel on a private island that is used for United States military testing, but will soon be relinquished from that purpose. Sanderson and a group of investors want Kemp to put a brilliant positive spin on the hotel investment so that the public opinion, and that of those in a position to block the development, is a positive one.

Things begin to unravel as Kemp and Sala’s shenanigans keep getting them into trouble, culminating in a heated night where Kemp, Sala, Chenault and Sanderson end up at a bar during the St. Thomas Carnival.

The Rum Diary was highly entertaining with a great supporting cast. Giovani Ribisi provides an excellent distraction from some of the more serious events of the movie as he appears every now and then as Moburg, another reporter for the San Juan Star. The movie played like a great alcohol-induced, drug-fueled adventures of a journalist in the 1960s. Definitely some quirky moments, and you will find yourself laughing at many of Kemp and Sala’s exploits.

My only gripe with the movie is how it ended. The build up to Kemp printing the story and putting it out there leaves you wanting more. While I don’t think the film will reach the same cult-status that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will, it is definitely entertaining (all the way until the end). It is a good nod to Thompson and fans of his books and movie adaptations are sure to enjoy.
  
The Guilty Party
The Guilty Party
10
10.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
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<b><i>A mystery that left me curious until the very end. A psychological paradise of a thriller that captures people at their very worst, right when they realise their lives are at stake. These people did nothing. But that doesn’t mean they’re innocent…</i></b>

Four friends are returning from a festival, and they see a woman being raped in the forest. They all decide to do nothing about it. A few days later, her body is found in the river. Are they guilty for not doing anything? If it was you, what would you have done?

The story begins with the event mentioned above. The plot opens straight ahead, and I loved that fact. We witness the story through the eyes of all these four friends. They have always been together and stood for one another, but after so many years, their friendship has turned into a group of frenemies, a group of proving to each other, lying all the time and negative emotions.
Because nothing is straightforward, least of all the human heart. At some point or other, we all become mysteries to ourselves.

Even though we get to see through the lives of Anna, Bo and Dex, Cassie is the one member of this group that gets the most exposure in this book. She is the one that seems to feel the most guilty about not doing anything to intervene that night, and she is the one that keeps bringing this subject to her friends, even though they refuse to listen. Cassie is the most reasonable one, but this seems to bring her into more trouble. The more she pushes the group, the more she realises how capable they are of stopping her from sharing their secret

Anna is the person that leads the group. She seems to control everyone and everything, and they all seem to obey her and be fine with this. She comes out as this controlling and annoying person, the one hard to ignore or say no to. But when she feels threatened and scared, she is prepared to do anything.

Bo and Dex, for me, didn’t have much direct impact to the story, except one of them right at the very end. They seem to have snuck out throughout the book quietly, without any direct noice, but leaving a mess behind them.

We have four characters, all different and unique, all really complicated, with their own thoughts and lives. And we have one evening, and all their actions indirectly result in this girl’s death. None of them killed her, but all of them are guilty. They all have their own secrets, that they don’t tell to anyone, and they all are ready to go until the very end, keeping their secrets safe.

I loved how the plot and what actually happened on the nights slowly reveals itself, where we have two parallels happening – one from the night of the incident, and from everyone’s perspective, and one from around a month later, when they gather around together for a weekend. The chapters were so well made that made you keep going, and right when you think you know something, you get another point of view with a bit more information and another plot twist. Very smart and enjoyable to read.

And even though a mystery, and a thriller, this book was also hilarious and made me laugh out loud at times. Needless to say anything, I will let you read the quote below and judge for yourselves. This quote was so unexpected and I think it highlighted my year so far… Amazing!
Ink Man’s real name is Jake but for the purposes of sex he likes to be called Gandalf. Really. Being Gandalf is what turns him on. That and the ink of Middle Earth on his back.

I really enjoyed this book, and I am looking forward to reading more books from Mel McGrath. A huge thank you to HQ Publishers, and Joe Thomas for sending me a hardback copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

<b>Follew the #AreYouGuilty Blog Tour</b>

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Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game
Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game
2017 | Card Game, Dice Game, Fantasy, Roleplaying
Over 250 unique pieces of high quality artwork (3 more)
Solo play using one character
Massive replayability
An evolving story that's different every time
Can take 4-5 hours with 4 players (1 more)
Can be brutally hard if the dice roll bad
An Epic Narrative Adventure Game for 1 to 4 heroes
Gloom of Kilforth is an epic narrative adventure where you try to complete your saga and defeat the ancient evil bringing the land into gloom.

You start by choosing a character, class and a saga to tell. Your character and class give you your starting stats (combat, knowledge, sneak and influence) while the sagas are 4 chapters long and each chapter requires 2 (or 3 if only playing 1-2 players) keywords to complete. Completing a chapter levels up your character giving you more health and a new skill.
Keywords are found on the cards you encounter as you search the map and are colour coded to give you a hint to where they are most likely to be found.

The map is a 5x5 grid of cards with Sprawl City in the centre and a mix of Forests, Mountains, Plains and Badlands arranged randomly around it.
Every time you enter an empty location, you draw a card from the relevant terrain deck and interact with it.

Encounters are won by rolling a number of d6 dice equal to your skill in the stat list d on the encounter. Success is on a 5 or 6 so playing to your character's strengths is paramount.

Each player starts with 4 health and at the start of each round, you gain action points equal to your current health which makes strategy and stealth the key to early success.
It also means that the game starts slowly but starts to snowball as you complete the chapters of your saga and level up.

At the end of each round, you make camp and draw a night card which causes a location to fall into gloom and possibly trigger an event. A character ending the day on a gloom location will suffer 1 health point loss.
This is the game timer, so you have 25 days to complete your saga, gain more skills and equipment and confront the big bad.

Despite the random encounter draws and the size of each terrain deck (30+ cards each), every card has been carefully designed to fit into the game and let you narrate a unique story as you play.

If you want a unique narrative adventure game with a solid depth of strategy, look no further.
  
Othello
Othello
10
6.8 (17 Ratings)
Book Rating
I'm not going to lie - the main reason I like Othello so much is circumstantial.

See, when I was seventeen, my brothers and I had to move to a completely different state. I was going into my senior year, and my new school didn't offer a real Honors English class for seniors - the only option available to me would have been to go into AP English which, in that particular school, would have ONLY prepared me to take the AP exam. It wasn't actually an English class.

I wasn't very enthusiastic about that fact, so I was put into a tiny 11th grade Honors English class instead. (There were ten of us - eight girls, and two boys.)

Things went fairly well, considering, until we came to the Shakespeare semester. The play the teacher chose was [b:Hamlet|1420|Hamlet|William Shakespeare|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351051208s/1420.jpg|1885548].

I'd spent a semester and a half on Hamlet when I was in 11th grade, so I was already weary when the choice was made. After the first few days of reading the play aloud in class resulted in an entire five lines of Hamlet being covered, I was desperate. For the first time ever, I was ready to bash my head into my desk in an English class in order to relieve the boredom.

I approached my English teacher, and explained that I'd already done Hamlet, and the slow pace the class was taking wasn't really working for me. I offered to read another Shakespeare play in place of Hamlet, and said that I'd even still take the Hamlet test at the end of the semester to prove that I was serious. Because he was an awesome English teacher, he agreed, and told me to just get back to him to let him know which play I was going to read on my own.

Guess which one I picked?

Compared to retreading Hamlet for the seventh time, Othello was a breath of fresh air. Othello saved my brain that semester.

In light of that, I absolutely adored Othello.

*shrugs*

Like I said, completely circumstantial. I'll have to reread it at some point, to see how it holds up when it isn't the only thing standing between me and three months of mind-numbing boredom.
  
The Apparition (2012)
The Apparition (2012)
2012 | Horror, Mystery
Characters – Kelly is a trainee vet, she moves into one of her parent’s rental properties with her boyfriend where she starts experiencing the haunting events. Ben is the boyfriend of Kelly, he is a good handy man and searching for his career. It is his past that comes back to haunt them. Patrick is part of the team that did the experiment with Ben back in the college days and now he will help right the wrongs.

Performances – The performances, well this is fun and this is not just the actors performances that hold them back, the characters are written one dimension which gives the actors nothing to work with. If we look at the main three stars, they all struggle to make an impact and it shows through the film.

Story – The story here follows an experiment gone wrong and now there is an entity haunting the people who released it from whether it came from, it plays into the idea that you shouldn’t mess with the dead because they will come to haunt you. Anyway this story is simple enough, it is a survival horror against a ghost figure that doesn’t have too much going on about it. We have plenty of just dark sequences that seem to go nowhere or lead to false jump scares and before long it is over, I think. I can’t say the story offers too much for the horror fans or just film fans and it feels like it is flat by the end of the film

Horror/Thriller – The horror is mostly false scares which just frustrate throughout, you are now looking to be on the edge of your seats, well this doesn’t give you any of that.

Settings – The settings just feel like they went and grabbed the Poltergeist location and thought this will do, nothing makes sense for the entity and the hauntings though.

Special Effects – The effects look poor throughout, it all looks like CGI which is poor to see in a modern horror.


Scene of the Movie – Credits were good.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – Kelly criticising people who work in stores, these people work hard and deserve praise.

Final Thoughts – This is a poor lazy horror that just doesn’t do anything for the genre and becomes dull quickly.

 

Overall: Boring horror that has no scares.