Review - Unforgiven by Ruth Clampett

Dean and Jason are best friends and room-mates in their last year of college. They think they know each other inside out and have no secrets, but when Dean stumbles across Jason in an intimate situation with another man at a party, he realises he doesn’t know his best friend as well as he thought.

For Jason, the struggles are much harder. He’s gay, but very much in the closet. He’s in love with his best friend, and he has demons from his past in the form of a priest who molested him as a young boy. When Dean finds Jason with another man, the proverbial really hits the fan.

I found this book extremely frustrating. It’s a great premise, I loved the premise, but the characters … *sigh*.

Dean, especially was frustrating because he spends at least half the book being a complete asshole and saying/thinking terrible things like this:

“I find Jason in the living room, sitting slack on the couch with his legs stretched out wide and a beer in his hand. He’s watching wrestling. Of course he’s watching wrestling … the gayest sport there is.”

And this is how Dean’s thought processes continue for an awful lot of the book. I start to wonder, to be honest, what the hell Jason saw in him and there were several times I nearly just peaced out of the whole thing.

I persisted, however, and there was some payoff. When Dean and Jason do get together, Dean stops being so much of a dick, and goes into full-on protective mode. Where was this Dean earlier???? There was no transition from dick!Dean to lovely!Dean and it kind of gave me whiplash.

Great premise, okay execution that was nearly undermined by bad characterisation.

Sunday post 66; It's Monday, What are you reading? 52

The Sunday Post - a chance for bloggers to have a chat and a catch-up - is hosted by Kimba, over here: http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn, right here: http://bookdate.blogspot.co.nz/

I had a pretty unremarkable week, I think. Spawn was back at school after the holidays, and so I'm in the routine of applying for jobs and finding semi-productive ways to fill the hours. It's going ... sort of okay-ish. Well, apart from the job. Nothing on the horizon there, though I do keep applying.

I had lunch with my friend on Wednesday, and did a few hours' casual work proofing pages for the local community paper. Other than that ... hrm.

I did get some blogging done - I wrote a review of Abroad  by Liz Jacobs, and one of the app game, Monument Valley 2. Coming up this week I'll have a review of Unforgiven by Ruth Clampett, a book for which I have very mixed feelings.

Also this week I'm hoping to restart my awesome ladies blog posts, so I need to do some research for that.

J has another week off before starting his new job, so I think we're all just waiting to adjust to a new normal.

I'm still picking away at the Hamilton bio, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through Tongues of Serpents, so I'm hoping to finish that this week. Otherwise it's more of the same: applying for jobs, blogging a bit, reading .... if I'm feeling particularly feisty  I might do some cross-stitching.

What about you? How's your week? What are you reading?

Review - Monument Valley 2

I’ve talked about the original Monument Valley game before, here: https://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/my-fave-non-match-3-app-games.html

It’s still one of my favourite games, so I was very excited when seemingly out of nowhere Ustwo Games dropped Monument Valley 2 earlier this year.

This time the playable characters are Ro, and her daughter. The gameplay is similar to the first one, with mind-bending physics, relaxing music and A+ graphics.

The main differences are the characters (obviously) and the colour palette which is much more varied than the first game.

While all that is great, my favourite thing about Monument Valley 2 is how a large chunk of the story centres around the mother, Ro. Often in games, stories, novels … mothers get left behind. Their stories aren’t considered important and their whole entire role is that of mother.

In Monument Valley 2, while Ro being a mother is important, she’s also shown having her own adventures and challenges and as someone who is always looking for the unicorn - the three-dimensional fully-realised mother character - Ro in Monument Valley 2 is a real gift.

Definitely start with Monument Valley if you haven’t played it before. Overall it’s a very rewarding and relaxing experience.

Blogging

One of the things I'm trying to do while I'm not working is finding activities and things to fill my time. That sounds awful and dire but it's true.

So one of my goals is to blog more often - hopefully every day, but if not at least 3-4 times a week. I'm going to be doing reviews - books mostly, and also movies, and some games. Not TV shows because what I watch tends not to be what everyone else around the world is watching, and I'm sure you all don't want long ranty posts about The Block NZ - lol.

Otherwise I'll be writing about whatever strikes me on the day. Or I'll steal something from one of those endless blog post ideas lists and write about that. Who knows.

I'm also going to get back into doing my awesome ladies project: http://lifetheuniverseandcats.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/the-awesome-ladies-project-1-sahakdukht.html Next up was meant to be Sally Potter, who directed Orlando but I can't find a copy of the film at the moment. So back to composers, and next up is Kassia from the 8th-9th century.

It's a way to keep my brain ticking - I'm someone who needs something to be happening, or to be doing something pretty much all the time or my brain-muscle starts to atrophy.

Review - Abroad by Liz Jacobs

Nick has always felt out of place. Now in London for university - after travelling from the US, he feels even more out of place.

Then he meets Izzy and her friends - especially the handsome and somewhat grumpy Dex.

Nick struggles with his anxiety, his sexuality and what his family back home will think.

Meanwhile, Dex - having previously suffered a bad break-up, doesn't want to let Nick in at first, but Nick has a way about him that Dex can't stay away from.

Izzy - bright, bubbly and unashamedly living out lout - comes up against her own issues with her previously-assumed sexuality.

Abroad is one of those books - you open it up and you just kind of fall in. It's comforting and uneasy at the same time. All of the characters - particularly the core three of Nick, Izzy and Dex - are particularly well-realised. And although you know what's coming, you can't help but become invested in the story and the characters.

It does end on a bit of a cliffhanger, and so I'm just hanging out for book two.

Sunday post 65; It's Monday! What are you reading? 50

The Sunday Post - a chance for a chat and a catch-up with other bloggers - is hosted by Kimba, right here: http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hostedy by Kathryn, here: http://bookdate.blogspot.co.nz/

Well. First off, I'm no longer a student. I woke up on Friday morning, and I just knew it wasn't the right thing, so I withdrew from my course. It means I'm back looking for work, but it feels like the right thing. And I'm not ruling out studying in the future, but I think I'll take up something that I'm more suited to, personality wise. Also I knew - even with all the help in the world - there was no way I was going to pass statistics. It's like my friend said today - there's a difference between something hard that you know you can do ultimately, and something that you can't and fundamentally? Stats is just something I can't do. Plus, I don't really think a BCom is right for me either.

So where from here? Jobseeking, and some casual work hopefully. Otherwise, I have other projects around the house I want to try and get done - mostly sorting things out and throwing out boxes and tidying DVDs.

Spawn and I went to a live wrestling show on Saturday night, there's an outfit here that does periodic events - modelled after the WWE. It was the second one we've been to, and it was a lot of fun.

What else ... not much, really. I'm STILL reading the Alexander Hamilton bio, and Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik. I also picked up Abroad, by Liz Jacobs and I'm hoping to have a review of that up this week.

What about you? How's your week? What are you reading?

Sunday Post 64; It's Monday! What are you reading? 50

The Sunday Post - a chance for a chat and a catch-up with other bloggers - is hosted by Kimba, here:
http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn right here: http://bookdate.blogspot.co.nz/

Let's see ... last week was ... something - lol.

For us as a family, the biggest news is that J got a fulltime job. He's been working as a grocery assistant part-time at a supermarket for years so this is good all around - not just for the family, but for him as well.

For myself, I went into Tech last Monday and discovered that no, no I was not enrolled in the course I thought I was. After some to-ing and fro-ing, I somehow found myself enrolled in a graduate diploma in marketing. Now - I really enjoyed marketing last semester but after a week of course, I don't feel ready to tackle a graduate course. So I'm going to go in there tomorrow and talk to the head of department - I have a week in which I can change my course with no penalties, and I want to see if I can switch to a BCom.

It was my intention anyway after the Certificate I did, but because I have a Bachelor of Arts (from 20 years ago I might add) people kept saying that I really didn't need another bachelor's degree, I already have a good education - and yes, that's all good advice and all but I lost sight of what I wanted to do. I want to pursue the BCom, and still major in marketing, as that's what I'm really interested in. So hopefully I can switch.

I still haven't heard from the job that I really wanted, so I think I have to let that one go - I was talking on Friday to one of the people I had put down for a reference, and she said she hadn't heard from them - two weeks later.

So the plan is (hopefully) to switch my course, but keep applying for jobs. Studying is something I can always come back to, now that I know I still have the knack to get the work done, but you can't pin a job to a noticeboard for later.

I'm still picking through the same books - the Hamilton bio and Tongues of Serpents, though the latter isn't the strongest entry in the Temeraire series, I will still persist.

How about you? What are you reading? How's your week?