Where The Crawdads Sing

tags: coming of age, drama, mystery. Netflix streaming

⭐⭐⭐

From IMDB

Abandoned by her family, Kya Clark, otherwise known to the townspeople of Barkley Cove as the Marsh Girl, is mysterious and wild. "Where the Crawdads Sing" is a coming-of-age story of a young girl raised by the marshlands of the south in the 1950s. When the town hotshot is found dead, and inexplicably linked to Kya, the Marsh Girl is the prime suspect in his murder case.

The movie is based on a best selling book which I haven't read and I never had the interest in reading it. I'm not into books about being one with nature and have "spiritual" themes (according to reviews on Goodreads).

Kya, the youngest of 3 children, is abandoned first by the mother who couldn't take anymore her husband's alcoholism and physical abuse. The older brother and sister also leave for the same reason. Kya is left alone with her father who at first is tolerant of her but she ends up all alone in their house. What a depressing story. Who does that to a little girl? Where are the grandparents? Uncles? Aunties?  And who enjoys reading such a stupid story? The mother never came back nor check up on her. She wrote once but the letter was burned by the father. 

Kya had to use her smarts in order to survive, digging up shellfish and sells it to the Black couple who runs a goods store. The couple are the only people who are nice to her. They give her used clothing so she can go to school where the children make fun and gossip about her and call her names. Discouraged, she runs back home and to the marsh where she is at peace. How she lived alone for 10 years since everybody left is a mystery to me.

She learns how to read when she is already a teenager. A friend of her brother shows up one day and sees she is talented in drawing. He teaches her how to read and suggests she submit her work to a publishing company. He becomes her boyfriend, her first love. But he also abandons her for university. 5 years she waits for him then another young man starts paying attention to her and she accepts him. The boy has a fiancée but still wants to have Kya as his sex toy. She rejects him when she finds out about the fiancée. He becomes aggressive and tries to rape her. Then the young man dies, either murdered or by accident.

The movie focuses more on the murder mystery, her trial, and acquittal. The ending reveals if she really killed him. All the clues are there. You just have to pay attention to Kya's poetic and metaphorical dialog. She dies as an old lady with gray hair and still married to her first love but the truth will never be revealed. There is no point anyway.

It is an okay movie, good not great. The acting and cinematography are good.

Light Perpetual

adventure, fantasy, historical fiction, Hussite Wars, medieval

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

After his adventures in The Tower of Fools and Warriors of God, Reynevan is on the run again, harried by enemies—some human, and some mystical—at every turn. These are cruel and dangerous times for a man such as Reynevan, and to survive, he must set aside his history as a peaceful healer and idealist and play the brutal role of Hussite spy as crusades sweep through Silesia and the Czech Republic, and the world around him is forever changed.

The third and final book of The Hussite Wars does not disappoint. The ending is satisfying, although heavy on history, bloodletting, and Latin. Reynevan doesn't get the happy ending he is pursuing throughout the book and it is heartbreaking and might get you teary-eyed reading that part, at about 80% of the 640 page book. By the time I finished I can read the weird names without effort and also am able to guess correctly the meaning of the easier Latin passages. 😌

The highlight for me is my favorite character, Samson Honeypot and how he left his "physical body" again reminding me of The Little Prince, or maybe he is a heavenly being who possessed the body of a halfwit monk when Reynevan performed a magic in Book 1. 

Light Perpetual has all the fantasy elements from the first 2 books - magic, shape shifter, murderous evil bishop, nonstop fighting and burning of towns and people. Joan of Arc is mentioned briefly, alchemy, a 200 year old witch, and a golem as awesome as Samson are added to the already superior fantastical characters and story.

Highly recommended.

Enola Holmes 2

tags: action, adventure, comedy, female sleuth, Victorian period

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sequel to Enola Holmes streaming on Netflix. Millie Bobby Brown as Enola Holmes is a good actress and her character is entertaining. She and Henry Cavill as Sherlock have real rapport and fun to watch as brother and sister. As predicted, she and Lord Tewkesbury are an item confessing their love for each other. Her brother, Sherlock, has a bigger presence in the movie. They, with a little help from Tewkesbury, work together to find a missing woman and the death of a factory worker. I liked it regardless of the terrible and contrived version of Moriarty.😒

I am looking forward to the next movie although Dr. Watson will be played by an actor of Indian descent. *sigh* Can't escape this trend.

The movie made me bake a Scottish cake called Dundee Cake. It is a simple fruitcake with no spices nor candied fruits. The recipe with photos is here.

Save America - Save The World

Vote Republican November 8, 2022 and Save America.

Died Suddenly - A Documentary

Documentary will be streamed on November 21. Watch it, tell your family to watch it. It is no longer a conspiracy if healthy people of all ages suddenly dropping like flies. I hope this can be reversed.

Romantic Killer

tags: anime, comedy, Netflix streaming, romance

12 episodes

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A "non-heroine type" high school girl is thrown into a situation like something straight out of a dating simulation game! This slapstick adolescent romantic comedy follows the romance-averse Anzu.

Anzu Hoshino is a "non-heroine type" high school girl who pays no attention to fashion or romance and spends every day playing video games. After the wizard Riri suddenly appears and confiscates Anzu's three favorite things — video games, chocolate, and cats — she gets pursued by hot guys!

Super funny anime series. It's a departure from the usual anime love story. Anzu is not interested in boys, not even ikemen. She just wants to play video games, eat tons of chocolate, and play with her cat Momohiki. A wizard takes over her life and is forcing her to look at handsome boys and start dating. The episodes kept me in stitches. Brilliant script. Silly but entertaining as always. 

Highly recommended.

Don Matteo

 

tags: Italian TV series, mystery-crime, Terrence Hill

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Don Matteo is a TV series set in the town of Gubbio in Perugia, Italy. It has been airing in Italy since 2000 and still ongoing. The episodes starting from Season 1 are available to borrow from Hoopla through our county library. I have seen 4 episodes so far and they are good. The series is in Italian with English subtitles.

Don Matteo is a Catholic priest who has a keen sense of people and circumstances. He is able and more than willing to help the local police in solving crimes, just like Father Brown. His best friend is one of the policemen. Terrence Hill stars as the title character Don Matteo. He is 82 now and still filming the series.

Highly recommended for TV mystery viewers who don't mind reading subtitles.

Ulysses

From Amazon.com

Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It was first serialized from March 1918 to December 1920 and then published in its entirety in February 1922.

It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called a demonstration and summation of the entire movement. Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904.

Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain.

The novel is highly allusive and also imitates the styles of different periods of English literature. The novel's stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterization and broad humor, have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works in history; Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.

This book didn't interest me one bit when I joined a reading challenge of sorts many moons ago. I was discouraged by the reviews which are divided - love or hate, nothing in between. Some negative reviews say it is very difficult to read, hard to understand, doesn't make sense, life is too short to read an unreadable book, people who claim they have read it are liars/pretentious, etc. I avoided it and all of James Joyce's books even if I had nothing else in my stash or Kindle.

A few months ago, one of my favorite funnies drew Celebrate Literary Day, and one of them is Pretend You Have Read Ulysses Day. It made me chuckle and I decided maybe it's time to take a stab at it.

I did not expect to like the book nor finish it. It is moderately long at 740+ pages and took me a little over 1 month to finish although I feel like I never really finished it and I won't pretend I understood all of what I read. I will definitely read it again and couldn't care less if I won't be able to fully understand all of it. I refuse to read books/publications that explain each episode. That would be retarded if you need a book that explains what you are reading and I want to interpret them myself.

I love the book anyway and the prose is beautiful, often hilarious, and reminds me a little of the style of writing on some parts ofThe Last Samurai. I didn't find it too difficult to read although I gave up on the Latin passages. No need to dwell on those. James Joyce was a genius. Yeah.

The Bullet That Missed

tags: British series, mystery, septuagenarians, Thursday Murder Club #3

⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

It is an ordinary Thursday, and things should finally be returning to normal.

Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A local news legend is on the hunt for a sensational headline, and soon the gang are hot on the trail of two murders, ten years apart.

To make matters worse, a new nemesis pays Elizabeth a visit, presenting her with a deadly mission: kill or be killed...

While Elizabeth grapples with her conscience (and a gun), the gang and their unlikely new friends (including TV stars, money launderers and ex-KGB colonels) unravel a new mystery. But can they catch the culprit and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

I was eagerly awaiting the latest addition to the mystery series and was disappointed. I'm in the minority because the novel has a very high rating on Goodreads.

IMHO, the regulars, the two "bad" villains, and the mystery itself are too cartoonish. There are too many additional characters and the original side characters were set aside. Not good but I'm not saying bye bye yet to Mr. Richard Osman.. I will still read the next one.

Derry Girls Final Season

tags: British sit-com, Catholic school, Netflix

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Third and final season of Derry Girls is now streaming on Netflix. Liam Neeson does a cameo on Episode 1 and is absolutely perfect looking tired and weary interrogating the girls. He gave up after listening to Uncle Colm. Great acting and I wonder if he was trying not to laugh. 

Watch all 7 episodes.