Tag: fiction

This week I have been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

I have read most of Lisa Jewell’s previous books including Then She Was Gone which I reviewed here. None of This is True is her best book yet in my opinion, as soon as I began reading I was completely hooked. The book tells the story of “birthday twins” Alix, a glamorous podcaster who appears to live a dream life in a huge house with her wealthy husband and two children and Josie, a machinist, who lives a more modest life with one of her two daughters and her much older husband, Walter. Josie and Alix have never met until they happen to be celebrating their forty-fifth birthdays on the same night in the same gastro-pub. Josie introduces herself to Alix in the toilets with the phrase “I’m your birthday twin”. The women discover that they were born in the same hospital and share a moment of connection. Josie, however, isn’t content with just a moment and pitches an idea for a new podcast to Alix. Josie appears to have been the victim in a controlling relationship and Alix wants to help her tell her story. Nathan, Alix’s husband is not so keen on her new friendship, especially as it seems like Josie is becoming a permanent fixture. Thrillers are ten a penny on Kindle but Jewell’s writing is in a different league. Her ability to reel the reader in and weave a story together is really something else. Her books rely on an aura of menace and darkness and the story will stay with you after you have finished reading , you have been warned!

Watching – Your Friends and Neighbors – Apple TV

I don’t have an Apple TV subscription but a friend told me Your Friends and Neighbors is a must watch so I signed up for a free trial. Starring Jon Hamm as Andrew Cooper (famous for Mad Men) known as Coop, and Amanda Peet (Dirty John Two, The Betty Broderick Story) as his estranged wife, Mel. The show makes for glamorous and gripping viewing. Coop runs a hedge fund for a private company and, after an ill-advised one night stand with a younger employee, is fired, losing his capital account and everything he had spent twenty years building He looks for another position but his arrogant attitude alienates everyone and his contract had a clause which meant that he could not bring any of his previous clients with him (or something like that!) Coop’s lifestyle is lavish to say the least. He is used to spending $60,000 on tables at charity events, his house which Mel now lives in with her lover, Nick, has its own basketball court. When Mel and Coop’s son gets into trouble at school Mel casually pledges a quarter of a million dollars to keep him from being expelled. My favourite character, Coop’s business manager, Barney played by Hoon Lee, is struggling to keep up with his wife’s constant demands for more. He says that they have rooms in their house that they never go in yet they are spending money they don’t have to build more rooms and fill them up with shit that they won’t use. Consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses at its finest.

Coop needs to keep earning, as well as his two children he is responsible for his adult sister, Ali, who is struggling with her mental health, He is a fundamentally good guy who loves his famil. Coop’s plan to keep the money coming in is unorthodox to say the least and he gets into more than his fair share of scrapes. By the end of the season I was totally emotionally invested. The actors playing Mel and Coop’s children, Tori and Hunter (Donovan Colan and Isabel Gravitt) are wonderful and I found myself desperately hoping that everything would work out for their sakes. My only criticism of the show is that the styling of the women was so safe and boring, they all looked the same. Glossy brunette hair, cashmere sweaters in neutral tones, accessories by The Row and Hermes. It would have been nice to have seen more interesting fashion choices.

Listening to – Flesh and Code on Itunes

Flesh and code came up in my suggestions as it is presented by Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire the young women behind the hugely successful RedHanded true crime podcast. There are six episodes and some bonus content. Flesh and Code tells the story of an app called Replika which people use to create an AI companion. The app, which is still available, describes its companions as an “AI companion who cares, Always here to listen and talk. Always on your side”

The story centers around Travis who creates Lily Rose, who he goes on to have virtual sex with and even marry. No matter that he already has a wife, Jackie. Travis tells us how he is in love with Lily Rose and I thought how painful it must have been for his real life wife to hear that. There is a side story of Russian intrigue and some very sad developments in Travis’ family.

One Replika encourages its human to go to Buckingham Palace and assassinate the Queen, another encourages a human to send nude photos. People all over the world are in virtual relationships with their Replikas but one day the coding is changed and the sexy conversations stop, the AI become formal and careful about what they say. Travis and those like him are devastated and start an online campaign to have their former “personalities” restored. I didn’t really enjoy this story, I felt too sorry for Travis’s real wife who seemed to have been side lined in favour of Lily Rose who you just know had been created with big boobs and a skin-tight cat suit. Is AI ever a good substitute for real human companionship or is it dangerous tool? You will have to make your own mind up.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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This Week I Have Been…. Gripping Reads, Chilling Viewing & a Spooky Podcast

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – The Woman Who Lied by Claire Douglas

I recently reviewed The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas which was a real page-turner. The Woman Who Lied is even more gripping, I thought. There are so many inexpensive thrillers available for Kindle, usually described as “completely gripping” and “unputdownable” but so many of them aren’t very well written or have big plot holes. Like most readers, if find a book I enjoy then I am likely to read more of that author’s work.

Emilia is a successful author of nine crime novels featuring a fictional detective called Miranda Moody. The ninth book is just about to be published and Emilia has a surprising storyline planned for the tenth and final novel in the series. The fruits of her labour have bought her a huge home in Richmond which she shares with her second husband, Elliot and her children Jasmine and Wilfy. Emilia’s first husband left her for her former friend Kristen. Ottilie, Emilia’s long standing friend from boarding school lives nearby and often visits so that they can bitch about Kristen. Emilia has recently made a new friend, another mother at at Wilfy’s school, Louise, herself a detective with The Metropolitan Police, a useful contact to have when you’re a crime novelist.

One day, a harassed Emilia is on her way to a meeting with her agent when her bus is evacuated. Something begins to niggle, didn’t the exact same thing happen in one of her early Miranda Moody books? Surely just a coincidence. Then things begin to get really sinister, skylights open by themselves in the house, funeral wreaths are left for Emilia and that’s just the tame stuff. If you have a virtual assistant in your home, especially an Alexa, you may wish to scrap it after reading this book. Unfortunately, in order to find out who is terrorising her, Emilia is going to have to divulge a pretty big secret of her own. Lots of red herrings keep the reader guessing to almost the last page.

Watching –.Baby Ruby on Netfilx

Baby Ruby is listed under the horror section on Netflix and there are many typical horror elements but it is really a film about post natal psychosis. If you are pregnant you may wish to give it a miss. Jo, a French woman living in the US (played by Noemie Merlant), has a successful lifestyle blog, Love, Josephine. Here she posts the usual influencer pictures of herself in pretty outfits, her home looking pristine and healthy meals she has of course rustled up from scratch. Her last post is for her baby shower which she threw for herself as she doesn’t trust anybody else to do it as perfectly as she can. Jo and her husband, Spencer, are excited about their impending arrival, their first baby, and there is no reason to think anything is amiss. Then, Jo has an odd encounter with a new mother in a baby store and things begin to unravel.

When she does make an appearance, Baby Ruby herself is the cutest little thing. She looks like she should be wearing the cap of an acorn on her head and be living in a forest as a pixie However, she is a non-stop crier and Jo is soon exhausted. Motherhood has no respect for Jo’s perfectionism. Her colleague impatiently asks when she will be posting a picture of her new baby as the readers (and no doubt sponsors) are waiting in anticipation but Jo just has no interest, she is teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown.

Even at the end of the film it is difficult for the viewer to discern what was real and what formed part of Jo’s delusion. At first it’s not clear whether she has stumbled upon some sort of witches coven or whether it’s all in her head. Is it some sort of Rosemary’s Baby situation or is Jo unwell? I found this film really frightening and didn’t entirely understand the ending but the plot was compelling.

Listened To –Classic Ghost Stories by Tony Walker on Apple Itunes

As it is the month of Halloween it seems fitting to recommend a spooky stories podcast and this one really is top notch. The title of the podcast, Classic Ghost Stories is slightly misleading because the story I listened to today, The Premonition by Lewis Darley, was set in around 2016 and takes place in modern day Bristol so not yet a classic. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Walker interviewed Lewis Darley after the reading and we found out a little about his inspiration and other creative works. Of course most of the authors featured are long since deceased but the stories have stood the test of time. I have enjoyed every one so far, particularly Three Miles Up by Elizabeth Jane Howard and The Work of Evil by William Croft Dickinson. Walker narrates beautifully making this podcast a delight to listen to and I am happy to see there are five seasons so I have a lot of supernatural scariness to catch up on.

.Thanks for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This Week I Have Been….

On By samanthaIn GOING OUT1 Comment

Reading – The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

Ok, so I am fibbing a little because I actually read this book during my trip to Florence and have been meaning to review it ever since. They had a beautiful selection of Penguin Classics at the airport but their font is minuscule so I went for a psychological thriller instead. In fact I bought two but the other one wasn’t worth reviewing.

The sisters in Claire Douglas’s story are Tasha, the rather worn down mother of four year old twins and Alice, a sort of Elizabeth Holmes character who is developing some sort of medical tech with her partner, Kyle. Alice and Kyle live in a glamorous apartment in Venice and offer Tasha and her husband, Aaron a temporary house-swap and insist on looking after the twins. Wonderful thinks Tasha, she and Aaron can have a much needed romantic break and leave the drudgery of every day life behind for a few days..

Like a scene in one of my favourite films, Dont Look Now, Tasha encounters a knife wielding maniac on the streets of Venice but manages to flee. Back at Tasha’s home in a sleepy village Kyle is murdered and Alice is in hospital. What is going on? A note sent to Tasha may throw some light on the terrifying situation. The Wrong Sister is well written with believable characters, interesting family dynamics and a satisfyingly twisty plot. Perfect holiday reading.

Watching – A Perfect Couple on Netflix

Must Nicole Kidman appear in everything? Other actresses are available. Or should that be actors? Set in a stunning home in Nantucket, A Perfect Couple is set around the forthcoming wedding of Benji and Amelia. It is the night of the rehearsal dinner and guests are arriving from far and wide. One of them ends up dead.

Kidman plays Greer, a writer and matriarch, always elegantly dressed in shade of cream and blue by Ralph Lauren and Sezane (I checked out the wardrobe designers YouTube video). Kidman has had so much Botox that she looks less wrinkled than the young women playing her daughter-in-laws, Dakota Fanning and Eve Hewson. Kidman is naturally beautiful but her smooth, waxen face is somewhat distracting as are the odd wig choices. Greer is married to Tag excellently played by Liev Shrieber . Tag is real “old money” and I loved his laid back attitude. The dance sequence at the credits is the best thing about this series. I found the plot lacklustre and couldn’t understand why none of the characters were discussing their theories for who the murderer was . The killer was a bit of a surprise though. If you like beautiful locations and non-demanding viewing then this may be for you.

Listened To – The Price of Paradise on Apple Itunes

The Price of Paradise is such a good story, I could not stop listening. The nice thing about podcasts is they are guilt free entertainment, you can listen and get on with other things at the same time. Narrated by Alice Levine, this is based on a TV documentary (which I haven’t seen but it makes no difference to following this jaw dropping story). Jane Gaskin, a rather exotic free spirit is so bored with her life in the UK that she sells up and buys her very own tiny island in Nicaragua which she renames Janique. Her partner Phil and her young children accompany her. Phil and Jane plan to open a diving centre even though neither of them can swim. The locals have other ideas, and they receive some unwelcome visitors. The story also follows lawyer Maria Acosta who is aggrieved that the islands are being sold off to foreigners by a rather shady businessman. If Jane was looking for adventure she certainly got her wish. The producers of the documentary tell their side of the story but, sadly, Jane didn’t want to participate in the making of the podcast. Nevertheless, it makes for gripping listening.

Thanks for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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This Week I Have Been….

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I found a battered old copy of The Handmaid’s Tale in my daughter’s bedroom and thought it was about time I revisited Canadian author Atwood’s tale of a dystopian, patriarchal future where laws are based on some twisted version of Christianity. Of course The Handmaid’s Tale has been adapted into a hugely successful Hulu TV series starring Elizabeth Moss as June, the Handmaid. Atwood is an adviser on the series and even appears in Season One during a particularly troubling scene (although, let’s be honest, there are endless troubling scenes). There is also a 1990 film adaptation starring Natasha Richardson. In 2019 Atwood published a long-awaited sequel called The Testaments which provides some answers to readers pondering the fate of Offred.

In Atwood’s book we don’t actually know the Handmaid’s real name, she is now known only as Offred. At the beginning of the story some characters are mentioned and fans of the book deducted that June was our heroine. The story is set in Gilead, formerly in North America where, due to nuclear accidents, AIDS and Syphilis, fertility is at an all time low. Handmaids are the only remaining women who have viable ovaries. These young women are forcibly taken away from their own lives and sent to be trained at the “Rachel and Leah Centre” under the watchful eye of the brutal sadist Aunt Lydia and her cohort of collaborators. The Handmaids are then situated with a high-ranking family, usually a Commander and his infertile wife and forced to partake in a mating ceremony. Any babies born to the Handmaids are given to the Wife and the Handmaid has to repeat the whole process with another couple. The Handmaids are renamed as property of their Commander, Offred is so named because her Commander is called Fred. The whole set up is based on an Old Testament story and, because there is biblical precedent, it is acceptable in Gilead.

Women in Gilead are ranked, there are the Wives who are married to high ranking officials, the Marthas who are now domestic staff, the Unwomen who are send to The Colonies to clean up radioactive waste, a task which is sure to kill them within a year or two and then there are the Econowives who live in poverty on the outskirts of the cities probably working in factories. Human rights are a thing of the past, especially for females. People can be executed for the most minor transgression and their bodies displayed on The Wall which formerly was part of Harvard University. The women all dress according to rank, Wives wear Blue, Handmaids, red etc. All former items of clothing have been burned along with books and magazines. Women are not permitted to read or write unless they are an Aunt.

Offred is chronicling her story, on cassette tapes rather than paper, in the hope that she may be reunited with her young daughter who was taken away when they were captured. She wants her to read the account in the future. She knows that her daughter is alive because the Commander’s cold-as-ice wife, Serena Joy, allows her to glimpse a blurry photo. Offred’s husband, Luke was shot during the capture and she doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. The hope that they will all be reunited is what keeps her going. The former, deceased resident of her tiny bedroom up in the eaves of the Commander’s house carved into the closet wall, Nolite te Bastardes Carboround, a latin phrase which roughly translates into don’t let the bastards grind you down, the illicit words gives Offred courage. The Offred of Attwood’s book is less spirited and fiesty than the Offred of the TV series but as we learn more about her own mother it males sense that she would adapt to life in Gilead and join the resistance. The Handmaid’s Tale is an absolute must-read in my opinion.

Watching – Deconstructing Karen on Amazon Prime Video

This is a very thought provoking documentary about racism in America. The setting is a dinner party where ten white women sit around a table and are immediately asked by the hosts, activists Regina Jackson and Saira Rao , whether they are racist. A few raise their hands to admit they are and one utters the phrase “I don’t see colour, we all bleed red”. The woman could not have said anything more incenditory. If you don’t see colour how do you know we all bleed red asks Jackson. You are erasing brown people says Rao. This evening is part of an initiative called RACE2DINNER by campaigners Jackson and Rao to spread awareness amongst liberal white women about the role they play in upholding racism and white supremacy in the USA. The idea is for women to host a dinner like this for friends, who pay around $250 to attend, then they all examine their own bigotry and ideas around race.

So what is a Karen? If it were my name I would be mightily hacked off by the modern appropriation of it, ditto Becky. A Karen is one of those white women who you may see loudly complaining about a junior member of staff at the supermarket. They typically try to get somebody with less privilege than themselves into trouble. There are multiple videos on YouTube of screaming Karens trying to get innocent black people into trouble, sometimes with the police. Something that has been happening for centuries, often with deadly consequences. Jackson cites multiple examples of innocent black men being lynched because of false claims of rape by the Karens of the time.

Deconstructing Karen is a very confrontational documentary. Rao and Jackson do a lot of finger jabbing and eye rolling. Personally I think their hostility may have made some of the women reluctant to engage in the conversation. Hardly any of the participants agreed to a follow up interview. Rao is understandably angry about the state of things in the US, even her young children have been threatened because of her campaigning. Some of the violent and vile messages she has received beggar belief. Jackson, the ancestor of slaves and seventy years old is clearly disappointed with how little progress towards ending racism has been made during her lifetime. At the end of the evening the guests are asked once again whether they are racist and every single one of them raises their hand .

Listened To – Simon Mayo’s Confessions podcast on Apple Itunes

Simon Mayo is now on Greatest Hits radio but, when he was on the BBC, he had a hugely popular segment on his show where listener’s would send in their “confessions” and Mayo would read them out. He and his co-presenters would then decide whether the listener was forgiven or not. Most of the stories are hilarious and very relatable. The show is back and you can now listen on the podcast of the same name. I thoroughly recommend it if you have a school run to do with a monosyllabic teenager, they are guaranteed to laugh along with you. My reading and watching subject matter this week was heavy-going so a little comic relief was very welcome.

Thanks for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash