A Monster Calls

In the amazing story of A Monster Calls, Connor wakes up at seven minutes past midnight while he's having a nightmare. Looking out the window, he sees a monster, but this isn't the monster he's expecting to see...

This monster is something else.
At the beginning of the story, Connor's mother has cancer, but it's okay! She's on treatment that has been working pretty well so far...
so far...
but now it's not working as well as it used to. After his grandmother arrives, he finds out he'll have to live with her for a little bit at least.

With amazing illustrations that are both creepy and beautiful at the same time, A Monster Calls shows us a monster that is both monstrously ominous and alluringly natural.

This monster is something otherworldly. As the story progresses, the monster becomes more human. It always has thoughts and feelings and emotions, but it begins to look more human as Connor finds out that the ugliest monster isn't something he can see...
it's the truth.

Though I will keep the truth a secret, I can say that is easily one of the scariest truths possible for anyone of any age.




For it's beautiful illustrations and heart-wrenching story, I will gladly encourage any person of any age to read this book.

If someone you know or have known has ever had cancer or died from cancer, this book will especially touch you.





For the beautiful illustrations, the brilliantly devised characters, the heart-wrenching tearjerker story, and the questioning of one's own beliefs about what is right and wrong or good and evil...

I give this AMAZING story...

NINE out of TEN!
or if you prefer "5"s a FOUR out of FIVE!

AMAZING BOOK! DO READ!

Labyrinth

Labyrinth (1986) starring David Bowie as Jareth - a trickster and Goblin King - and Jennifer Connelly as Sarah - a fifteen-year-old girl who wishes her brother (Toby) to be taken away by the goblins.

With the exception of Jareth and Sarah, all the other major characters are puppets - and well-done puppets at that! This was one of the most interesting parts of the film, in my opinion, as it has been a VERY long time since I've seen any puppets in film.

Here is a small collection of the magical characters she encounters throughout the labyrinth (ordered chronologically, of course):

Hoggle is a grumpy and unpleasant dwarf who first shows her the way into the labyrinth and makes another appearance after she falls into an oubliette. He then accompanies her as a companion for the rest of the film for two reasons. One, she is his friend now, and two, she stole his pretty objects.

Ludo is a very large but gentle beast who has the ability to... um... call rocks who are his friends to his aide. This talent comes in handy on a few occasions that I will not mention as it may spoil

 

the movie for those of you who wish to still watch it after this. Ludo enters the "Fellowship of the Toby" after Sarah rescues him from a group of goblin tormentors.

Sir Didymus, a fox-like character, and his noble steed - a dog by the name of Ambrosius - are met at the Bog of Eternal Stench. Although at first Sir Didymus tries to slow down or stop Sarah's rescue of Toby by guarding the bridge and not letting them across, he eventually joins them after Ludo "battles" him and they declare a draw... although Ludo has the speech power of E.T. so he just sort of nods his head.

Although parts of the movie continually confused me or had me scratching my head as to what exactly happened, I did enjoy this movie and laughed quite a bit.

The singing was pretty good, although I wasn't in the mood for a musical at the time, but I thought the puppeteers did a fabulous job with all the characters, especially Ludo (I think you can tell who my favorite character was).

For the great characters, the brilliant puppet voices, and the hilarious moments involving Ludo and Ambrosius, I give this movie:
3.5/5

It still had the head-scratching moments and a few other personal problems with the movie including a bland-toned Sarah and a not-so-scary Goblin King.

A GREAT family movie!

 

Sinister

So today I will be reviewing the movie Sinister.
Let me first off tell you that it is very hard to scare me as I have seen many, many, many horror, thriller, slasher, torture movies.
Now if you think that means I am about to admit I was scared during this movie, you are WRONG.
This movie was NOT scary!
I will say that there were some very interesting parts with one or two jump scares at most though.

For example:
My favorite parts were all the same type - the serial murders.

I will gladly admit that this was the best part of the movie.
Sadly, I could not find the other clips of the serial killings in the movie, but since they all are shown at the relatively same time, I will tell you my two favorites:
-The tree hanging as seen above
-The pool drowning as I will now describe how they died. Take one pool chair, duct tape one person on the chair, attach one cinderblock to the bottom, pull chair into pool using rope.

They were creative, weird, and creepy...
but not scary since it happened kind of slowly.

Now I feel like I need to explain myself because I said I wasn't scared.
Here are some of the reasons why:



NUMBER ONE
I swear if I see the main character (his name was Ellison or something...)
wearing that SAME FREAKING GREY SWEATER ONE MORE DAY IN A ROW, I WILL KILL HIM MYSELF!
Change your clothes!




NUMBER TWO
I'm not sure how he magically knows how to set up the films, but okay.
Also, he keeps seeing this demonic thing on camera, but he is NOT freaking out enough. If I saw a creepy person (mask or not) standing on the bottom of a pool without floating up or breathing, I WOULD RUN AND TELL SOMEONE OR RUN IN GENERAL!




NUMBER THREE
I cannot take any movie villain seriously if their name reminds me of any baked good.

BAGUL (scary deity creature)

 

BAGEL (delicious baked good)

NUMBER FOUR
Anytime they had set it set up for a jump scare or anything near that...
they stopped it.
For example...
SPOILER ALERT! (kind of)
While he's wandering around the halls because he hears a noise, there are these amazingly creepy little children who show up randomly in the shadows and show their face near his...
but of course, he NEVER sees them even though they are obviously in his peripherals.
And this would be an AMAZING place for him to just turn around and see one of them...
but no.
And the children don't "disappear" at all either...
every time, he turns around because of a "sound" or "feeling" (they never show/tell really...) the children do the scariest shit ever!
THEY GO AROUND THE FLIPPING CORNER!
._. That's it. He hardly ever ACTUALLY sees them... I think once or twice maybe. Although the audience sees them all like five times collectively.

Main Problem
My main problem with the movie wasn't the plot or the characters or the setting or any of that really...
it was a mixture of two things:

-The hype that went with this movie that made it seem so amazing and scary and creepy and AHHHH! when in reality, it was slow-to-start (fine with that) with meh results that left me more bored than anything. The other two people watching the movie with me fell asleep after the first half hour because they were bored (and it was like 2 AM, but we've gone later before so it isn't that).

-The other main problem was that they had SOOOOO much they could've done with this movie that they didn't. There were many, many times I was hoping that "Mister Boogie" would show up, but he didn't. He actually had a very small part in the entire movie (unless you count his pictures pinned up on a board as an appearance each time the character looks at them). The kids were mildly creepy, but Mister Boogie was by far creepier. I think it should've focused a bit MORE on him because HE was the creepy factor in the whole movie!

Small Saving Grace
I did enjoy these things though:

-I thought the serial family murders were delightfully evil and well-done. I enjoyed each and every one, including the lawn mower one because her face flying out of nowhere about to get run over did make me jump a little and then give a little laugh because of how ridiculous it was at the time that it happened. I did LOVE those.

-The look of "Mister Boogie". It was creepy and scary, but we did NOT get to see enough of this!

-The sound and music were very well done too.

-The IDEA behind the movie was pretty darn good, but it had meh execution... c'est la vie.

Overall Rating

Overall, I give the movie a TWO out of FIVE...
or a THREE out of TEN.

It is interesting at parts with one or two jump scares, but it will overall leave you disappointed if you felt or heard the hype for this movie like I did.

Hope you enjoyed the review! If you disagree/agree, leave a comment below along with any other suggestions for Movies/Books/etc. to review!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Before I actually start this post, I would just like to give you my OFFICIAL seal of approval for this book!
This book receives a FIVE out of FIVE or a TEN out of TEN or anything else you deem to equal perfection or perfect enough that you seem force to give it a high grading.

BEWARE OF MILD SPOILERS!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is a delightfully witty, funny, thoughtful book following a few months in the lives of twelve-year-old Paloma Joss - who plans to commit suicide by swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills and then setting fire to the family's apartment - and Renee Michel - who is an extremely intelligent concierge that hides her cultured and sophisticated self so as not to seem above her social class.

The story is told mostly through the perspective of Renee while a few chapters are set aside for Paloma's list of Profound Thoughts and Movements of the World: both of which are journals that she is writing at the time of the novel.

It's difficult to choose which one of these two amazing characters has the largest change throughout the novel (I'm not going to say what happens to each because that would be silly to give away the ending), and in the same way, I can't decide which of the two has the most thought-provoking conversations:

Is it Paloma viewing culture shock that leads to delinquents and rebels, while also seeing that cats are merely totem poles - "mobile decorative objects" as she puts it - that people flaunt to show their aristocracy and culture?

Or is it Madame Michel seeing Western continuity as supposed to be fluid without interruption while Eastern continuity has jerkiness and disruption that ends in blissfulness, while also wondering whether there is a universal table or if every table is a singular entity in itself (trust me on this: it ACTUALLY makes sense if you read the passage)?

The only thing about this book that might have even partially irritated me was the fact that I had to keep a dictionary next to me at all times because the characters would randomly drop words like:
Bourgeois or (this happened in the very beginning) Incunabulum. I gladly accepted the second word, however, when I realized it helped the characterization of Renee's hidden intellect.

During the first half of the novel, everything seems perfectly normal and no one really starts changing too much...
that is until the new tenant Kakuro Ozu moves in and sees past the façades of Paloma and Renee and sees the true person underneath.

Now I don't want to ruin too much of this book for you before you read it, but just know that I highly suggest this book for ANYONE!

Once again: 5 out of 5
EASILY.

If you have read it or plan on reading it, tell me how you feel about this novel in the comments below and have a lovely day!

Oh! Also if you have a favorite novel or movie that you would like me to review, feel free to leave the title below!

And keep turning pages!

Suldrun's Garden Review

I give it TWO shiny stars out of FIVE.

This is one of the lowest ratings I've given a book...
I refuse to give ones because they wrote a book and got it published. I haven't so who am I to judge.

Why I didn't exactly "love" this book:

-I tried to follow where ANYONE was on the map and it was impossible with its size. It was on a half sheet of paper and had more lines than Lindsay Lohan with coke.

-All the characters sounded the same. All the kids sounded alike (some were VERY verbose for their age) for sure. ALL THE ADULTS had the same voice that was pretty much flat with emotion. IDK if it was just me, but they all sounded the same when they talked.

-The plot was hard to find half the time. The book is titled Suldrun's Gate but...
SPOILER ALERT!  SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH WITH HYPEN IF YOU DON'T WANT RUINED!
She dies before a third of the book even goes by.
The only time I found the plot again was within the last like FIFTY pages of the book.

-This book was like a GIANT vocabulary lesson for me. I know I'm only 17, but when I read my own mother a paragraph, she took the cover and closed it, "That's enough..."

-Almost EVERY time there was action that could be lengthened and made amazing with his descriptions, he ended it at the end of the paragraph.
["The fox-headed woman with the chicken legs left the room.
'Person' looks up. SHE'S THERE!
She leaps down and claws his eyes out.
He dies.
Aillas cuts her head off.
They burn her body." (hide spoiler
-ALL OF THAT LOVELY AWESOME ACTION THAT COULD HAVE MADE FOR A REALLY JUICY, ACTION-PACKED PART OF THE STORY... was summarized in about two paragraphs.
After reading that, I was thinking, "WHAT JUST HAPPENED! I thought something big would happen, but WHAT!"

A small example: (view spoiler) "They were riding along the road when arrows came flying out of the forests. Everyone ducked except 'insert name here' who got hit in the chest and died instantly."
Me: YES, ACTION!
"They went into the forest and killed those men who had done it."
Me: ... really, that's it? You ended what could've been an awesome fight in less than a paragraph. GAH!!!!!

So all together: Not my favorite story...

Things I did love:
-I LOVE THAT HE CREATED AN ENTIRE WORLD! I just wish I had a bigger map so I could actually make sense of it.

-I LOVE HIS CREATIVE NAMES!

-I like the journey that he made... I just wanted him to make the action parts more well... action.

I would still recommend this book to fantasy lovers though.
It was good to mix up my usual read. :)

If you feel differently about this book or want me to read the rest because my opinion might change, feel free to leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading! ^_^

Insurgent Review

I'm a  nerdy nerd. I don't play Dungeons and Dragons -- I barely understand what goes on during the game. I don't watch documentaries just for the heck of it...
well, that's not entirely true. I used to.
DON'T JUDGE ME!

But those are not the reasons I'm a nerdy nerd.
I'm a nerd of the bookworld, and as a self-proclaimed nerd, I feel I should give reviews of books and such.
Well, you can trust me about as much as any other random perosn you see on the internet or read about on the back of the books.

So I'll start out with a basic review of the book Insurgent.

Let's start with a basic summary/review...
I had been waiting for Insurgent for years, knowing it would come out eventually.
The moment I saw it, I snatched it up and jumped up and down.
Insurgent starts, literally, right where the other book left off.
Tris, Four, and the others are running away from Dauntless towards Amity. Now, if you read the first book, Divergent, then you understand what I'm talking about. If you haven't read it...
well, I'll explain quick.
A single city is split up into five districts/sectors/whatever you want to call them. Each one has a major attribute associated with it:
Amity - Peace
Abnegation - Selfless
Erudite - Intelligence/Knowledge
Candor - Honesty
Dauntless - Badass (JK) Brave.

Okay, rapidfire summary of the first book:
-Tris is Abnegation.
-She chooses Dauntless. Her brother chooses Erudite.
-She falls in love with a guy named "Four"
-CRAZY RANDOM MIDDLE THAT IS AWESOME!
-Tris finds out she is Divergent (she has traits of multiple districts)
-Dauntless people all get an injection for simulations.
-IT WAS ERUDITE!
-FOUR AND TRIS ARE IN LOVE!
-Dauntless people all go under a simulation and start shooting Abnegation for reason revealed in Insurgent.
-Tris stops simulation.
-Insurgent starts.

Okay, now for Insurgent again...
Okay, so I won't give away any more of the plot because that would be very, very rude, and I'm not rude so there.

Instead, I'll say what I did and did not like about it.

DID LIKE
-THE PLOT END
-The Mild Plot Twist involving her brother, Caleb. I kind of saw it coming, but it was still good.
-The Idea of Factions AGAIN.
-The idea of the Divergent being... (wait I said no giving away plot!)

DID NOT LIKE
-Tris, what happend to you? You've turned into... gah... KATNISS! You became all suicidal and weird and stuff...
-...PLUS your relationship was used as a crutch to continue the book.

OVERALL RATING: B+
It was a very fast-paced, action-packed book that made me laugh, smile, and well... yeah.
I loved the plot end, although I did predict it a bit, not the video or anything, but the general idea of it.
THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS FORSEEABLE!
I just read lots of books and THAT is one of the things I was imagining happening.

I HIGHLY SUGGEST THIS BOOK IF YOU LOVED DIVERGENT!
I hightly suggest the series in general too.

Well, this was my first book review. If you feel Insurgent  got a bad rating, tell me about it in the comments below. Also feel free to post what you thought of the series, but DON'T RUIN IT FOR OTHERS!

Thanks!