media update: June

Asterisks denote something I particularly enjoyed or found especially worthy of my time; double asterisks are reserved for the creme de la creme. As always, your mileage may vary.

FICTION

1. Maeve Fly* by CJ Leede:  Maeve works at a particular theme park's "B-campus" as a popular ice queen.  (The park is never named, but it's in Anaheim; even my dyscalculia-having ass can do the math!). Maeve unironically loves her job, her best friend (who plays the sister to Maeve's ice queen), her one-time movie star grandmother, and Los Angeles, but she's got a dark side...and I do mean DARK.  Throw Netflix horror series Brand-New Cherry Flavor, American Psycho, and a heaping cup of guts and gore into a blender and you'll get this delightfully disturbing debut.  Not for the squeamish!  

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC.  The book is out now!

2. The Good Ones by Polly Stewart:  Twenty years after the disappearance of her frenemy Lauren, Nicola returns to her hometown (DJ Khaled voice:  another one!) for a teaching job and gets caught up in the mystery all over again.  I enjoyed it up until the ending, which left me dissatisfied.

3. The Whispers* by Ashley Audrain:  At a neighborhood party, the guests are scandalized when they overhear the hostess screaming at her son.  Months later, when the boy mysteriously falls out of a window, everyone has a theory as to what happened and why.  Powerful and engrossing, with one hell of a final chapter.

4. She Started It by Sian Gilbert:  A bachelorette party on a private island has an unusual group of invitees: the women who tormented the bride-to-be when they were in school.  Lured by the promise of a free luxury vacation, the women overcome their suspicions; suffice to say, they shouldn't have.

5. My Murder by Katie Williams:  Louise was murdered by a serial killer, but she (and the other victims) were cloned and brought back to life by the government.  As she tries to piece together the details of her former life, she begins to question what really happened to her.

6. After That Night* by Karin Slaughter:  Dr. Sara Linton tries in vain to save the life of a brutalized young woman in the ER.  Much to her horror, there's a connection to her own assault fifteen years earlier, and Sara's fiance, special agent Will Trent, is determined to get to the bottom of it.  I didn't like Karin Slaughter's last couple of books, but this was a welcome return to form.  I don't tend to give content warnings, but this needs one for graphic descriptions of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Side note: this won't be out in the US until August; I read the UK version.

2023 TOTAL SO FAR: 25

NONFICTION

Nothing this month.

2023 TOTAL SO FAR: 3

MANGA/GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Confessions of a Shy Baker by Masaomi Ito

2023 TOTAL SO FAR:  22 volumes of manga and 3 graphic novels

MOVIES

1. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:  Adventurers go on a quest to retrieve a relic that can bring someone back from the dead.  It's fun, and they did a good job making it accessible to players and non-players alike.  (G plays DnD but I don't, and there were a few references he got that I didn't, but I was never lost.)

2. Avatar: The Way of Water*:  Jake, Ney'tiri, and their family are forced to leave their forest home when humans start shit again.  The story takes a bit of a backseat to the visuals, but damn, what visuals!

3. Creed III:  Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has retired from the boxing world, but he finds himself being pulled back towards the ring by an old friend (Jonathan Majors) with something to prove.

4. Beau Is Afraid:  When Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) learns that his mother has died, he sets off on a bizarre journey to get home for her funeral.  Not as disturbing or gory as Ari Aster's other movies, but it sure as hell isn't a "safe" movie either; it's basically a panic attack that lasted three hours.  I didn't like it, exactly, but aside from a section in the middle that badly needed to be trimmed, I wasn't bored.

5. Extraction 2*:  A commando (Chris Hemsworth) embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue a gangster's family.  Super exciting, especially a one-shot sequence that lasts twenty minutes.  (I mean, I'm sure there was some camera trickery, but it wasn't obvious to a layperson, or at least this one.)

6. John Wick 4*:  Supremely skilled assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) takes his fight against the High Table to a whole new level.  It's almost three hours long, but it doesn't feel like it because the action rarely lets up.

7. Knock at the Cabin:  A couple and their young daughter are held captive by a group of people who claim they can avert the apocalypse.

 2023 TOTAL SO FAR: 34