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Showing posts from September, 2026

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - Book Review

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 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...

Book Vs Movie - Shutter Island

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 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...

Watership Down -book review

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 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...