Watched, Read, Loved: January 2017

I’m not going to bless you with that whole “how quick did this month go” crap, because let’s face it; January 2017 took its sweet time being done. At this stage I’m so deliberately avoiding bitching about politics on here, but please note that I do a whole lot of bitching in private about that man who is committing genocide.

I had my birthday on the 25^th. I am now officially on the wrong side of 25. I’m 27, so I’ve already been on the wrong side for a whole year, but I was ignoring that at 26. Apart from suddenly stressing about retirement plans and the meaning of my entire existence, I’m not too stressed. I have decided that 27 good things WILL happen to me this year, so I will keep you in the loop.

Here is what I got up to this month, which is an impressive amount! #GoMe

Movies watched:

10 Things I hate about you:

Confession time: if I had to go live on an island indefinitely with only ten movies to watch, I’d very likely pack 10 Things I Hate About You in.  I love everything about this film – how 90’s everything is: Julia Stiles’ hair, the clothes everyone wore, the music and the cars. I die every time Heath Ledger gifts us with that smile; it is equal parts pain and pleasure. The quick bantering and the ridiculous teenage humor make me laugh every single time. I actually wrote a post about how much I love this film, so I won’t turn it into a whole review here, but I’m sure you are getting the point here that I love this film.

How to lose a guy in ten days: Kate Hudson used to be my ultimate girl crush as a teenager – she’s so pretty and preppy and blonde. I’m now at a point where I want actresses to be more than pretty, preppy and blonde, but I still find her a good romantic comedy lead. She wouldn’t hold up in more serious roles, but these? I’ll cast her any day. It also contains the delicious Matthew M.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): I finally managed to finish up my Blindspots for 2016. To round the year of with To Kill A Mockingbird was a great idea – what an incredible film.

Passengers (2017): These films with the strange release dates make it impossible to put them in the correct year. I watched in this year, hence this year will be referenced. I actually really liked it and think that the Oscar nod for set design is well deserved. I know it didn’t go down well with everybody, but I actually quite enjoyed it despite the numerous flaws.

Fool’s Gold (2008): This falls in the time frame where Matthew McConaughey became the romantic comedy guy, something which still grates on a lot of people today. I do think that Fool’s Gold lacks certain important things like a proper plot, but I didn’t hate it at all.

Scream 4: I finished up my run on the Scream franchise this month. I am so sad! Because while I can definitely watch it again, I won’t ever be able to watch it for the first time again. I’m only posting this for Halloween, because I’d love to actually do a Halloween month this year, but please know that I did love this so much!

Sicario (2015): Don’t you just love when a film is good enough to inspire you to read up on what you are watching? Shortly after the film ended I read up all about Juarez, Mexico, and the increasingly dodgy sounding CIA. Sicario is a great film that stays with you after you watched it and I will definitely be revisiting Denis Vileneuve’s film in the near future.

The Princess Diaries:A Royal Engagement (2004): I remember this as a decent movie, which it was NOT. I adore the first Princess Diaries, but the sequel suffers from the sequelitis and it is rampant with bad acting, bad pacing and general badness. The years have been kind to Chris Pine – he is so much more attractive right now than he was in 2004.

Love, Rosie (2014): I’m still trying to formulate some thoughts on Love, Rosie. Did I like it? Moderately so. I know for a fact that it contains some of the most awkward of scenes ever invented, and I was horrified and cringed so much. It gets a little drawn out and the story is never really strong. I do think that Sam Claflin is simply beautiful and that if just smiled all the time the world would be a better place.

Vrou Soek Boer (2014): I got my fix of Afrikaans films with Vrou Soek Boer in January. It translates to “A woman is looking for a farmer” but it was a much cuter film than that translation suggested. I enjoyed it very much!

Sisters (2016): This is surely the biggest waste of cash of 2016 for me. I bought this on DVD, sure I would at least like it okay. Nope. I hated it. What a stupid, unfunny film.

The Accountant (2016): To embrace my mood of needing to watch people beat up things I picked up the Accountant. Ben Affleck’s hit of 2016, where he is an autistic superhero, fulfilled that need on some level but I was also left feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the ending.

Series:

The X-Files Season 1: I am having so much fun with the X-files. There is nothing better when you discover a series and along with the discovery is the fact that there are so many seasons with a lot of episodes per season. SCORE! It took me a few episodes to get used to the layout of the show as well as the whole 1992 vibe the first season has going for it. It is pretty good and smart, as well as some funny conspiracy moments going on.

Alias Season 3: Alias has been great to me. I still need to finish Seasons four and five. I had some issues with the third season such as Sydney being a complete psycho, but overall still really great.

True Blood Season 1: I’ve been in the mood torewatch this for a while now. After watching a few episodes that need was cured because True Blood has some grating characters in that I somehow softened in my memory. I might still finish it, but right now there are other better shows that deserve attention.

Books:

The Collaborator (Margaret Leroy): Few books have stayed with me like this book has. I’ve had the worst book hangover since then and such troubles finding another book to seek my teeth into.

The Road to the Sea (Ciara Hegarthy): I’m going to go rampant on this book when I finally review it. Overly descriptive and insanely boring, this is one of the least favorite novels I’ve picked up in a while.

The Power of Six (Pittacus Lore): I’m almost done with Book Two in the Lorien Legacies. Although I am still enjoying, the first read and progressed a whole lot better.

What have you been up to?

February 7, 2017February 7, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2017, Movies, reading, Review, Series, UncategorizedTags: 10 Things I hate about you, 2017, Alias, Amy Poehler, Anna Kendrick, Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Benico Del Toro, Bok Van Blerk, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Ciara Hegarthy, Emily Blunt, Fool's Gold, How to Lose A Guy In Ten Days, January, Jennifer Lawrence, JK Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Josh Brolin, Kate Hudson, Lika Berning, Lily Collins, Love, Love Rosie, Margaret Leroy, Matthew McConaughey, monthly rundowns, Nico Panagio, Passengers, Pittacus Lore, Sam Claflin, Sicario, Sisters, The Accountant, The Collaborator, The Power of Six, The Princess Diaries, The Road to The Sea, The X-files, Tina Fey, To Kill a Mockingbird, True Blood 11 Comments

Book Review: The Collaborator (Margaret Leroy)

Plot:

1940, Guernsey…

Vivienne de la Mare waits nervously for the bombs to come. Instead comes occupation. Nothing is safe anymore. But was anything truly safe before?

The façade of the perfect wife, with her husband fighting on the frontline, cracks under the strain of the lie. Her new life is one where the enemy lives next door. Small acts of kindness from one Nazi soldier feels like a betrayal. A forbidden friendship in a frightening world. But how can you hate your enemy when you know his name, when he makes you feel alive, when everything else is dying around you?

Vivienne is fighting her own private war. On one side, the safe, secret, loving world she could build with her captain; on the other, virtuous loneliness and danger. It’s time for Vivienne to choose: collaboration or resistance…

Rating: 8/10

A two word review of The Collaborator would be “thought-provoking”. Set in the Crown Dependency Island Guernsey during WWII, The Collaborator raises some interesting questions. Can we really call someone our enemy without them having personally slighted us? When they appear to be kind and thoughtful and ready to help out? When they are your enemy based on a war that is not occurring in front of your eyes but somewhere far away?

Leroy goes all out by writing her male lead as a German soldier, the most reviled characters of WWII. She refrained from writing Gunther as SS, because there would be no redeeming qualities in such a person and her book would have flopped. Gunther is merely a man that is fighting for his country and actually grateful to live on the small island and not to further Hitler’s mad plans around the world. He misses his old life, and Vivienne and Gunther are able to create some fragile contentment in their lives for a while. As the war continues Vivienne finds it more difficult to remain impassive about it and questions how much Gunther is also turning a blind eye too. Can the two exit the war unscathed?

Leroy wrote this book with an underlying tension. The feeling is so dreary and tense. It brings the reader to ground level and makes you question your beliefs about a lot of things – religion, the Germans in a time where everyone hated the Germans. Vivienne starts to crack as the soldier’s wife – she knew her husband cheated on her before the war, he made her feel inadequate and he was already emotionally removed from her when he left to go to war. Can we blame her for cracking? Do we dare? Max and Gunther, part of the German army, are seemingly good men fighting for their country’s honor. They aren’t evil bastards running death camps, they are soldiers working on a small island doing as they are instructed. They face harsh punishment and certain death if they rebel. Some in their group aren’t as kind as these two, which leads to some complications later on as one would expect.

What I consider a huge improvement from the previous Leroy novel I read, The Lake House, is that Vivienne actually cares for and considers her children a great deal. Millie and Blanche are a few years apart and both pose a different challenge to Vivienne – Millie is young and requires a lot of care, while Blanche is on the verge of the rest of her life and struggling to remain a young teenager when the world around her is crumbling and harsh. On top of these troubles is Vivienne’s elderly mother-in-law, who can be extremely forgetful and dangerously attentive at times. So can we really judge her for seeking her comfort with a kind, understanding German soldier? I couldn’t.

The book has some surprises in store – the awakening of Vivienne’s determination to do something for the prisoners of war, the twisting at unexpected times and the very sad and bleak end. I’m not usually one for such a depressing end, but it suited the tone of the book – war is a cruelty that changes people and destroys lives.

The Collaborator probably wouldn’t be enjoyed by everyone. I liked it though – it kept me in such suspense most of the time and I kept thinking about it while I wasn’t reading it, a sure sign that a book is a good read.

January 18, 2017January 15, 2017 by Natasha Categories: Books, Review, Reviews, Romance, UncategorizedTags: Book, Germany, Guersney, literature, Margaret Leroy, Nazis, Reading, reading a book, Second World War, The Collaborator, The Soldier's wife, World War II 3 Comments

December 2016: Watched, Read, Loved

Happy 2017 everyone! I pretty much disappeared from the blog in December. I needed a break. I often am way too harsh on myself about blogging – wanting desperately to post five times a week. It is important to remind myself though that blogging is supposed to be fun and for times where I actually have the time. So I gave it a bit of a break and I am back feeling all refreshed!

It was also quite a sad December globally with the deaths of George Michael and Carrie Fisher. It seemed like 2016 kept knocking everyone down and I am really glad it ended. Let’s hope for a peaceful and fantastic 2017.

Series Watched:

Vampire Diaries Season 5: I am currently stalling with this season. It is a pretty rotten season and by far the worst of all the seasons so far. I need to finish it up but definitely not feeling all the bullshit of the season.

Alias season 1 and 2: EEK! I am having so much fun! It is so much fun! I can’t wait to review this.

Movies Watched:

Rogue One: A Star Wars movie. It was good, great excitement and all. I did like The Force Awakens better though.

Memento: This was my second last blindspot for 2016. It is mind tingling and interesting, well directed and acted. Definitely worthy of watching, despite me taking ages to get it done!

Annie: I put this on for my mother to watch. It was okay – very singy and full of children but not overly offensive. It’s definitely a film that parents can watch with their children without wanting to cry because it is so boring.

Twilight: I had such a weak moment! Want to review them all at some stage again.

Scream 1, 2 and 3: this was so much fun. I’m planning to do the fourth one soon. Great entertainment!

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Same here. I am having way too much fun with these old school thrillers.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:  second time watching this and I loved it way too much.

The DUFF: I am racking up the watches on this film. I showed it to my mom and my bestie on separate occasions and they both really enjoyed it. Why so much hate against this film? I know it is completely different from the book, but the additions worked really well.

The Departed: The Departed is a film my bestie has told me to watch or be disowned. So I watched it with her just to make sure she had the evidence and everything 😀 did I like it? Yeah. Excellent performances and directing all around. I got a bit exhausted with the length of it, and that is about the only thing I didn’t like.

Me Before You (2016): after reading the thought provoking book I was quite amped for the film. I pushed it back when the reviews didn’t garner the most promising reviews I pushed it back. Bestie and I watched it on our visit, and it was okay. Not really bad, but Me Before You doesn’t carry as much emotional baggage as the book does.

Cruel Intentions: What a deranged film. I enjoyed it, but wow, deranged. Not something to watch with your parents, if you weren’t already aware.

Ocean’s Eleven:  I really liked this! Heist films done right is a treat for the soul man. Clooney and Pitt together? There can’t be a better idea out there.

Seven:  I got to see a young Brad Pitt as the excitable and young cop and Morgan Freeman as the intelligent, calm cop. It’s quite dark and deals with a demented serial killer. It had a dark and depressing atmosphere.

Books Read:

Dawson’s Creek – this is a compilation of short stories based on the series. I’d love to watch the series at some stage, but the book isn’t worth reviewing.

The Collaborator – Margaret Leroy – I can’t wait to post this! I really loved the book, and was so unhappy when I finished it.

The Martian – Andy Weir. The Martian was my favorite film of 2015, and I really wanted to get my hands on the novel. However, I’m struggling at this stage to get through it as it contains some unnecessary jargon in my opinion.

What were you up to in December? Tell me!

January 10, 2017January 8, 2017 by Natasha Categories: Movies, movies, Review, Reviews, Series, UncategorizedTags: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alias, Andy Weir, Annie, Books, Bradley Cooper, Cruel Intentions, Damon Salvatore, Dawson's Creek, December, Elena Gilbert, Emilia Clarke, George Clooney, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Garner, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margaret Leroy, Matt Damon, Me Before You, Memento, Michael Vartan, monthly rundowns, Morgan Freeman, Movies, Ocean's Eleven, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Reading, Reese Witherspoon, Reviews, Rogue One, Ryan Phillipe, Sam Claflin, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Scream, Selma Blair, Series, Seven, Star Wars, Stefan Salvatore, Sydney Bristow, The Collaborator, The Departed, The DUFF, The Martian, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Victor Garber, Wes Craven 6 Comments

Book Review: The River House (Margaret Leroy)

Plot: A gripping novel of literary suspense about a woman forced to reveal a secret that may solve a crime but ruin her life. From almost their first meeting, Ginnie Holmes is transformed by the passion she feels with Will-so much so that she risks her marriage and her children as she abandons herself to their exhilarating affair. They meet in an abandoned boathouse, certain they will never be discovered there

Rating: 7/10

I picked this book up as a complete whim and I am really glad I did. I’ve been casually checking the scene for new authors that I can read a few books of, but it is hard to find someone whose writing style is good enough and their stories are interesting enough to commit to for more than one read.

I think I might have found such an author in Margaret Leroy. Her writing style is fluid and easy to read, she is descriptive without being too ornamental about it, her characters are human and flawed. I found the eventual conclusion a bit disappointing, and the outcome a bit expected, but it was still a really good read.

Ginny Holmes is a woman nearing her midlife and she’s facing a lot of crises. Her one daughter has started college and she’s not sure how to handle this major change in her life, and her other daughter is wild and explosive. Ginny’s friends faces their own problems and she also has to deal with an ill mother and a distant husband.

So when Ginny meets Will, a cop she’s tapped on for help in a case, she acts on the spark between them and they start an affair. Will also has his own multitude of problems, and their affair become an escape point to both of them.

If it sounds like the typical bullshit about people who justify their cheating, I have to say it IS, but there are other factors. It is evident that Ginny and her husband is as separated as people can be and that she is likely suffering from a depression that stems from her unresolved childhood traumas. The book is written in a style that portrays such dread and the constant feeling of someone that watches over you is hard to shake. I really enjoyed that and thought it was cleverly executed. Ginny becoming a witness to something she knows she has to speak up about forces her to face the fact that she needs to address her life that is hanging by its shreds. It perfectly illustrates that no matter how hard you try, you can only lie to yourself and your family for so long.

Definitely worth a read. The River House is about moral dilemmas, aging and how flawed human beings can be, and I am pretty happy I picked up the book.

January 13, 2016January 8, 2016 by Natasha Categories: 2016, Books, Reviews, UncategorizedTags: Books, Margaret Leroy, Reviews, The River House 6 Comments