rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2022-05-17 09:19 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2022-05-17 09:19 pm
The book that IKEA made me read, and more!
I was on the phone for 30+ minutes with an IKEA customer service rep who was trying to arrange a fix for the company’s mistake. This meant lots of time on hold, which eventually led to me re-starting the novel Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots.
I had abandoned it at some point a few days earlier, but once I read a bit more I was interested enough to finish. My first instinct was right, though: this was not a me story. Creative, visceral, and angry, Hench is going to stick with me, even though I don’t actually care about the characters. So… sort of recommended? If you can deal ok with body horror, which is part of why it wasn’t for me.
Beth O’Leary’s The Switch is a very twee contemporary romance / family drama, but it’s quality twee. I’d read more O’Leary in the future.
Ages ago I read the first of the Lady Sherlock books by Sherry Thomas. Recently I added books 2-4 to my “finished” pile. They’re not favorites, but they do have entertainment value–enough that I’ll probably read more at some point. Maybe. It’s been a few days since I finished book 4, and I already can’t recall what that thing was that annoyed me about it…
Amongst Our Weapons is book 9 of the Rivers of London novel series, and it’s a delight to re-immerse myself in that world. I think it wasbeatrice_otter who said that Peter Grant’s superpower is his compassion, and I would agree.
Movies:
Doctor Strange and the Multi-Verse of Madness falls into the category of sadly mediocre. Good actors, compelling (and horrifying) visuals, but the storytelling was lacking. More specifically: Strange didn’t really go through a character arc, Wanda repeated a character arc from her Disney+ show, and America was a plot device rather than a character.
As both a Marvel film and a Sam Raimi movie, the pacing was non-stop, so I wasn’t bored. But it wasn’t good. Fun =/= good.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore also suffered from poor writing, although it lacked the panache of Raimi’s Marvel outing, and its visual effects were less interesting. So if I had to choose between these two meh movies, I’d go with the new Doctor Strange.
I had abandoned it at some point a few days earlier, but once I read a bit more I was interested enough to finish. My first instinct was right, though: this was not a me story. Creative, visceral, and angry, Hench is going to stick with me, even though I don’t actually care about the characters. So… sort of recommended? If you can deal ok with body horror, which is part of why it wasn’t for me.
Beth O’Leary’s The Switch is a very twee contemporary romance / family drama, but it’s quality twee. I’d read more O’Leary in the future.
Ages ago I read the first of the Lady Sherlock books by Sherry Thomas. Recently I added books 2-4 to my “finished” pile. They’re not favorites, but they do have entertainment value–enough that I’ll probably read more at some point. Maybe. It’s been a few days since I finished book 4, and I already can’t recall what that thing was that annoyed me about it…
Amongst Our Weapons is book 9 of the Rivers of London novel series, and it’s a delight to re-immerse myself in that world. I think it was
beatrice_otter who said that Peter Grant’s superpower is his compassion, and I would agree. Movies:
Doctor Strange and the Multi-Verse of Madness falls into the category of sadly mediocre. Good actors, compelling (and horrifying) visuals, but the storytelling was lacking. More specifically: Strange didn’t really go through a character arc, Wanda repeated a character arc from her Disney+ show, and America was a plot device rather than a character.
As both a Marvel film and a Sam Raimi movie, the pacing was non-stop, so I wasn’t bored. But it wasn’t good. Fun =/= good.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore also suffered from poor writing, although it lacked the panache of Raimi’s Marvel outing, and its visual effects were less interesting. So if I had to choose between these two meh movies, I’d go with the new Doctor Strange.
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