Books I Read & Movies I Watched in December 2021

Reading among the stacks

In December, I read a few books and saw a few movies but I have no memory how I spent the rest of my time. It just flew by. Here the books, movies I consumed in December.

Books I Read:

01 | The Monster Hypothesis by Romily Bernard > link
I was duped in thinking this was fantasy but nope, it's a contemporary or something but not a fantasy. But it was still enjoyable and I finished the book pretty quickly which is usually a sign I like it. I especially like the start of the book where Kick Winter (that's the character's name although it's a nickname) blow a hole in the kitchen floor with her experiment and also the chapter titles with Grandma Missouri's predictions. Kick as a character was fun and I actually would befriend her even if she might blow up my bedroom if I allow her to do one of her scientific experience. Plus, I like that her parents are alive and that she's not an orphan or being neglected, well, she's a bit neglected but she has a nice uncle. This was a fun book even if it wasn't a fantasy.

02 | Severed Signals: A Vincent Chen Novella (Book 1) by Steve Rzasa > link
I wanted to read a sci-fi with a male lead but this was boring. This is told in first person, present tense which I always find a bit awkward to read. I think this would have been better if he was writing a report to his superior or a long letter to his friend but it seems he was just telling his story but in choppy, abrupt writing, sort of like a diary entry with a bit of attitude thrown in. At times, I have no idea what he is talking about with the techno talk as I can't look up them in the dictionary so perhaps it would have been nice to have some type of glossary.
    Vincent as a character wasn't all that interesting. I still don't know what his job is. Occasionally, Vincent talks in Chinese to himself and others but nobody seems to care or they simply ignored what he said in Chinese or they just accepted what he said and glossed over it. What was the point of him speaking a language nobody talks to him in? Except to say he's Chinese. I'm not even sure if it was Chinese as I'm not proficient in reading words with accents on them. This character came from the Face of the Deep series which I didn't read and it's probably why I can't seem to care much about Vincent or his back story. But I suspect reading that series will not make me understand Vincent any better.
    Tons of back story that was summed up but still doesn't tell you much. I understand a bit about his attitude towards those who suppress religion, okay, I understand it only because it says so in the synopsis. I think the death of his uncle had a great impact on him but it doesn't explain much about it other than it ruined his family or something. I think the back story is just not enough here. Apparently this is Christian Science Fiction which I didn't know so I guess it's why I didn't like it. I find it terribly boring whenever religion is talked or used
    Summary: This was a novella (that is also a series) but somehow, it took me weeks to finish when I could have finished this in a few hours. It was that boring that made me have several pauses before finishing it. Only until after 45% did something worth reading happened but then the book it over. It feel like I'm watching a short episode of a show that had tons of back story that wasn't completely told or particularly exciting. And there were minor spelling errors and weird formatting with a large space between paragraphs. The only good things I can say about this novella is the model on the cover (although I still don't get why futuristic people keeps wearing leather), it was short and it was a free.

03 | Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Soman Chainani, Julia Iredale (Illustrator) > link
I was tempted by the cover and the idea of Beauty and the Beast stories but once again, the cover is deceiving. I love the cover but I can't say that about the stories. First, I don't like the writing - it's kind of childish at times and yet, the content is clearly for young adult and older. What bothers me seems to be the lack of quotation marks for dialogues. Sometimes I mistaken the dialogues for the narrator. Second, the tagline on the cover is 'dangerous tales' but the theme seems to be 'murder solves everything' because almost all the 12 tales involves a murder or two. These tales are a bit twisted and there are some unexpected storylines that deviates from the original but most of them are kind of meh. The stories are quite short which is the only reason I finish reading this. Here's my summary thoughts of these tales [Spoilers ahead for all the tales, aka, I will ruin the endings for you but if you don't want that, just scroll down to the summary]:
    Tale #1- Red Riding Hood - I see no point in sexualizing the wolves except to make them what, hormonally challenged and more predatory? I don't like this ending. Instead of going back to having a normal life, our red riding hood decided to do the wolves job and gathered all the maidens into her little hut and do what? Form a group for women's power? Or has she decided she wanted to be surrounded by women and maybe end up with one of them? I don't know. If there is a point to this story, I didn't find it.
    Tale #2- Snow White - Having a person of color as Snow White wasn't all that meaningful plus she went back to those same people (new set of people but they treat her just as badly) and repeat her mother's life with a slight difference which makes no difference to me. I mean, what was the point here? Plus, the queen is kind of dumb or dumber than usual because she certainly didn't think any of her plans through. If you're an all powerful witch, how come you never use your powers and instead use poison like a common mortal, just saying.
    Tale #3- Sleeping Beauty - What the hell did I read? Some sort of vampire-like love story between two guys, one that accepts having his blood sucked every night while the one just lives off that guy's blood like a food source? The prince just accepts the blood-sucking demon or whatever he is (he is never defined as to be any specific creature) like a lover even though they said the creature exudes a fragrance that hypnotize people so basically, the prince is drugged and anyone who comes near that creature also smells the fragrance and is drugged but mostly it seems to be a temporary effect which meant there are people outside the castle and away from the prince who are not effected but still, no one thought to intervene? So maybe these people are lured into acceptance but when the creature is not around to exudes his fragrance, nobody care to do anything?
    And then the miracle baby - how two guys end up with a baby that looks like one of the guys is never given detail but I'm going to guess it's a miracle baby and he will one day start sucking some other prince's blood so that the cycle can continue on. Oh yeah, there was a murder also but with or without it, makes no difference whatsoever but had they killed the right guy (the demon perhaps) then perhaps this story is worth something but nope, just another tale about accepting blood-sucking lovers like it's perfectly normal even though the prince is basically a drug addict but it's okay, we care not about these things because acceptance is a way of life too. This story shouldn't be call sleeping beauty because no one seems to be sleeping nor was anyone rescued from their hypnotic spell, perhaps it should be call How I met my blood-sucking lover.
    Tale #4- Rapunzel - There was a fun scene with a prince (or was it just some random guy? Can't remember but I doubt it makes much of a difference) but that's really the only interesting thing I can say about this story.
    Tale #5- Jack and the Beanstalk - A so-so story but are children to believe killing wives and mothers and stealing from people are justifiable actions just so you can get yourself a new family?
    Tale #6- Hansel and Gretel - This ended like the original with a slight twist and a murder but it's totally justified (maybe) but when you think of the person that was killed, you had to wonder if it was truly justifiable.
    Tale #7- Beauty and the Beast - This version shouldn't be called 'beauty and the beast', more like 'beauty kills the beast and gets his castle because that's her intention anyway.' She basically killed a guy without checking who he is or what he was doing there. For a smart person, she jumped to a conclusion without knowing anything.
    Tale #8- Bluebeard - I guess the murder is justified but then again, switching the gender (orphan boys instead of wives) sort of make this story kind of icky.
    Tale #9- Cinderella - Meh, but at least no one got murdered.
    Tale #10- Little Mermaid - A conversation between two people does not make a story and it wasn't even all that revealing since we all know the mermaid fell in love with a prince by his looks but still, if you're going to make fun of that, you should at least add something, plus, no dialogue quotation marks or tags so basically if there were more than two people talking, we would not know it.
    Tale #11- Rumpelstiltskin - I like this one but I would like to know why the devil got defeated so easily. Plus how she learned his name is a bit far-fetched (I guess I should remember this is a fairytale?). It seems not much time had passed so the baby is still a baby but he can talk and remember a complicated name like Rumpelstiltskin? I guess it's another miracle baby.
    Tale #12- Peter Pan - Ah, a romance for those who missed romance in their fairytales. Someone saw too many episodes of Outlander and thought of this story. Not one but two love triangles (probably shouldn't call them that because there is just two people in love while the third parties are just there) and then, well, you know the wife cheats but oh no, even if the wife bears the other guy's child, oh no, that's not cheating, that's called true love (insert eye roll here).
   I honestly had hoped Peter Pan  had murdered everyone (I can't separate the name and call him Peter because then he would sound too normal). Peter Pan as a serial killer doesn't seem like a hard concept to accept since he is already a kidnapper even if Wendy's mother agreed to the kidnapping (yes, that is in the story). Plus, here he is portrayed as a sore loser and a perpetual child and someone who is willing to destroy anything and anyone who he didn't want just so other people can't have them which could naturally leads to murder since he was a bit murderous for wanting to kill Wendy just because she didn't want to hang out with him anymore. But then again, perhaps it would have been better if Peter Pan had been killed because his existence seems so unimportant compare to Wendy's romance with so-and-so (can't remember his name).
    I was disappointed Peter Pan didn't get murdered or became a serial killer because then this would end these dangerous tales and we would have learned a lesson from this story and forget the other stories but nope, just another young-adult-ish romance
    I don't understand why Peter Pan is in this collection. I don't think of Peter Pan as a fairytale or even a cautionary tale. So yes, Peter Pan can become a dangerous tale but it wasn't written that way so putting this in this collection makes no sense to me. Reading the reviews, one of the characters in this story seems to have a connection to the author's book series, The school for good and evil, which I had not read but even if this is some fan-service story, couldn't they had make this better?
    Summary: The illustration for the cover is great, the art for the title pages for each story is also great but the illustrations for the stories is a bit childish but it's a style so I guess it's a style I didn't like. The writing is so-so. For the first few stories, these tales seems to be written for children but the content is definitely for mature audiences. Would I recommend this short story collection? Only if you want to read and rant about it because that's the only fun I had with this collection.

04 | Shadowghast (The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea Book 3) by Thomas Taylor, Tom Booth (Illustrator)  > link
This was good but then I felt like the reader is short-changed because the way the story starts and even at the middle, I thought we were going to get Herbie's origin but nope. I'm so disappointed by this. But what makes me mad is [Spoiler Starts] they brought back a villain who is supposed to have died twice, that's just annoying even if we only get a brief moment with him but still annoying. So this is sort of a magical world but to bring back a dead villain a third time is just a bit too stupid, isn't it? But the real villain is not this guy so I guess it's not as bad. [Spoiler Ends]. Overall, I did enjoy this book as I did the last two book in the series but I have to admit, I didn't like this as much.


Books I Unfinished:

05 | Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh > link
Even though I didn't finished this book, I want to mention it because it's one science fiction book that I thought was different from all the books I've been reading but this leans more toward romance than science fiction. I guess I should remember this is a YA book and most of them had a prominent romance.
    This started really good but then it became a lot of info dumping and the one character that was seemingly important took a long time to be introduced, I mean she was briefly mentioned in the beginning, but it took too long time to get to her. The stimulation where the main character, Jaewon, and a few other students go about in robot suits was quite good but then it became a constant flow o info dump again, lots of telling, not much showing. I guess what stopped me from finishing is boredom and a lack of happenings. Things do happen but they are slow to register what effects it had to the story. In a way, the story drags when it really should be a little more fast paced.
    The main character, Jaewon, is kind of a boring character with the usual painful past and the usual angst but do I care? Nope. It's another reason I didn't finish this book. I didn't really like the first person perspective either as it limited the narrative and there are things mentioned that are never explained or perhaps they did explained later but I only read 40% of it. Some day, I might try to read this again because I really like the idea of the story.

image from here.

    The cover looks kind of boring but if you have the paper version, the back has a really cool illustration with a giant robot and a girl but the boy on the cover is a bit of a strange blurry mess (they are actually stock photos which makes no sense to me even though they have an illustrator but who cares). The art is great and is by Sebastien Hue. You can read about how the cover came about over here.

06 | Pahua and the Soul Stealer by Lori M. Lee > link
It started out great but then it changed setting and added a new character and then started on the journey to save the main character's brother's soul. I know it's about saving her brother's soul but somehow, when they started the journey, I just didn't care so I stopped reading which I guess it's not a great reason but if I can't be fully invested in the story, then what is the point of reading? The very first sentence of the book was really fun though: The day my life changed began like most mornings — with a judgemental cat spirit.

07 | The Raconteur's Commonplace Book (Greenglass House #5) by Kate Milford, Nicole Wong (Illustrator) > link
I didn't really like the first book but I liked the tales that were mentioned in that book and those tales are here but I read a few and then gave up. I really didn't like that a bunch of people are in an inn, namely Greenglass House, and telling these tales. What's wrong with making this a short story collection instead? Why do we need a surrounding story (I call them that because there is an overall story that goes in and out and around the stories that are being told)? I guess I was tired of the going back and forth - they tell a story and then they go back to the characters and then another character tells a story and I don't know, I was annoyed so I gave up reading. I mean, yes, I could just read the stories and not bothered with the surrounding story but then what was the point of them being there? I don't want to become a reader who only reads books in parts.

Movies I've Watched:

08 | In this corner of the world > link
This was slow, depressing but visually nice to look at. There were bits of humor but it doesn't make up for how slow and how depressing everything is. There were even stories that was weirdly out of place especially the one about a girl who lived in the attic, what's with these strange sub stories? It's my fault for choosing to watch this. I was sucked in by the trailer but sadly, the trailer is more entertaining than the whole movie. And no, this isn't a love story, there is a bit of that but honestly, I wouldn't call this a love story. I don't recommend this unless you like really, really depressing war movies.

09 | Abominable > link
A fun movie though a bit predictable but still fun.

10 | The slipper and the rose > link
I actually enjoyed this even though I hate musicals. The scene where the two guys are singing and dancing at a mausoleum was quite amusing. They were surrounded by dead bodies and even spoke of/sang about some of those people buried there and I guess it's natural to them because they certainly seems like they are enjoying themselves. The ending was bit silly and yet, I like it. This is a Cinderella story so I guess the slipper in the title meant something but the rose? All they did was shown the slippers with a rose and that, I guess, justify the title? I don't know. I just find this movie quite amusing.

How is your December going?