Tag: Kindle

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

–

Featured

This week I have been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUT1 Comment

Reading – Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

So many psychological thrillers advertised on Amazon seem to feature a missing teenage girl and her overwrought mother in their storyline. The blurb on the front cover is always the same, Heartbreaking, Addictive etc. Having read one or two of Jewell’s other books I knew that this would not be a churned-out-for-Kindle disappointment. Then She Was Gone is particularly chilling because it is, in part, narrated by her adductor. of the way then fifteen year old Ellie just appears to disappear off the face of the earth. A conscientious student, she had been gong to the library to study in peace for her GCSEs. There don’t appear to be any sightings, leads or clues as to what happened to her. Then one day, after seven agonising years, her backpack is found along with, sadly, some remains and Laurel, Ellie’s Mum, goes back down the rabbit hole of trying to figure our what happened to her “golden” daughter. There is quite a lot of girls being described as golden in this book.

The stress of Ellie’s disappearance causes Laurel’s marriage to break down and her relationships with her two remaining children suffer. Hannah, Ellie’s sister knows that she is a poor substitute for Lauren’s favourite, now dead, daughter  Laurel meets a flirtatious man called Floyd in a coffee shop and begins a tentative new romance. Her new beau is some sort of maths wizard with his own peculiar fan base. He has a seven year old, horribly precocious, daughter, Poppy, who is home schooled and behaves as though she is thirty-five.

When we learn of Ellie’s fate it is horrifying, in part, because the perpetrator is last person anybody would suspect. The cruelty and selfishness involved is staggering. The thought that we go through life brushing shoulders with people who have such sickening personality traits is terrifying. All in all a bleak page-turner that does perhaps stretch the boundaries of believability.

Watching – Saltburn on Amazon Prime Video written and directed by Emerald Fennell

My daughter saw this at the cinema and when I asked her about it she just said it was weird and that she was glad I hadn’t been watching with her! I quite like weird so decided to watch it over the Christmas break. The title Saltburn refers to the name of the stately home that Felix Catton and his photogenic and enormously rich family reside in. The first thing to mention about this black comedy is that Saltburn is full of dazzlingly beautiful people. Australian actor Jacob Elordi who plays Felix is perhaps this generation’s Robert Pattison with his aristocratic good looks and floppy dark hair. His mother, Elspeth, is played by Rosamund Pike who appears to be doing her best Joanna Lumley impersonation. The father is played in a very understated way by a dishevelled Richard E Grant. 

Felix is a student at Oxford University and catches the eye of Oliver Quick, payed by Barry Keoghan. I had previously seen Keoghan in the utterly bizarre and unsettling film The Killing of a Sacred Deer with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. Oliver is definitely not one of the cool, elite, beautiful people and watches the fun and debauchery from the sidelines. Then one day and opportunity presents itself for him to help Felix and Oliver grabs it with both hands. In no time at all he finds himself invited to Saltburn to meet Felix’s family and once there, Oliver certainly makes an impression. He ingratiates himself with Felix’a parents, has a bizarre sexual encounter with his sister, Venetia, and manages to thoroughly usurp a cousin, Farleigh . There are a couple of, quite frankly, nauseating scenes involving blood and bathwater and this film definitely has plenty of shock value. I couldn’t help but note that, as the plot progresses, Oliver is styled to look more and more like Jude Law in one of his most famous roles. My favourite character was Duncan the butler played by Paul Rhys. His disdainful facial expressions really stole the show.

At two hours seven minutes Saltburn is quite long but doesn’t fail to hold the attention. I would have liked to have seen little more of Farleigh’s backstory, he did just seem to be a little bit of an afterthought and Carey Mullgan’s appearance as “Poor Dear Pamela” was far too brief. The end scene, set to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor, is very funny and outrageous. Keoghan does look a little too old to be playing a teenage student but we can overlook that in light of his brilliant performance.

Listening to – Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald on Itunes

After the rather heavy watching and reading choices I opted for something more light-hearted and fun to listen to this week. Heather McDonald is an American comedian best known for her work on Chelsea Lately which, I must confess, I never watched. She is also known for collapsing in the middle of a stand-up performance just after proclaiming “Jesus loves me the most” as the punchline for one of her jokes (you can watch on YouTube). The conspiracy theorists had a field day with that.

Juicy Scoop is a gossipy pop-culture show which features interesting and usually funny, guests many of them women building their own little empires within the the entertainment industry. There are stories of plastic surgery nightmares, dodgy yet hilarious modelling auditions and glamourous Hollywood parties. Have a look out for the episodes recorded with Heather’s fellow comic and friend, Chris Franjola, perfect for listening to if you just want something to make you laugh.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

–