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It: Chapter Two (2019)
It: Chapter Two (2019)
2019 | Horror, Thriller
Pennywise Returns - Not As Scary As Chapter 1, But Still Great
It Chapter 2 is a 2019 supernatural/horror movie directed by Andy Muschietti from a screenplay by Gary Dauberman. It was produced by New Line Cinema, Double Dream, Vertigo Entertainment, and Rideback, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, and Bill Skarsgard.


The evil clown Pennywise returns to terrorize the town of Derry, Maine after being defeated by the members of the Losers' Club 27 years ago. The childhood friends have long since gone their separate ways but are called home to keep their promise by Mike Harlon who never moved away. Not quite remembering everything from their past but each traumatized by their own scars, the Loser must conquer their fears and destroy Pennywise for good.


This movie was great. Personally, I think chapter 1 was better, but this film definitely didn't disappoint. Right from the beginning it set the tone with a opening scene of a gay couple being severely beaten. I really liked the casting and who they chose to portray the children of the Losers club, they did a great job. The acting from everyone was good, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader's performances were superb. I enjoyed how this movie expanded on the lore of Pennywise and his origin. Even with a long run time, it didn't feel like a super long movie. To me some of the most enjoyable parts were the flashbacks where you got to see the younger cast. It was good that they had a big part in this movie too. I give this movie an 8/10 and it also gets my "Must See Seal Of Approval".
  
Summers wolf ( Westervelt wolves books 2)
Summers wolf ( Westervelt wolves books 2)
Rebecca Royce | 2020 | Paranormal, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
131 200
Kindle
Summers wolf (westervelt wolves book2)
By Rebecca Royce

 
Three years ago, Summer Morrison's happy, normal life was thrown into upheaval. Forced to discover, before she was ready, that she was half-wolf shifter and mated to the pack's enforcer has left Summer moody, shaken, and resentful. When tragedy strikes her family, Summer is forced to come back to the world of the Westervelt Wolves...and into the arms of Cullen Murphy.

Cullen has waited three years for Summer, having promised her mother he would give her time to grow up. But he's never forgotten his mate and craved her presence since he first saw her on the battlefield three years earlier. The trouble is, now that Cullen has Summer, he has no idea what to do with her. Three hundred years of being alone has left Cullen socially inept and more lonesome than he would ever admit. He lives with the guilt and shame of his deeds, while knowing his role is pivotal to the pack's survival.

Together, Cullen and Summer will heal each other's wounds and discover that life is worth living as long as they are together. Now there's just the little matter of Kendrick and Claudius, their evil henchmen, the army of miscreant wolves, and the demons that keep attacking. If they can survive, their love will be everlasting. But failure will mean not only their destruction, but the end of the Westervelt Wolves.

When love is eternal, failure is not an option





I actually enjoyed this one more than the first book Her Wolf! Summer was more my kinda girl taking no shit from anyone especially her mate, who by the way is the better wolf! I do enjoy Rebecca Royces books she has a certain way of writing that’s fast paced but doesn’t feel rushed! I recommend to all wolf shifter fans!
  
A Dragon's Heart
A Dragon's Heart
Terry Bolryder | 2020 | Paranormal, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
183 of 200
Kindle
A dragons Heart
By Terry Bolryder

A mate worth fighting for…

Tor and Perry are Dragon shifters, powerful protectors of their region and the people and shifters in it. With the world only getting more evil, Tor and Perry know there’s only one thing to do. Find a mate, one brave enough to be gifted with a third dragon power to join their triad. They just need to find someone brave. Too bad the only woman they seem to be interested in is their curvy secretary, a woman they found hiding under a desk…

Lexie knows she’s no hero. Always the first to run, she is just grateful the dragons found her when they did and rescued her from a bad situation. She’s fine just being their secretary, as it gives her a safe place while they try to track down the people that are still after her. Even if being around tall, dark and handsome Tor and graceful, elegant Perry is starting to do funny things to her lady bits.

As the three work together in close quarters, sparks fly between Lexie and her dragon employers, threatening to ignite into a blaze. But though they know they can’t be together, they can’t resist stoking the flames, and when trouble catches up, all three will have to decide just what they are willing to lose, and what’s really worth fighting for…
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Ok so I’ve read a few of Terry Bolryders books now and they follow a pattern and are decent reads, after finishing the Tiger box set this was added to the end and I found myself getting emotional god knows if it’s just me but this story was one of the best! I absolutely loved the Tor! These books are fabulous for those that love the shifters!
  
Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel
Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel
A.W. Jantha | 2018 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
8
6.8 (6 Ratings)
Book Rating
It's a very sad thing when the book you were so excited about lets you down. Such is the case with Hocus Pocus & The All-New Sequel. The book, written by A. W. Jantha is split into two parts.

Then.

Now.

Then is a novelization of the movie which I very much enjoyed. 90 percent of the dialogue is taken directly from the movie while there's just enough added detail to give the characters some new depth and set up for the second half of the book.

Now: the second half of the book, the sequel was...

well, It was disappointing.

How?

First, there's the bizarre jump from third person to first and later second POV.

It just throws you into Poppy's world with minimal backstory on who she is and why we should like her or her friends, Travis and Isabella.

Secondly, the characters are STUPID!

Stupid choices left, right, and, center.

As a writer, I understand there needs to be some way to kickstart the conflict but going to the Sanderson house has danger written all over it.

Oh, let's talk about the Sandersons,

The witches are back in all their evil glory with added sister Elizabeth who turned her back on the family legacy of darkness.

Then there's their mother. Their mother who they could not shut up about. Mother this and Mother that.

All the hype got me excited about Sanderson's sister's flashbacks. Backstory. Entire chapters dedicated to them.

it didn't happen.

I was treated to brief remembrances but no backstory.

Then the Mother who was so hyped up made a one chapter appearance before going kersplat.

WHAT WAS THE POINT??

You don't hype a character that much for them to do NOTHING.

The book gets by on nostalgia alone.

Don't even get me started on the bizarre and unneeded cliffhanger.

Very sad.
  
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ClareR (5849 KP) rated Pippo and Clara in Books

Apr 16, 2021  
Pippo and Clara
Pippo and Clara
Diana Rosie | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Pippo and Clara begins in 1938, in Italy. Mussolini is in power and WW2 is imminent. The Fascists have control of the country, but not necessarily the people, and the Italian Communists are fighting back.
Pippo and Clara arrive in the city with their mother after their Romany father is murdered. One morning their mother gets up early to buy food and doesn’t return. Clara goes to look for her, turning right at the entrance to their building; later Pippo awakens and goes to look for his mother and Clara, turning left at the entrance. This change in direction means the children don’t see one another for a long time.
Luckily, they are each adopted into families (unofficially) who love and care for them - Clara’s family are Fascists, Pippo’s are Communists.
This was such an emotional story. It wasn’t just what happened to these children, it was the bigger picture as well. When the inevitable happens and the Germans occupy Italy, Jews are rounded up and taken away, people fear for their freedom and their lives.
It was fascinating to read about the Freedom Fighters (Partisans) and their acts of espionage, as well as how they fought back. This included even those who had been fascists under Mussolini’s regime.
There’s so much to talk about in this book (perfect for a book club, I should think!), but I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, I really enjoyed it and was thoroughly heartbroken by the end. Any book about war is going to have tragic elements, but this is about hope as well, and the fact that good can, and did, overcome evil.
Another recommendation for the historical fiction fans. It’s a fabulous novel.
  
Funky Kingston/In the Dark by Toots & The Maytals
Funky Kingston/In the Dark by Toots & The Maytals
2003 | World
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I remember the exact moment I learned to play this song. It was at my great aunt’s house in Dunstable, Massachusetts. She lived in this old house on a farm and there was this old mouldy, mildewy, acoustic guitar there. “There wasn’t much else to do and I learned to play “Wild Thing” on the guitar. My cousin showed me how to play it and I was hooked, I could sing and play it at the same time and it was like ‘This is amazing.’ I rode a 300cc motorcycle around the backyard and played that guitar. “But the one that really changed the game for me was “Louie Louie”, which was E, A, B Minor. It’s got this sinister, evil vibe to it but it’s very subtle, and the artist in me responded to the drama of the B Minor. Also, it was the fact that the lyrics are incoherent. Apparently, nobody really knows the true lyrics to that song and with “Louie Louie” you can mumble the words, so that was great. “I’m always thinking back to the moment where I realised that was what I wanted to do, ‘When was it and what happened?’ I think it was much later, when I had a cassette deck that had this mic mix feature, where you could plug a microphone in and overdub onto your song. When I started screwing with that, that’s when I think I got the bug. I became obsessed with it and it felt like there was endless potential there. “Louie Louie” is a very historical song, so I chose that as my first. I like to think it’s the first song I really liked to play, because “Wild Thing” was too easy maybe. ‘Mythical’ is a great word for “Louie Louie”, it’s got that folklore to it"

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Jeff Nichols recommended Hud (1963) in Movies (curated)

 
Hud (1963)
Hud (1963)
1963 | Drama, Western
9.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"This one — they’re just kissing cousins, really — but the last Paul Newman film I’ll talk about is Hud — just the greatest introduction to a character maybe ever on screen. You’ve got this goofy kid walking around town and he walks past the bar, and there’s glass on the sidewalk and the bar owner’s sweeping it up. And the kid goes, “Did you have trouble in here last night?” “I had Hud in here last night.” Such an awesome way to introduce the main character of this film. When you first meet him, he’s walking out of this married woman’s house putting his boots on and the husband pulls up, and he immediately blames his nephew. It’s this really incredible thing. I was lucky enough to work on a college professor’s documentary called The Rough South of Larry Brown. Which is about the writer Larry Brown out of Oxford, Mississippi. In that documentary Larry Brown talks about his writing, he says, “Yeah, you read my stuff and you read a little bit and you might think it’s pretty funny. And then you read a little bit more and you realize, it’s not funny worth a damn.” And that’s Hud. You start it off and you’re like, “Gosh, look at this rapscallion, this character,” and then you realize, “Wow, that’s not funny; there is some deep stuff inside that man that is hurt and angry, but is manifesting itself in very evil ways.” The complexity of that — it’s different than Newman’s character in The Hustler. In The Hustler, he’s doing pride, but there’s something deep going on in Hud that’s darker. It’s more about family and legacy and things that I think, because it’s attached to the family, I relate to very much. I had to deal with familial relationships that are complex."

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Magic Born (The Guardian #2)
Magic Born (The Guardian #2)
Rayanne Haines | 2018 | Paranormal, Romance
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
57 of 250
Kindle
Magic Born ( The Guardians book 2)
By Rayanne Haines

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

Maria Del Voscova is a powerful witch with a past. When she’s asked to become a member of the elite Guardians she knows she can’t risk sharing the truth about her messed-up family. But we don’t always get what we want. Sometimes, we don’t always know what we want.

Though Mar absolutely knows she doesn’t want Neeren, King of the Parthen. She alone sees the darkness in him and it reminds her too much of the past. She knows better than to fall for his stoic, tortured soul façade.

She’s training to be a Guardian, a shadow; tasked with keeping the balance between good and evil in the world. It’s what she wants—to be better than her family was.

But the past has a way of catching up to Mar and the future has a morbid sense of humor. On her first mission, she’s kidnapped by the enemy she’s been running from her entire life. Thankfully the guardians look after their own. As it turns out, so does Neeren.

As Mar finds herself caught between the past and the future; between blood and bond; between the light and the dark, she realizes her only chance at surviving may be in trusting a man who is the most dangerous of them all.


This was so much better than the first book! I love Nareen and Maria’s story. Poor Maria I think everything the author could possibly think of was thrown at this witch and she still fought through Everything. Although I did like the 1st book this one just had more fight to it. I’m looking forward to reading about Quinn and her part to play in all this.