Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
4/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
An anthology of people living with mental illnesses and magic. Not the old tropes of magic being a sign or cause, but magic as a tool to help cope with the struggles. Definitely some dark moments, but overall, a thread of hope runs through all of the stories.
3/2022 – ⭐️⭐️
A somewhat amusing murder mystery and courtroom drama; basically Law & Order: TOS starring Samuel Cogley. Unfortunately, the poor treatment of the two primary female characters (one an overly stereotypical shallow, bitter wife; the other bitter at past events who fares badly) marred my enjoyment.
2/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A recommendation from my 10-year-old niece (V.E. Schwab is her favorite author), this was a fun fantasy adventure through multiple magical Londons. Neat worldbuilding and magic rules and styles; perhaps a bit more violent than I would have expected from a pre-teen’s recommendation (apparently Schwab also writes YA books, which is how my niece came across her, but this is one of her adult novels), but her parents also read and enjoyed it, she’s none the worse for reading it, and I’ve certainly read far worse.
1/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Near-future technothriller in Stephenson’s trademark “neat stuff infodump” style. Weird to read something so new that it references both Covid and the Jan. 6th insurrection.
Jungle Cruise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Exactly what it purported to be: A Disney action/adventure with The Rock and Emily Blunt having fun playing in the Disney sandbox and making bad jokes. Perfect lightweight and low-stress entertainment for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
A reading challenge I just might try to do this year: Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge:
January – New Beginnings
1 – I give you permission to read the most recent book you got on top of your TBR. For many this is one we only get to read eventually but for now I want you to pick up the newest book in Mount TBR and read it. Can you remember the last time you did that?
Stretch Goal – Read the oldest book in Mount TBR it has waited long enough
We watched two films today. If we can keep up this momentum, we’ll watch 730 over the next year!
To be clear, we are not going to keep up this momentum.
‘No Time to Die’: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2: Definitely one of the top two Daniel Craig Bond films (along with Skyfall), and a good end for his arc. His hasn’t been my favorite tenure (on the whole, too many of his entries went too far into the “gritty and realistic” approach), so it was nice for the final one to be one of the more enjoyable entries. I particularly appreciated the coherent and well-lit action scenes, all too often a rarity these days (particularly noticeable just after watching The Matrix: Resurrections, which had confusing and underlit action scenes that were often difficult to follow).
‘The Matrix Resurrections’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2: I’m going to have to do some thinking and reading on this one, and possibly re-watch it at some point. I very much enjoyed the first half, with all the de-/re-construction of the original trilogy. The action in the latter half could probably have been cut down a good chunk, it rather dragged on, and I’ll admit to being confused about just what was going on and why (Neo and Trinity are…super-batteries? But only when connected in parallel? Something?). But my first impression is that while it doesn’t reach the heights of the first, there was more about it that I liked than that didn’t work for me.
My resolutions for this year:
(That’s my Mac mini’s primary 4K monitor and secondary display, the secondhand MacBook Pro I got from Prairie last year, and my iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch, respectively. Yes, I make this same stupid joke every year, ’cause it makes me laugh.)