I'm happy to say that Reign is getting better in my eyes after that span of several episodes where I wasn't thrilled with the story. This episode was fun to watch despite having parts I wasn't as thrilled about (something I expect) as others, and that's a good thing considering it was the penultimate episode of the season, something I didn't realize until the preview for next week's episode.
Going ahead and getting the negative out of the way: I was less than thrilled about Narcisse and Lola reuniting. Not surprising since I've been vocal about how much I dislike Narcisse and his relationship with Lola. I'm not looking forward to whatever happens with them, but it's not like this was something I was unprepared for. I knew it would happen eventually.
Just about everything else in the episode was exciting for me. I have this feeling that Elizabeth and Lola are going to have a falling out, even if Lola doesn't kill her like Mary's letter asked her to. That's sad since I love their friendship, but I do feel like Elizabeth would easily turn on Lola if needed. Plus, Lola has been Mary's friend since they were children, and I would hate for there to be a storyline where Lola puts Elizabeth first. I also don't particularly want Lola to become an attempted murderer as enough characters on this show already are, but I'm intrigued by the storyline they've started with the possibility.
The end of the episode when Mary marches into her castle full of confidence and with blood all over her dress was my favorite moment of the entire episode. If I hadn't already been liking the episode, that one scene might have changed everything. I'm in love with it. I knew she would have to show up before the council's decision was final, but I still felt tension over the possibility of her being late. When she did burst through the doors, I felt like celebrating.
The finale looks like it's going to be epic too. I'm not sure how they're going to tie up the drama they've started in only one more episode. I think that's a large part of why I can't believe that next week is the finale. It seems like there's too much to accomplish. That most likely means we'll have a lot of loose ends going into next season, which I'm also up for. Whether the loose ends do get tied up somehow or not, the finale seems like it's going to be an exciting one.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Book Review: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
ISBN: 0316206849Published: April 30th, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Received: Christmas present
Read from May 26th to June 11th, 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads:
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. Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
Review:
As someone who, unlike so many others, loved The Casual Vacancy, I wasn't too worried about not liking this book when I started it. (For the record, the two are entirely different books that are difficult to compare, so I wouldn't say anyone should be turned off about reading The Cuckoo's Calling based on their feelings towards The Casual Vacancy.) That being said, I didn't expect to be blown away the way I was. Mystery isn't a genre I read often, and this book left me wondering why that is. When I have read mysteries in the past, I've found them to be highly enjoyable, and this one was no different.
Of course, I spent the entire novel trying to figure out the truth, but my theory changed every few pages. Actually, it might be accurate to say that I had five or more theories running through my head at all times, and I was constantly revising them, trying to fit the new information into the possibilities I had already come up with. It was fun, even as I was reading about less than savory characters and events. And, for the record, I never saw the ending coming even after all that theorizing.
While I don't read many mystery novels, I think that fun with guessing what is going to happen exemplifies what a mystery novel should be. You want it to be a page turner that makes you think about what's both going to happen and what already has. The Cuckoo's Calling has all of that. It's left me wanting to read the sequel as soon as possible, and I can only hope that it's as fun of an experience as the first book was.
Book Review: Hair in All the Wrong Places by Andrew Buckley
ISBN: 1942664982Published: June 7th, 2016
Publisher: Month9Books
Received from: Chapter by Chapter Blog Tours
Read from May 23rd to 26th, 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads:
What has he done?
What's happening to him?
And what on Earth is that smell?
For Colin Strauss, puberty stinks. Blackouts, hallucinations, and lapses in memory are the perils of growing up werewolf.
Worse than that, Colin worries he might have had something to do with the recent attacks on the townspeople. He may have eaten a person. It doesn’t matter that it’s someone he doesn’t particularly like. What kind of boy goes around eating people?
Foolishly, all Colin can think about is how Becca Emerson finally kissed him for the first time. Yep, hormones are afoot. Yikes!
But girls will have to wait. Collin better get himself under control before someone else ends up hurt or worse . . . dead.
Review:
I was excited to read this book because it sounded like such a fun werewolf book. As someone who really loves stories about werewolves, it had been far too long since I had last read one, so it was only natural that I would be excited about this book.
While I know we are talking about a book where the main character turns into a werewolf, I had difficulty believing some of the elements of the plot (going into more detail would be too much of a spoiler), which did pull me out of the story at times. That being said, this is a middle grade novel, and I don't think the vast majority of the target audience would find the same details as unbelievable. For that reason, I don't view it as that big of a deal.
The book was fun enough that I didn't think I should care about more unbelievable aspects of the plot, it was an enjoyable story. I just had to suspend my disbelief for a bit and accept what was happening. That was the kind of book this is, I think. I can easily imagine middle grade readers getting a lot of enjoyment from the book. It seems like the perfect story for any middle schooler who wants to read about werewolves and other supernatural creatures.
I received this book for review through Chapter by Chapter Book Tours. A schedule for this tour with links to the other posts can be found here.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Cursed Child Feelings (Spoiler Free)
Note: This was written the night of the first previews. It's not entirely reflective of my current feelings. Mostly, the events in Orlando today have left me unable to think about Cursed Child much, but I still felt this way for the most part until this morning. Who knows how I'll feel later. I'm not even going to edit this because I can't be bothered to get back into the negative feelings in this post.
I will say that I've accidentally stumbled on one spoiler since I wrote this that I'm neutral towards (but would have rather not seen). I've also read things about fans who've read the spoilers not being happy about them, so that doesn't help anything. But I'll wait and see.
After trying to stay optimistic I grew a bit vocal about my less than enthusiastic feelings towards the upcoming Fantastic Beasts film. By now, I've talked about that more than I would have cared to, but throughout my changing feelings about the movie, I also kept saying over and over that I felt extremely optimistic about the play.
I was so thrilled and excited and happy. Just all of the positive adjectives, but then today something strange happened.
The first public previews were today, meaning that members of the public have now seen the play. Don't worry about spoilers here. While I know they're on the Internet, I haven't read any. (I did, however, see someone going on about them and saw a vague comment that still felt like it should have been under a spoiler warning, but I'll save my complaints about that for another time.)
Once the spoilers starting coming out on the Internet, I suddenly felt terrified. This was probably due, at least partially, from fear that I was going to see something that I didn't want to (and, to be fair, I nearly did), but it either started out as more than that or has morphed into more than that. While at first I felt cautious and kept thinking "Okay. Now I have to be careful online until the end of July," somewhere along the line today, I started feeling straight up terrified. It's an overreaction to be sure. One that some people would scoff that.
The thing is, I realized that we've had the ending of Harry Potter for nearly ten years. For ten years I've had the comfortable knowledge that I knew how everything ended. Now, that's over. I don't know what happens to those characters in this play. It could change everything. While I hate how disappointed I feel about Fantastic Beasts, a story about Newt Scamander can't disappoint me as much as a play about all of the characters I already love potentially could, and now that the play feels like even more of a reality, that truth is slapping me in the face.
I don't even know if I could call myself excited anymore. I'm just scared. It's entirely different from how I feel about Fantastic Beasts, which I already have specific concerns about before the movie. I don't have that with the play. I just have this feeling of fear that isn't based on anything about the play itself. It's not that I don't want this story. I'm just scared of it.
It's a strange feeling really. One that I'm not sure I've ever experienced before because I've never cared this much about a book series that was supposed to be finished only for there to be a new story years later. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm worried this will be the Go Set a Watchman of the Harry Potter universe. Not because I have any evidence saying it will be that bad but because I just have this blind fear that it will be.
So, yeah, I've been feeling a lot of things today. I'm sure my exact thoughts on the play will fluctuate as the next two months go on. Hopefully they won't change because I saw spoilers, but with how long the wait is, I wouldn't be surprised it something makes its way through to me.
We'll see.
I will say that I've accidentally stumbled on one spoiler since I wrote this that I'm neutral towards (but would have rather not seen). I've also read things about fans who've read the spoilers not being happy about them, so that doesn't help anything. But I'll wait and see.
After trying to stay optimistic I grew a bit vocal about my less than enthusiastic feelings towards the upcoming Fantastic Beasts film. By now, I've talked about that more than I would have cared to, but throughout my changing feelings about the movie, I also kept saying over and over that I felt extremely optimistic about the play.
I was so thrilled and excited and happy. Just all of the positive adjectives, but then today something strange happened.
The first public previews were today, meaning that members of the public have now seen the play. Don't worry about spoilers here. While I know they're on the Internet, I haven't read any. (I did, however, see someone going on about them and saw a vague comment that still felt like it should have been under a spoiler warning, but I'll save my complaints about that for another time.)
Once the spoilers starting coming out on the Internet, I suddenly felt terrified. This was probably due, at least partially, from fear that I was going to see something that I didn't want to (and, to be fair, I nearly did), but it either started out as more than that or has morphed into more than that. While at first I felt cautious and kept thinking "Okay. Now I have to be careful online until the end of July," somewhere along the line today, I started feeling straight up terrified. It's an overreaction to be sure. One that some people would scoff that.
The thing is, I realized that we've had the ending of Harry Potter for nearly ten years. For ten years I've had the comfortable knowledge that I knew how everything ended. Now, that's over. I don't know what happens to those characters in this play. It could change everything. While I hate how disappointed I feel about Fantastic Beasts, a story about Newt Scamander can't disappoint me as much as a play about all of the characters I already love potentially could, and now that the play feels like even more of a reality, that truth is slapping me in the face.
I don't even know if I could call myself excited anymore. I'm just scared. It's entirely different from how I feel about Fantastic Beasts, which I already have specific concerns about before the movie. I don't have that with the play. I just have this feeling of fear that isn't based on anything about the play itself. It's not that I don't want this story. I'm just scared of it.
It's a strange feeling really. One that I'm not sure I've ever experienced before because I've never cared this much about a book series that was supposed to be finished only for there to be a new story years later. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm worried this will be the Go Set a Watchman of the Harry Potter universe. Not because I have any evidence saying it will be that bad but because I just have this blind fear that it will be.
So, yeah, I've been feeling a lot of things today. I'm sure my exact thoughts on the play will fluctuate as the next two months go on. Hopefully they won't change because I saw spoilers, but with how long the wait is, I wouldn't be surprised it something makes its way through to me.
We'll see.
Reign Review: 3x16 "Clans"
Last week, I made a video review for Reign, which boiled down to me saying that I still wasn't that happy about what the show was doing. However, I also mentioned in that review that I understood that transitioning to showing Scotland was going to be difficult, and I was hopeful that it would get better once they were in Scotland.
We now have one episode in Scotland under our belts, and I don't think my optimism was displaced. While this week's episode didn't blow me away, I did enjoy it more than the episodes preceding it.
Of course, that was after I rolled my eyes at Mary, Narcisse, and Bash being the only three people to survive that ship wreck. Conveniently.
Ignoring that one detail that I think could have been handled better, I think the show is doing a good job with Scotland so far. I like that the people that everyone expected to be violent were the ones who helped Mary, while the more "upstanding" group is the real danger.
One interesting bit from the story in Scotland was the Druid woman telling Sebastian that he has magic. I'm wondering what that could mean in the future.
Narcisse is a step closer to getting to England, but I don't understand why he left when he did. As everyone keeps mentioning, traveling through that area is dangerous, yet Narcisse went off alone. In my mind, it would have been safe (and smarter) for him if he'd stuck around until they got to Edinburgh and then convinced Mary to give him protection for traveling to England. At least until he was closer to the border. I don't understand why he made the decision that he did, but either way, I'm not a fan of Narcisse. I'm fine with him no longer being involved in Mary's storyline, although I'm not looking forward to him reappearing in front of Lola.
Lola who currently believes Mary is dead. If Narcisse makes it to English court, I'm assuming he'll tell her the truth, and since I do think the writers will have him make it, I don't suspect she'll be mourning long.
Still, I'm glad her and Elizabeth's friendship is still on a positive path instead of Elizabeth punishing her over what happened with Mary. I love how their relationship has been handled. I only wish we could get a similar friendship between Mary and Elizabeth. I know what happens between them historically, but I think there's so much potential for an awesome friendship there in the show.
Meanwhile, in France, Charles takes up an ambitious challenge to overthrow his mother, which I knew from the beginning was going to blow up in his face. It seemed so obvious that I watched those parts of the episode while cringing, especially once Leith got wrapped up in it. It also seemed obvious that one of Charles' friends was going to be a traitor, although I'll admit that I guessed the wrong one.
What sucks about it failing is how close Leith and Claude came to being married. Despite not being able to let go of Greer/Leith entirely, I wouldn't be opposed to a Claude/Leith marriage, and while I knew it was doubtful that it would happen, I kind of hoped for it. Leith has begun to prove himself to Charles though, and that could mean a lot when it comes to being able to marry Claude. We'll see.
Overall, this episode seemed like buildup for what's coming next, and that holds true for the stories in France, England, and Scotland. I don't see that as a bad thing. It's gotten my attention, and I'm back to eagerly waiting to see what happens next.
We now have one episode in Scotland under our belts, and I don't think my optimism was displaced. While this week's episode didn't blow me away, I did enjoy it more than the episodes preceding it.
Of course, that was after I rolled my eyes at Mary, Narcisse, and Bash being the only three people to survive that ship wreck. Conveniently.
Ignoring that one detail that I think could have been handled better, I think the show is doing a good job with Scotland so far. I like that the people that everyone expected to be violent were the ones who helped Mary, while the more "upstanding" group is the real danger.
One interesting bit from the story in Scotland was the Druid woman telling Sebastian that he has magic. I'm wondering what that could mean in the future.
Narcisse is a step closer to getting to England, but I don't understand why he left when he did. As everyone keeps mentioning, traveling through that area is dangerous, yet Narcisse went off alone. In my mind, it would have been safe (and smarter) for him if he'd stuck around until they got to Edinburgh and then convinced Mary to give him protection for traveling to England. At least until he was closer to the border. I don't understand why he made the decision that he did, but either way, I'm not a fan of Narcisse. I'm fine with him no longer being involved in Mary's storyline, although I'm not looking forward to him reappearing in front of Lola.
Lola who currently believes Mary is dead. If Narcisse makes it to English court, I'm assuming he'll tell her the truth, and since I do think the writers will have him make it, I don't suspect she'll be mourning long.
Still, I'm glad her and Elizabeth's friendship is still on a positive path instead of Elizabeth punishing her over what happened with Mary. I love how their relationship has been handled. I only wish we could get a similar friendship between Mary and Elizabeth. I know what happens between them historically, but I think there's so much potential for an awesome friendship there in the show.
Meanwhile, in France, Charles takes up an ambitious challenge to overthrow his mother, which I knew from the beginning was going to blow up in his face. It seemed so obvious that I watched those parts of the episode while cringing, especially once Leith got wrapped up in it. It also seemed obvious that one of Charles' friends was going to be a traitor, although I'll admit that I guessed the wrong one.
What sucks about it failing is how close Leith and Claude came to being married. Despite not being able to let go of Greer/Leith entirely, I wouldn't be opposed to a Claude/Leith marriage, and while I knew it was doubtful that it would happen, I kind of hoped for it. Leith has begun to prove himself to Charles though, and that could mean a lot when it comes to being able to marry Claude. We'll see.
Overall, this episode seemed like buildup for what's coming next, and that holds true for the stories in France, England, and Scotland. I don't see that as a bad thing. It's gotten my attention, and I'm back to eagerly waiting to see what happens next.
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