Muriel’s Wedding (1994) directed by P. J. Hogan ❧ My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars 1. Why have I never heard of this masterpiece before now?!!! I mean, it’s one of Ridley Scott’s favorite movies , for crying out loud! 2. Honestly, I only decided to watch this because I saw “ABBA” in the description. I have the same taste in music as Muriel—that is to say, great taste in music. 3. I did NOT expect to be a sobbing mess by the end of this weird Aussie fever dream!!!!! 4. I think the scenes of Muriel’s mum at the wedding and standing in the kitchen are going to haunt me until the day I die!!!!!!! 💔 ❧ View all my Letterboxd reviews

The Circle by Dave Eggers ❧ My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Extremely Obvious Dangers of Unrestricted Social Media written without subtlety by Captain Obvious himself! Proud recipient of the Worst Protagonist of the 2010s! Strong contender for the Wort Protagonist of All Time! I remember hating this the first time I read it. But I couldn’t recall the plot details and decided to give it another shot before throwing my physical copy into the sell-or-give-away pile. Sure enough—still hate it. Other reviews have pointed out this book is derivative and brings nothing new to the dystopian genre, but that is not where I take issue. I enjoy repetition and am fine with predictability, so I don’t fault The Circle for its lack of originality. No, what makes this book unforgivable to me is its condescending, preachy tone and abominable protagonist . I find it repugnant and unconscionable when a male author—especially one whose books usually center on male characters—writes a female lead like Ma

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ❧ My rating: 4 of 5 stars BBC’s Big Read #14 ༻❁༺ “I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.” For some reason, Rebecca was an absolute slog for me to get through. Now that I have finished reading it after almost four months, I am still not sure what made it such a struggle because I liked the book. Objectively, I think it is brilliant. Subjectively, I suppose it must not be my thing, or I would not have taken so long to finish. I will say that I have never related so much to a narrator with whom I am ashamed to feel such a kinship. The new Mrs. de Winter’s shyness, awkwardness, and feelings of hopeless inferiority kept making me cringe with undesired relatability. At least I have never fallen in love with a complete jer

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware ❧ My rating: 2 of 5 stars Reese Witherspoon (According to the Cover of This Book): “Prepare to be scared... really scared!” Me: “Seriously, Reese? This is how low your bar for ‘scary’ is? Are you also terrified of fluffy bunnies?” This was my second time reading. I took it with me on a bachelorette trip (felt appropriate) and decided to give it one more go before throwing my copy onto the “to sell” pile. It’s just as dumb as I remember it being the first time. I’ve never had much of a penchant for mysteries/thrillers because I don’t care whether or not books surprise me. I used to primarily consume books by reading the front, the back, and then the middle. I enjoy spoilers and knowing what will happen, so I don’t require mind-boggling twists and gotchas when reading. I mainly look for enjoyable—or at least believable—worlds, plots, and characters. In a Dark, Dark Wood is entertaining enough to make reading the whole book worth it, but everything el

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa ❧ My rating: 4 of 5 stars “I think the power of books is that they teach us to care about others. Empathy—that’s the power of books.” Being a lover of both cats and books, how could I not fall for this story? Although, the title is somewhat of a misnomer since the cat (view spoiler) [isn’t the one who “saves” the books (hide spoiler) ] . I think some tonal elements got inevitably lost in translation, but overall this was such a sweet book. The premise is straightforward and simply told—not much worth writing home about. What I loved was all the beautiful wisdom nuggets about books and reading, such as: “It’s not true that the more you read, the more you see of the world. No matter how much knowledge you cram into your head, unless you think with your own mind, walk with your own feet, the knowledge you acquire will never be anything more than empty and borrowed.” And: “Reading isn’t only for pleasure or entertainment. Sometimes you need to

It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover ❧ My rating: 2 of 5 stars This entire book felt like mindless drivel, and I do not throw around that accusation lightly. I unashamedly enjoy a lot of frivolous nonsense. But even the most outlandish, melodramatic, eye-roll-inducing bodice rippers have more eventful plots than this boring, redundant rubbish. Hoover wrote in a note at the end that she never intended to make a sequel to It Ends with Us . It Starts with Us was ultimately written as a gift to her fans, and it shows. It reads like a subpar fanfiction of its predecessor rather than a standalone, story-driven, published novel. I think you would have to be obsessed with the first book and its characters to power through the mind-numbing inanity of a paragraph like this: “I can barely work social media, much less keep up with slang. I swear, I’m the most out-of-touch millennial I know. It’s as if I skipped right over Gen X and into Boomer territory. I’m a Boomer millennial. A bo

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover ❧ My rating: 3 of 5 stars **EDIT** I downed my rating for the book from four to three stars after watching the 2024 film adaptation . When I received a visual representation, I couldn’t help thinking, “It isn’t that the actors are doing a bad job; it’s just that they’re not working with great original material.” Also, my utter disdain for this book’s sequel left a bad taste in my mouth regarding the characters and the entire storyline. Anyway, the original review for the four-star rating is below. ༻❁༺ Well, here I am, finally arriving however many years late to this Colleen Hoover party everyone seems to be talking about... I had mixed feelings about this and struggled to decide between three or four stars because there are a lot of things I dislike about this book. I ultimately settled on four stars because it successfully made me tear up and invoked the empathetic feelings Hoover wanted to get out of me. I appreciate when fiction addresses diffic

Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw ❧ My rating: 2 of 5 stars I did not like this. Thankfully, it is a mercifully short novella, but I disliked it so much that it took me forever to finish. The one pro was the Japanese folklore—always guaranteed to please Certified Weeb Trash like myself. Everything else was terrible. Nothing but Blackened Teeth is filled with purple prose—more interested in a vocabulary lesson than telling a decent story. All the characters are detestable. To be fair, I think the characters were intentionally designed to be the most horrifying thing about the book. I’ve seen Stephen King do this successfully in his short stories (“Lunch at the Gotham Cafe” comes to mind). But here, the characters seem so exaggeratedly terrible and unrelatable that it makes the plot feel pointless and dumb. It is as if the author noted that a good story has dramatically flawed characters and responded with, “Well if I make everyone completely insufferable, that MUST make

Carrie (1976) directed by Brian De Palma ❧ My rating: 4 of 5 stars Tbh, I’m grossed out by the gratuitous nudity in the opening scene. Even if the actresses aren’t underage, they’re supposed to be playing high school girls. And I’m not saying there shouldn’t be nudity or that it doesn’t tie in well with the Biblical themes of the narrative. All I’m saying is that only the male gaze would depict a girls’ locker room to be as explicit as that. In my own experience, even the chicks with Hawtest Bods™ just wanted to get the whole ordeal over with as soon as possible and get to the next class. High school locker rooms just aren’t Girls Gone Wild, okay? Locker room scene aside, I do love Carrie . It holds a special, nostalgic place in my heart. My mom is a fan and enjoys randomly chanting “Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!” She graduated from high school in 1976, and a weird part of me likes to pretend this was her senior prom, and she somehow made it out alive. ❧ View all my Lett

Lord of the Flies by William Golding ❧ My rating: 4 of 5 stars BBC’s Big Read #70 ༻❁༺ “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.” – William Golding This quote and this book represent my misanthropic views on governmental systems and sociopolitical issues in general. It’s a struggle to get through because the parable aligns so acutely with my pessimistic outlook on authority. I love and hate this book in equal measure. ❧ View all my Goodreads reviews