The Introverted Detective

 Today I'm reviewing Book/chapter 4 of The Odyssey. If you would like to catch up on my reviews for book 1 - 3, I'll put the links at the end of the blog. Let's dive into it.  As always, I watched an expert summarize it before I hit the poetry that is Homer's work. Here's the video link:  (1) ODYSSEY BOOK 4 SUMMARY (Homer) - YouTube Telemachus is now visiting Menelaus and we hear a story about someone dressing up as a seal. Menelaus dresses up as a seal to find out which god he angered. Other stories are also thrown around about Troy. Everyone is telling stories. The video above says it so much better.  Also, now Telemachus' journey is leaked to the suitors. Oops. They are now going to try to ambush him. Oh no. Penelope is mad, obviously, so now she's really unwell. Athena has to intervene via a dream to tell her to relax.  The Review I rate it for story and readability. That means I have two star ratings to give. The first is for story. The story is really ...

 Thornhedge is a twisted fae tale, where the princess in the tower is evil and the fae creature is in the right to put her to sleep. This is a twist on sleeping beauty by T. Kingfisher. Let's get into it.  This book, a 4 hour audio experience, is so deep and wonderful, while still being dark. This twist on the sleeping beauty story plays with dark fae lore and the idea that we heard the original story incorrectly, that the tower was originally meant to protect us from a changling.  Review Our story begins with Toadling, a woman who is and isn't fae. Read it and you'll understand. She is the original daughter that the changling replaced. She's half-fae because she was raised by fae and changed to become fae. I know, it's confusing. She was sent back to make sure the changling child "did no harm to those around her", which was a tall order to say the least.  After a while, 200 years in fact, a knight comes by and doesn't leave until he knows the secrets ...

 The difference between forced reading in school and leisure reading can be felt more than seen. You had no choice in the book when forced to read it. Leisure is when you get a whim to read something in your own free time, a free choice to make. Let's dig into the difference, and why forced reading might deter some kids from reading later on.  Forced reading is what makes some kids regard books as homework, making kids who read a lot 'nerds'. Reading is a fun time, but does forced reading assignments make kids put it into the 'chore' category? That's one of the topics at hand today.  The other topic is the major difference between forced and leisure. Leisure readers are many in this world, myself included. This form of entertainment will never die. It feeds the film industry ideas, lets introverts tell a story without making eye contact, and expands our minds to many different ideas. It is not forced reading because the avid readers in the world pick what they l...

 The Ministry of Time is described as hard to put in one genre, which sounds like my kind of book. I'm going in with an entirely open mind and high expectations. Let's dive in together.  This book follows a woman working for a time travel ministry, where they've taken people who would've died anyway and they've taken them through time to see what actually happens to them in the process. It is an unethical experiment, but they do it anyway, because if the people die in the process history is not changed. Our main character is paired with a man who would've died in the Arctic, unrescued. Her job is to both monitor him and orient him to his new reality. It is a forced proximity situation, a scifi romance if you will. It is about 25 percent romance and 75 percent thriller.  The Review Our main guy, Commander Graham Gore is witty, confused, and makes jokes every once in a while. He doesn't like the world he's now in because too many people are crammed into Lo...

 I watched Shutter Island, after reading the book. Aside from maybe two missing lines I would have loved to have heard in the film, it was amazing. Let's dive in.  First of all, I'd like to address the film vs movie issue. A film and book are not the same medium and must be converted with adjustments to make them work. Not everyone will sit for four hours and see a completely perfect book to film conversion. Audiences have an attention span, especially these days. As long as the essence and plot points of the film are all in there, you did great. Exact dialogue can get you bonus points, which this film has.  The only difference between this and the book is literally the last line of the film, where instead of just rapidly regressing alone, he actually decides to choose the lobotomy and "die a hero" vs "living as a monster". The accuracy on dialogue is amazing. 10 out of 10. The only thing they didn't put in was the most offensive part of the warden's...

 Let's talk about bunnies and war. I'm reading Watership Down, which is an allegory for war using rabbits.  Let's start with the basics. We have a warren near a field. Fiver and Hazel (both male rabbits) go to a field, where Fiver illustrates his prophetic gift - by seeing "a field of blood". There is a sign announcing land development on that field and a cigarette on the ground. There is a lot to unpack here, but this is only the basic plotline. I'll unpack more later. From here, Fiver and Hazel take a group to create a new warren, which looks more like defecting because their leader refused to move everyone. They are later proved right about the whole thing, when only two rabbits from the old warren make it back to tell the tale.  From here (and again, only doing basic plot) they find a bunch of rabbits bred to be killed by snares, free some hutch rabbits, rescue some rabbits from a warren resembling Nazi Germany, then have to fight those same rabbits at the...