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#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2886472405">The Thousandth Floor</a> - ★★★★
#2 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2960873818">The Dazzling Heights</a> - Not Read Yet
#3 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2961335913">The Towering Sky</a> - Not Read Yet

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</i>In the year 2118, in New York City there’s a thousand-story tower. It has everything you could imagine inside, and there is no need for you to ever get out.</i>

The floor you live on represents your status. The higher you live, the more money you have, which means you become more popular. The rich people don’t necessarily hang around with the poor, and gossips spread faster than lightning. The thousandth floor is the top!

<B><I>But then one night, at a party, one girl falls down from the rooftop of the tower, and the mystery remains – what exactly happened that night? </i></b>

Despite all the mixed reviews I’ve seen for this book, I actually really enjoyed it! The world is futuristic and I loved reading about all the different cool items and gadgets that the author was writing about.

The main character that we have is Avery Fuller, who lives on the thousandth floor of the tower. She has been genetically designed to only have the best genes from her parents, and is, therefore, perfect. But then – SPOILER ALERT – <spoiler> she is in love with her brother, who is actually adopted, so not her brother. And as weird as it might seem, they are not related in any way, and the romance was beautifully written. And a lot of you people have been giving this book a bad review because of this reason, but some of you also happen to love ”City of Bones” by Cassandra Clare, who features Clary and Jace, who started with the same background?</spoiler>

Apart from Avery, there were many other characters as well, all of them different and all of them unique at the same time. A girl that works as a main in a rich boy’s house, a girl who is best friends with Avery but doesn’t feel she belongs there, a girl that suddenly finds out she is not rich anymore and has to move onto the lower floors of the tower, a hacker who wants to earn money, no matter the what… The book is written from all these character’s points of view, and I loved the variety and also how all these characters connect to each other in an interesting way. They all have goals, dreams, hopes, fears, and everything is surrounded in drama.

<b><i>If you love Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars or the TV Show Riverdale, I guarantee you will enjoy this one. It’s full of mystery, drama, romance, sci-fi and luxury.</i></b>

Thank you to my sister, for letting me read this book. I borrowed it from her and will unfortunately have to give it back soon…

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Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
2007 | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi
The most anticipated film of the summer, Spider-Man 3 has arrived to the delight of moviegoers the world over. It has been roughly a little more than a year since Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire), defeated Dr. Octopus and saved the city from certain doom.

During this time, Spider-man has become New York City’s celebrated hero, and his day to day alter ego, Peter Parker, delights in his fame, while dating the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst).

As the film opens, Peter has decided to ask Mary Jane to be his wife, and plans to surprise her with a ring during dinner at a fancy restaurant. Mary Jane is starring in a Broadway play, and despite harsh reviews, she is living her dream and madly in love with Peter.

Things take an unexpected twist for Peter when he is attacked one night by his best friend Harry (James Franco), who blames him for the death of his father at the conclusion of the first film. Enhanced by his father’s Goblin serum, Harry is a deadly adversary for Peter who is able to fend off the attack eventually, and put into motion a series of events that will forever change his life.

When a career criminal named Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church), is accidentally caught in an experiment while fleeing the authorities, he becomes a living mass of sand, which enables him to start a string of robberies as “The Sandman”, and provides Spider-man with his most unusual opponent yet.

As if this was not enough, Peter must contend with a new hotshot photographer named Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), who is after a staff position at the Daily Bugle. The fact that Peter has more seniority at the paper is of little interest to Eddie, and he will stop at nothing to get the better of Peter.

At this point one would think that Peter has more than enough on his plate, but fate is about to drop an unexpected player into his life, a space based symbiote that bonds

with Peter’s costume and creates a dark black look for Spider-Man as well as an increase in his powers.

Peter becomes obsessed with his new powers, and there is a dramatic change in his persona, which does not sit well with Mary Jane. When new information is given to Peter about the death of his Uncle Ben, Peter is more than willing to use his new found abilities to exact the revenge that he craves.

Peter also has another area of interest as Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), the daughter of the local Chief of Police has caught his eye, much to the chagrin of both Mary Jane and Gwen’s current boyfriend Eddie Brock.

This tangled web of characters soon forces Peter to take stock of his life and the choices he makes, in order to determine what truly matters to him, the love and respect of his friends, or giving into his darker side and pursing power and unending praise and adulation.

The film starts out well, and the early conflict between Peter and Harry is a brilliantly staged spectacle of sight, sound, and motion. There are also some great moments between the lead characters and Church, Howard and Grace do well with their characters, yet something about Spider-Man 3 did not click for me the way the previous two films in the series have.

Having the luxury of time from the press screener to the opening, I was able to look back at the film the past week and a half to try to determine what did not work for me, and I kept coming back to the same conclusions.

First, the film wants very much to be much darker and edgier than the other films, yet just when you think you are going to see Peter fully cross the line, the film pulls back into campy mode, and we are given scenes of Peter hamming it up as a ladies’ man, and I kid you not, doing an impromptu dance number.

While this works for comedic effect, I am supposed to believe that the darker side of Peter’s soul is being exposed, and I had a hard time thinking that his inner demons include “Saturday Night Fever” style strut down the sidewalk, and a floor show.

The second thing that bothered me was the villains, as aside from Harry as the New Goblin, both the Sandman and Venom were sadly lacking. Neither The Sandman nor Venom had over the top plots to rule the world, kill or enslave the masses, or endanger huge parts of the city as was the case with the original Green Goblin and Dr Octopus.

Rather we have one who is content to steal to fund a noble cause, and wishes only to complete this cause and have Spider-Man out of his way. The second simply wants revenge for being slighted, and does not elude the menace nor danger that the character warrants.

effects wise the film is solid and there are some great moments in the film, but to many times I thought I had seen the same sand effects years early in the “Mummy” series which lead to many cases of “been there, seen that” for me. With a budget that many claim to be the most expensive film ever made when based on current dollar values, I had expected more from the film, especially given the talented and dynamic cast, and the ample backing of the studio.

Director and series Guru Sam Raimi seems to be coasting here as one has to wonder if he used up many of his great ideas in the last two films, and was trying so hard not to repeat himself, that he lost that magic spark that made the last two films such classics.

As it stands, “Spider-Man 3” is a good film, but you can’t help but feel it could have been a better one.
  
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The Fate of the Furious (2017)
The Fate of the Furious (2017)
2017 | Action
Blood is thicker than Diesel.
All work and no play makes bob-the-movie-man a tardy reviewer. Still, what better way to break the fast than with “Fast and Furious 8” (aka “The Fate of the Furious”)?

Well, quite a lot of things actually!

Now, I have a confession to make (and I know for some this will be the equivalent of an appalling statement like “I’ve never seen Star Wars”). I have actually never ever seen Fast and Furious 1 through 7! (If it’s any mitigation to this cinematic crime, I did see the F-and-F wannabe “Need for Speed“).

So I was going to be completely lost with the “plot” right? Well actually, no. It was pretty easy to jump in and follow as a piece of popcorn nonsense.


The M25 water main burst was a real bitch for the Monday morning rush-hour.

For nonsense it is (hence the “rabbit ears” round the word “plot” above). The story isn’t just a bit far-fetched. It’s bat-shit crazy where the bat in question has downed a questionable vindaloo two hours earlier!
Dom (Vin Diesel) has turned on his “family”, including his squeeze, the lovely Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, “San Andreas“), to team with the above-the-law (and above the clouds) cyber-super-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road“). They have teamed up, apparently, for no other reason than to allow Cipher to ‘kick some global ass’ with a nuclear threat. But given his caring and sharing side, why the sudden betrayal of his nearest and dearest by Dom?


Ice Queen Metallica fan Theron, showing off her hardware.

Where do you begin with the nonsensical story? Jumping from Cuba (with some admittedly fun scenes, but shamelessly objectifying scantily-clad women) via Berlin and New York to the icy wastes of Siberia, it’s just an excuse to show fast cars doing ludicrously unlikely things. There is zero logic within any of the script. Here are just a handful of examples:

the team know (through enormous jumps of speculation) to be present at a particular location in the world and at exactly the time that Dom is there (arrive, look through binoculars, “Oh, there he is”!);
all cars can be automatically hijacked and remotely driven (who knew), but NOT those of the team (obviously);
fast cars/tanks/etc can be magicked from New York to Siberia (wot, no Hertz Siberia available?);
Russian nuclear codes are stolen, so obviously they can’t be changed?
a nuclear submarine is out of the water on wooden blocks, but spin the propeller really REALLY fast and it can suddenly be sailing away.

Muscle for muscle it never looked like being a fair fight.

I appreciate I am being enormously po-faced about this, and this is designed as pure escapism. But is there REALLY any need for this to be such mindless escapism? The director (Gary Gray, “The Italian Job”) and writer (Chris Morgan, responsible for parts 6 and 7) should credit their audience with rather more in the way of intelligence.

Diesel and Johnson are never going to set the acting ablaze, but Rodriquez (“Lost”) is as watchable as ever. Theron has fun with her villainy and the supporting turns by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are enjoyable. Nathalie Emmanuel though as Ramsey seems as uncomfortable with her “sexy English” stereotype as she should be.


A long way from Brookside. Nathalie Emmanuel uncomfortable as “the sexy one”.

Luke Evans (“The Hobbit“), Kurt Russell (“Deepwater Horizon“) and Helen Mirren (“Eye in the Sky“) turn up in entertaining but underused cameos, but it is Jason Statham as Deckard that has the most fun in the whole film, and his scenes – done largely for comic effect – are the best part of the movie. (But “math” Jason? “MATH”?? I hope your old maths teacher back in London doesn’t get to see this film).


Parking enforcement by the City Council was getting more and more stringent.

If you’re willing to park your brain at the door for two hours then it has some fun moments. But I felt the damage to my IQ might not have been worth the risk, and this really didn’t fill my cinematic tank.
  
40x40

Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Ruby in Books

Apr 3, 2019  
Ruby
Ruby
Cynthia Bond | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry
8
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Ruby Bell lives in the town of Liberty in East Texas. She was one of the most beautiful women in the town. Liberty is the town she grew up in and ran away from in search of her mother in New York City. When news of the death of her best friend reaches her, she decides to return to Liberty, but the things that await her there are very dark and menacing.
Ephram Jennings lost both his mother and father at a young age and was raised by his sister Celia. Celia takes great care of Ephram and together they attend church every Sunday and are a pillar in the community.
Ephram has known Ruby Bell since they were small children, although his interaction with her has been very limited. When she returns to Liberty Ephram would like to change that. But Ruby Bell is no longer the same woman who returned to Liberty. Frequently she can be found huggin the chinaberry tree on the edge of the woods near her home(Bell Land), she is often naked, or barely dressed and once even urinated in the middle of the street. Everyone in Liberty knows that Ruby Bell is a harlot and a Jezebel. Ephram refuses to believe that this is true and makes it his mission to prove this to the entire town.

Religion plays a big part in this book which really spoke to me. We as Christians are taught to love one another and treat each other the way Jesus treated the world, with kindness and compassion. It always gets to me how tolerance and love become an issue when trying to help those who are different. Ruby is plagued by demons in this book and the town shuns and rapes her for this. They call her crazy and when Ephram goes to her to help her be the woman HE knows she can be, he is looked down upon by the entire town and especially by his sister Celia. Ephram wants to understand the demons in Ruby and he never judges her for her "crazy" ways, but tries to comprehend what she is going through.

This story really touched my heart. We all need to do what we can for each other especially in the African American community. We tend to shun away from each other instead of embracing one another. I loved the way that Ephram went to Ruby despite what the rest of the town thought. How he stood by her side no matter what. This book could teach us all a lesson.