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House of the Disappeared (2017)
Movie
25 years ago, Mi-Hee was an ordinary housewife, married to Chul-Joong with a son. Suddenly, her...
Life After Life: A Guildford Four Memoir
Book
What is it like to spend 15 years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit? Paddy Armstrong was...
biography crime true crime
Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated Falling (Fall or Break, #1) in Books
Jan 6, 2021
DNF @ 37%
This had been on my Amazon wish-list for quite a while before I bought this and then even longer before I got around to reading it. (Another of those A-Z reading challenge reads.)
We start by learning about Malachi and how he's struggling to find a job and living with his sister and her rather mean husband who has a set of rules that Malachi must abide by if he wants to stay there. He does find Malachi a job and in the process Malachi meets the guy he's been obsessing over at the local shop. In rolls Harper, recently released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, he's renovating his old home with his dads money and Malachi ends up working on the house. They both have an attraction to the other but try to ignore it for their own reasons but it's impossible.
I don't know about this one. I can't say I ever really got into it. I carried on for a while longer but it never really...picked up for me. I didn't feel like I cared enough about the characters to carry on so I finally gave up.
The only thing I felt a little interested in was the fact that Harper had been put in prison for a crime he didn't commit and then spent ten years in prison, every appeal shot down in flames, because everyone thought he was guilty. I did feel like an injustice had been served and those two boys needed some sort of karma to come bite them in the arse for the lies they told.
And I liked that it was set in the UK. Most of the books I read are set in America so it's nice to read something set somewhere different.
This had been on my Amazon wish-list for quite a while before I bought this and then even longer before I got around to reading it. (Another of those A-Z reading challenge reads.)
We start by learning about Malachi and how he's struggling to find a job and living with his sister and her rather mean husband who has a set of rules that Malachi must abide by if he wants to stay there. He does find Malachi a job and in the process Malachi meets the guy he's been obsessing over at the local shop. In rolls Harper, recently released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, he's renovating his old home with his dads money and Malachi ends up working on the house. They both have an attraction to the other but try to ignore it for their own reasons but it's impossible.
I don't know about this one. I can't say I ever really got into it. I carried on for a while longer but it never really...picked up for me. I didn't feel like I cared enough about the characters to carry on so I finally gave up.
The only thing I felt a little interested in was the fact that Harper had been put in prison for a crime he didn't commit and then spent ten years in prison, every appeal shot down in flames, because everyone thought he was guilty. I did feel like an injustice had been served and those two boys needed some sort of karma to come bite them in the arse for the lies they told.
And I liked that it was set in the UK. Most of the books I read are set in America so it's nice to read something set somewhere different.
Andy K (10821 KP) rated Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017) in Movies
Mar 3, 2018
This ain't no Wedding Crashers
Having just watched Bone Tomahawk (you must watch it) and learning writer/director S. Craig Zahler also helmed this film, I was even more anxious to see.
After Vince Vaughn loses his job, he is forced into a life as a drug runner. His big score goes wrong, he makes some tough decisions and ends up in prison. He is then manipulated and has to make even more intense decisions in order to make events happen in his favor.
Vaughn is believable as a tough, abrasive husband trying to save his family. His morality is questionable and you can't decide whether to root for him pr hate him. Don Johnson is also a standout as the warden.
I found it fascinating and exhilarating at the same time. Some of the fight scenes are maybe a little excessively violent, but that is the nature of prison life I imagine.
Zahler is slowly making a name for himself with these two films. He also has Dragged Across Concrete coming out later this year.
He hasn't reached Tarantino status quite yet, but he is off to a good start.
After Vince Vaughn loses his job, he is forced into a life as a drug runner. His big score goes wrong, he makes some tough decisions and ends up in prison. He is then manipulated and has to make even more intense decisions in order to make events happen in his favor.
Vaughn is believable as a tough, abrasive husband trying to save his family. His morality is questionable and you can't decide whether to root for him pr hate him. Don Johnson is also a standout as the warden.
I found it fascinating and exhilarating at the same time. Some of the fight scenes are maybe a little excessively violent, but that is the nature of prison life I imagine.
Zahler is slowly making a name for himself with these two films. He also has Dragged Across Concrete coming out later this year.
He hasn't reached Tarantino status quite yet, but he is off to a good start.
ClareR (5637 KP) rated The Mars Room: A Novel in Books
Jul 30, 2018
A stunning debut.
Romy Hall has been given 2 consecutive life sentences for the murder of her stalker. This novel follows her arrival at prison, and reveals the story of her life in the lead up and at the start of her incarceration. We also meet some of the women who she lives with during this time.
I can see why this book has been nominated for The Man Booker Prize 2018 - it clearly shows how a childhood of poverty and benign neglect can lead to drug addiction and crime. It also shows the awful conditions of the prison that Romy is kept in and the hatred of the guards towards their charges. This isn't an environment of rehabilitation, it's an environment of harsh punishment. Which probably explains the high rates of reoffending.
It's a frustrating book to read, because I think the reader really does start to care about the people that they read about (at least I did), even though the writing doesn't actually invite us to feel for the characters. In fact it's all written in quite a detached way. They are more than just the crime they committed, and this book shows that.
I can see why this book has been nominated for The Man Booker Prize 2018 - it clearly shows how a childhood of poverty and benign neglect can lead to drug addiction and crime. It also shows the awful conditions of the prison that Romy is kept in and the hatred of the guards towards their charges. This isn't an environment of rehabilitation, it's an environment of harsh punishment. Which probably explains the high rates of reoffending.
It's a frustrating book to read, because I think the reader really does start to care about the people that they read about (at least I did), even though the writing doesn't actually invite us to feel for the characters. In fact it's all written in quite a detached way. They are more than just the crime they committed, and this book shows that.
The Wicked Mr Hall: The Deathbed Confessions of Serial Killer Roy Archibald Hall
Book
Growing up in Glasgow in the 1930s, Roy Archibald Hall was a natural thief. After moving to London,...
Lock Up: Behind the Bars at Gaols in Australia and New Zealand
Book
Lock Up: Behind the bars at gaols in Australia and New Zealand tells the story of the infamous...
Locked Up (Vis a Vis) - Season 2
TV Season Watch
Macarena Ferreiro is a young naive woman who falls in love with her boss and, because of him,...
drama thriller
