February has been, overall, a rainy month here. On top of that, I got COVID–for the second time (the first was in November of 2020)–got put on Paxlovid and then developed a terrible rash. So I’ve been staying in and reading and watching. Goodreads tells me I read eight books this month and Dr. Feelgood and I’ve streamed three TV shows.
We watched three female centric shows: Bad Sisters, Mare of Eastowne, and Dead to Me.
I–even with its occasional fantastical plot–adored Dead to Me. The relationship between Judy (Linda Cardellini) and Jen (Christina Applegate) is one of the best portrayals of adult female friendship I’ve ever seen. The show manages to be very (intelligently) funny and, especially in its last season, remarkably moving. All the supporting actors are superb–who knew James Marsden could be so funny?
Bad Sisters was fun but so morally iffy that, by its conclusion, I was ambivalent about its joys. Sharon Horgan is brilliant but this dark comedy is missing a soul and it didn’t quite gel for me.
I struggled to finish Mare of Eastowne. Yes, Kate Winslet’s acting was astonishing but the portrayal of women’s lives in middle America felt elitist and sexist. I kept imagining a bunch of bros in their SoCal mansions being SOOOOO sure that any woman who lives in a medium sized town, in a crowded house, with a job that doesn’t require a graduate degree must of course live a life of misery. I don’t need happy endings to enjoy a film or a TV show but something that seems to punish its characters is not my cup of tea.
My reading has been hit or miss. I’ve read, in general, books that aren’t out yet, several by wildly successful authors and have… not been impressed. (One exception to that is Madeline Hunter’s May release which I thought was excellent.) I can, for mystery readers, recommend a debut thriller about, yes, patent law. Joey Hartstone’s The Local, while not perfect, is a fun, compelling read and I loved learning about the strategy behind patent lawsuits in the U.S. I also was blown away by the graphic novel Marry Me A Little by queer cartoonist Rob Kirby. (Full disclosure: Rob’s husband was a friend of mine in graduate school.) I’m not really much for graphic novels but I loved this one–it’s a book I’d like to give to many!
How about you? Watched or read anything fabulous lately?
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
We started watching “Murder in Provence” on BritBox last night. So far it’s very good—although we’ve only watched the first episode—with lots of familiar faces if you watch any English tv shows, especially “Midsomer Murders”.
We just started watching Apple TV‘s Shrinking, this weekend. It’s got kinda a Dead To Me vibe in that it’s moving and funny and the episodes are shortish. Thus far, three episodes in, I’m enjoying it.
Now I need to add that I finally have started to watch THE EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO on the recommendation of several friends and my DIL. It’s about a young Korean woman who is on the autism spectrum. She graduated at the top of her class in law school and has joined a law firm; the show is about her personal and professional life. The actress who plays her is adorable and the show so far (I’m just at the beginning) is lovely.
I just read How to Marry a Marble Marquis by C.M. Nascosta and it was amazing. Such an amazing book from start to finish.
If anyone loves monster romance and the Bridgerton TV show this is the book for you. It’s delightful!
I am loving Poker Face on Peacock, which is a murder mystery show. It stars Natasha Lyonne as a woman named Charlie Cale, who can always tell if someone is lying. For reasons explained in episode 1, she is on the run and each episode takes place in a different town/city with Charlie getting involved via whatever odd job she has picked up. The first 15 minutes of the episode shows who got killed and why then the rest of the episode shows how Charlie was intermixed in that storyline and how she solved the case. Charlie is super likable and the show is really fun. It’s produced by Rian Johnson, who is the director of the Knives Out movies and many of the episodes have famous guest actors. I highly recommend it!
This weekend I read Murder at Haven’s Rock by Kelley Armstrong. It is the first in a spin off of her Rockton series and has the same main character (detective Casey Duncan). I love the Rockton series and enjoyed this book, although I didn’t find the world building as complex as Rockton. I am willing to give the series a chance to develop, however.
I also recently read N.R. Walker’s Imago series (M/M) and really loved it. Her writing flows so smoothly for me. I like that she writes books of varying angst levels. Some of her books are just a sweet picture of a gradually developing relationship without major roadblocks. In the first book of this series, one character plans a series of dates to woo the other and it is just so romantic. I also enjoy her depictions of various Australian settings (although Australia seems like a country where either the land or the creatures will kill you if you are not super careful).
That is just how I felt about the new Kelley Armstrong book. Not as strong as I’d have liked, but just fine and worth checking out the next in the series.
I agree with both of you, the start for Murder at Haven’s Rock is not nearly as strong as the Rockton series. The last chapters that started combining old and new characters was exactly what I wanted. I would have liked more of that dynamic. It’s enough that I will read book 2.
Another example of how perfectly shallow I am, but I just watched the first season (6 episodes) of SISI, a dramatization of the life of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Clearly there has been a lot of fantasy built into the series, but I love her clothes so I keep watching.
NO SELF-DISRESPECT!! :)
Here at AAR, there’s on such thing as a guilty pleasure….
2022 wasn’t good for me and books, I barely made my halfway mark on Goodread Goals (30 out of 25) but 2023 has been going gang busters! I’m currently on my 12th book of the year – Christina Lauren’s Twice in a Blue Moon and it’s amazing. I’m also watching Happy Valley and Abbott Elementary. Recommend them both highly
I can’t wait for the last season of Happy Valley to come to the US!
It will be worth the wait. The last 15 minutes shrieks out loudly for awards for both Sarah Lancaster and James Norton. The Beeb at its best.
I really like James Norton. #thenextBond
I recently watched the Chinese rom-com This Is Not What I Expected with Takeshi Kaneshiro and thought it was adorable.
Hubby and I just discovered Mindy Kaling’s excellent “Sex Lives of College Girls”, which I highly recommend. And I’m waiting with baited breath for Amazon’s “Daisy Jones and The Six” miniseries. I loved the audio book and really hope Amazon does it proud. I’ve actually had time to read a book or two outside of my review books – read “Seven Days in June” (review forthcoming) and found my first DIK in a long time!
I can’t wait for Daisy Jones and the Six!
I have loved all of Mindy Kaling’s shows and Sex Lives is no exception. In fact, I first subscribed to Hulu 10 years ago just to watch The Mindy Project. Have you seen her Never Have I Ever (Netflix) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (Hulu)? Both great!
I love “Never Have I Ever”. I didn’t watch the Mindy Project but think I’m putting it on my next binge-watch list. I didn’t know she remade Four Weddings and a Funeral – thanks for the heads up!
After starting the month off on a high note with Nicky James’ Inevitable Disclosure and a cute novella, The Bachelor’s Valet, by Arden Powell, things got rocky. I couldn’t finish Trusting Miss Trentham by Emily Larkin (a reverse non-consentual sex scene ended it for me). Then I tried C.S. Poe’s Snow and Winter series. I do love her writing but I did not like the main character, and the solution to the mysteries resolved around that character making stupid decisions at the exact right moment to uncover more clues. After three books I gave up and decided to do some relistening.
I relistened to The Long Game by Rachel Reid. I had Covid when I listened to it the first time, and although I loved it, I felt like I didn’t really get the best experience with the book, being so sick. I’m glad I did because it’s even better than I remembered it.
I relisten to the first three Life Lessons books by Kaje Harper. I enjoyed them just as much as the first time, and will go on to the last one soon. I listened to Davo by N.R. Walker and liked it even better on audio. Nothing groundbreaking but an interesting setting: a mining community in Australia’s harshest environment.
Then I read The Long Winter by Rachel Ember and was mostly bored. Not interested enough to continue the series.
Lucinda Brant recently released her novel Noble Satyr rerecorded with Mary Jane Wells at the helm. It’s starts off her new Roxton Foundation series of three novellas covering the first 20 years of The Duke and Duchess of Roxton. (The first book of the Roxton Family Saga picks up after that.) She wanted the book to feel more Antonia-centric and it worked. I love the original narration by Alex Wyndham, but it’s interesting how different the book felt with the new narrator. Wells captured Antonia’s vivacity and charm. The first novella, His Duchess, is also narrated by Wells. It was quite well done, but felt more like an extended epilogue than it’s own story. Perhaps there will be a bit more plot in the next two.
Watching: We just finished Derry Girls, which we absolutely adored. We are watching the second season of Slow Horses on Apple TV, a spy thriller starring the amazing Gary Oldman as head of a branch of misfits in MI5. We’re also working our way through the latest season of of my favorite cozy series, All Creatures Great and Small.
Reading: I just the completed the audio of The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. She narrated it, and I loved hearing the story in her voice, as she gave all the voices and Cherokee names and words her intended intonations. Now I’ve started listening to Louise Penny’s latest, A World of Curiosities.
For romance, I’m reading Two Tribes by Fearne Hill, thanks to favorable mentions here. I’m liking it so far.
Dabney, I could not watch Mare of Eastowne past the second episode. I am so sick of shows where a young, sexually active woman is murdered right off the bat, and then the whole show is spent looking into her past. It felt like victim blaming, as if only she hadn’t done this, then…. Just no.
Mare of Eastowne punished every woman in it. It made me crazy!
We loved Derry Girls. So much heart!
Off topic, but I follow a British horse trainer on FB named Ben Atkinson. He trained a lot of the horses in All Creatures Great and Small, especially those in the battle scenes. I love watching his videos of his training. He’s tours Great Britain performing with his at liberty team, and his stunt riding team. He gives workshops in at liberty training. That’s when the horse is trained to respond without any constraints–not saddle, bridles, halter, etc, just a bond between the person and the horse. He does Roman riding, where he has bridles on the two horses he’s standing up on, but he’s also flanked by three more horses on each side, and he controls them with voice commands and a long whip (which never touches the horses-it’s used to signal instructions). He even takes all 8 horses over low jumps.
I haven’t watched the series yet, but I loved the book and the old BBC series, so I need to give it a try.
Thanks for this, Carrie, I am going to check that horse trainer out. I do think you would like ACGS. The series is delightful, it just gives you a lot of warm fuzzies (most of the time) with animals and beautiful scenery. However, as a horse lover, you might want to skip the one in the 3rd season that deals with horses in WWI. That was really sad.
Did you watch the episode of the Great British Baking Show with the cast of Derry Girls? It’s great fun.
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81001577?trackId=14277283&tctx=-97%2C-97%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C81013505%2CVideo%3A81013505
No, I haven’t, but I will. It sounds like fun. Thanks, Susan!
I keep hearing that!
We just got BritBox (actually, we’re using one of our daughter’s accounts—she subscribes because she loves “Q.I.” with Stephen Fry and Alan Davies) and are catching up with the latest season of “Vera”, plus taking a leisurely stroll through the entire run of “Bergerac” (a show from the 1980s, set on the island of Jersey, and featuring a pre-Midsomer Murders John Nettles as the title police sergeant). I thought the first few seasons of “Bergerac”, which focused on the differences in life and law in Jersey as opposed to England, were more interesting than the episodes from the later 1980s, which seem heavily influenced by “Miami Vice” and feature standard issue drug smugglers, human traffickers, dirty cops, etc. Now that Spring Training games have started, I daresay most of my other viewing will now take a backseat to watching baseball.
As for reading, I just finished a mammoth (700-plus pages) m/m romance by Nyla K called FOR THE FANS. It’s extremely tropey (stepbrothers, jock-emo, opposites-attract, antagonists-to-lovers), but done very well. It covers a number of years in the lives of two stepbrothers who start out hating each other but, when financial circumstances get dire, start hooking-up for an OnlyFans site. One MC has a significant unresolved trauma in his past, and how that affects the relationship between the two men takes up a good portion of the last half of the book. Although FOR THE FANS was very long, it was a fast read—I read it over the weekend. Nyla K writes dark & taboo, and she’s hit-or-miss for me. I’ve enjoyed some of her books and had to DNF others. FOR THE FANS fell into the “thoroughly enjoyed” category. Now I have Jackie Ashenden’s latest HP, WED FOR THEIR ROYAL HEIR, in the on-deck circle. (Sorry—couldn’t resist a baseball reference, lol.)