Category: Review
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Melo Movie: A Ponderous Exploration Of Grief And Love
This ten episode #kdrama #MeloMovie on @Netflix written by Lee Na-eun, directed by Oh Chung-hwan and starring Choi Woo-shik, Park Bo-young, Lee Jun-young, Jeon So-nee, and Kim Jae Uck is pure cinema. Over ten hours, we are acquainted with and eventually get to know intimately all the characters. What is love?What is grief?What is passion?What…
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Hidden Love – Slow, Sweet and, Sure
In the midst of a kdrama slump, aimless browsing of Netflix threw up this cdrama called Hidden Love that was on air meaning I couldn’t binge it even if I wanted to. I started this show with no expectations and it remains now one of my favorite chinese dramas ever. The story starts when the…
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The Moon Is Beautiful – Romance Is A Bonus Book Review
The moon is beautiful, isn’t it ? Instead of “I love you”, Natsume Soseki said “The moon is beautiful”. When the author, Natsume Soseki, was a teacher, he told his student translated “I love you” into Japanese, he just translated it word-for-word, “I love you”. Since Japanese people don’t say that often, he told the…
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Twenty Five, Twenty One – Trip Down Nostalgia Lane
The show starts with vivid color and a certain sterility as a teenager waits to perform ballet during the COVID years. The mother, our protagonist waits in the car as restrictions prevent anyone from being in the audience. The girl walks off, throwing away her place in the competition and runs away from home to…
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Kantara – A Movie That Stays With You
Early in October, my friend asked me to watch this movie. I said it was impossible that a Kannada movie would screen in theaters near me. I did look it up and it was running at a theater a few miles away. Then, a chance conversation with a neighbor had me at the theater this…
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Daughters Of Destiny – Some Thoughts
This docu-series has been on my watchlist for over a year now. I finally caught up on it over the weekend. The four plus hour long series traces five girls as they grow up under the spotlight. The youngest child is four and the older ones in high school. They are chosen to go to…
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Bridgerton Season 2 – So Many Thoughts
Like most other fans of Bridgerton Season One, I had March 25th marked on my calendar. I sat down last night after dinner intent on at least watching one episode and then savoring the episodes over the week. Instead I ended up walking up to bed at 3:30 am, my head so full of thoughts.…
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Try Harder! Film Analysis
This weekend, I sat in a theater for the first time in forever, my mask fogging up my glasses with my twin middle schoolers watching a documentary. Try Harder! follows five high schoolers as they navigate the junior and senior year of high school. This is not just any high school but one that is…
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Moxie: Too Reel For Real
Sunday evening, I watched Moxie while my kids watched The Little Mermaid for the gazillionth time. The movie started well, was predictable, had good acting and by the time it was done, I was disturbed. The premise of the story is great, so why doesn’t the movie deliver? This question has been in my head…
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Film Review: the half of it
About twenty-three years ago, I created my first personal email account. It was an account that I shared with my best friend. It was also an account that saw a lot of emails go back and forth with “pen pals”, people we did not know. There were no smartphones, no way to scan and send…
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Giftorations: Decor That Doubles As Gifts
I rarely do advertorials/sponsored posts on the blog but being that this is family and I feel comfortable writing about it because of having experienced the product personally. A few months ago, a cousin of mine Swetha reached out to talk about SEO and website traffic. Turns out she and a friend, both moms to…
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Book Review: Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
A friend recommended this book on Goodreads and on impulse, I checked it out from my library. At a little under 500 pages, it took me two days to finish the book. The story is about two women. Solimar from Mexico who dreams of getting to and building a life in America. Kavya, a Berkeley…
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Philadelphia Writers Workshop – A Recap
All week before the actual conference, I went about my day thinking about it. I lay awake at night thinking of plot, structure, synopsis and query. Then a day before I decided to chuck it all and just go as an attendee. I vented on twitter tagging my posts with #phillyww and before I knew…
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Art Imitating Life
It is mid morning. Ideal time to declutter, check off items on my to-do list that has been constantly growing since I quit work two years ago. Instead I am in my study watching the drama unfold in Season 11 of Grey’s Anatomy. I missed the show when it first aired stumbling on it one…
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Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss – Poetry, Fantasy and World-Building at its best
Early this week, I borrowed the first of Patrick Rothfuss’s books (The Name of the Wind) from my library. I devoured it in less than a day and waited eagerly for the next (Wise Man’s Fear) which I finished reading at 2:00 AM this morning. My brain swirled with Kvothe, Felurian, Auri, Denna, Bast and…
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The Association Of Small Bombs – Rich, Evocative, Compelling
I stumbled on to this book on a friend’s timeline and put it on hold at my local library. As someone working on a book of her own, I am forever on the lookout for books by Indian authors. So, this seemed a promising read. The book starts with a bomb going off in a…
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Without Benefits by Nicole Tone – Beach Read With Soul
Nicole is someone I got to know on Twitter when looking for critique partners. As we swapped first chapters, I soon realized her writing was exemplary and she had much to offer in terms of feedback and the craft of writing, something I could only aspire too. So, when I knew her first book was…
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The House We Grew Up In – Dysfunctional Much?
I picked up The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell based on a recommendation on Twitter. The story starts promisingly enough with the eldest daughter of the Bird family arriving at the family house after her mom dies. Weaving back and forth over a period of 20 – 30 years, the story traces…
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The Nightingale – A Riveting Read
I bought this book after it was our book club pick for this month. It sat on my Kindle for over three weeks before I even looked it up. I had no idea what to expect as I skipped reading the synopsis or the reviews before buying the book. I finished the book a day…
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Before We Visit The Goddess – A Nuanced Read That Will Linger
Before We Visit The Goddess by Chitra Divakaruni is a book I have been looking forward to since I saw the pre-release publicity on Twitter. I got it over the weekend from the library and savored it over the course of this afternoon. The book opens ominously to jackals howling in the night and dives…
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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
A book club I am part of picked this book for our next meeting. I was thrilled as it was on my TBR pile. Also, I follow @CelesteNg and love her take on most things related to race and diversity. I read the blurbs, the front and back cover synopsis and settled myself comfortably with…