Tag: take it or leave it
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
A very good read, but not the incredibly amazing read that I was expecting after all the buzz on social media. I liked the premise, the characters, and the general story, but I wasn’t enthralled. I found it very easy to put this book down, which is why it took me three months to finish…
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The Call of the Wild by Jack London
I can certainly understand why this book is on the Banned Books that Shaped America list—it is quite violent, but at least it’s not completely gratuitous. Though London writes detailed scenes of human and animal brutality, Buck’s is a story of strength, dignity, loyalty, and, above all, survival. Honestly, given the tragedies that were committed…
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The Mortal Instruments+ by Cassandra Clare
So . . . it’s the end of March, officially spring already, and I’m just now diving into this year’s book challenge (and no—I still haven’t finished 2016). But boy, did I jump in with a vengeance. Now, you may remember that when we came up with this year’s challenge, Rosie and I decided that we…
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Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
You’re smart people, so by now you’ve probably figured out that I’m not the biggest fan of European classics. Dickens certainly did not meet my expectations, great or otherwise, I did not have a whale of a time reading Melville (heh!) and I’m sorry, but for all the fuss about Dorian Gray, his death was my favourite part…
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Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart
After a disappointing erotic romance and a 520-page French classic, this light-hearted memoir of a charmed summer in 1945 New York was exactly what I needed. The first women to ever be employed as pages at Tiffany’s, Marjorie and Marty spent four short months living the dream (on a strict budget of $20 a week, of…
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Blue Water, White Death
An article in my August issue of National Geographic opens as such: “When the documentary Blue Water, White Death hit US theaters in 1971, its footage of great white sharks crashing into diving cages became instantly iconic. But the footage that stands out 45 years later is a long scene showing oceanic whitetip sharks swarming a whale carcass…
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Friction by Sandra Brown
I initially picked this up thinking I’d slip it in under No.22 on my challenge, but since it’s probably the least explicit Sandra Brown book I’ve read (there are only like, three steamy scenes in 416 pages), I’m going to hold off until I find a book worthy of the Erotica genre. In other news, Friction is the perfect book for soaking in…
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The 33
I hate to say it, because this truly was/is an incredible story—and heart wrenching to boot—but honestly, the first half hour and the last fifteen minutes are all you really need to watch. And though I wish it were not the case, here are a few things that you could do to pass about an hour in…
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The Legend of Tarzan
“A CGI masterpiece.” —Tori Elliott Other, less sarcastic, thoughts: Margot Robbie was wonderful in her role as Jane, the Damsel in Distress who refuses to act like a Damsel in Distress. I’m not sure when Samuel L. Jackson became a comic relief actor, but I’m glad he was cast in this movie as such. The film’s…
Being Tori 