Month: November 2023

September, October, November Movies

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The Adjustment Bureau, 2011 (Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Michael Kelly, Terence Stamp) Grade B

Who decides what’s meant to be?

Cocaine Bear, 2023 (Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Brooklyn Prince, Alden Ehrenreich, Christian Convery) Grade B

Don’t judge. This nonsense was exactly what I needed after the Ohio State-Michigan football game.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-4.pngOperation Petticoat, 1959 (Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O’Brien, Dina Merill, Gene Evans, Dick Sargent, Arthur O’Connell) Grade B

Generational gender stereotypes aside, Funny!

A Haunting in Venice, 2023 (Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dorman, Camille Cottin, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Kyle Allen, Jude Hill, Ali Kahn) Grade B

Venice is its own character.

To Catch a Thief, 1955 (Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams) Grade B-

Thief steals wealthy heiress heart.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, 2023 (Chris Pine. Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis) Grade B-

As D&D novice still enjoyed it.

Us, 2019 (Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elizabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker) Grade B-

Twinning is a bad look.

Good, 2008) (Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker) Grade C+

Is neutrality possible in 1930s Germany?

What Happens Later, 2023 (Meg Ryan, David Duchovny) Grade C

Scattered RomCom with likeable actors.

Locked In, 2023 (Famke Janssen, Rose Williams, Alex Hassell, Finn Cole, Anna Friel) Grade C-

Twisty, but marred with unlikeable characters.

Five Nights at Freddy’s, 2023 (Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Lillard) Grade C-

Best not to dwell on it.

Book Club – The Measure by Nikki Erlich

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Another amazing book club night with the Desperate Bookworms. What would happen if one day everyone woke up with a box on their doorstep with a string predicting the length of their life? And it was alarmingly accurate? Would you open the box? Would you throw it away without looking? Such is the story in The Measure by Nikki Erlich.

Jen (holding the book) did a very fun thing by having a box on each seat that we had to decide whether to open or not. I got a shorter string, but not the shortest 😬

Although I had some issues with the book and didn’t love it, it did lead to some fantastic discussion and I’d highly recommend for book groups.

Would you open the box? Would you want to know what month you died? Would the answer be different at various points in your life? I would not open the box for myself, but as long as I have a kid dependent on me I would choose to know.

This Week – Goodbye October

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October is such a wonderful month around here (2 birthdays, an anniversary, and a week long book sale to coordinate), but I’m always exhausted by Halloween. Now that November is here I’m deep into Cybils Awards reading . I’m a panelist for the first round of Nonfiction (elementary, middle, and high school). There are 205 books to read and I finished number 83 last night. This photo is my October reading with many of the picture books showing. I think elementary level reading accounts for about half of the books to read and the vast majority of what I’ve read so far. This week I need to start diving into more of the high school books.

Books read

I have SO MANY books in this house right now with so many different piles that I’m not even sure how many books I read YESTERDAY (but I know it was more than 5). Let’s just say that Goodreads tells me I’ve read 277 for the year and even if I’ve missed a book or two in the reading frenzy, I feel that’s fairly accurate.

Posts

I did manage to listen to an adult audio book and post about it! The Girl with All the Gifts. It’s an older book, but it was a fun Halloween-time apocalyptic horror thriller.

When Jason and I took a trip to the Finger Lakes region in New York, I stopped in a cute little bookstore and found a few books from a historical romantic suspense series that I loved. It encouraged me to post about it. The Deadly series by Brenda Joyce.

I’ve also posted about actor Viggo Mortensen and about the wonderful kids book A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness recently.

TV

Jason and I have worked our way through season 2 of The Wheel of Time series on Amazon with plans to watch the finale tonight. We’re also watching the Great British Bake Off on Netflix.

Plans for the weekend

It’s going to be 60 degrees here! Woo hoo! So, it’s the day to clean out the garage before it gets too cold. We bought a snow blower and we need to find room for it 🙂

Hopefully you’ve got more exciting plans.

The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

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The Girl with All the Gifts. 4.25/5. Apocalyptic horror thriller?. 462 pages, 2014

Let’s talk about the 2014 The Girl With All the Gifts. This is an apocalyptic horror story, as far as I can say. We start with Melanie, a ten-year-old kept locked and chained unless during the week when she has class with other kids just like her. The doctor wants to slice her open, the sergeant is happy to let that happen, and the teacher just loves her the best she can.

I don’t read a lot of this genre, but I got sucked into this one and I’m so happy I picked it up. I loved the ending which took it to the next level. There’s a second book that I might check out, but it takes place before this book and I’m not sure I’m curious enough.

Do you like these types of horror/apocalypse/thriller type of books? Think Justin Cronin, Neil Gaiman, Dean Koontz.

Chapter 45

“What she thinks is: this could have been me. Why not? A real girl, in a real house, with a mother and a father and a brother and a sister and an aunt and an uncle and a nephew and a niece and a cousin and all those other words for the map of people who love each other and stay together. The map called family.

Growing up and growing old. Playing. Exploring. Like Pooh and Piglet. And then like the Famous Five. And then like Heidi and Anne of Green Gables. And then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not even caring whether what’s inside is good or bad. Because it’s both. Everything is always both.

But you have to open it to find that out.”