(early) media update: March

I'm posting this early since I've got so much to do before I leave on Sunday, and I doubt I'll have much time for reading or movies between now and the end of the month. Asterisks denote something I particularly enjoyed or found especially worthy of my time; as always, your mileage may vary.

Apparently, March was Chick Lit and Inane Foreign Films Month.


FICTION


1. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin: Chick sleeps with, then falls in love with, her best friend's fiance. Oops. Wraps up a little too neatly for my tastes, but it's not bad.

2. The Shining by Stephen King: I thought I'd read it before, but I think I may have actually thrown it aside in fear, because it doesn't seem familiar to me at all (except for the parts that were also in the movie; quite a bit was changed). God knows the movie scarred me for life, to the point that I cannot go into a bathroom with a drawn shower curtain.

3. Spiral by Koji Suzuki: Sequel to The Ring. Nice twist at the end, but otherwise meh.

4. Eleanor Rigby* by Douglas Coupland: A lonely, nondescript woman ("I'm the blank tile in a Scrabble set") gets a hell of a shock when the son she gave up for adoption twenty years before finds his way back into her life.

5. Hanging by a Thread by Karen Templeton: God, the shit I'll read when I'm bored enough.

6. Wedding Season by Darcy Cosper: Marriage-phobic woman must attend 17 weddings in six months. Basically standard chick lit, although it gets points for a funny loudmouthed lesbian character named Henry and the fact that it doesn't end remotely like I thought it would.

7. Prep* by Curtis Sittenfeld: This is the book that's being touted as the new Catcher in the Rye (albeit with a female protagonist), and although it's not up to Salinger's standards, this is a damned good book.


NON-FICTION


1. The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll by Jean Nathan: The tragic true story of author Dare Wright, who was kept in a constant state of total dependence by her overbearing mother, and was left completely helpless when she died. If you've never read Wright's definitive work, The Lonely Doll, I highly recommend it; imagine if David Lynch or Cindy Sherman decided to take pictures for a children's book.

2. A Rip in Heaven*: Devastating true crime story about the author's cousins and her brother, who were walking on a bridge late at night when four teenagers assaulted them, raping the girls, beating her brother, and then throwing all three of them over the side of the bridge. Her brother survived; the girls did not. Because the police didn't believe he could have survived a 50+ foot drop, he was placed under arrest for his cousins' murder, but even after the suspects were apprehended and he was freed, he and his family had to watch as the killers became media darlings. A searing look at how victims continue to be victimized long after the fact.

3. Witness by Amber Frey: Oh god, the shame.

4. Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood* by Koren Zailckas: Uncompromising memoir of one woman's love affair with alcohol.


MANGA


1. Extra Heavy Syrup* by Yayoi Ogawa
2. Billion Girl vol. 2 by Miwa Sakai
3. Confidential Confessions vol. 6 by Momochi Reiko
4. Pink Prisoner by Kazumi Ooya




MOVIES


1. Bride & Prejudice: This has to be the most colorful movie I've ever seen, that's for sure. It wasn't great, but neither was it awful, and Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson sure look good together.

2. Shaolin Soccer: Unrepentantly dumb.