Monthly Archives: July 2015

Historical Fiction: Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane

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So yeah, I haven’t written about the books I’ve been reading in ages and ages although I have kept pretty much up to date with commenting on them on GoodReads. I guess I need an app for my blog, ha.

I thought this book was just beautiful. While it is one part of the story of the Coughlin family, and partly a story about gangsters (cough, outlaws, sorry, Joe) and corruption and American history, it’s also got this incredibly romantic streak running through it. The things that carry Joe through his life: not just the women he loves, but the places he loves, the objects he loves (that watch, for example).

I read the first book in this series (Any Given Day) in a furious rush over spring break while visiting my dad’s library and similarly when I picked this book up, I really couldn’t put it down either. I remember liking Lehane’s Kenzie/Gennaro series back in the day when I read those (pre-2004) but not like THIS.

Big Screen: Inside Out

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Maybe this was too overhyped for me. Or maybe I never like animated movies that much anyway. Or maybe I think movies that try to ride that middle ground between 1) kids will find this funny and 2) adults will still find it smart! tend to just annoy me. Why? Because there is no real middle between those two grounds. Most of it was over the heads of both the kids I went with while concurrently being too simplistic for me. We get only one positive emotional base versus four negative? Come on. Wouldn’t our global suicide rate be even higher if that were the case?

I see why other people liked it. I laughed at times. But I didn’t cry or feel all “OMG that was ME as an 11 year old girl” or any of the kinds of things my friends and reviewers have been saying. Sorry, it just wasn’t for me.