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The Girl from Bologna (Girls from the Italian Resistance #3) by Siobhan Daiko
Book
Bologna, Italy, 1944, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila...
Historical Fiction Women's Fiction WWII Italian Historical Historical Romance

Fire Rush
Book
This is our dancing time. Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends...
Historical fiction Literary fiction Music Race Women’s Prize Shortlist 2023

Entheóphage
Book
Dr. Isobel Fallon thinks she's found a treatment that will help her son and others suffering from...
Eco-Fiction LGBTQIA+ Science Fiction Medical Thriller

Randy Andrews (3 KP) rated Aliens (1986) in Movies
Apr 29, 2017
Great Sequel
Aliens, being the long standing sequel set 57 years later certainly gets the action going right away. Sigourney Weaver plays the character fantastic and James Cameron directs the film in his frenetic style. Love the mechs! The acting for the supporting cast isn't stellar but for science fiction it's workable. Clearly one of my more favorite movies. The score by James Horner was composed quickly but effectively. This gives us one of the best action cues of all time.

Tigs85 (21 KP) rated The End of the World Running Club in Books
Jun 5, 2017
The concept behind the story (1 more)
The descriptive elements of the landscape
Interesting and believable concept
Although I'm not a big fan of science-fiction, I thought I would give this a try on a friends recommendation. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the plot, though I found the main character a bit hard to like. I loved the descriptive elements of the book, particularly when describing Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities. With today's global warming fears, this vision of the apocalypse, isn't too far-fetched!

Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated The Nothing in Books
Jul 24, 2017
Over the top vulgar fiction
I was looking forward to reading Hanif Kureishi's latest novel, but I was mildly disappointed. The crude humour is not to my taste and I may have missed the point to the story, but I believe loneliness as a reactionary behaviour seemed to be a major element to this. I had sympathy for the dying protagonist, stuck with little choices and watching his impending doom unfold, his wife's behaviour was horrifying so I found his pacifying attitude irritating. Not the best of novels for me.

Chris Hooker (419 KP) rated Disasters: Natural and Man-Made Catastrophes Through the Centuries in Books
Jan 12, 2018
This is the book I always wanted to write but lack the talent. I am glad [Brenda Z. Guiberson] wrote it so I can share it with my students. I have a fascination with disasters and have since I was young. Unfortunately most of the books about them is not written for a middle school reader. I have had some of the books [Guiberson] used to research on my class shelves for years with few takers. This is just the type of book needed to get them reading non fiction and enjoy it.

Alison Pink (7 KP) rated Once Upon a Lie (Maeve Conlon, #1) in Books
Jan 15, 2018
Well what an unexpected book with a great ending! Abuse is a very touchy subject to write about fiction or not & Maggie did a great job delving into the mind of someone who had been abused as a child. It was a fast paced read that was just the right amount of twisted while still being quite believable at the same time. Mavy is a fascinating character...she seems so fragile & wears that mask well. But deep down inside she's a time bomb hiding behind a flour covered apron.

Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated The Departed (2006) in Movies
Aug 7, 2017
Possibly Scorsese's best direction (3 more)
Outstanding performances
Cinematography
Golden dialogue
A Twisting Tale of Back-Stabbing and Lies
You could make an argument that this is the greatest crime movie ever committed to film. At the very least it's up there with other greats such as Pulp Fiction, The Godfather and Scorsese's own Goodfellas. I don't think I have ever been in as much shock after watching a movie as I was after this one, the ending is polarising, but I love it. A perfect movie in every way.

Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Fargo (1996) in Movies
Aug 9, 2017
Extremely dark, black comedy based on a true story
That scene woodchipper scene will haunt me for life.
Truth is definitely stranger than fiction. This extremely dark 'comedy' is now infamous in gallows humour. Without revealing everything, a woman is kidnapped by a psychotic conman and his slightly weedy partner for ransom. Her husband is in charge of gaining this ransom from his father-in-law, only for things to go very, very wrong.
It's a classic cult film, not for everyone. But if you loved 'In Bruges', this will be right up your street.
Truth is definitely stranger than fiction. This extremely dark 'comedy' is now infamous in gallows humour. Without revealing everything, a woman is kidnapped by a psychotic conman and his slightly weedy partner for ransom. Her husband is in charge of gaining this ransom from his father-in-law, only for things to go very, very wrong.
It's a classic cult film, not for everyone. But if you loved 'In Bruges', this will be right up your street.