Month: May 2023

“Idiot” by Laura Clery Book Review

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Format Read: Audiobook

 

From YouTuber Laura Clery, “Idiot” is her memoir written in the form of comedic essays.  She tells us her story of her being broke trying to make it in the Hollywood scene, her addiction, problematic romances and how she got to where she is today.

 

I have never heard of Clery before this – I guess her videos never made it on my recommendation on my YouTube homepage.  I picked this up because my sister and cousin have started a mini book club and this was our monthly pick.  I love memoirs as they are one of my guilty pleasures. I usually pick up the audiobooks for memoirs because they are usually narrated by the author themselves.  This was the case for Clery and I think that is what made her story even more enjoyable.  Because her background is in comedy, she gives her stories so much more energy and you can feel how much fun she is having through the narration.  It is fun to hear a celebrity read their own book, but if they can make it their own story as if they are talking to me directly, that is when the story can be elevated.  And Clery nails that with her comedic timing partnered with her somber moments when she describes what dangers she has been in with her past.

 

The essays are fun and entertaining, but at the same time do not really seem different than a typical celebrity memoir.  I actually did not know they were supposed to be essays as I was listening to the book as I could not see them being broken up so it just felt like I was going chapter to chapter.  Each essay was also formatted in the same style – nothing changing from story to story – which also made it feel like I was just reading a traditional style of memoir.  I wish that with each essay you could tell when it was something new instead of just going through chapter by chapter style.  So many of these memoirs are the same kind of format and hearing that it was essays, if anything, made me more disappointed that she did not put a fun spin on it.  Overall, I wanted more from this format of storytelling that we do not usually see.

 

While Clery’s stories are full of heart and her narration draws you into her storytelling, this is nothing new outside of a typical memoir.  If she was able to pull more from her creativity online and comedy aspect, it could have been more enjoyable, but I feel as though the only reason why I liked it as much as I did was due to the audiobook. 

“XO, Kitty” TV Show Review

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General Information:

Created by – Jenny Han

Starring – Anna Cathcart (Kitty), Choi Min-young (Dae), Anthony Keyvan (Q), Gia Kim (Yuri), and Sang Heon Lee (Min Ho)

Premise – After being the matchmaker for her older sister, Kitty is ready to take a chance on love for herself as she travels to her mother’s former school in Korea to meet her long-distance online boyfriend and learn more about her mother’s past, but everything is deeper than it appears on the surface.

Review:

“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” was one of my favorite trilogies of movies and books as it was always so wholesome and cutesy, playing with the stereotypical rom-com tropes but in a new and refreshing way for the late 2010s. Due to its success, Netflix decided to give the popular little sister character, Kitty, her own spin-off TV series.  When this was first announced, I thought it was just another way for a major streaming service to bank off of one IP’s success and milk it for all that it is worth.  But “XO, Kitty” is something that can exist on its own without having to rely on the stars of the movies that made it possible, another refreshing change of pace from what has been becoming popular in recent media.

The charm of Cathcart is what drives the show to be as cute as it is.  It has that same “To All the Boys” feel without having to constantly mention that it is a spin-off.  We start the show with Kitty convincing her dad and step-mom to let her attend her mother’s former international high school, the Korean International School of Seoul (KISS), making them the only recurring characters to physically show up in the show and only for a brief period of time.  Her sisters, Margot and Lara Jean, are also only mentioned by name sporadically throughout the series but never make an appearance.  If you knew nothing about the “To All the Boys” universe, you could easily get into this show and not be lost.  It’s fun to know more of the background information and they do make fun hints to the original movies, but this show can stand on its own, making it even more enjoyable than it already is.

The characters we follow are in some ways a little one-dimensional that has one trait being the main focus over the rest of who they are as a person (the gay one, the rich spoiled one, etc.).  They do try to go more in depth with who they are as people throughout the season, but a lot of it is at the end where the storylines begin to feel rushed.  While I loved every single character for who they were trying to portray, I wish the series explored each of them more without having to give us the best information at the end.  Even though Kitty is the main character and this is her story, I wish there was just extra time in the episodes to dedicate to one person and have them be the driving force of the episode rather than the side character who gets their small B-plot.  I know that this show is not going to be the most groundbreaking when it comes to character development, but in my hopes a season two is coming, this is the first thing that I would make adjustments for now that we know who they are.

The story is simple and something that you can shut your brain off and enjoy.  Now, most people would take that as a bad thing, but I think that is what makes this show thrive.  It is simple and fun and that is exactly what this type of show needs.  If it took  itself too seriously, that would be a major departure from what we have come to love about Kitty.  I also think that it would have taken away from how anyone can get into the show without having to have prior knowledge on who Kitty is.  With its flowing and care-free approach, the story is sacrificed a bit but for a greater purpose. The episodes are short and feel short which is a nice change of pace with how long television has gotten in the rise of streaming services.  You can easily finish it in a day or two and get on with your life with a new cutesy show to talk about.

Overall, the show is fun and light and does something nice by not relying heavily on its previous work to justify its existence.  I am praying for season two so we can fix issues that the first season had, like the simple characters and not having enough time to flesh them out, while keeping the ease of the show that made it so much fun to watch.

“Bama Rush” Documentary Review

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General Information:

Director – Rachel Fleit

Where to Watch – Max

Synopsis – #BamaRush took over social media in August of 2021, but why did it become such a hit?  And why do thousands of women go to the University of Alabama just to be in a sorority?  And is Greek Life hiding secrets that need to be uncovered?  We follow four young potential new members to find out during the 2022 recruitment season.

Review:

Even though I may not have been in the heart of #BamaRushTok when it was popular in August of 2021, I still heard about it.  I occasionally came across some of the popular videos that were trending, but I did not think much of it.  I knew that Greek Life culture at the big southern schools was intense and having gone through the process myself at a smaller southern school, I did not really give the hype of it a second thought.  That was until I found out that HBO Max (now Max) was going to be doing a documentary on it.  The online rumors that surrounded this was that they were going to be planting girls as Potential New Members (PMNs for short) and get all of the secrets that goes on behind recruitment. As much as I would love to see it from the inside of another school, I did not think this would be the case.  But everyone else on the internet did, and you can tell it definitely impacted what the documentary wanted to do towards the end, but I think its message still came across.

One of the most interesting things about this documentary was that the director put herself into the picture.  She was not just a figure asking questions in the background; there were parts when she was front and center talking about some of her experiences.  Fleit has the condition alopecia, where your body attacks the hair follicles making it so you are not able to grow hair.  As a woman, this can be an especially hard condition to have.  A lot of the criticism that has come for the documentary makes the point that Fleit seems to insert herself more than is needed.  I really liked this choice of filmmaking as it brought the more behind-the-scenes crew to the forefront and focus on why they wanted to make the documentary.  Now, people have complained saying that Fleit’s alopecia as it was her personal story to tell and had no purpose in being in a documentary about sorority recruitment.  I actually liked this aspect of the documentary, as the director is bringing in her personal story to go along with why some of the recruits go through sorority recruitment in the first place – a sense of belonging.  Growing up as a young woman, you are always judged by the way you look before anything else.  Not having hair is not normal for your average woman, so growing up with that kind of condition is not an easy task.  The message that came across to me is that girls who are PMNs are trying to find their place on campus – it is a new school and they may know little to no one – so having that support system is crucial.  When you feel accepted and a part of something, you have a better  chance of thriving in your future.  This is why I think Fleit decided to talk about her personal journey and struggle with her hair; she just wanted to find a place of acceptance just like PMNs.

The main issue that took me out of the documentary was that they tried to touch upon so many different topics that surround Alabama Greek Life that it felt like I was just reading a Cliff Notes version of the actual events.  There is so much that goes behind the specific life of being in a fraternity and sorority at the University of Alabama specifically, and the documentary wants to talk about each of them.  However, a lot of the interesting things about The Machine or how racism was heavily involved until recent years when they have attempted to desegregate their Greek Life.  That was all of the information I was most looking forward to learning more about as it involves things that I have heard rumors about online.  This is where I think the documentary would have benefited more from being a docuseries.  We could have had the overall through line of wanting to be accepted still there but have each episode focus on a major topic.  One could focus on The Machine and  how they tried to run the entirety of the Student Government at Alabama, leading into potential political futures for the candidates they were campaigning.  Another could focus on the racist history of Greek Life at Alabama while shining a bigger light on the historically Black fraternities and sororities on campus (called The Divine Nine).  There could also be one focusing on the PNMs going through the training with the rush coordinators and how much time and effort goes into the rush process.  But because it was restrained to an under two hour documentary, a lot of the interesting ideas were lost in the final product.

With a good message that could have been executed better, “Bama Rush” is an interesting look at how girls find comfort in sororities because they need to find a sense of belonging, but the documentary tries to also include University of Alabama-specific components that do not go anywhere.  Overall, just pretty average with entertaining bits here and there.    

“Air” Movie Review

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Based on real life events, “Air” follows the story of Nike Basketball recruiter Sonny Vaccaro and his dream of saving the company by getting the hottest young rookie: Michael Jordan.

I am a sucker for sports movies based on real events; it is kind of like a guilty pleasure.  This movie had so much hype around it because it was another directorial piece from Ben Affleck starring him and his childhood besties Matt Damon.  I feel like a lot of people like to “dunk” on them (haha, get it?) whenever they team up together, but they are always a fun duo for me to watch.  And this movie is no different.

The one thing that stood out about this movie was the pacing.  The movie is almost two hours but it does not feel like that when you are engaged with it.  The quick storylines and the tight scenes really make it feel like you are in and out but still able to absorb a lot of what happened.  There was not a lot of fluff in between scenes; we went from one scene smoothly into the next one for the entirety of the movie.  For those who are just looking for the information on how the shoes of Air Jordan came to be and learn a little bit about Nike as a company, this is the movie for them.  It is not as interesting as “Moneyball”, which I can see this movie getting compared to a lot, but it definitely appeals to that type of crowd.  The pacing was what made this movie enjoyable, along with some witty dialog and a fun premise.  The screenplay is nothing to write home about — it is very standard for this kind of movie — but that along with the pacing work perfectly hand-in-hand with one another.

The performances of the movie are enjoyable as well.  Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro is the heart and driving force of the film and Damon puts his heart into it.  This may come off as a simple role for someone like Damon but he does not take it lightly and brings everything to this real life character.  Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Chris Tucker and Matthew Maher are all fun and bring energy to their respective roles at the different heads of the Nike Basketball division and also want you to feel something from them.  But the standout has to be Viola Davis as Michael Jordan’s mother Deloris Jordan.  She brings the intensity and motherly love that Michael Jordan himself always talked about in speeches.  You know that she cares about how her son is going to do in his professional career but also backs him 100% because she knows his worth.  She shows strong determination to get her son what she wants without seemingly like an overbearing or too overprotective parent.  There is believing in your son and then there’s knowing what your son is worth and Davis excellently  shows us that difference through her performance.

Looking back at Affleck’s directorial filmography, this is the only film of his that I have seen all the way through, so this was my first real experience with his work as a director.  I do not have much to say about how it stood out or did not stand out.  There were a few long one shots that I liked but nothing that really made him different than from what I was expecting to see from this type of film.  The major issue I had with it was that at the beginning there were a lot of shots of “remember the 80s” with how many ads were playing and how many random shots in a gas station store there were to  help bring that time period to the forefront.  There is not wrong with trying to set up your scene, especially as someone who did not live during this time period, but all the shots that just seemed to be there to have 80s nostalgia took me out of certain scenes and made it harder to get into the film at the beginning.  But I did really like how even though Damon was the main character of the movie, Affleck decided to focus more on the collaborative effort of the team at Nike rather than just the one person who was the “head” of it.  I also liked the idea of never showing Michael Jordan’s face.  It was an interesting creative choice to make sure that the image of Jordan is only Jordan himself.  Affleck knew that only Jordan could play Jordan and since he is now about 40 years older, it would not really work out.  But it was different and the story was more on the creation of the shoe and his mother making sure he was fairly compensated for the work, so I give credit to Affleck for leaving Jordan a little bit of a mystery.

Overall, this is a simple sports movie with good pacing but nothing new being added to this genre of film.  Check it out if you have Amazon Prime as it is an easy crowd-pleaser with laughs and heart for all.

“To Paradise” by Hanya Yanagihara Book Review

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From the author of the popular book “A Little Life”, Hanya Yanagihara is back with her next novel “To Paradise”.  Broken up into three stories during three different alternative time periods of American history, we follow a family through the years of 1893, 1993 and 2093 who all have one thing in common besides their bloodline: a townhouse located in New York City.  We follow three different stories from different generations of the Hawaiian family living in NYC, and how illness can impact them the same way even when they are living hundreds of years apart.

Now I have yet to read “A Little Life” so this is my first time reading any book by Yanagihara.  A lot of people seemed to like “A Little Life” so I was excited when I saw her newest novel was nominated for the GoodReads Choice Awards for Fiction.  I am on a journey of reading all of the GoodReads Choice Awards winners and this is the second one I have picked up.  This is a large book, over 600 pages, and I listened to it on audiobook, which I think is the way to approach it as there are a variety of voice actors for the different characters we explore.  Without the audiobook, I am not sure if I would have been able to make it through as easily as I did.  But there is a lot to unpack with this book and I wish it would have been adapted in a different way that Yanagihara did.

The book is broken up into three major storylines, each taking place 100 years apart.  The book is over 600 pages, but it is not evenly spread out amongst the different time periods.  There were a lot of interesting aspects of each of the stories, but my major issue with it was that even though they all had similar themes and locations, there was not really a reason why all of them had to be told in one book as one story.  It was way too long to be one novel; I wish it was broken up into a trilogy because it would have made the individual stories flow better and give them their time to be expanded upon.  I was interested in what each time period had to say about the state of America and the illnesses that were running through each of the stories, but the first two took up the first half of the book and the third was the other half.  If it was broken up into three novels as part of a series, the first two books would have had their chance to be better fleshed out and much more enjoyable than they were. 

Each of the stories were written in a way that kept me entertained in its high moments and really dragged in its low points.  It is hard to describe, but I wanted to keep reading because in certain moments I was so invested in the characters and what they were doing, but then it would take a complete 180 and I would be bored in an instant.  I am not sure if this is Yanagihara’s writing style or if it was me, but as much as I wanted more from these stories, the times that dragged really dragged.  I think this book would have been better as a series, even if I thought that some moments could have been cut out.  Maybe this was because Yanagihara was limited to staying within one book.  The best of the books that did not have me bored was the third story as it was the one that was the most fleshed out and was given the most opportunity to be a complete story.  While the characters and story were there and entertaining, I was not fully engaged with all of the parts evenly.

An heart-wrenching and interconnected story that can keep you entertained from time to time, but the unevenness of the stories makes the book drag more than it should.

 

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?” Movie Review

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Based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” tells the story of 11-year-old Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) as her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie) move out of New York City and into the suburbs of New Jersey.  Margaret is nervous to start a new school, make new friends (Elle Graham as Nancy, Amari Alexis Price as Janie and Katherine Mallen Kupferer as Gretchen) and worst of all, she is behind on all the stages of becoming a woman.  Her only source of comfort comes when she hangs out with her grandmother (Kathy Bates) but other family struggles plague the family that Margaret never knew.

If you are looking for a coming-of-age film that perfectly encapsulates what it means to be a pre-teen girl, this is the movie for you.  Even though the film takes place in the 1970s, the main themes of the film are timeless.  Young girls will always be worried about making friends and trying to fit in with them when they move to a completely different lifestyle and “Margaret” is able to show how just because the first people to reach out to you may seem nice does not always mean that they should be the ones you stick around with.  The struggles of going through puberty are also a timeless feature that girls will go through.  As someone who has gone through female puberty, even though I was not even born during this time period, I was still able to think back to the time I was experiencing these events for myself.  When you are able to create a film that can connect to all of its audience members who have gone through, or know someone who has gone through, female puberty and set it during a time that is not the present, that is the sign of a quality film.  These themes are timeless and your film should be able to live on past its time period.

The script lends itself to be a timeless classic.  One of the best parts about it is that it has dialogue that anyone is able to make easy connections to it.  The scenes between the friends reminded me so much of how my friends and I would talk to each other at their age about everything from boys to class to puberty.  It made me cringe at times, but the good kind where it reminded me of how embarrassing we all are at the middle school age.  When a film is able to make you have a physical reaction to it because of sheer embarrassment, then I consider that a good script.  At times, it did seem like certain scenes overstayed their welcome, but nothing too much to bring me out of the story completely.  There is a lot of heart in this story and they are not afraid to touch upon some heavy topics.  When friends lie to you or your family is not whole because of something that seems so trivial, it can be a lot on a young person especially when your hormones are changing so rapidly during puberty.  Anyone is able to relate to these feelings of confusion on why certain things have to happen and that is what makes this movie such a gem in the coming-of-age genre.

The performances are another highlight of this movie.  I am still not used to seeing McAdams in a mother role as she will always be the iconic Regina George to me, but everything about her character is relatable.  She is a mother who is trying to become the “perfect suburban mom” instead of what she was doing before in the city.  The way McAdams is able to portray this feeling that so many moms go through and probably have never noticed or said anything before was perfectly executed.  The children in the movie are some of the most enjoyable child actors I have seen in a long time.  It does not feel like any of them are actually acting; they are just being kids and that is a great sign for their futures in the field.  The standout is Fortson as the titular Margaret as she is able to bring all of the emotions and feelings I felt at her age to this role.  There is a lot of confusion when you are put in a new situation especially at this age and Fortson reminded me so much of myself at that age and I loved it.  Look out for her and the other wonderful young ladies in the future.

A quircky coming-of-age for all ages that may have had a few lull moments for myself but that one that has continued to stay in my mind over the past week.

“Thing I Should Have Said” by Jamie Lynn Spears Book Review

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Nickelodeon child star Jamie Lynn Spears opens up in her first memoir touching upon all of the major moments in her life, her family and how she was able to overcome some of the hardest moments in her life.

I was a huge fan of “Zoey 101” when it was on the air and like every other young teenager during late 00s, was shocked to hear that she had gotten pregnant at such a young age, thinking that was the reason the show ended.  I was also a huge Britney Spears fan as she was the first artist I was able to recognize and sing along to.  In recent years, like many other, I was interested in the release of Britney from her conservatorship and was shocked at what Jamie Lynn’s involvement (or lack there of) was.  When I heard this book was coming out, I wanted to approach it with an open mind as that is how I want to take an approach to media and critiquing it.  So any opinions I have of this book and this review are coming from a place as a book reader and lover of celebrity memoirs and my personal bias was not a factor.

There is nothing new added to the celebrity memoir genre with this book.  It is your typical recounting of major events in the life of the author.  Where some celebrities like to bring in guests to write sections of the book or tell their life story through a series of poems or other creative medium, none of that was here.  There are so many celebrity memoirs out in the world now for people to pick up, so authors need to learn that the same old same old is not going to fly anymore.  Write a book of poetry about all of the majors events in your life you want to talk about or tell the story from the perspective of you as a child going through your childhood events and keep maturing the writing style as you grow up and mature through your life.  Being a famous name is not going to be enough anymore especially when you add next to nothing for the genre.

The biggest issue I had with Spears as an author was that I felt like she wanted to tell so many different stories from so many different aspects of her life but was not given the breathing room in terms of page length to tell it all.  In a short 240 pages, we learn so much about Spears and her career from being a child star, to being Brittney’s little sister and everything Britney went through, to the events that led up to her being a teen mom and eventually finding her future husband with a little bit of recent Britney events sprinkled in for good measure.  This is a lot to go through and the page length did not do it justice.  Reading this book felt like getting whiplash with how quickly Spears covered the major events in her life.  There is a lot she went through, I am not going to deny that fact, but there was not a central point that brought all of her stories together besides her.  Yes, it is a memoir a lot of the focus should be on yourself, but I have read so many others that focus on a specific person other than the author or focus on a bunch of people that is the reason they are were they are today but this one felt like it was very selfishly written.  It seemed as though Spears wanted to capitalize off of the media attention Britney was getting from fighting for her right to leave the conservatorship that this memoir was an easy cash grab.  Now she may have wanted to release a memoir for a long time and I understand that, but the whole book felt very selfish and it turned me off from a lot of the stories I was genuinely interested in.

With nothing new added to the genre while feeling very money-hungry, “Things I Should Have Said” did not really say much of anything.  While the little bits of her life we did get were interesting, the book’s page length deters it from being an adventure for the reader to join alongside the author in question.

“Lark Ascending” by Silas House Review

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Set in a somewhat near dystopian future, Lark finds himself in Ireland as he and his family attempted to flee America due to fires and religious takeover.  Being the last survivor of a boat crash, Lark ends up alone not knowing what the future holds for him, until he finds a partner in Seamus, one of the last remaining dogs in the world, and Helen, an Irish woman on the run since the war began.  This unlikely trio travel to find a community that will accept them while trying to avoid those who want them dead.

Dystopian is one of my favorite genres and while it seems that the fad of these kind of novels has come and gone, I was so happy to stumble upon this one published so recently.  Like other dystopian novels before it, what draws me in are the parallels to present day events.  Fires take over America, forcing Lark and his family to flee from their original home in Maryland and flee to Maine, showing us the impacts that climate change can have on those who are just trying to live their lives.  The takeover of religious extremists is also what pushes Lark and his family to eventually flee all the way to Ireland.  There is a lot of political discourse going on nowadays that seems to be attacking people of the LGBTQIA+ community in America and a lot of it seems to stem from those who want to use their religion to say that people of this community cannot exist as they truly are.  The past dystopian novels I read back in my middle and high school days really focused on the government and how they like to tell us they are working with us but sometimes you need to peal back the curtain and see what they are really doing.  This novel, however, turns away from the government is bad trope and focuses on the actual people behind what makes the world go to war.  There are people who think differently and want to ignore what is happening around them and those are the ones that have the biggest impact on how things go down.  I like how instead of focusing on the faceless people that were the ones that took over, we focus on the family that was impacted by it.  We do not need to bring attention to those in charge all of the time, because most of the time, they are the ones who have the greatest stories.

Most of the time, we are reading from the first-person perspective of Lark, but every now and then, we are brought into the mind of Seamus the dog.  I love having this break up of narrative perspectives especially when the story moves so quickly.  These chapters are never very long, but it reminds us that just because animals cannot speak to us does not mean that they do not experience the same things we do.  Dogs have for the longest time been called “man’s best friend” and we are able to explore that and how Seamus is feeling during his perspective chapters.  This is the second book that I have read recently that has chapters that let the dog speak, and both have been favorites of mine.  Coincidence??

What makes this novel very enjoyable for me is that because of its length, there is not really a lot of room to have a lot of breaks and it is just all action the entire time.  Even if intense and high-energy action scenes are not taking place, everything the characters do mean something and have some kind of impact with usually pretty quick results.  Sitting at around 275, we are dropped right in the middle of the main inciting incident — traveling along the boat from Canada to Ireland.  We have an immediate idea on who the characters are and what their main motivations are.  It is nice to read a book that knows how much it wants to accomplish and does not need to add page length to drag it out.  The quick-pace of the story was what made me connect and enjoy the story more.  I did not feel like anything was missing from the characters or their motivations while also not feeling like the story was dragged down due to wanting to expand the page count.   If you like a story that gets right to the point right away, this is the book for you.

A found family story for the dystopian lovers, Lark Ascending is a refreshing and new take on the genre, proving that these kind of stories are more than just a fad.