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January books, films and TV (so far)
Jan. 26th, 2020 03:07 pmI've been really bad at logging my reading (and other media) this year, so this post is an attempt to catch up. Being sick for a week really helped in terms of reading (just about the only benefit of being home sick with a cold).
Three of the books I felt warranted longer reviews, and you can read what I thought about them over at my reviews blog. The first is The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. The review is here. (In short, I would have liked it if it wasn't a follow up to The Handmaid's Tale, or if it had been fanfic, but as a sequel I felt it was lacking, and unnecessary.) The second review is of Mary Watson's creepy, gothic YA duology The Wren Hunt and The Wicker Light, which use Irish mythology to tell a claustrophobic story of escalating cycles of violence, and the damaging weight of parental expectation. The review is here. As always with my reviews posted elsewhere, I'm very happy to discuss their content either here on Dreamwidth, or at the original posts.
( Other books )
( Film and TV )
I'll close off the post with a couple of links, mainly because they've been sitting in my tabs for ages. The first is Jeannette Ng's furious essay about The Rise of Skywalker, which mirrors a lot of my thoughts on the film. I'll preface this link by saying I'm not interested in wading into a debate about the relative merits of the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films: like Jeannette, I loved The Last Jedi and hated The Rise of Skywalker, but I genuinely have no issue with people reacting in exactly the opposite manner to the two films. I would say that if you hated Jedi and enjoyed Rise I'd recommend steering clear of the essay unless you're feeling masochistic.
Finally, for nostalgic Australians, a three-part interview in The Guardian about Round the Twist. Enjoy!
Three of the books I felt warranted longer reviews, and you can read what I thought about them over at my reviews blog. The first is The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. The review is here. (In short, I would have liked it if it wasn't a follow up to The Handmaid's Tale, or if it had been fanfic, but as a sequel I felt it was lacking, and unnecessary.) The second review is of Mary Watson's creepy, gothic YA duology The Wren Hunt and The Wicker Light, which use Irish mythology to tell a claustrophobic story of escalating cycles of violence, and the damaging weight of parental expectation. The review is here. As always with my reviews posted elsewhere, I'm very happy to discuss their content either here on Dreamwidth, or at the original posts.
( Other books )
( Film and TV )
I'll close off the post with a couple of links, mainly because they've been sitting in my tabs for ages. The first is Jeannette Ng's furious essay about The Rise of Skywalker, which mirrors a lot of my thoughts on the film. I'll preface this link by saying I'm not interested in wading into a debate about the relative merits of the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films: like Jeannette, I loved The Last Jedi and hated The Rise of Skywalker, but I genuinely have no issue with people reacting in exactly the opposite manner to the two films. I would say that if you hated Jedi and enjoyed Rise I'd recommend steering clear of the essay unless you're feeling masochistic.
Finally, for nostalgic Australians, a three-part interview in The Guardian about Round the Twist. Enjoy!