Tag: review

3 Mini Audiobook Reviews: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), Nick and Charlie (2015), Serpentine (2020)

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

Oooooh, at last! What a perfect October read. I’ve seen the film, of course, but I haven’t ever got around to the book. So glad I finally did. I also recommend the audiobook. The narrator’s absolutely class and it’s a great hour-long Gothic horror bit of escapism. 

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

This was my first Alice Oseman read and now I’m going to have to start all of her others asap! ♡

Serpentine by Philip Pullman

I read the original His Dark Materials so long ago that I don’t remember as much as I’d like, so getting back into the world of Lyra with this short story was really nice. I definitely want to reread the whole series again, as well as finally getting to La Belle Sauvage. The note at the end by Philip Pullman is really nice, too. ♡

Show Reviews: Abyss (2019) & Beautiful Gong Shim (2016)

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It’s been a little bit since I’ve watched a K-drama, so of course I started two in one week. Abyss (어비스) and Beautiful Gong Shim (미녀 공심이). I haven’t finished either yet, and I’m only about five episodes into each, but so far I’m loving both of them.

Abyss follows two best friends: a man who doesn’t find himself attractive and is often ridiculed, and a woman who believes herself stunning and gets quite a lot of compliments. Both die on the same day. Cha Min decides to kill himself after his fiancée dumps him over text and insults his appearance. However he changes his mind at the last second and calls his best friend, Go Se-yeon. She doesn’t take him seriously at first and halfway through the call, Cha Min is knocked off the building, only to be revived by two other worldly beings. He’s reborn as his ‘soul’s true form’: younger, taller, more confident. The beings gift him with an Abyss, a glowing orb that brought him back to life, and tell him to read the instructions. He heads towards his best friend’s flat, ready to tell her what happened, only she doesn’t come to the door and he goes to his apartment. At the same time, Go Se-yeon, is being murdered.

The next day, Cha Min learns what happened to Go Se-yeon and goes to mourn her, horrified that he could have stopped what was happening if he’d only gone inside the building. The Abyss lights up and Go Se-yeon is brought back to life in her soul’s true form: a little older and what she considers less attractive. (I will at this point note that some of the comments about beauty standards did bother me and I don’t like the body shaming a few of the characters do.)

Cha Min explains to Go Se-yeon what happened to them and proves he’s who he says is. They pair up to solve her murder and find his fiancée, who went missing just after dumping him via text. The investigation is quite interesting so far and I’m really enjoying Cha Min and Go Se-yeon’s dynamic, so I’m excited to see how it ends!

Beautiful Gong Shim, on the other hand, is a contemporary romance with a mystery twist. Gong Shim is the youngest, overlooked daughter of a family who relies financially upon her older, more successful sister Gong Mi. Gong Mi is quite shallow and puts Gong Shim down constantly, as if lowering her sister’s self-esteem is her evil art form. Honestly, she’s the worst.

Ahn Dan-tae is a pro-bono human rights lawyer and all around cheerful bloke. He encounters Gong Shim when she almost drops a potted plant on his head while trying to take a selfie on her roof. Despite this encounter, he ends up wrangling his way into renting her flat and moves in quickly. There are a lot of misunderstandings (largely on Gong Shim’s behalf), but when Gong Shim is beaten up by a rich woman at the petrol station she works out, she ends up going to Ahn Dan-tae for help.

Unfortunately, the woman who assaulted Gong Shim is the wife of the head lawyer at her sister’s law firm, and when Gong Mi learns of this, she bullies Gong Shim into dropping the law suit. Ahn Dan-tae isn’t remotely convinced and continues to help Gong Shim. He also makes fast friends with Seok Joon-soo, a rich businessman who ends up getting Gong Shim a job. Seok Joon-soo, for his part, is still reeling from the disappearance of his cousin years before, with his grandmother trying desperately to locate her missing grandson and his parents wanting to forget it happened (you get the impression they don’t care about their missing nephew).

The four lives get entwined over the episodes as Gong Mi falls for Seok Joon-soo, who likes Gong Shim, who’s liked by Ahn Dan-tae, who can’t seem to admit it to himself. CUE THE DRAMAAAA.

I definitely recommend both!

(Audio)Book Review: The Last Romeo [2018]

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The Last Romeo by Justin Myers, narrated by Joe Jameson [lgbt+, contemporary, comedy]

‘If only men knew how charming, how attractive it is to admit fault. To say they fudged it, to confess they don’t know something, to be willing to learn. It’s hot. Refreshing. […] It is all powerful. But men must come to this conclusion themselves. They can’t be told. They don’t like to be told.’

The Last Romeo is an utterly charming novel! It follows James on his quest to find love and the problems that come from being too open on the internet. After his breakup with his long term beau Adam, he begins documenting his attempts at navigating the dating world on a blog, vaguely keeping things anonymous but not quite as anonymous as he probably should have been. Along the way, he meets numerous kinds of men. The dates range from the utterly awkward, to the gross and uncomfortable (the description of one man’s bathroom will stay with me for ETERNITY), to the heart-fluttery and love-struck.

James, or ‘Jim’, makes a lot of mistakes in his quest for the perfect man. He gets bitter, even mean in his blog posts, but the other characters are quick to point out his bitchy moments and don’t shy away from telling him when he’s in the wrong. I quite liked the background characters as well, which is hugely important for a story. His friends Bella, Richie and Nicole, and little Hayden are all awesome; Nate, the (closeted) sports star, was adorable and totally stole my heart; then there’s Finn, the writer, and Luca, the blog fan who James gets to know over months of posts. They’re all very well rounded. You get more characters on the dates, but those really stick out in my mind. There’s also James’ rival at work and his dealings with his boss, both of which come up quite often throughout the novel.

I adored Nate especially. PROTECT NATE AT ALL COSTS. But James does spend a good bit of time thinking about his actions and reflecting; he admits his faults and tries to change. There’s good character growth. He acknowledges enjoying the fame his blog eventually brings him and how it negatively impacted his own view of things. He also gets some very sage advice: ‘If you don’t give your critics any meat, they can’t tear it from your bones.’

My prediction of the ending changed a few times and I kept wanting him to end up with different characters at different points. Ultimately, I quite liked the ending! If you’re looking for a fun rom-com novel, I totally recommend this one. And I’m definitely adding the author’s new novel The Magnificent Sons to my list.

Goodreads

Audiobook Review: Everything You Love Will Burn [2018]

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Everything You Love Will Burn, written and narrated by Vegas Tenold

Whew. Glad to be done with this one. It’s a book about the rise of white nationalism and I’m honestly impressed by Vegas Tenold’s ability to endure listening to this racism and sexism in person without losing his temper. I would have lost my mind. This is a really, really hard one to get through. It’s very important to know about the rise of white nationalism, but listening to this book left me wanting to smash my head into the wall.

Me, throughout this entire book:

Show Review: Zoo (2015)

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WELL JUST TAKE MY HEART AND GALLOP AWAY WITH IT, WHY DON’T YOU?

Guys. Guys. There are those shows that you start out loving cos the plot’s insane, and then they just go and throw in the most amazing characters and give you a couple that’s just going to tear your heart apart – and that’s this one. This is only a review of season one, am on season two, there are three total. 🙂

So Zoo beings with zoologist Jackson Oz (played by James Wolk) and his best friend Abraham Kenyatta (played by Nonso Anozie) wondering what is happening to the lions in Kenya. They normally protect the animals from poachers (and there’s a hilarious scene where Jackson saves a rhino with a boombox) but all of a sudden, the lions start to act abnormally. They meet Chloe Tousignant (played by Nora Arnezeder), the only survivor of a lion attack on a village. Chloe, a French intelligence agent, is in Kenya on what would have been her honeymoon, only she found out her fiancé was cheating on her, so she cancelled her wedding and came alone.

In the US, Jamie Campbell (played by Kristen Connolly), a journalist, is investigating a corporation, Reiden Global, that is responsible for poisoning her home town and has left dirty footprints all over the world. She’s convinced they’ve been behind aberrant animal behaviour and wants to nail them for it. She gets fired because the corporation has ties to her newspaper. Jamie tracks down Mitch Morgan (played by Billy Burke), a veterinary pathologist. The pair begin investigating Reiden Global and learn more about connections between the products Reiden Global makes and the increasingly violent attacks happening in the animal kingdom: dogs turning against people, bears breaking into houses, bats swarming a solar panel so scientists freeze. It gets really gruesome.

Jamie and Mitch’s search leads them to Jackson, Abraham and Chloe, and the five of them are recruited to investigate the animal attacks. But, of course, nothing is as it seems and the truth about what’s happening to the animals is more complicated than any of them could have imagined.

Jackson’s father, we slowly learn, had predicated what was going to happen to the animals before he died. The group unravel the mystery together, while fighting back against members of Reiden Global who want to silence them for good.

I find everything about this series interesting, especially the idea of animals evolving to outsmart people. It’s not quite Planet of the Apes, level. The animals aren’t talking. But they’re evolving, and the explanations are interesting, although I’m not sure how much is hard science and how much is just an interesting idea. Eh, I don’t care. I loved Jurassic Park 😉

The central cast are wonderful together, although I’m guaranteed to enjoy pretty much anything with Billy Burke. Like Timothy Olyphant, I just adore him as an actor and give anything he’s in a chance. Nonso Anozie is also brilliant.

I love the characters of Mitch and Jamie probably the most, but Abe, Jackson and Chloe aren’t far behind. Mitch/Jamie have such amazing chemistry and one of my favourite scenes happens at the start of season two. MY HEART. THEY ARE SO PERFECT. He’s a grumpy veterinarian who makes it clear that he chose the job because he doesn’t like people, while Jamie is outgoing and vivacious and determined. They’re total opposites and work so well together and I just hope they end up together! MY OTP! (/◕ヮ◕)/

I totally recommend this show and I can’t wait to see how it ends!

Mitch, everyone:

 

 

**gifs found online, and here and here, not mine

Book Review: Unfollow (2019)

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Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope by Megan Phelps-Roper

… that open discourse and dialectic is the most effective enabler of the evolution of individuals and societies. That the answer to bad ideas is to publicly reason against them. To advocate for and propagate better ones. And that it is dangerous to vest any central authority with broad powers to limit the bounds of acceptable discussion. Because these powers lend themselves to authoritarian abuse, the creation of echo chambers, and the marginalisation of ideas that are true but unpopular. In short, the principles underlying the freedom of speech recognise that all of us are susceptible to cognitive deficiencies and groupthink.

I first heard about the Westboro Baptist Church when the documentary by Louis Theroux first aired: BBC’s The Most Hated Family in America. The group is probably most famous for picketing funerals of soldiers and their homophobic signs. Megan’s story follows her mounting disillusionment with the group, questions she had as a child that went unanswered, and her growing role in the church even as she wondered about the rights and wrongs of it all. Eventually she becomes the most well-known spokesperson for the group and runs the online social media platforms. It’s there that she starts to engage with others’ perspectives and eventually changes her own. She starts to see the damage hatred and unkindness can do.

It is disconcerting – shamefully, unimaginably so – to look back and accept that my fellow church members and I were collectively engaging in the most egregious display of logical blindness that I have ever witnessed.

I have great sympathy for those born into cults. It’s utterly heartbreaking. Her memories about the abuse she and her siblings suffered is gut-wrenching. More than once I cried listening to her story. Little moments really stand out: she admits that she didn’t know what her signs meant when she first held them; the letter she signed and sent to a newspaper as a child was actually written by her aunt.

That she broke free at all is commendable, but to see how far she’s come is just brilliant. Also, her Twitter pic now reads GOD LOVES GAYS. What a wonderful, wonderful turn around. :’)

Book Review: The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (1985)

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The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl

This is one Roald Dahl book I’d actually never heard of! I’m surprised, because it was written in 1985, but somehow it slipped past me until today. I didn’t love it as much as Matilda, The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it’s very cute in its own right! The audio book is narrated by Hugh Laurie, which I thoroughly recommend. He sings!

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Also, the list of sweets at the end is an absolute delight! You can tell Dahl loves sweets, haha. Apparently he published a cookbook as well? What rock have I been living under? I really want to try some of his recipes now. I mean, the man who gave us The Chocolate Factory can only create epic dessert, surely? 😀

Anyways, super cute book, definitely recommend.

Book Review: Matilda (1988)

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Matilda by Roald Dahl

The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.

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This is one of my forever-favs. This book gave me so much joy as a child and it still holds a special place in my heart. Little Matilda Wormwood with her wretched family, her wretched headmistresses, and so much cunning in her mind that she devises a way to help herself, her classmates and the wonderful Miss Honey.

Four for you, Matilda.

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Audiobook Review: Anne of Green Gables (1908)

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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive — it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do.

Good freaking rainbow toaster sticks, this book is just every shade of adorable. Anne has absolutely no chill and I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT. She reminds me of me, as a kid, actually. The hyper active but deeply insecure girl who just has no filter and yammers on and on. Hehehe. Embrace your lack of chill, guys. 😉

I’m not surprised by how much I liked it, though I’m surprised by things I probably wouldn’t have picked up on if I’d read it as a kid. Watching Anne with an E had me drawing hearts around Anne and Gilbert, but this book totally had me wondering if Anne/Diana was the true OTP. And I’m not the only one. I could definitely see Anne and Gilbert being rivals and friends forever, with Anne and Diana being meant to be. But heck, they’re all so cute. Anne probably has chemistry with the flowers in her garden, though. Whatever your interpretation or OTP, this book is just wholesome. Like, it’s such a happy story, set in such a lovely, dreamy place. And crikey does it make me miss Canada. Nova Scotia’s the only place I’ve really been (and Anne comes from Nova Scotia!), but now I’m desperate to see PEI.

And this → → I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne. Just mind you that. Rather than a dozen boys. ← ← was just the *chef’s kiss* of the book. Bearing in mind this was written in 1908. WE STAN A BIT, MATTHEW.

Also, I am perfectly content having Rachel McAdams narrate absolutely everything.

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Gosh, she’s so lovely, isn’t she? (/◕ヮ◕)/

tr;dr read Anne of Green Gables, ya goobers. It’s a delight.

Mini Review Roundup [19/03]

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Hello, Moto by Nnedi Okorafor

When you mix juju with technology, you give up control. You are at the will of something far beyond yourself.

This was a really intriguing tale about witchcraft and technology, and the consequences that come from blending the two. I only wish there’d been a little bit more to the story, but overall I really liked it. Available here.

 

Trial Run (Wild Heritance #0.5) by S. Lynn Helton

She wasn’t trying to prove anything, was she?

Ooooh, this was cool. I haven’t read the Wild Heritance books, but this novella has left me bursting with questions. Such great world building and adventure! I can’t wait to see where the story takes Namid.

 

Migration by Kat Howard

In every life I can remember, which is not all of them, not any more, I have longed to fly.

This was an absolutely beautiful tale of birds and eternity. Read here.