Review - Chase in Shadow (Johnnies #1)

*Trigger warnings for this one for references to suicide, suicidal ideation, infidelity and homophobic slurs.

Chase Summers has, on the outside, an ideal life. He has the perfect girlfriend, a nice apartment, and he's studying towards becoming an engineer.

However, Chase also carries the burdens of secrets on secrets - secrets that he believes he can never share with anyone. When he starts making "gay for pay" porn videos, he thinks it will give him what he really craves with no real-world consequences: the touch of another man.

Chase loves his girlfriend, Mercy. But he knows she's not who he wants to be with. When he meets Tango - or Tommy - while he's filming, Chase falls hard. He can't stay away from Tommy, and he believes he can't give up Mercy.

Until the whole fragile house of cards topples down around him.

I really enjoyed Chase in Shadow. Although maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word given the relatively heavy subject matter. Chase has a LOT of self-hatred to unpack and his journey through that is a proper rollercoaster. And, although he spends most of the book lying to - and cheating on - his girlfriend, it's really hard to hate him. He's so vulnerable that it's painful to read on occasion.

I read Chase in Shadow in two days - every time I sat down I'd be reaching for the iPad to read a bit more, because I just had to know what was going to happen.

Sunday Post 85, It's Monday, What are you reading? 70

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

I had a fairly unremarkable week, I think. Just work and spawn and stuff really. Spawn goes back to school this Thursday and I think he'll be glad to see the back of the holiday programme I've had to put him in  and to see his friends again. Six weeks is a longggg break but hopefully next summer holidays I'll have some leave built up so I can take a bit of time off.

I went to my friend's last night for our weekly stitch-and-watch session. We're watching The Blacklist at the moment and I veer between loving it, ranting about it and absolutely hating some of the storylines. It's kind of therapeutic in a way, though. I haven't done much today - the usual Sunday bits and pieces, getting clothes ready for the next day, making lunches for myself and spawn, washing, cooking, that kind of thing.

I did finish a book today, though, so that was good. I've finished both Grace & Frankie and The Good Place on Netflix so I'm not sure what I want to tackle next.

I have a couple of review posts I'm going to schedule tonight and then ... try not to think about how hot it is.

I'm still reading It Devours, the second Night Vale novel, and also The Exodus Quest by Will Adams which is a silly Da Vinci Code style thriller, but it makes for good lunchtime reading at work.

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

Review - Snowpiercer

It's the year 2031, and the last of humanity reside on a massive train that spans the globe as the world is locked into another ice age.

Curtis (Chris Evans) is the leader of the lowest of the low on the train - the most desperate and poorest. They live in horrific and desperate conditions, living on protein bars and bargaining.

The train's Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton) puts in an appearance once in a while to keep order.

When two of the youngest children are taken, Curtis decides it's finally time to take action and to get to the front of the train to talk to Wilford - the former transport magnate who created the train.

Curtis and his rebellion leave a trail of destruction behind them as they go. They free security expert Namgoong and his daughter Yona so they can disable the locks on the cars that lead to the front of the train - and to Wilford.

I've had Snowpiercer on my radar for a while, and I know people who've really enjoyed it. I found it....... weird. Like, really, really weird. Chris Evans was good, and Tilda Swinton is always great, and of course John Hurt and Ed Harris were really good too.

But. I don't know. I feel like some of the story was maybe sacrificed for shock value or that something, for me, was missing. I'm not sure what.

Worth watching, but a bit on the squeamish side.

Review - La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1)

La Belle Sauvage is the first book in a new trilogy by Philip Pullman, author the His Dark Materials series.

La Belle Sauvage is set in the same universe as HDM, and begins as a prequel. Malcolm - a boy of about eleven who lives with his parents in The Trout, a tavern on the shores of the Thames - has a fairly simple life. He helps in the pub, he rows in his canoe, La Belle Sauvage, and he visits the nuns across the river to do odd jobs for them to earn a bit of extra money.

When the nuns take in a baby, Malcolm's life is about to change, but he has no idea how ...

The baby in question is Lyra, the main character from the HDM series, and rather a lot of La Belle Sauvage is taken up with trying to keep Lyra and her daemon Pan alive and away from the people who want her dead for various reasons.

When an extremely damaging flood covers most of London, Malcolm knows it's up to him to try and save Lyra and get her to the one person who might be able to keep her safe - her father.

He sets out with Lyra, his own daemon Asta, and Alice and Ben - the rather surly young woman who works in the kitchen of his parents' pub, and her daemon - to get Lyra to her father before it's too late.

I have to admit, I really enjoyed La Belle Sauvage. Malcolm is really well-realised - he has some honestly unexpectedly grown-up moments, but then he says and does something and you're reminded that oh, right, he's just a young boy. Alice as a character has a lot of growth - at first she comes across as little more than a surly and unpleasant young woman, but as she takes the journey in La Belle Sauvage with Malcolm to save Lyra, she comes into her own.

I'm very much looking forward to book two.

Review - The Hound of Death

The Hound of Death is a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie.

I'm a big Agatha Christie fan, and I love her novels, and I've read other short story collections of hers. This one is a bit ... I would say hit-and-miss, to be honest. The title story in the collection, The Hound of Death, is ... odd to say the least, and has too few pages to develop its ideas.

There are a couple of really good ones in there - The Mystery of the Blue Jar is one that ended very differently than I expected it to, and The Last Seance was a really creepy little number.

The most well-known story in the collection at the moment is probably Witness for the Prosecution that was adapted as a two-part TV series with Toby Jones as the lawyer trying to prove the innocence of a young man accused of murder. The story itself is actually pretty slight and the mini-series took a fair few liberties with it, though it retained the original ending.

Out of the whole collection, The Witness for the Prosecution is probably the story most like Dame Christie's novels, while the creepiness of stories like The Last Seance have more in common with works like Crooked House and By the Pricking of My Thumbs.

Variable in tone and quality, it was still worth a read.

Sunday Post 84, It's Monday, what are you reading? 69

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

I actually managed to write and schedule a couple of blog posts last week - go me! I reviewed Eye in the Sky, and also the live 2013 version of The War of the Worlds. I'm going to try and do the same thing this week, with reviews for The Hound of Death, The Book of Dust and the movie Snowpiercer. I'm a latecomer, somehow, to scheduling posts, but it makes blogging sooooo much easier!

Work continues. This Wednesday is my three-month anniversary, which means the 90-day trial that's built into most of our contracts now is up. I'm *pretty* sure they would have said something to  me by now if they were going to show me the door and demand back their keys, but I'm naturally superstitious. BUT I had my first evaluation last week as well, and passed, so there is that also.

I've been mainlining The Good Place on Netflix, and I am SUPER EXCITED because Grace & Frankie is back as well. I've watched, I think, five episodes since yesterday morning.

As for what I'm reading, I managed to finish The Hound of Death, and also The Book of Dust. Now I'm reading It Devours, by the Welcome to Night Vale creators, and also The Exodus Quest, by Will Adams, which is a bit Da Vinci Code, but I got it for 50c from the withdrawn bookshelf at the library, and it makes for good lunchtime reading at work.

This week - more work, more reading  (hopefully) and more Netflix (always.)

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

The War of the Worlds 2013 - review

I love The War of the Worlds musical, I have listened to it many, many times.  I bought the live version that was done in 2013 a few years ago and completely forgot that I had it, so when I sat down to do my nails on Sunday, I threw it in. I'm glad I did.

It was conducted by composer Jeff Wayne and had Liam Neeson as the narrator and it was just - it was really, really cool to watch.

Even though I kept expecting Liam Neeson to burst into his speech from Taken. THAT ASIDE, watching it performed live was a real and special treat.