Books:
A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic #2) by V.E. Schwab
Aaargh. Well in case you weren't gathering the tl:dr from that, this book was, bummer, total DNF suckage. The bummer is that I actually enjoyed the first book in this series because, while the world-building/magic-system didn't make a ton of sense, it was still kind of fun as there was enough going on and the characters were enjoyable enough plus enough - key word here - mysteries that it was an easy read. As a reminder, this is a series set, uselessly I might add, in four Londons, but really two non-Londons. Honestly I don't know why the author bothered as, other than for part of the first book where someone from 1800s normal London crosses over to one of the others, it's an irrelevancy and never of any meaning at all. But basically the first book set up some characters - scrappy orphan female, mysterious-backgrounded magician-y type male who's an adoptee (of sorts) of the royal family - and a kind of generic monarchy world but with magic and had all that clash with an outside force looking to destroy and/or take everything over. Fine, nothing breakthrough in the genre, but as noted fun enough to read. This second book, on the other hand, was a DNF'ed disappointing snooze. Basically it split up the two leads and transformed them, not through anything the author actually had the characters do but rather by the author just telling us this over and over as if it would matter or as if a reader would care, that they were pining for each other. So first off, "pining" believe it or not, author, doesn't translate into "thrilling plot." Also since there was zero romantic interest set up between them - in fact, they were both pretty asexual in the first book (I actually thought the scrappy orphan was a lesbian) and seemed to have zero interest in any form of physical or emotional contact with anyone (which was fine because it made sense given their backgrounds) - it was just BORING to read page after page after page of thoughts. I mean honestly that's not exciting even when the two characters are legit pining for each other but these two barely knew each and really only came to be friends (kinda) in the first book due to plot circumstances. But whatever, I could've lived with that if literally ANYTHING had happened. I mean by around 25% in, which is where I DNFed, nothing had happened in one of the plots (beyond pining) and a bare step above nothing happening was all that'd occurred in the other. I felt as if the author had only thought through one book then decided to make it a series without actually plotting books two and, I'm gathering from a mountain of negative reviews, three. Really this is the worst part of this particular genre. Writing a trilogy is hard because, yeah, you have to think through not just one book but a whoooolllle buncha books before you can really start writing. The best in the fantasy-trilogy genre (I think it's its own genre at this point) feel really coherent with characters and plot all driving forward towards a third book conclusion but with each individual book also having a driving plot and character transformations that in and of themselves are engaging to read. Robin Hobb for example. Steven Erikson, Stephen R. Donaldson, Josiah Bancroft, Holly Black, even J.R.R. Tolkien whose type of epic fantasy isn't my speed to hardly mention JK Rowling whose Potterverse REALLY wasn’t my speed. Fine, enough. I guess I should've read the non-spoiler reviews of the second and third books of this series before starting the first and, well, hopefully you out there in Media Report land who read my review of the first book will do the same.
TV/Streaming:
Mood:
Well this is going to be a mixed review and I really can't say whether you should watch or not - my inclination for most people is no but frankly there's a decent argument for yes too. First though, this is a miniseries about an aimless 25-year-old woman who's an aspiring singer - Sasha - and her descent/ascent into a mashup between influencer and sex worker and, thematically(ish), about her journey to her self. Look the "no" for me really outweighs the "yes" so I'm mostly going to focus on what didn't work but frankly there's definite talent there or at least someone with something to say plus some interesting inside info (or it felt inside - I have no idea about whether the writer (who also plays Sasha) did this herself, intensively researched the topic, or just made it up but plausibly so) about becoming an influencer and how that world intersects with sex work and money. So if you're someone who's interested in new voices - or new at least as of this writing - and the basic topic interests you, then this might be worth a watch. But there are caveats, the main three being: first, Sasha is little more than a gussied-up-with-vague-backstory cipher to take us into the world which renders the 6 episodes of this series somewhat flaccid because you don't really understand why she's doing anything she's doing and then late in the game someone must've noticed and kind of tried to tack on some character logic/arc but honestly she never made much sense as a character. I didn't understand why she was so okay with going from a 10-year-relationship, presumably monogamous, to being a sex worker nor did I understand what she was hoping to get out of any of it, like she was always being paid but it was never clear what she did with all the money because she never seemed to have any and didn't even articulate a vague plan of what she was doing or why. This meant that, as noted, she wasn't really a person so much as a lens into a world meaning you're either interested in the world she's in in a particular episode or you're bored (or both on and off each episode which was my reaction across the series). There was nothing carrying you across the 6 episodes and really each of them could've been a one-off and you wouldn't have noticed. Second, and this is kind of a consequence of the first problem, there's no plot. She meets up randomly with some influencer who, for no reason other than that the plot needs it, talks her into being her roommate and that's how everything happens. But, while that character is somewhat interesting, there's really nothing between them, meaning the central relationship is static across the series and that combined with the lack of any plot-glue - I mean really nothing A to B to C happens, you just get A for one episode, B for another, C for the next and there you go - made this show feel pretty flaccid. Finally, Sasha, as noted, wants to be a singer so there are all these musical interludes where you're in her head hearing her sung thoughts and, unfortunately, the thoughts were dull, didn't even come close to rhyming or sticking to a beat - and isn't scansion, even more so with hip-hop/rap actually part of what makes a song work, like aren't the best rap artists the ones with the clever-enough lyrics to get their thoughts in an least half-rhymes and to the beat and that's why they're good? - plus the music itself was super drab and stylistically very repetitive. I'm guessing, though I don't know, that that lead writer/actress also wrote all the music and really she should've brought some more people in to help. Even if you like her style of music, it's an entire series and a fair number of songs each episodes and it's just tiresome to hear the same music and frankly pretty weak lyrics over and over. So yeah a lot of negativity but I didn't DNF because I could see there was some real talent underneath it all, enough that I'd be curious to watch the next thing this person does and see if they're able to grow that talent into something better. But it's not there now so if you watch, you've been warned.
Movies:
Predestination - This is a pretty interesting if, in the end, utterly incomprehensible timeloop-type movie. I'm going to give only top-level plot, partly for spoiler reasons, but mostly because I'm not entirely sure what was going on, though it wasn't boring which is an odd feat in and of itself I'd say. The movie is more or less a two-hander between Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook (I think this must've been the movie that put her on the map because it came out maybe a decade ago and you can see her talent throughout) in which we know, from the opening, that Ethan Hawke is some kind of government-endorsed time traveler who's been trying, unsuccessfully, to stop a terrorist in 1975 from blowing up 10,000 people in NYC. He encounters Sarah Snook at some point and the movie is a combo of extended flashbacks to her history combined with a present-tense story (and future tense? past/future? I never know with these movies) involving her, the government time-travel agency, and stopping the bomber. The story, especially the backstory, is interesting and well-told and is definitely all adding up to something major in the minds of the filmmakers and, again to their credit, despite having no idea whatsoever what the ending meant, I was into figuring out where it was all going to go. I think it's a thing in general with timeloop movies where you can hear the writers talking about the minuscule details of why everything makes sense, but the reality is we watch movies in a broader way, as in character, tone, etc. while trying to grasp the main story and relationships and plot as well. In other words, we're not students of the film when just sitting through it and so, while I'm sure (well I think) that the movie adds up to a big clever this-thing-in-that-time-was-really-that-thing-then-and-the-now-of-the-movie-is-the-future-then huge payoff, that level of tracking detail is something that requires notecards not a one-off viewing. But again I liked the movie. I was engaged by it the whole time and I wouldn't say I saw everything coming meaning, despite the tiny cast in a mystery setup, it still wasn't clear who did what when and that's a compliment. I feel like this would be a fun group-watch - assuming people are actually watching rather than playing on their tablets because it would honestly be an incredibly irritating group watch if a group member isn't paying attention then interrupts by constantly asking what's going on, yeah don't watch with that person. I liked it; it started off slow and somewhat confusing but that was all of a piece and, as it got going into Sarah Snook's backstory, it became more and more engrossing and, while it's certainly not the pinnacle of anything, honestly just keeping me entertained for 100 someodd minutes is an achievement in my book and so I'd say if this sort of genre is your thing and you haven't seen this one, you may want to check it out.