Books & movies - January 2020

The first month of the roaring 20s has come to an end! January has been crazy hectic and I feel like I've crammed half a year into 31 lovely days. I've been working heaps, grinding through a summer school paper, and trying to make the most of the sunshine with awesome festivals and catch ups with good friends. I've also been making progress with my 2020 reading challenge so here are some great reads from this month (and also a movie because I had to talk about it somewhere and this seems as good a place as any). 

Mythos - Stephen Fry (Book)

I was really hoping I would love Mythos because the Greek mythology nerd inside me wants any and all content I'll offer her. I'm happy to say that Mythos largely lived up to the hype and I had a great time reading it! Some stories were definitely more interesting than others but on the whole I think it's quite a witty collection of some of my favourite Greek myths (Fry's rendition of Eros and Psyche was a personal highlight) - a great book to kick the year off with.

Little Women - Greta Gerwig (Film)

I cannot remember the last time I've cried through a film like this. I think my eyes were dry for a grand total of ten minutes. I took my little sisters to go watch Little Women and it was an amazing time. My aunt first gifted me an abridged copy of Little Women for my birthday (I think I was 9) and I had a great time reading it. The copy I had included little pictures every chapter and I really enjoyed colouring them in (Meg and Jo had pink and purple hair respectively in my imagination). I liked Little Women and Good Wives as a kid but I never bought the unabridged version of the former. I also hadn't watched any of the film adaptations. Watching the 2019 film hit close to home in a way the book couldn't have when I was younger. Jo March still resonates with me as deeply as she did at the age of 9 but now I actually understand why. Just wow, what an excellent film. I will be thinking about this movie for a long time. And yes I'm in love with Timothée Chalamet now but that's nobody's business.

Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta (Book)

Wow. Reading this book transported me back to my high school days and had me wondering where my perfect YA novel boy was hiding. I started this book at 11pm on the 13th of January thinking I would read a chapter or two before cracking into assignments but one thing led to another and it was suddenly 2.30am on the 14th and I had finished a book but not started any of my course work. I still think I made great choices, and this was an awesome read.

Starry Eyes - Jean Bennett (Book)

I also finished this book in a day - it's nice to get back in the groove of reading and find books that interest me enough to keep me turning the pages until I'm done. Not a particularly profound read but definitely heaps of fun. I kinda want to go camping now...

Save the Date - Morgan Matson (Book)

This book was easy to read but I didn't really enjoy it? I didn't have a bad time reading it, and I did want to finish it, it just didn't particularly stand out among this month's reads.

The Waves - Virginia Woolf (Book)

This short novel was pure poetry. It took me about 30 pages to understand the narrative style but after that each new passage was lyrical and felt like a true insight into different people. I really enjoyed this.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson (Book)

I want to go on a road trip RIGHT NOW thanks! Another easy read from Matson, I preferred this to Save the Date.

Since You've Been Gone - Morgan Matson (Book)

Clearly going through a Morgan Matson phase (actually just requested all of her books from the library and they showed up at the same time). This is probably my favourite Matson novel I've read so far (two to go). Made me yearn for a reckless summer of making memories, doing more and thinking less.

So that's what I churned through in January. It's been weird for me to spend more time reading than I have on Netflix this month but it's also reminded me of the pure joy of reading a new book (and falling in love with new characters). Will be exciting to keep the momentum going as the year goes on!

Blogging in my 20s

This blog is a time capsule from my high school years. The last post is from 2014. I was 15, in year 12. A lot has changed since then - I'm 20 and done with my third year of university. I think I should feel embarrassed about this perfect preservation of my naive teen years on the internet for everyone to see, but I can't bring myself to delete any of these posts either. This is meant to be a year of radical vulnerability for me (my resolutions this decade tend towards prioritising my emotional well-being) and I think it's special to have the words I wrote five years ago guarded like this where I can always look back to them.

I think being able to look back at my past is something that's really important to me. I've tried to keep a diary through the last few years because the fear of forgetting my youth and the people and moments that were important to me and made me laugh or cry or just feel something - that fear is paralysing sometimes. It centres me when I can pick an old journal out of my shoebox of memories and transport myself to a moment in my past. It's humbling to read about the problems I thought would end me three years ago only to recognise that I've persisted. I'm still here.

I guess this post is just a verbose way of saying that I'm going to blog my 20s (my age and the decade). Sometimes it'll be book reviews, sometimes life reviews, sometimes just recounts of dumb things I've done that make me smile so big my heart could burst. It feels like the years go by faster and faster every year and all I want is to hold on to these moments while they're still here. So, hello 2020, I hope we'll be good friends, but even if we aren't, I hope the story is still worth telling.

Political Animals

From left to right: Douglas, T.J., Elaine, Susan, Bud

Title: Political Animals

Creator: Greg Berlanti

Distributer: USA Network

Years: 2012

Length: 6 episodes of approximately 45 mins each (mini-series)

Genre: Drama

Format and Source: on Netflix

Summary from Netflix: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. U.S. Secretary of State Elaine Barrish Hammond struggles to keep her family together while dealing with national crises and a ruthless journalist.

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. Before I start, I’ll admit that I starting watching this show because of Sebastian Stan, but oh man I didn’t expect for it to be as good as it was. Political Animals is definitely the best show I’ve seen in its genre, and it deserves the title I’ve given it. So what makes this show so good? Let me break it down for you;

The first reason I have to give is its strong female characters because that’s probably one of the first things I picked up and it made a great first impression on me. Elaine Barrish (former First Lady, played by Sigourney Weaver) and Susan Berg (journalist, played by Carla Gugino) are both perfect examples of what female characters should be written like. Both are strong women who are talented at what they do, but that doesn’t mean they’re men-haters. And they aren’t Mary Sues either – they’ve got so much going wrong in their lives (i.e. Susan’s boyfriend cheating on her, Elaine’s son nearly dying twice in six months) but what makes them so special is the fact that they deal with these problems like normal people while maintaining their careers. I have so much respect for shows that have strong, human, female characters and Political Animals is just the perfect example of all the things I love.

The pros don’t stop here though. The list goes on. Another thing I absolutely adored was how they dealt with addiction and suicide. T.J. Hammond (Elaine’s son, played by Sebastian Stan) is a drug addict who tried to kill himself twice (once by gassing himself, and the second time by overdosing). The issue that quite a lot of shows have with dealing with addiction and suicide is the risk of making it too dramatic and almost tacky. In real life, things are never like that. How is Political Animals any different to soap operas then? Simply put, Political Animals doesn’t try to glorify drugs, addiction and depression. When T.J. tries to kill himself the second time, it isn’t shown as a beautiful metaphor for him getting away from his worldly issues. They focus on the effect it had on him and the people around him. It may not make any sense in words but when you watch the show there’s a feeling of real human reactions when you watch it. Because so many people deal with issues like addiction and depression, it’s always important for me that a show deals with these plots with taste. Political Animals gets a big check for this.

I said this above, but I’ll reiterate it now. Political Animals is my favourite drama. I’m not a fan of most dramas because they feel too soap-operaish to me, but Political Animals doesn’t have a drop of soap opera in its plot. The show is so good at showing different types of human interactions and different relationships, but what makes it so brilliant is that it shows the love between a f***ed up family without seeming too cheesy. At the end of the day, while the show deals with important issues (i.e. feminism, addictions, suicide etc.), at its core it’s about a woman trying to balance her career with her family life which is also going through trouble. The closure at the end of the series made me feel so light. It was like a confirmation that no matter how rough stuff gets, it can be fixed. Anne and Douglas finally got their wedding and Elaine managed to fix things with her sons (and Bud and Anne but shhh).

Final Rating: A+. This rating is well deserved. I generally despise any dramas, but Political Animals was so good. It was so much more than a story about a woman wanting to be President. It was an affirmation that you can be both strong and assertive, while being a feminine, family-centred woman. While I wish the show could be extended beyond a mini-series because it was just that good, I don’t want to risk anyone ruining the delicate beauty of the show by dragging it on. If you are influenced by any of my reviews, let it be this one. Political Animals will be adored by all, I’m sure of it.

To All The Boy's I've Loved Before

Beautiful cover for a beautiful book

Title: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

Author: Jenny Han

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: April 15^th, 2014

Length: 355 pages (in Hardcover)

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Format and Source: eBook from the iBook store

Summary from Goodreads: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them... all at once?

Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren't love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she's written. One for every boy she's ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. A little warning in advance: this review will be slightly biased because I fell in love with this book and it made me feel so, so happy that it’s hard to express how I feel without gushing. If you decide to read this book, be prepared to hate Jenny Han for the rest of your life because it’s so good, no other contemporary romance could every compare. Okay so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration but To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before is that good.

I admit at the beginning of the book I was totally rooting for Josh and Lara Jean to get together. It seemed to make sense that they would get together considering how close they were. Josh was just such a sweetheart and I thought that it would just work between them, seeing as Margot had already broken up with him.

Then enter Peter Kavinsky, the hottest YA romance lead of 2014 (this might just be me but wowee). He was just so different to the common popular-boy trope. I have a soft spot for people that get along with kids, and Peter was so kind to Kitty, it made his hotness rocket up the scale. But enough about his looks etc., and onto his interactions with Lara Jean.

I am a sucker for fake-relationship-turns-into-real-relationship plotlines, and it was pulled off masterfully in this book. You could almost feel them falling in love and I was squealing so many times throughout the book. Their ‘romance’ was natural, and there are no words that can describe just how cute it was. I’m probably repeating myself a lot, so while I’m at it, I might as well list all the reasons you’ll love this book;

Sisterly love, one of the greatest fictional parents, Josh (Margot’s ex(?)-boyfriend who also kinda likes Lara Jean and Lara Jean also kinda likes him), Christmas recitals, skiing trips, the jealous ex (Gen), kissing, Lara Jean getting along with Peter K’s friends (massive awww moments), Lara Jean and Peter K talking about love, Lara Jean and Peter K falling in love, Lara Jean and Peter K – do we see where I’m going with this?

All in all, I absolutely adored this book and I believe it’s now my go-to for when I need a pick-me-up. It’s the first work I’ve read of Jenny Han’s but I suppose I’ll have to read all of her books just so I can feel the feelings I felt in TATBILB again.

Final Rating: A+. I already told you this was a biased review, but this book was it for me. It matched my tastes and I guess while some people might not feel the same way, it’s definitely worth reading. I may have went on about all the fluff too much, but the book is really brilliant and the way it deals with distance (in the case of Margot leaving for Uni) is all so real, there’s no way you can’t love this book.

Purchase From: Amazon Book Depository Barnes and Nobles

Isla and the Happily Ever After

The prettiest simplistic contemporary covers ever - aka everything about this trilogy is beautiful.

Title: Isla and the Happily Ever After

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton

Publication Date: August 14^th, 2014

Length: 339 pages (in Hardcover)

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Format and Source: eBook from the iBook store

Summary from Goodreads: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But as they begin their senior year in France, Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever.

Their romantic journey is skillfully intertwined with those of beloved couples Anna and Étienne and Lola and Cricket, whose paths are destined to collide in a sweeping finale certain to please fans old and new.

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume not all of you have previously witnessed the greatness that is Stephanie Perkins’ work, so just to catch you up, here’s a quick rundown of Anna and the French Kiss (which you should go read right now if you haven’t already);

“St. Clair gets a crush on Anna. He’s torn between her and Ellie, and he spends too much time running between them that he hardly has time left for Josh. And the more time that Josh spends alone, the more he realizes how alone he actually is. All of his friends will be gone the next year. Josh grows increasingly antagonistic towards school, which makes Rashmi increasingly antagonistic towards him, which makes him increasingly antagonistic towards her. And she’s upset because Ellie dropped her as a friend, and Meredith is upset because now St. Clair likes two girls who aren’t her, and Anna is upset because St. Clair is leading her on, and then St. Clair’s mom gets cancer.

It’s a freaking soap opera.”

So I was basically cackling at this part but don’t let the ‘soap opera’ aspect turn you away. Stephanie Perkins is one of my favourite contemporary authors and I know I can rely on her to pick me up whenever I feel down. So this is officially the end of the spoiler-free section, and I would suggest reading the trilogy if you think you’ll like it.

I’ll start off by being completely truthful; I haven’t reread Anna or Lola since I first read them last year, so my memory is a bit hazy. I do know that I enjoyed Anna and the French Kiss more than Lola and the Boy Next Door, but both were so adorable, it was hard not to love them. I know for a fact that Isla isn’t as good as Anna in my eyes, but I don’t know where I would place it in comparison to Lola, so don’t expect any comparisons at all in this review – it’s all based on how I felt about Isla.

The thing about Isla is that it was a bit instalove. Anna and Lola had time to fall in love with St. Clair and Cricket, but that just wasn’t present in IATHEA. Maybe it’s because Isla and Josh harboured crushes on each other for, like, three years, but the first few chapters seemed a bit rushed. The first half of the book was just as fluffy and cute as I would expect from Stephanie, but things quickly turned downhill.

Isla and Josh went on a little escapade to Barcelona and got caught. Josh gets expelled. Josh goes back home for his parents’ political campaign. Isla starts to think Josh is more in love with the idea of love than with her. Isla breaks up with Josh.

It was quick, it was explosive, and I was left absolutely heartbroken. I found myself dying inside for Isla when she waited for Josh on New Years and he didn’t show up, and all of my friends could probably vouch for how annoying I was when I read that part. I just could not accept that after all the love Josh had for Isla, he would just give up on her. I was shaking with anger because how dare he hurt her. In hindsight it was kind of her fault too, but I was rooting for Isla from the start so I couldn’t find it in me to blame her.

Imagine my excitement when THE WHOLE CREW reassembled at the end of the book for the Olympics, and St. Clair proposed to Anna! I was just so happy with the closure and everything wrapped up so beautifully. IATHEA was a perfect ending to an amazing trilogy which holds fond memories for me in my heart. I’m a fluff-addict, and the trilogy is just so feel-good and it cheers me up whenever I’m down.

Before I end this review, I just want to commend Stephanie for the section near the end of the book when Isla started treating her little sister, Hattie, like a friend rather than mothering her. That scene resounded with me deeply since I have two little sisters of my own and it just really got to me. It’s hard to put it into words but I felt like that one scene made Isla 1000 times more relatable, which is what every good character should be.

Final Rating: A-. With the exception of the whole instalove thing, this book was one of the best endings to a trilogy ever. I have a special place in my heart for well-written contemporary romances and it’s fair to say that the Anna and the French Kiss trilogy takes the cake. Stephanie Perkins is an extremely talented author and I’m so glad Isla met my (extremely high) expectations.

Purchase From: Amazon Book Depository Barnes and Nobles

The Cuckoo's Calling

Title: The Cuckoo’s Calling

Author: Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Publication Date: April 30^th, 2013

Length: 455 pages (in Hardcover)

Genre: Adult Crime Fiction

Format and Source: Hardcover, from the library.

Summary from Goodreads: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.
You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. This book reminded me why I fell in love with JK Rowling’s writing. It shouldn’t be a surprise that she’s a fantastic crime fiction author, the clues she dropped throughout the Harry Potter books should’ve been sign enough that she’s very good at mystery. The Cuckoo’s Calling was one of the best books I’ve read so far in 2014 because the characters were brilliant and the plot was tastefully mysterious.

Cormoran Strike is one of the most well-developed characters I’ve ever read about, and this definitely works in the story’s favour. He’s a very clever person and the scenes in which he interrogates a character are so exciting to see unfold. He’s a closed off character but the glimpses you get of his past are so deeply saddening – you would feel pity for him if you didn’t think he would kill you for it.

Robin was my second favourite character, and anyone who has read the book will know why she is so great. She’s well-organised, has a clear idea of what she wants and is a brilliant person to top it all off. Despite playing the role of a simple secretary, she ends up being much more and is extremely helpful in moving the case along.

The final thing I have to say about this book is how tastefully suspenseful it was. There is a very fine line in crime fiction between too little suspense and too much, and JK Rowling manages to sit herself right on that line. She gives you enough suspense that you’re flipping the pages eagerly, but not too much that it becomes more like a soap opera than a novel.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is a novel JK Rowling should be proud of. She broadcasts her talent as an author of many genres and this book definitely shows off that talent. The Silkworm is out now and I’ll be reading that as soon as I get my hands on it. It’s safe to assume that JK Rowling will dominate the crime fiction stands for some time yet.

Final Rating: A+. An extremely high rating for an extremely good book. Not only is it good through its interesting plot, but the writing itself is wonderful, and it would be a crime (pause for laughter) to rate it any lower. This book will keep you guessing throughout it, and I’m willing to bet that you won’t be able to guess the ending despite the subtle hints. It’s a fabulous display of Rowling’s writing and I highly recommend it.

Purchase From: Amazon Book Depository Barnes and Nobles

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood!?

Seriously though, why is everyone and their mother playing this game?

After seeing thousands upon thousands of screencaps of this game on tumblr, instagram and basically every other social media site, I figured I would see what made this game so popular anyway. Since its release, it has already climbed up charts to become the 2nd most downloaded free game in the US app store, and the reason is obvious.
Frankly, the game is addictive. The premise is simple enough - Kim Kardashian is guiding you on your journey to stardom, from an E-lister to an A-lister, and that's where the appeal is. Who doesn't want to be popular, right? She gives you advice on how to achieve your desired popularity (being an A-lister), and you follow this advice to do well in the game.
You can go through with in-app purchases if you want to gain cash quicker, but I'm honestly not that into the game. I can definitely see why people are into this game, and I doubt I'll delete the app any time soon but it's extremely similar to every other "lifestyle" game out there and for that reason alone I don't think it stands out too much.

Final Verdict: I rated this game 5 stars in the appstore simply because it was mindless fun, and I didn't expect any more than that. Some people may be extreme enough to put a lot of money into it but I don't think the game is that good. Personally, I find that it's a fun way to spend free time so for that reason alone I rated it high.