Half of this is about Sophie, a French woman waiting for her husband to return home during WW1. What she endures is gut-wrenching. The other half is about Liv, a real prick of a woman who I hate with every fiber of my being who doesn’t want to give up a painting that doesn’t belong to her.
My recommendation: 2 stars for Sophie, behavioral therapy for Liv.
Rating: 2.0
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Author: Jojo Moyes
Format: Audiobook
Length: 13h 29m
Published: 2012
Alternative(s)
Reason: Don’t know if I’ll do this often, but I need to cross medias to point out a parallel for this one.
Suggestion: Woman in Goldwas a similar story with a better plot.
Edward Ashton had a really weird fantasy about what it might be like to exist alongside his own clone and wrote it down. Then some people read it. It may be packaged in a sci-fi wrapper with dystopian-ish confetti, but it fell apart in act 3. Like… I’ll never be able to un-read this.
Rating: 2.0
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Author: Edward Ashton
Format: Audiobook
Length: 9h 16m
Published: 2022
Alternative(s)
Reason: Snarky main character navigates the complexities of his unique existence in a dystopian sci-fi environment.
A bunch of kids stumble into a parallel universe and fight some evil with the assistance of a holy lion. Oh, and then there’s the racist book that we won’t talk about. Having only read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was growing up, I am cringing at this series as a collective body of work. Overtly religious, aged like milk. Not a fan.
Read in chronological order: (1) The Magician’s Nephew; (2) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; (3) The Horse and His Boy; (4) Prince Caspian; (5) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; (6) The Silver Chair; (7) The Last Battle
Earth invites aliens to visit. Alien accepts the invite, by way of a dead American man. America makes it awkward. But the man’s widow is along for the ride… in more ways than one.
Look. This one had me in the first half. Cute. Quaint. Quirky. And an out-of-this-world performance from the one and only Jeff Bridges. But then at the very end–in a train car–this takes a weirdly 80’s turn and I can’t unhear the words or unsee the things. Took me completely out of it and there was no redemption to be found.
The unsolicited origin story of renowned chocolatier, Willy Wonka. Turns out he isn’t a completely unhinged cynical hater of children… which is disappointing to be honest. Instead he is an innovative imagineer who will trust and befriend anyone just so he can make his mom proud.
A small Irish town full of dull, terrible, sexually repressed people is jostled by the discovery of some human remains. What could have been a solid little mystery was buried under unnecessary fluff. And other…things.
Imagine if the founders of Hogwarts and the School for Good & Evil got together and said “Psh, students don’t need any supervision. We’ll just magic the school itself to keep them in line! I mean, it’ll try to kill them on the daily but they’ll figure it out. Maybe.”
The worlds most annoying teenagers are blessed with magic abilities and spend an entire year forming alliances and rivalries just so they can get into a great clique after they graduate. Our main chick, El, is a jerk to her version of Peeta and speaks in mostly expository inner monologues. I’m honestly shocked this kept my attention at all which is why this is 2 stars instead of 1. Must be magic.
Penélope Cruz shines as a tertiary character in an otherwise wildly miscast film about the fall before the rise of the Ferrari empire. Enzo Ferrari embodies every company-owner out of his depth, pushing his employees to do the impossible and then is shocked when it goes horribly, tragically wrong.
1 star for Penélope. 1 star for set design. 0 stars for everything else.
Two not-so-funny hot people make a rom-com where we’re supposed to believe they could have a love/hate fake relationship. And of course this all takes place in a very intimate destination wedding venue with their closest friends & family who know them best… yet somehow miss all evidence of reality. Mmkay.
StoryJenna 