media update: April

A meager media update this month as I went through a bit of a reading slump and also spent a lot of time doing gig work to earn some extra cheddar. 

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.

When applicable, this page will be published as a work in progress and continually updated so I can provide timely feedback for advance reader copies.  Receiving an ARC does not affect my reviews in any way.

FICTION

1. Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis:  Temple's father was an infamous serial killer whose former hunting grounds have been turned into an overnight camp for queer horror-obsessed teen girls. Temple gets a job as a counselor so she can secretly look for the bodies of his undiscovered victims, but an apparent copycat killer throws a wrench into the works.

2024 TOTAL SO FAR:  17

NONFICTION

1. The Wives by Simone Gorrindo:  A memoir about the author's marriage to a soldier and the close bond she formed with other army wives.

2024 TOTAL SO FAR:  9

MANGA/GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Confessions of a Shy Baker vol. 4 by Masaomi Ito

2. The Man Who Shattered My World by Osamu Moriya

3. My Happy Marriage vols. 2-4 by Akumi Agitoga and Rito Kohsaka

4. My Dress-Up Darling vol. 11 by Shinichi Fukuda 

5. Blood on the Tracks vol. 16 by Shuzo Oshimi

2024 TOTAL SO FAR:  16

MOVIES

1. Wish:  Asha (Ariana DeBose) butts heads with a king (Chris Pine) who steals wishes.  It's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, but the songs are forgettable and overall it just felt...inert.

2. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On*:  A documentarian befriends a tiny talking shell (voiced by Jenny Slate) who's searching for his family.  This had been on our watchlist for ages, mainly because we didn't think it would be any good, but hoo boy were we wrong!  It's funny and poignant.

3. The Man from Nowhere:  A pawnshop owner with a mysterious past springs into action when his neighbor's little girl is kidnapped by organ harvesters.  

4. Anyone But You:  After a hookup leads to a misunderstanding, Bea and Ben (Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell) hate each other, but they wind up unexpectedly reunited at a wedding.  Cute, but it doesn't exactly reinvent the romcom wheel.

5. The Zone of Interest:  In 1943, the Hoss family has built a beautiful home for themselves...right next to Auschwitz, where the patriarch is a high-ranking official.  This movie started off so strange that G and I almost turned it off, but it eventually grabbed us.  I'm sure I'm not the only person to mention the famous quote about the banality of evil in reference to this movie, but that's precisely what it's about; you see the children playing in their yard while clouds of smoke billow from the crematorium behind the wall, and the matriarch casually chats with her friends about the fur coats and jewels her husband brings home from the people he helps murder.

2024 TOTAL SO FAR:  31