A few years ago, my brother Nick made a movie called Bomb Squad about four siblings who discover they have super powers. The story was based on one we imagined as kids, basically the answer to “what if the four of us had super powers?” Which ones would we have? What would our names be? What would our “hero” names be? What battles would we fight? My bro got into filmmaking and just went ahead and made the film. He wrote the script, storyboarded, got friends and colleagues […]
Sort of related, I promise: I unashamedly love zombie movies. They fascinate and terrify me. And after years of watching them, I’ve learned to go in with the expectation that everyone dies. Under no circumstances am I to get too attached to the characters or root too hard for my favorites, for therein lies only disappointment. Likewise, any discerning person knows not to get involved in a World War II story without a strong dose of expectation that most of the characters will die, be […]
Romance may not be my Bag
I read The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan because it was free, and all of you wonderful crazies are in love with it and with her in general, and also because it’s super short and let’s be honest about my cannonballing skills here–if I make it, it will be by the skin of my teeth, and because of novellas like this. I picked up Be My Love by Lucy Kevin because it was free, and it’s set in the Pacific Northwest (where I used to live and […]
You might love To Say Nothing of the Dog if…
I’m 97% sure that To Say Nothing of the Dog is my new favorite book. My old favorite, Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus, is also a romantic drama with the additional sci-fi element of time travel, set in the future but taking place mostly in the past, heavy on world history and motives, causes, effects, and the arc of humanity. It’s lovely. But TSNotD is all that, and funny! and it has a dog! and a cat! And it discusses parts of history with which I am […]
Five Ways I am like Mindy Kaling (And Two Ways I am not)
I heart Mindy Kaling. I liked her on The Office, but my sister finally forced me to watch The Mindy Project a couple months ago and I was instantly hooked. Since then I’ve been watching episodes on Hulu as if they were expensive, bad-for-me treats which I must enjoy only ONE AT A TIME OR TWO, TOPS, because someday I will run out and I’ll have to wait months until I’m allowed to buy them again/the next season comes out. I also pestered my sister until she let me […]
I CAN relate to teenagers via YA fiction!
I’ve been struggling with how to review the Divergent series for months now. I’m having trouble because I honestly can’t figure out how I really feel about them: there are parts I really appreciate, like that our hero Tris possesses an active sexuality that only freaks her out a little, and she pursues a dude that she likes (Divergent). Some parts were incredibly tedious to me, like our hero Tris’ many stupid fights with her dumb boyfriend, I DON’T CARE, GOD, BOTH OF YOU SHUT […]