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SunnyD (6 KP) rated Eleanor & Park in Books
Jun 15, 2018 (Updated Jun 16, 2018)
Realistic adolescent love (1 more)
Natural plot progression
Unrealistic conflict resolution (1 more)
So many questions
The feels, and then let down...
Contains spoilers, click to show
This books grabbed me right from the beginning. At first, I was really interested in Eleanor's life and how she'd gotten to where she was. I was heartbroken by the way she was made to live. Her circumstances really made me feel for her. Her growing relationship with Park was perfection. It was a sweet reminder of what it's like to fall in love as a teen. The development of their love was totally realistic.
I love that the book is narrated by both Eleanor and Park. I even loved that some of their parts were so short. The short parts really made a statement. This book is a great example of simplistic but powerful writing. I really fell in love with it.
I could not put it down as it lead up to it's climax. Unfortunately, it went a little downhill for me there. I can only explain with spoiling it. Park's father giving him the okay to drive Eleanor across state by himself in the middle of the night with Eleanor's abusive stepdad running looking like crazy for her when Park just barely got his license raised some questions for me. I'm not even sure that he knew Park's mom let him get his license without him knowing. And then Park's father tells him that he can do this for Eleanor on one condition: that he do so driving his manual transmission truck to prove that he can drive stick. This is where things got ridiculous. This was an emergency and these are young teenagers. Park proving he can finally drive stick so that he can take Eleanor to Minnesota felt out of place in this situation. The "sex scene" was not written with the same care as the rest of the book before they left home.
And then there's the ending. I'm conflicted by this. I actually understand why Eleanor might've wanted to cut connections off with Park. It was natural for Park to try to move on after a year of not hearing from her. The ending with the unknown three-word postcard from Eleanor left me wanting more. Not knowing what she said was also upsetting though. It was probably upsetting because I was upset with the conflict resolution.
I read an interview with the author where she stated that she may be thinking about writing for these characters again. I have hope that she may redeem the story but it's been a while.
I love that the book is narrated by both Eleanor and Park. I even loved that some of their parts were so short. The short parts really made a statement. This book is a great example of simplistic but powerful writing. I really fell in love with it.
I could not put it down as it lead up to it's climax. Unfortunately, it went a little downhill for me there. I can only explain with spoiling it. Park's father giving him the okay to drive Eleanor across state by himself in the middle of the night with Eleanor's abusive stepdad running looking like crazy for her when Park just barely got his license raised some questions for me. I'm not even sure that he knew Park's mom let him get his license without him knowing. And then Park's father tells him that he can do this for Eleanor on one condition: that he do so driving his manual transmission truck to prove that he can drive stick. This is where things got ridiculous. This was an emergency and these are young teenagers. Park proving he can finally drive stick so that he can take Eleanor to Minnesota felt out of place in this situation. The "sex scene" was not written with the same care as the rest of the book before they left home.
And then there's the ending. I'm conflicted by this. I actually understand why Eleanor might've wanted to cut connections off with Park. It was natural for Park to try to move on after a year of not hearing from her. The ending with the unknown three-word postcard from Eleanor left me wanting more. Not knowing what she said was also upsetting though. It was probably upsetting because I was upset with the conflict resolution.
I read an interview with the author where she stated that she may be thinking about writing for these characters again. I have hope that she may redeem the story but it's been a while.
Anne (15117 KP) rated This Tender Land in Books
Nov 4, 2019
Thank you to Libro.fm and Recorded Books for letting me listen and review this book. I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would and it has a lot to digest from it. I've been thinking about it to try to formulate a review for a couple of days since I finished it.
This story is about 4 orphans on a life-changing journey during the era of the Great Depression in 1932.
In Minnesota, they are at a horrible place called The Lincoln School, where Native American children that have been separated from their families are sent to get an education. It's also where Odie is, who is the MC/one of the 4 orphans in this story. After getting in a lot of trouble and gaining the school superintendent's attention and wrath, Odie, his brother, Albert, their friend, Mose, and Emmy all run away together in a canoe they stole, going to the Missippi and to find a place of their own.
What follows is the telling of their journey during the summer, an adventure where they meet others who are wandering and on their own journeys as well. They meet all types of people like pig farmers, faith healers and others who are lost and trying to find their own way in life and to their own places to call home as well.
It's a coming of age tale, where they come across and are deciding and figuring things out for themselves like religion, belief in God, first crush/love, what's right and wrong, how to treat others with respect and love and so many things.
This story kept sucking me back in whenever I listened to it so I felt like I was there on the banks of the river watching their story or in the school or in the faith revival tents or towns along the way. I was a bit overwhelmed at times from the bigger picture they were showing and talking about along the way, but it also resonated with me a lot and reminded me a lot of Mark Twain's writing with his books about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer that I remember loving and connecting with when I was younger.
The only thing that bothered me some was that if like me you try to go for clean reads, there's a little bit of language throughout the book, but other than that it was a really good story and the audio was great.
This story is about 4 orphans on a life-changing journey during the era of the Great Depression in 1932.
In Minnesota, they are at a horrible place called The Lincoln School, where Native American children that have been separated from their families are sent to get an education. It's also where Odie is, who is the MC/one of the 4 orphans in this story. After getting in a lot of trouble and gaining the school superintendent's attention and wrath, Odie, his brother, Albert, their friend, Mose, and Emmy all run away together in a canoe they stole, going to the Missippi and to find a place of their own.
What follows is the telling of their journey during the summer, an adventure where they meet others who are wandering and on their own journeys as well. They meet all types of people like pig farmers, faith healers and others who are lost and trying to find their own way in life and to their own places to call home as well.
It's a coming of age tale, where they come across and are deciding and figuring things out for themselves like religion, belief in God, first crush/love, what's right and wrong, how to treat others with respect and love and so many things.
This story kept sucking me back in whenever I listened to it so I felt like I was there on the banks of the river watching their story or in the school or in the faith revival tents or towns along the way. I was a bit overwhelmed at times from the bigger picture they were showing and talking about along the way, but it also resonated with me a lot and reminded me a lot of Mark Twain's writing with his books about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer that I remember loving and connecting with when I was younger.
The only thing that bothered me some was that if like me you try to go for clean reads, there's a little bit of language throughout the book, but other than that it was a really good story and the audio was great.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Inside Out (2015) in Movies
Aug 6, 2019
Have you ever wondered what goes on inside that noggin of yours when your feeling angry, scared, sad or happy even? The producers and directors of Up and Toy Story have delved inside these emotions with their new film Inside Out. It is the latest and greatest film from Disney’s Pixar to open this summer. The film brought in some of the best comedic actors together and strategically placed them in the mind of an eleven year old girl.
Riley is an eleven year old girl from Minnesota. Her parents have made the difficult decision to uproot her and move to San Francisco for her fathers new job. Riley’s life is flipped upside down and inside out. She is guided only by her emotions as most of us are. Her thoughts are being manned by a control room of sorts. Joy (Amy Poehler) keeps everything at bay. As it is her soul purpose to keep Riley happy and all the other emotions away from the controls as much as possible. Although other emotions like Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) tend to creep in from time to time.
Her memories are color-coded specific to each emotion. Core memories are glowing. Sadness has become quite enamored with these glowing core memories and can’t help herself from touching the orbs turning all of the happy core memories into sad memories. As her mind short circuits it paves the path for fear, disgust and anger to take over. Joy must stop this from happening and retrieve core memories that are almost lost. Guiding them along the way is Bing Bong (Richard Kind), Riley’s imaginary friend who was thought to be forgotten.
Inside Out will literally give you a seat on the train of thought and will wind through all the twists and turns of the mind. With such an ambitious idea Pixar has proved once again that they can make a film that can relate to both young and old. It will definitely tug at the heartstrings. It did for me as I was about Riley’s age when I was uprooted to Costa Rica so I hold this film close to my heart. Lots of surprises, laughs and maybe even a few sniffles await you with this film and really shouldn’t be missed. A few hidden surprises also await the true Disney fan. Skip the 3D version not worth the extra couple dollars.
Riley is an eleven year old girl from Minnesota. Her parents have made the difficult decision to uproot her and move to San Francisco for her fathers new job. Riley’s life is flipped upside down and inside out. She is guided only by her emotions as most of us are. Her thoughts are being manned by a control room of sorts. Joy (Amy Poehler) keeps everything at bay. As it is her soul purpose to keep Riley happy and all the other emotions away from the controls as much as possible. Although other emotions like Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) tend to creep in from time to time.
Her memories are color-coded specific to each emotion. Core memories are glowing. Sadness has become quite enamored with these glowing core memories and can’t help herself from touching the orbs turning all of the happy core memories into sad memories. As her mind short circuits it paves the path for fear, disgust and anger to take over. Joy must stop this from happening and retrieve core memories that are almost lost. Guiding them along the way is Bing Bong (Richard Kind), Riley’s imaginary friend who was thought to be forgotten.
Inside Out will literally give you a seat on the train of thought and will wind through all the twists and turns of the mind. With such an ambitious idea Pixar has proved once again that they can make a film that can relate to both young and old. It will definitely tug at the heartstrings. It did for me as I was about Riley’s age when I was uprooted to Costa Rica so I hold this film close to my heart. Lots of surprises, laughs and maybe even a few sniffles await you with this film and really shouldn’t be missed. A few hidden surprises also await the true Disney fan. Skip the 3D version not worth the extra couple dollars.
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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Rio (2011) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
As the very colorful birds of the jungle in Rio de Janeiro are partying it up with singing and aeriel dancing some humans crash the party and capture some of the birds, one of them being a very young blue macaw. From there they are flown to the U.S. with final destinations unknown. Thanks to some poor driving habits the crate containing the young blue macaw is left stranded in the freezing snow of Minnesota but he is soon saved by a young girl named Linda who names him Blu (I know not very original).
Fast forward 15 years, Linda and Blu run a bookstore and even though he has never learned to fly he loves the indoor domestic lifestyle and has never thought of returning to Rio. That is until Dr. Barbosa arrives and informs them that Blu is the last known male blue macaw in the world and that at his bird sanctuary in Rio he has the last known female blue macaw, named Jewel. After some hesitation they decide it is species saving time and go with Dr. Barbosa to Rio. As Blu and Jewel get to know each other (that’s not an euphemism), Dr. Barbosa and Linda decide they should give them some alone time and leave. But while the humans are away making a connection of their own, someone breaks into the bird sanctuary and abducts Blu and Jewel.
The two blue macaws soon find themselves shackled together and locked away with many other birds to be taken to final destinations unknown (hmmm, deja vu). Blu and Jewel are able to escape from their captors but not from the shackles that bind them and thus begins their epic journey to freedom from the shackles. Along the way they befriend some very interesting characters who do their best to help them along the way. Will Jewel and Blu be free of the shackles? Will Blu and Linda ever be reunited? Will Blu ever learn to fly? What about the bookstore?
While the story is very predictable and at least once I could tell the kids were losing interest during a scene, the animation is beautiful and amazing, the humor is great and I saw many of the kids in the theater bobbing their heads along to the songs. They could not have done any better with the incredible voice cast: Blu and Jewel are voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway and Leslie Mann voices Linda. The incredible supporting cast voices iniclude Wanda Sykes, Lane Lynch, Jamie Fox, Will.I.Am and George Lopez.
Overall, regardless of age, everyone in the theater seemed to enjoy the film as much, if not more, as I did. But just to be sure I brought along a friend’s 10 year old to get his perspective and posed a few questions. I was very happy to mostly get more than one word answers:
Fast forward 15 years, Linda and Blu run a bookstore and even though he has never learned to fly he loves the indoor domestic lifestyle and has never thought of returning to Rio. That is until Dr. Barbosa arrives and informs them that Blu is the last known male blue macaw in the world and that at his bird sanctuary in Rio he has the last known female blue macaw, named Jewel. After some hesitation they decide it is species saving time and go with Dr. Barbosa to Rio. As Blu and Jewel get to know each other (that’s not an euphemism), Dr. Barbosa and Linda decide they should give them some alone time and leave. But while the humans are away making a connection of their own, someone breaks into the bird sanctuary and abducts Blu and Jewel.
The two blue macaws soon find themselves shackled together and locked away with many other birds to be taken to final destinations unknown (hmmm, deja vu). Blu and Jewel are able to escape from their captors but not from the shackles that bind them and thus begins their epic journey to freedom from the shackles. Along the way they befriend some very interesting characters who do their best to help them along the way. Will Jewel and Blu be free of the shackles? Will Blu and Linda ever be reunited? Will Blu ever learn to fly? What about the bookstore?
While the story is very predictable and at least once I could tell the kids were losing interest during a scene, the animation is beautiful and amazing, the humor is great and I saw many of the kids in the theater bobbing their heads along to the songs. They could not have done any better with the incredible voice cast: Blu and Jewel are voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway and Leslie Mann voices Linda. The incredible supporting cast voices iniclude Wanda Sykes, Lane Lynch, Jamie Fox, Will.I.Am and George Lopez.
Overall, regardless of age, everyone in the theater seemed to enjoy the film as much, if not more, as I did. But just to be sure I brought along a friend’s 10 year old to get his perspective and posed a few questions. I was very happy to mostly get more than one word answers:
Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Leave No Trace in Books
Mar 15, 2019
Quick, puzzling read
Maya Stark is twenty-three and an assistant speech therapist at Congdon, a facility for the mentally ill. She's had a tough past, and it isn't easy for her to form attachments with anyone. Maya's mom left when she was a kid, and Maya was once a patient at the facility where she now works. So she's surprised when she feels drawn to Congdon's newest patient, nineteen-year-old Lucas Blackthorn. Lucas arrives at Congdon after being arrested for breaking and entering into a wilderness store. Lucas and his father, Josiah, haven't been seen in ten years: Josiah took his son camping in the vast stretch of Minnesota territory known as the Boundary Waters a decade ago and the two haven't been heard from since. It's clear that Lucas wants nothing more than to return to the Boundary Waters. He's a recalcitrant and sometimes violent patient, who will cooperate with no one but Maya. Maya wants to help Lucas, and she wants to know why she feels so strong for this strange and angry boy.
This was my first Mejia book, and while it wasn't quite what I was expecting (I was thinking more mystery, less character-driven novel), it was really interesting. It's told mostly from Maya's point of view, but we hear some from Lucas and others too. It's a very readable book--I tore through it quickly, as there's something gripping about the style and reveal of facts about both Maya and Lucas' lives. We start out knowing very little about either of them--what put Maya in Congdon, what drove Lucas and Josiah into the Boundary Waters, and the novel does a good job of keeping you reading and wondering.
It's an emotional read--obviously being partially set in a mental hospital, it deals with mental illness. I thought, overall, Mejia did a good job with the topic, but if that's a trigger for you, just keep it in mind. The ancillary characters are pretty sparse: Maya's boss, the patients, Maya's dad, etc., but all are well-formed as well. Maya and Lucas are the stars, and both are well-done and easy to picture. The novel did a great job of pulling together all its various pieces. I was impressed how Mejia brought together the different parts of Lucas and Maya's lives--it's quite exceptionally thought out.
Probably the only thing marring this one for me were little things, but they nagged at me a bit. At times, the care Lucas receives seems odd and a bit weirdly thought out--giving a speech therapist such control over his care, for instance, and taking a violent patient into some strange situations. Maya and Lucas' instant attachment was also a little hard to completely believe, as well. But those were pretty small pieces in the scheme of the book.
Overall, I enjoyed my first Mejia book. The plot was the best part for me--I loved how it was a quick read and how enjoyable it was to put together all the various pieces of Lucas and Maya's lives. While there were a few little quirks that kept this from being an amazing read, it was still a solid, worthwhile read.
I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review (thank you!).
This was my first Mejia book, and while it wasn't quite what I was expecting (I was thinking more mystery, less character-driven novel), it was really interesting. It's told mostly from Maya's point of view, but we hear some from Lucas and others too. It's a very readable book--I tore through it quickly, as there's something gripping about the style and reveal of facts about both Maya and Lucas' lives. We start out knowing very little about either of them--what put Maya in Congdon, what drove Lucas and Josiah into the Boundary Waters, and the novel does a good job of keeping you reading and wondering.
It's an emotional read--obviously being partially set in a mental hospital, it deals with mental illness. I thought, overall, Mejia did a good job with the topic, but if that's a trigger for you, just keep it in mind. The ancillary characters are pretty sparse: Maya's boss, the patients, Maya's dad, etc., but all are well-formed as well. Maya and Lucas are the stars, and both are well-done and easy to picture. The novel did a great job of pulling together all its various pieces. I was impressed how Mejia brought together the different parts of Lucas and Maya's lives--it's quite exceptionally thought out.
Probably the only thing marring this one for me were little things, but they nagged at me a bit. At times, the care Lucas receives seems odd and a bit weirdly thought out--giving a speech therapist such control over his care, for instance, and taking a violent patient into some strange situations. Maya and Lucas' instant attachment was also a little hard to completely believe, as well. But those were pretty small pieces in the scheme of the book.
Overall, I enjoyed my first Mejia book. The plot was the best part for me--I loved how it was a quick read and how enjoyable it was to put together all the various pieces of Lucas and Maya's lives. While there were a few little quirks that kept this from being an amazing read, it was still a solid, worthwhile read.
I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review (thank you!).
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