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People We Meet on Vacation
People We Meet on Vacation
Emily Henry | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
So excited to be part of the Blog Tour for this wonderful intense and emotional romance!!
Poppy has her dream job, working at one of the top travel magazines. She has a nice apartment and a good friend in New York. But she's not happy. She knows clearly when she last was: two years ago, on a trip with Alex Nilsen. Poppy and Alex have been best friends since college. This despite the fact that they are very different and spend most of the year apart. She works in New York City. He teaches in their small hometown. But every summer, they reunite for one amazing week-long vacation. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything and stopped speaking. Poppy knows she needs to get back to that happiness she shared with Alex. So she plans one more trip. She has one week to repair her friendship with Alex and to make everything right. No big deal, right?

"On vacation, you can be anyone you want. Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself."

Like most people, I adored Emily Henry's book BEACH READ and was quite excited to read PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION. She's back with another unique romance. I'm not sure I enjoyed this one quite as much as BEACH READ, but I still loved it. This book is intense and emotional yet hilarious at times. A section on Poppy helping Alex rework his Tinder profile had me actually laughing out loud.

"I know right away when when I was last truly happy. Two years ago, in Croatia, with Alex Nilsen. But there's no finding my way back to that, because we haven't spoken since."

VACATION has a small cast of characters, which means the spotlight is focused on Alex and Poppy throughout. It's incredibly easy to get swept up in their story. I flew through this book in a day (on vacation, ironically). It goes back and forth in time, with some chapters revolving around "this summer," which tells us about Poppy's trip and her attempt to save her friendship with Alex. Past chapters look at other summers and their other trips. We know something happened on their Croatia vacation, but don't find out until we get to that chapter. That melodrama was a bit much for the actual "big" reveal, but that was my only major issue with the book.

This is a slow burn, with Poppy and Alex's story unfurling in bits and pieces, thanks to the back-in time-format. However, it was incredibly effortless to become lost in the plot and become part of this book. Henry is an amazing storyteller, and I felt like I was a piece of Alex and Poppy's journey and their trips. I was invested in their friendship from the start. Henry's romances are different, but the lust, passion, and intensity just ooze from the pages nonetheless.

Overall, this is a different and intense story. Our main characters are complete opposites, and it's fun being a part of their journey. 4 stars.
  
Feeling Good: The Very Best of Nina Simone by Nina Simone
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Along with Patti Smith and Mary Margaret O'Hara, I would say that Nina Simone possesses the greatest voice I have ever heard. Nina's voice, my god, on songs like 'Sinner Man' or 'I Put A Spell On You' is beyond compare. If you really want to get Nina Simone, you need to get on YouTube and watch the early footage. There is 25 minutes of footage of a performance she did in England, after Martin Luther King had been shot, and she is playing to mainly a white audience. It is the greatest set of protest songs I have ever seen. It puts Dylan or anyone else into the shade. If you wish to see how to change the world with music, look at this dignified woman holding back her rage at what had been done to her people. [Fighting back tears] Nina Simone carried the weight of black experience more fully than anyone else I have heard. There is also some amazing footage of her dancing with the audience. It's when she was less bitter and her bipolar disorder hadn't kicked in, and she is dancing and singing. When you watch her move, you can see the music is in every part of her body. With the songs Nina wrote, her position in the civil rights movement, and then the fact she became broken, it is just one of the most devastating stories. [Crying]. But, her voice, fucking hell. And the song 'Ain't Got No, I Got Life' – on which she lists all the things that she hasn't got, but then lists all the things she does have, which are her passion and her spirit – gets me every time. It's important people go and check out the early footage on YouTube. When she sings 'I Put A Spell On You', you fucking know she has put a spell on that guy, who was her ex-husband. You do not fucking mess with that woman. I heard a lovely anecdote about Angelo Badalamenti, who was a desperately impoverished guy who had just given up his job to become a songwriter. He had been earning nothing for 18 months, and had sent some songs to Nina Simone. He got a call from her manager saying that Nina would like to meet him. He went to the place at the arranged time, walked into a room and there was this amazing lioness, lying on a sofa dressed in leopard skin. She said, ""I hear you have some songs for me. Play me one."" There was no piano, so he had to sing to her. He sang about a minute of 'I Hold No Grudge' and she said, ""I will take that"" and asked him if had any more. He sang another song for about 30 seconds, and she said, ""I will take that too"", and he sang a snippet from another one, which she also liked. Within two weeks, she had recorded all three songs and launched his career as a writer. Angelo told me that story when I made an album with him."

Source
  
Eden Summer
Eden Summer
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I keep falling behind on wiring my reviews, sorry! I really need to get back on track. I finished this on Tuesday I think? I really enjoyed it, although it isn't quite worthy of five stars.

I'm going to put in a trigger warning as there are mentions of substance abuse, physical abuse, death, adoption and suicide.

Jess's best friend has gone missing. Through interviews with the police and Jess's personal recollections, we begin to build up a picture of Eden's life before her disappearance. Her sister had recently been killed in a car accident, and her seemingly perfect relationship with Liam was more complicated than anyone realised. Bit by bit, Jess - and we - begin to piece things together and discover where Eden has gone.

The girls are only young - 15 I think? - and very much have the all-consuming passion that young teens feel. As in, every little issue feels huge, and things feel far more serious than they might to an older person. I remember feeling this way. I think it was portrayed so accurately, the way fighting with your best friend feels like the end of the world and a family argument overwhelms you with guilt. It was a bit annoying in some ways, though; no fault of the author, of course, I just get a bit annoyed at kids taking things too seriously. I look back at myself and think how stupid it was to get so caught up in such little issues. So the things that Jess gets so worked up over just seemed a bit trivial to me, like she was exaggerating too much. But as I said, this creates the teenage voice really well in my opinion.

The things that both these girls have gone through are massive, though - Jess was attacked and Eden's sister killed. That's pretty hard for a young girl to deal with, and these are not the problems I'm saying are trivial. These are hugely important and emotional issues and I think it's great to talk about. I love books with these real, albeit sad, events. I think it is so good to discuss all the feelings and situations that follow, and also emphasise how it is not the end of the world if something bad happens. life will continue. Eden says how she feels her sister's death becoming more distant, more bearable, and how she doesn't want that to happen. She feels guilty, as if she's forgetting her and moving on. This is so important. She also thinks about killing herself due to guilt - which I won't ruin too much - but then realises how she shouldn't take life for granted. Her sister would've given anything to be alive still, and she shouldn't be throwing that away.

It was a really good read and I found myself wondering what was going to be revealed next. It was wel written and perfectly captured the young voice of Jess. If I read this when I was younger, I think I would've adored it. I would've understood it and connected to Jess more than I did now I'm older. 4 stars, definitely worth a read.
  
Buffalo '66 (1998)
Buffalo '66 (1998)
1998 | International, Comedy, Drama
2
4.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Characters – Billy Brown has just been released from prison, he has had his own problems which led to him being in prison and it isn’t long before he goes to the extremes to impress his family. He is painted as an aggressive man that believes that woman are just objects and has built his world in lies. Layla is the tap dancer that gets kidnapped, she starts to play along with what Billy wants and even enjoy his company the more time they spend together. Jimmy and Jan are his parents that have both been either distracted or strict in raising Billy, as he wants to impress them now. The Bookie is the man that put Billy in jail as a result of the debts he owed him, he gave him a choice with jail being the only one that didn’t hurt anyone.

Performances – Vincent Gallo doesn’t bring us a very interesting character, it isn’t written well or directed to make us interested in him, he just can’t make this character work. Christina Ricci was trying to break out of the child star roles by now, this is different to what we had seen before, though she does look bored through the film. the rest of the cast struggle too, it is just poorly written to give the actors a chance.

Story – The story follows a gambler that had paid the price for his addiction and now is free, he wants revenge only he spends the time with his kidnap victim as we get to see the difficult life he has had which led him to the life of crime. Well I think that is what we are meant to be seeing, the story does drag along at an awfully slow pace with nothing much happening, trying to make us believe the two could be falling in love, though he is abusive with his actions and spends more time running around looking for a toilet than showing any sort of emotion.

Comedy/Crime/Romance – If this is meant to be a comedy, the jokes miss big time as you will struggle to get a laugh out of this film, while the crime only seems to focus on the kidnapping, which she could have escaped from with ease plenty of times, so that never feels like a threat, the romance just feels awkward for the most part of the film because there is zero chemistry between the two.

Settings – The film is set in the Buffalo area, which is meant to be about the passion of the locals, it could easily be any town with a big American football team.


Scene of the Movie – The first look at the dinner table makes it a clever shot, until it gets boring.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – We spend more time looking for a toilet.

Final Thoughts – This is just a dreadfully dull movie that has no direction in anyway, it fails to capture any attention from the audience with a truly unlikeable main character.

 

Overall: Dreadfully boring.
  
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