Secrets We Keep

tags: Danish, drama, murder mystery, Netflix series

⭐⭐

Cecilie grows suspicious when her neighbor's young Filipino au pair, Ruby, disappears from an affluent Copenhagen neighborhood. Driven to uncover the truth, Cecilie launches her own investigation, only to find more than she bargained for. 

This drama murder mystery story is not unique and has been done many many times before. The acting and direction is mediocre if not almost terrible. The main character, the rich Cecilie runs ALL THE TIME. Once or twice is fine but the scenes where she is running is just a filler for telling a short tragic story. I guessed who the culprit/s is/are when they first appeared in the very first episode. It is that obvious. Of course, there is no justice for the dead Filipino woman. So what is the point of the show? SMH😾

Not recommended. Trust me.

Nonnas

tags: grandmas, Italian, Netflix movie, family restaurant, Vince Vaughn

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5

From IMDB

After losing his beloved mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers as the chefs.

The nonnas are played by Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, and Susan Sarandon. all 70+ years old. Cast is mostly Italian actors or are part Italian. 

Highly recommended. I love it and will watch it again. The movie made me want to cook a batch of Sunday Gravy which I cooked just once, 15 years ago. .

The Palace At The End Of The Sea

tags: bildungsroman, historical fiction 

⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

A young man comes of age and crosses continents in search of an identity—and a cause—at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War in a thrilling, timely, and emotional historical saga.

New York City, 1929. Young Theo Sterling’s world begins to unravel as the Great Depression exerts its icy grip. He finds it hard to relate to his father. His father, a Jewish self-made businessman, refuses to give up on the American dream, and his mother, a refugee from religious persecution in Mexico, holds fast to her Catholic faith. When disaster strikes the family, Theo must learn who he is. A charismatic school friend and a firebrand girl inspire him to believe he can fight Fascism and change the world, but each rebellion comes at a higher price, forcing Theo to question these ideologies too.

From New York’s Lower East Side to an English boarding school to an Andalusian village in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Theo’s harrowing journey from boy to man is set against a backdrop of societies torn apart from within, teetering on the edge of a terrible war to which Theo is compulsively drawn like a moth to a flame.

This novel is one of the choices on Amazon First Reads for June 2025. I downloaded it as soon as I saw the author: Simon Tolkien. I have read just one book by this author which I enjoyed. 

All the members of Theo's family, mother, father, and specially Theo are repulsive. The father is Jewish and the mother is a Catholic from Mexico. Theo as a child is very disrespectful to his parents. He is full of hate for his parents and it is not explained why. He just is. His parents are not likable but they do not deserve Theo's contempt for them. It doesn't make sense because the story is set first in 1929 and I don't believe children were like Theo at the time. The author wrote unfavorably the Catholic religion and its practices, capitalism, Republican (Herbert Hoover), and even Jews and seemed to sympathize with communism. Theo is a magnet to communist characters even as a 13 year old boy (huh?!!), first in New York, then England, then in Spain. What? Why is every communist leaning person whether adult, child, or teenager drawn to him? It's not credible. It is too contrived.

This is Book 1 of 2 books and I won't be reading the second. Not recommended.