Murderbot May

I reread all of The Murderbot Diaries (TMBD) series by Martha Wells in order to prepare for the newest book, Platform Decay, coming out on May 5. I read them all last year and have been obsessed with them ever since. I made a "Michelle's guide to the Murderbot Diaries" Canva carousel and posted it on my bookstagram in lieu of a May wrap-up, as the only books I read that month were TMBD series. You can see it here. I am tempted to post all the slides here in this blog entry, or replicate the information on the slides, but I'll hold off. The IG post has general information about the series, such as genres, themes, and reading orders (for which I relied heavily on Book Series in Order but also made my own suggested reading order list). The last slide is my Murderbot moodboard; you can see the Pinterest board here. 

You can read my general summary for the series in my TMBD guide slides. Here are my flash summaries of each book; flash reviews would be useless because they'd all be "I love this book and Murderbot" etc. I've given each book 4 stars. No chili peppers as there's no spice, although some references to sex are made. 

BOOKS

The books are Murderbot's personal logs and are in first person POV. 

All Systems Red (TMBD #1) - We meet Murderbot, a SecUnit (security construct that is part human, part robot, completely sentient) that hacked its 'governor module' so that it is no longer forced to follow orders and is free! ...to continue pretending to be a regular governed SecUnit, since it can't figure out how to escape or what to do with its life. At least it can watch as much television as it wants. Murderbot is on a planet guarding an environmental survey group called PresAux, who are all nice to Murderbot (very weird, after having been treated like property for so long), when suddenly they're all thrown into danger... 

Artificial Condition (TMBD #2) - Murderbot is on its own for the first time and on a mission to find out the truth behind a tragedy it was in... or behind. To get to the planet where it happened, Murderbot hitches a ride on an unmanned cargo ship, whose bot pilot turns out to be very different than it expected. With guidance from its new friend ART, Murderbot takes a job protecting some humans while they attempt to get some stolen work back from their ruthless ex-boss on that planet. Can Murderbot pass as an augmented human, keep its clients safe, and find out the truth?

 

Rogue Protocol (TMBD #3) - Its own fact-finding mission over, Murderbot decides to travel to an abandoned mining station to find out what GrayCris, the company behind the murders in All Systems Red, was doing there, hoping that that information can help its PresAux humans. It gets roped into helping a different survey team there, which consists of more humans (some nice, some with unknown intentions) and a human-form "pet" bot that might be able to see through Murderbot's "human security consultant" cover story. 

 

Exit Strategy (TMBD #4) - Murderbot learns that Dr. Mensah, the PresAux leader and its favorite human, has been kidnapped by GrayCris. It travels to the planet where she's being held prisoner and reunites with some of the other PresAux humans in order to help free Dr. Mensah and get them all off that planet safely. 

 

Network Effect (TMBD #5) - Murderbot is helping its PresAux humans on a mission when a big transport vessel shows up out of nowhere and kidnaps Murderbot and Dr. Mensah's teenage daughter Amena. The people on the ship don't seem quite human and have strange, unhackable tech, while the ship seems really familiar... Can Murderbot keep Amena safe and figure out how to help ART and its crew?

 

Fugitive Telemetry (TMBD #6) - This book takes place before book 5, on Preservation station (the space station above Preservation, the planet the PresAux humans are from). There's been a murder, and detective Murderbot is on the case! This means having to work with Station Security, who suspect it of the murder and limit its technological access, and having to talk to humans and bots (ugh). Can Murderbot solve the case? Will the Station Security humans finally trust it?

System Collapse (TMBD #7) - This book takes place right after Network Effect, on the same planet where everything goes down in book 5. Murderbot, ART's crew, and the PresAux humans are trying to help the planet's human colony, as a corporation called Barish-Estranza is trying to use their ignorance of capitalism to trick the humans into entering corporate slavery. Murderbot is also dealing with PTSD after the events of book 5. Can Murderbot, ART, and their humans figure out how to save the colonists from corporate slavery, and themselves from Barish-Estranza's retaliation?

Platform Decay (TMBD #8) - Murderbot must rescue and lead 3 kidnapped members of Dr. Mensah's family through a huge Corporation Rim space station to safety. The mission is made even more complicated by the addition of another kidnapped family to protect and wrangle. Murderbot must keep its humans safe while navigating the huge space station ring, all of the various corporations that own parts of it, the lack of consistent  transport, air pirates, corporate warfare, and clingy children. All while posing as an augmented human, of course.

    This is the only one I'm bothering to do a review for as it's new. I really enjoyed this book, while also not enjoying it because it was so suspenseful the whole time. Even so, I read it twice, basically back to back. This is similar to Network Effect in that Murderbot is entrusted with Mensah's family members who don't even like it but it has to keep them safe. Farai is nice but struggling to understand SecUnit and her wife's bond with it, and Naja (her grandmother, I think) is one of my favorite things in the world, a badass old lady. The third family member is Mensah and Farai's daughter Sofi, whose age isn't given (Murderbot refers to all children and teens as juveniles), but I think she's a tween, somewhere between 9 and 14 years old. Murderbot's growth is really shown in this book; it's actually installed a mental health program (!) and does frequent emotion checks (!!), and its main reason to avoid giving its humans a gun is because it's afraid shooting people will give them trauma! What a change from its previous reason for withholding guns from humans (because it was afraid of being shot by them)! It's also making a real effort to incapacitate instead of kill. I'm so proud of Murderbot :')  ★★★★

 

Martha Wells said in an interview that she's on contract to write one more book, which may be the last one in the series 😭

SHORT STORIES

"Compulsory" - published on Wired.com - This is a TMBD prequel that takes place before book 1. Newly rogue Murderbot decides to disobey its orders and save a human worker.

 

"Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory" - This short story takes place on Preservation after Exit Strategy and is told from Dr. Mensah's point of view. Mensah is struggling with PTSD after having been kidnapped, and takes comfort in knowing Murderbot is there for her and will protect her.

 

"Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" - This short story takes place after Artificial Condition (book 2), but we don't meet most of the characters until book 5. It's told from Iris (ART's "sister" and favorite human)'s point of view. ART's crew is on a mission on a planet undergoing a hostile corporate takeover. Iris notices ART is acting unusually, moping like it misses someone...

 

"Obsolescence" - published in an anthology called Take Us to a Better Place (free on most ebook platforms) - I kind of hesitate to add this one, as none of TMBD characters are in this, but it does take place in TMBD universe, only way earlier (still hundreds of years in the future for us). In one of the later books, Murderbot mentions having started watching a historical TV show about rovers exploring and terraforming planets, and this short story centers rovers (which are like cyborgs I guess). This does have a lot of overlap with TMBD books and stories: human/bot hybrids, augmented humans, precocious children, murder mystery, the themes of capitalism exploiting humans and treating them like things, what it means to be human, etc. This was very sad and rather horrifying and I did not enjoy reading it, but it's very thought-provoking. 

 ~

Trigger warnings for this series: violence, murder, death, gore, corpses, blood, body horror, torture, slavery, kidnapping, that thing of constructs being forced to obey by being electric-shocked by their governor modules and forced to hurt and kill (SecUnits) or have sex with humans (ComfortUnits), Murderbot makes references to having been forced to record humans having sex in the past, inferred threat of gendered sexual violence (Platform Decay only; Murderbot stops it), PTSD, anxiety, depression, trauma, capitalism, constructs and bots not having full sentient person rights and being treated like things/property

~

TELEVISION SHOW - Murderbot

I don't think I've ever talked about the TV show, only that I wanted to watch it! I broke down and paid for 6 months of Apple TV+ (they had a pretty good deal for Black Friday) and have probably watched it 3 times at this point. It's a fairly faithful adaptation, although they trimmed down the PresAux crew and kind of dumbed down/simplified everybody a bit. Like show!Pin-Lee is way less confident than books!Pin-Lee, and they made Ratthi a himbo. Casting Alexander Skarsgard as Murderbot feels a little uninspired, but he's actually so good in the role; he constantly looks like he's seconds away from vomiting from anxiety, which is perfect. The first (and currently only) season adapted All Systems Red (book 1), and it's a pretty decent adaptation. They added and changed things unnecessarily, of course (I wish we could read the feed stuff that pops up better as it's a little too translucent, and the cubicle's design is ridiculous to the point that it's not a cubicle anymore, and don't get me started on Labeebee), but I really like it. They've greenlit a second season, which will adapt books 2-4!! They're novellas, and all part of a story arc, so it makes sense to do them all at once. I can't wait. Murderbot and ART's friendship is so important to me, and I hope the show does it justice. 

Pair Eyewear's "Take Me to the Sea" collection as Our Flag Means Death characters

Pair Eyewear is a company that makes glasses with little magnets in the top outer corners of the frames and plastic decorative magnetic frame toppers that you can magnetically attach to the glasses in order to switch up your look. Needless to say, they own my whole life and I am obsessed with them. (If you'd like to try them out, please use my link above; it'll give us each free money to spend at Pair.) The most recent collection as of this blog post is their "Take Me to the Sea" collection, which is of course very ocean-y and beach-y. This makes sense for summer, as everyone has the beach and The Little Mermaid on the mind. As soon as I got the email announcing this collection, as well as little thumbnail bubbles of the various topper styles and their names, it immediately reminded me of one of my current favorite shows, Our Flag Means Death (whose 2nd season cannot come soon enough). Without further ado, here is my blog post detailing which topper is which character or scene or setting from OFMD (kind of contains spoilers for the show).

The Nautilus Shell

This topper (which I bought) immediately reminded me of Ed's purple T-shirt, especially as it fades to very nearly black. However, in the interest of including all the OFMD characters, I'd assign this topper to Ivan, as the colors would look poppin' with his dark aesthetic.

The Ocean Stars

My first inclination was to assign this topper to Mary, as she is the girliest woman (of two) in the show. However, she's mostly shown wearing jewel tones and black, and this doesn't feel right for her. I think it'd work great for Alma, her and Stede's preteen daughter.

The Twilight Waves

This one is beautiful, and brings to mind the famous Japanese painting "The Wave". It kind of reminds me of that romantic scene where Stede and Ed are standing on the deck under the humongous moon.

The Shoreline

This one IMMEDIATELY brought to mind one of the last scenes in season 1, where we see Stede on a beach push a rowboat into the waves and set off to get his ship and man back.

The Seaside Tort

This topper is Jim, because of the orange :)

The Royal Blue to Seafoam Gradient

This topper is Oluwande, because it's teal :)

The Aqua Tiles

STEDE. This one is Stede in his blue suit all the way. I also bought this one.

The Marine Medallions

I've decided to assign this pretty stained glass-esque topper to Mary, as it's reminiscent of her Cubist-like paintings.

The Land & Sea Glass

Speaking of Mary's painting, this is clearly the lighthouse painting she made Stede for their anniversary in the left corner, with The Revenge in in the right. (link)

The Kraken

This one is so clearly Ed. After all, The Kraken is his alter ego.

The Shark Frenzy

This one would be perfect for Calico Jack, since he (probably) gets eaten by a shark, but I'd rather give it to Wee John as he doesn't have a topper yet.

The Stylish Seagulls

Buttons. The man wears seagulls on his head. Enough said.

The rest of the toppers in the collection aren't included in the promo pics, so I'm going to include individual pictures of each one.

The Plaid Driftwood Split

I'm assigning this one to Lucius, since he wears a plaid neckerchief and has a stripe-y shirt. Plus, he spends a lot of time standing (not working) on deck.

The Sailor Jerry Tattoo

I'm giving this one to Black Pete, as he has tattoos and it's very nautical and pirate-y.

The Canine Captains

Fang, immediately, because he loves dogs and wasn't allowed to have one on board The Queen Anne. Although, the dogs are clearly co-captains... the corgi is Stede and the French bulldog is Ed

 

The Beach Balls

I've decided to give this one to The Swede, as he is full of childlike wonder and would love to play with a beach ball. It could also be Louis, Stede & Mary's young son.

The Mermaid Tails

This one brings to mind when someone (the Swede?) asked Jim if they were a mermaid. However, I'm giving it to Spanish Jackie as I think she'd dig the colors and design.

The Watercolor Reef

I'd give this one to Roach, as he loves to cook and eat sea creatures.

The Nautical Split

This topper is fairly staid, so I'll give it to Izzy Hands (he'd definitely find fault with it tho).

The Sea Turtle Spots

I'm giving this topper to Frenchie, as it's funky like him. I love how it's rainbow-y like the show

 

The Jolly Roger

This one is all the pirate flags they make together <3

If you want to see the whole collection yourself, it's here on the PE website. If you want to try out the glasses for yourself, please use my link here so we can each get $25!

Book (and Show) Review: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Spoilers for the current show All Creatures Great and Small (last couple paragraphs)

As you know, I am an enthusiastic consumer of British period pieces, and when I heard about the new TV series All Creatures Great and Small (ACGAS), I immediately knew I would watch it, as I loved the James Herriot books as a kid. Watching the show made me want to reread the books, so here we are. 

For those of you who don't know about this series, it's the slightly fictionalized memoirs of a veterinarian in Yorkshire, England (I think it's a county? or series of counties idk) in the 1930s. They're very funny and full of amazing, gross animal facts and illnesses and treatments. The title is chosen, for obvious reasons, from a hymn. ACGAS is actually the second line, so the second book in the series has the first line in the hymn, the third book has the third line, and so on. Here's the summary of the first book from Barnes & Noble: 

For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.

In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

I enjoyed reading this, of course. I think that this first book, ACGAS, is covered by the first two seasons of the current adaptation. They of course fleshed out the characters (Mrs. Hall, the housekeeper, especially) and swapped some things around (in the show, Tristan gets kicked in the leg by a horse, whereas it's James that gets kicked in the leg in the book). They also made the strange choice of making Siegfried, James's boss, a lonely widower in his 40s who is afraid to get back into the dating world. In the book he's in his early thirties and is a total ladies' man. I guess the series thought it'd be better to have Tristan be the ladies' man. He is one in the book, and he's also depicted as being really smart, which doesn't get really depicted much in the show (television deals in absolutes). 

I really like Helen (James's eventual wife)'s character in the show, although of course they made her more spunky. She did wear trousers in the book a lot, and consequently in the show, which I thought was cool. Helen was depicted in the book as being this nice, perfect daughter who didn't talk much but served her dad and doted on him. They made the dad all gruff and kind of scary in the show, while he was all quiet and small in the book. They kept Helen's little sister, expanding her role (great kid actor. She and Helen really look related), but for some reason excised her little brother. They turned a throwaway comment in the book about Helen's dad maybe wanting her to marry his rich friend's son into a whole love triangle, of course, even going so far as to have Helen leave him at the altar. They've also left out the domineering secretary, but maybe they'll add her in season 3. Tricki Woo remains my favorite, although his mom needs her head checked. Anyway, check out the show! It's a sweet, gentle British dramedy (fairly light on the drama).

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: February 12-13
From: gift, I think
Format: hardcover
Status: keeping at my parents' house, where it has been all along

Trigger warnings for this book: animal death; human death mention; animals injured, in pain and suffering; gross medical descriptions such as body fluid mentions, organs, etc.; alcohol and drunkenness (lots of mentions), animal mistreatment out of misguided love, period-typical sexism, poverty, pipe smoking I think

Sanditon miniseries, and books I've reread lately

I finished watching PBS's Sanditon miniseries, which is based on an unfinished novel that Jane Austen was writing when she died. It was pretty good, but I felt it was too soap opera-y. You already know that I don't like it when people insert random stuff into Jane Austen adaptations, especially if it's only for the drama. There are trysts! Kidnappings! A page is taken out of Cruel Intentions' book! There's a love triangle between two hot dudes and the heroine! There's a love triangle between the hero and two ladies who love him! There's at least one manipulative bitch who isn't afraid to use sex as a weapon! You know, a lot of stuff that does not belong in a Jane Austen adaptation (unless she already wrote it in there).
Also, I didn't like it that the hero walked around in stubble all the time, and that the heroine almost always wore her hair down despite being of Out age. They also did not wear hats and gloves in public/outside nearly enough. I also feel that there was too much obvious makeup on the women (I'm pretty sure ladies did not wear smoky eye makeup with crimson lips in the Regency era). I hate it when historical period pieces aren't accurate.
The heroine felt like a cross between Catherine from Northanger Abbey and Lizzie from Pride & Prejudice. The hero was definitely a Darcy type. The bitchy old rich lady was basically the same as she was in the book. One thrills to think of the frenemy relationship she would have with Lady Catherine de Bourgh. They really fleshed out the sole character of color, a young lady from the West Indies who is an heiress in the miniseries. I liked her and felt bad for her to be stuck in a town full of just white people who were often racist to her. The trips to London showed how diverse it was back then, which was nice and interesting. The ending was very abrupt and unsatisfying, which I thought was because maybe they ended the miniseries where Austen's novel did, but no! They fleshed it way out more than the novel, and just chose to end it that way! WTF. Despite all that, it was pretty good.

So obviously after I finished Sanditon, I decided to reread the book to see how similar the miniseries was to it. The answer is: not very. It was all right. It usually takes me a while to get into nineteenth century writing nowadays, thanks to the Internet and social media, and by the time I was hitting my stride, it was over. Anyway, my volume of Sanditon also has The Watsons and Lady Susan, and I decided to reread Lady Susan because I remember finding it so funny and scandalous. It... was fine. It did make me watch Love & Friendship, its adaptation that stars Kate Beckinsale, who is perfect, if a bit tamer than Lady Susan in her letters to her best friend. So random how they made her best friend American just because Chloe Sevegny (sp?) wanted it be in the movie for some reason. Anyway.

I organized more of my books, consolidating several piles into one megapile next to the stairs. This action of course revealed several books that I need to read and decide whether to keep or not.  I  reread Franny and Zooey for this reason. I wrote about it last time I read it, and I really liked it at the time. This time it was mostly just okay. I still liked the Jesus/religious stuff, but I guess there's something about reading a book where young people in their early to mid twenties have quarter-life crises when you yourself are in your thirties, that lowers the appreciation for the book. I last read it 9 years ago, when I was in my early twenties, so it makes sense that I liked it more then. Anyway. I'll be giving this one away.

Latinx representation

Study finds films lag significantly in Latino representation

Latina women in films are all maids, immigrants (undocumented or not), gang girls or cholas, spicy and tempestuous, Jennifer Lopez, or all of the above. I'm trying to think of a Latina in movies I could relate to. America Ferrera has come close; she played Carmen in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but her story was not my story. I have yet to watch Real Women Have Curves, but it's on my list.

Representation matters. Ask me why I, a white, blue-eyed, brown-haired girl, never really saw any character I identified with. (Maybe I would feel differently if I had watched Gilmore Girls. Alexis Bledel is a white Argentinian with blue eyes and brown hair and her character loved books. But her character was white.) Ask me why I saw America Ferrera's awkward bespectacled face as Ugly Betty and immediately placed the TV show in the #1 slot in my heart. Ask me why her Mexican apron-wearing, cooking dad and prettier, more popular sister felt so familiar. Ask me why I latched on to Jane the Virgin, with her love of books and dreams of being a writer and the specter of religion haunting her desires. When Jane and her mom and her abuela sang feliz cumpleaños to her son, harmonizing, I burst into tears. My family does that. I had never seen anything on television so close to my personal experiences. I feel uncomfortable when, in TV shows and movies, second and third generation Latinx Americans speak in English to their parents and grandparents while they speak to them in Spanish. I do that to my dad without knowing, and it makes me feel guilty.

Depending on your interpretation, Latinxs have been here since before the United States claimed its independence. J.Lo goes to the gym every day, but she cannot carry us all on her shoulders. Nor should she.

Book reviews: June and July

The only book I read in June was Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which was a reread. I watched the Amazon Prime series (booo. I used my mom's account), read the book, then watched it again. It's so good; I really recommend it even if you don't watch the show. For those of you who don't know, it's about the looming apocalypse and the angel and demon who become friends while trying to make the world better/worse, attempting to stop it. This is difficult because they lost the antichrist, and their respective sides definitely want the apocalypse to happen. There's also a witch and many prophecies. It does get rather close to being too sacrilegious for yours truly, but the humor and relationships make up for it. I felt the show was a perfect adaptation of the book, due in no small part to Neil Gaiman's influence and work as a show runner. 4.5/5 stars, keeping obviously.


On Sunday I went to Savers and bought like $40 worth of books. They have a buy 4, get 1 free deal which gets me almost every time. I started reading books from my haul pretty much immediately, starting with Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson, which is about a magic contest hosted by a wizard who needs to find a witch to marry. Ibbotson wrote the suspiciously Harry Potter-esque The Secret of Platform 13 (it was written long before HP), which I read a few years ago, and her writing is very good. It's that rather old-fashioned British fantasy children's lit that I like so much, very Dahl-esque. I noted there was another "orphan boy who at first was presumed to be ordinary but is actually More" character. I definitely recommend this if you like/don't mind reading about witches and wizards (they're written for a child audience). 4/5 stars, but I'll be giving this one away



The next book I read from my Savers haul was Girl in Hyacinth Blue, which is a series of interconnected short stories about the different people who own a possible Vermeer painting throughout the centuries, and what it means to them and how it affects them and their lives. Quite sad, but very good writing. It turns out I had read the first story before, which is about a math professor who kept the painting a secret in order to keep people from finding out his father was a Nazi who acquired the painting by looting a Jewish home. I think I read that in high school or college. My favorite (i.e. least sad) story was the one about the Rococo-era rich lady who had to sell the painting without its authenticity papers in order to flee her cheating/cheated husband, thus ensuring future owners were unsure it was a real Vermeer. I love the Rococo era, and the despair and hardship the other characters went through was not present in this story because the lady was rich. I did some googling, and the painting is not real (just like I'd assumed). However, an artist painted it, and you can read about it in his blog post. It's lovely, although rather different than I imagined it. 3.5/5 stars, giving away.

Television show: Home to Keep

While my reading has slowed, my television viewing has not. Instead of keeping up with all of the currently airing TV shows I'm interested in, I've been binging on Psych and Home to Keep, both included in Amazon Prime. I literally always have one tab open for each show on my browser window.

Home to Keep is a home improvement reality TV show from HGTV Canada. The premise of this show is that the host guy goes around to real people's homes (who have applied to be on the show) and fixes the problem area/s of their home with the help of his designer/contractor friends, so that instead of having to move, they have a Home to Keep. It's a really fun, neat show if you like interior design shows, which I do.

The general format of each show goes like this:

1. Family has a problem area in their home. Awkward, too small, no storage, etc.
2. Peter comes in, talks to them and assesses what needs to be changed. 
3. He gets the realtor to find them a similar house where they've done something unique and exciting with that room, and shows it to the family to give them ideas of what they could do with their problem area.
4. Peter and the contractors get to work.
5. Peter and the interior decorator, Liz, choose the look and materials for the area.
6. repeat #4 & 5 as needed.
7. Peter and Liz decorate the finished room/s.
8. Reveal.
9. Peter invites the realtor back to show her what they did. She always loves it.

To me, what sets this apart is that the show is set in Canada, and the approach and timing is completely different than it would be in an American interior design TV show. The show host Peter is a smiley, friendly white dude who you can tell really does care about the families and wants them to love their homes. While I'm sure many of his relationships with the contractors and realtor are professional, he is 100% BFFs with his interior decorator, Liz. They are so cute together, getting all excited about floor tiles and fabrics. I feel like an American host of a TV show would be super put together and dressed up, etc., but Peter looks like an ordinary dude who is wearing his normal clothes. He doesn't dress to stand out or bleach his teeth, if he's wearing TV makeup it's only powder for shine, and sometimes his hair is out of place. It's refreshingly normal. The contractors and designer are all normal people who are good at their jobs. Only the realtor, an icy former beauty queen type, looks like she's in show biz.

This show, which is half an hour long, moves at a clipped pace through the renos (that's HGTV-speak for renovations). It moves briskly along without spending any time on drama the way an American HGTV show would, even though renovations and changing layouts etc. would organically lead to possible conflicts and problems. Sometimes in the end the couple will casually mention they weren't sure about some change when it was presented to them, but they always say it worked way better than they thought it would/they love the change, etc. The families don't really seem to be involved in the decisions, but that's par for the course in these types of home renovation shows.

What I don't like and would change is that there is no big reveal to the family. I want to see their surprised faces when they see all of the team's hard work! This is probably the biggest difference between this and American renovation shows. US shows are all about the big reveal and tears, etc. The reveal is for us, the viewers, and shots of the before and after are interspersed with footage of the family using their new space and talking heads of them saying how much they love the changes. I also don't like that they show us brief clips of the finished rooms before the end of the show, probably as they go to commercial. I would save it all until the end. I do like that Peter himself also takes on small projects, such as sanding and repainting small pieces of furniture, reupholstering seats, etc.

Overall, this is a fun, interesting show that I love to watch while relaxing. The Canadian accents and friendliness are so soothing, and this show is way better to watch at night than any of my many murder mystery shows as there is no suspense. It gives me lots of great ideas for home projects, and I love it.

January 2017 books

The first book I read and finished this year was Debating Disney: Pedagogical Perspectives on Commercial Cinema, which was a series of essays about Disney films under different lens (feminism, race, gay or Semitic stereotyping, etc.) It was interesting but somewhat dry as it is an academic work, but I would recommend it if you like analyzing Disney movies and can stomach reading academia. In my notes I had put that some facts were incorrect, but I didn’t put what so now I don’t remember. This was a library book. I may have skimmed this a bit, rather than reading every essay (early January, 3.9/5 stars)

I actually read a lot of library books since mine were packed up in boxes until a few weeks ago. The next one I read was In the Open Hand: Sonnets from the Californian, which is a book of poetry by a faculty member at the university where I work. It was pretty good but the reading experience was marred somewhat by the fact that I met him and it’s kind of awkward reading love poems by someone you’ve personally met. Not his fault; the writing style was quite good. (early January, 3.5/5 stars)

C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: A Biography is exactly that: the biography of a book. How meta is that? It went over the circumstances leading up to Mere Christianity being written, such as WWII and C.S. Lewis’s radio talks, as well as its reception and influence. This would be a great resource for someone wanting to write a book report on MC, or any other CSL megafan. I think I kinda skimmed this one towards the end as it is scholarly and dry. (mid-January, 4/5)

Later that month I went to my achilles’ heel, the thrift store, and bought several more books. Among them was a TV spinoff book, The Douche Journals, Volume 1: The Definitive Account of One Man's Genius. Basically the book is written as if it’s Schmidt from New Girl’s journal where he writes down every “clever” thing that caused him to be made to put money in the douchebag jar. It was just as crude and hilarious as I expected. (mid-January, 3.4/5)

I also acquired The Code of the Woosters at the thrift store, to my delight. These are laugh-out-loud funny, and I’m going to try to buy them all. I had seen parts of it from a BBC Jeeves and Wooster episode, but it was still hilarious.(mid-January, 4/5)

Also from the thrift store came The Mysterious Affair at Styles, my first Agatha Christie. I liked Hercule Poirot and the mystery was quite interesting, but I pretty much hated the narrator. He kept falling in love with every attractive woman and girl he saw, regardless of whether they were married or appropriate for him to date, then pouted when they didn’t like him back. His thoughts about the women were unnecessary and detracted from the story. I would have liked to know more of Poirot rather than that bimbo. I did like the story, but I won’t be keeping this one. (mid-January, 3.5/5)

Continuing my Artemis Fowl series reread, I read the fourth book, The Opal Deception. This one may have the most suspenseful plot of the series, and it pretty much held up reread-wise. (mid-January, 4/5)

My next library read was Youth and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century United States, which is a well-researched yet readable scholarly work. It was very interesting and showed that adolescence wasn’t as squeaky clean in the past as your grandparents would have you think (premarital sex was pretty common, for instance). The most interesting thing I learned was that children under 15 or so were expected to not be interested in the opposite sex at all, but in the same sex! Same-sex crushes were completely expected and seen as normal in older children and young teens. (lateish January, 4/5)

I was going to do a trimester-type post of my Jan-Mar books, but since I read so much in January, this is just for that month. That's why this post is so late.

Hispanic Disney Princess, part 2

Here we go again.

Princess Elena of Avalor, a confident and compassionate teenager in an enchanted fairytale kingdom inspired by diverse Latin cultures and folklore, will be introduced in a special episode of Disney Junior’s hit series Sofia the First beginning production now for a 2016 premiere. That exciting story arc will usher in the 2016 launch of the animated series Elena of Avalor, a production of Disney Television Animation.

Remember my hit* post about Princess Sofia? I got all excited for a second that we were going to have a real Latina Disney Princess, but it turns out it's just a spinoff of Sofia the First on the Disney Channel. Elena does look 'more Latina', which yay for representation for brown girls (especially brown Latina girls), but you can't claim she's Latina since she's from a made-up country. Please read that post I wrote about Sofia for all my thoughts about giving us "Latin@" characters who are from a made-up world.
I am further annoyed by the "this fake world is inspired by Latino and Hispanic cultures around the world!" nonsense that I hate. Latin@s are not all the same; please don't lump us together. A ~*Latin-flavored*~ setting (when done by white people) is just insulting; there's better representation on a tortilla chip bag. I get that the amount of countries and cultures is overwhelming, but try to do better by us.
Although I guess you could argue that like half the white Disney Princesses are from made-up lands (Atlantis or whatever the mermaid city is called, wherever Frozen is set, etc.). So I guess what I'm annoyed by the most about this is that it's more of the same. They already did this to us with Sofia. Why aren't Latina princesses good enough to get a feature film? This feels like some "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" nonsense.

p.s. I am so excited for Moana!! PLEASE GO SEE MOANA; it needs to be super successful so that Disney will keep making movies about non-white people!


*not really

 gif by dean-pls on Tumblr

Forgive me, friend,
I wasn't searching because
I could scarcely hope to dream up
someone as wonderful as you.
Beyond all I could hope for,
past every thought of every good thing
is where you are.
It is enough to know I know you now;
It is already an embarrassment of riches.
I didn't have or deserve the knowledge
that someone like you existed;
I have enough love now to
stretch back across the lonely
pre-you years by myself.
I was always waiting for you
and didn't know it.

Smash

This hot mess of a show. Like a grown-up Glee, but on Broadway and the plotlines are slightly more straightforward and believable.

Best parts of Smash:
1) Tom and his zingers and general existence. Christian Borle's delivery of his lines gives me life.
2) the singing. Everyone is so talented. The dancing is great too.
3) uhhh, idk, I guess Derek. I mean his character is such a sleazeball but the actor (the same one who played the Commodore in Pirates of the Caribbean) plays him so sardonically and great. Also, Megan Hilty is fantastic. It's pretty laughable that they'd pick Kat McPhee over her for Marilyn. I mean really.
4) the girls' clothes. I want almost everything. Also hot guyz although currently I am hard-pressed to name one. Oh I guess that fixer guy.
5) Anjelica Huston throwing martinis in her ex-husband's face. This does not happen enough, imo.

Anyway, since I began working at my new job I have way less free time so I'm considering stopping keeping up with this one until the end of the season or w/e and then just watching all the episodes at once. Something's got to give.

Go On and Community comparison

So I've added Go On (plot synopsis: Chandler's wife died and he has to go to a support group full of loveable weirdos to cope and ends up befriending them) to my shows that I watch, and I've realized the reason I like it so much is because it reminds me of Community.

Chandler Bing Ryan King: Jeff Winger, obvs
Lauren (the group leader): a combination of Britta and Annie. Like Britta, she is the girl the sarcastic main character is totally going/supposed to end up with, and is a fake therapist who wants to help people. Like Annie, she has gorgeous brown shiny hair and adorable clothes I want to steal, and she wants him to be a better person (wait, Britta does too. And Annie is also cute together with Jeff).
Anne: much like Britta as well. She's angry, blonde, and constantly calling Ryan out on his ish. Also a recurring joke on Community is that Britta is lesbian and Anne actually is (her wife also died, like Ryan's).
Yolanda: Shirley! Also Annie, the overachieving, sweater-wearing, persnickety prude version of her.
Owen: A combo of Abed and Troy? idk.
Mr. K: Pierce, obvs. Also Abed. And Chang but not malevolent. And Dean Pelton? Like if you put the Dean and Pierce and some Abed and Chang together. Yeah this makes no sense.
Sonia: Britta (blonde single cat owner) but also some Annie and Shirley?
Fausta: Pierce? I have no idea. They don't have a Hispanic stereotype on Community (yet).
Danny: No idea. A bit Abed-ish.
George: Pierce because of the oldness. He's not been on lately.
Carrie: Annie-ish but not really anything.
Steven: No idea.

Yeah, that ended up being less clear-cut than I thought. Oh, I just remembered that Jeff is always being compared to Ryan Seacrest and Ryan King is always being mistaken for Rachel Maddow. So that's funny.