What’s Up 2020: Week 14

Another week has passed by as we jump into week 14 of 2020! The rhythm of working from home and balancing out the to-do list for blog and home stuff is definitely setting itself into place. Everything here is finally more balanced now.

READING

• Blackthorn by Terry Tyler (Review)

Currently reading: Highland Cove

Back on track with reading (kind of) as I finally finish up Blackthorn! Its not a dreading way that I’m saying this because Blackthorn is a really good read. You can check out my review that I’ve linked above. Terry Tyler is a really good author, judging from the two books that I’ve read of hers so far and definitely an author I’d like to read more of as she has some fantastic world building skills.

Of course, its time to move on as I’m reading Highland Cove, a story along the paranormal horror genre. A genre that I honestly haven’t read in a while so it will be a nice change in pace.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Happy Color, Cookies Must Die, Bounce That Bird, Demon’s Tilt

As I try to find some time to stream (which should be coming up), I’ve been working on my next gaming post reviewing some of the games who made the finalists in the Google Play Indie Games Festival for this year. Its quite a feat and probably won’t be done until they announce the winner of the whole thing but you know, its an attempt. With that said, Cookies Must Die and Bounce That Bird are both free games on the list that I’m checking out at the same time.

WATCHING

• Pride and Prejudice (2005 rewatch, Review)
• Hell House LLC 3: Lake of Fire (2019)
• Justice League (2017)

It was a week of taking it easy on the reading as there was just a lot of TV that I wanted to watch and I had a few things that I needed to take care of. With that said, I tend to enjoy rewatching Pride and Prejudice every once in a while as its one of my favorite movies. Its probably the top movie of the week but then, I never choose rewatches to highlight so we’re going with Justice League, a movie that surprisingly was a decent watch since I have been pretty much indifferent to the DC Universe films except for Wonder Woman. This was a fun watch. As for Hell House LLC 3, I’m going to be doing a double feature on both the sequels so I’ll just review it there.

BINGING

• Nailed It! (Season 4, 2020)
• The Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 1, 2017)

Currently binging: Skate into Love, The Singer 2020, Youth Is You 2, The Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 2), J-Style Trip

TV has been a huge focus this week. I’ve been watching a lot of baking shows as you can see. Nailed It Season 4 arrived and well, I watched that over two days. Its still a lot of fun and I should be doing a little review on that since there’s not a whole lot to talk about except maybe a few little things. While I am watching through the 2 seasons of The Great Canadian Baking Show that landed on Netflix and since I have zero actual TV channels at home, I don’t even catch CBC shows so didn’t really know this existed before. Still, its a good show as I start tackling Season 2 already.

Most of everything else has already been in progress but Skate Into Love is wrapping up in the coming week and boy, that series is SO AWESOME! Luckily, when that one ends, there’s another one that I’ve been looking forward to coming out. The good stuff for Chinese dramas are popping up now and its starting to look forward to!

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

Blackthorn by Terry Tyler

Blackthorn
By: Terry Tyler

The UK, year 2139
One hundred and fifteen years ago, a mysterious virus wiped out ninety-five per cent of humanity.  Blackthorn, the largest settlement in England, rose from the ashes of the devastated old world. It is a troubled city, where the workers live in crude shacks, and make do with the worst of everything.  It is a city of violent divisions, crime, and an over-populated jail block―until a charismatic traveller has a miraculous vision and promises to bring hope back to the people’s lives.  Blackthorn falls under Ryder Swift’s spell, and the most devoted of all is the governor’s loyal servant, Lieutenant August Hemsley.  Twenty-one-year-old Evie has lived her whole life in the shacks. She and disillusioned guard Byron Lewis are two of a minority who have doubts about Ryder’s message. Can they stand against the beliefs of an entire city? – Goodreads

Blackthorn is a story about beliefs and cults in a dystopian future where the balance has been offset. In the current state of the world, calculating back the years of how this story is sets up its future scenario, it almost hits a little too close to home. However, much like the other book that I read Hope from Terry Tyler, this author excels in building immersive dystopia worlds. In Blackthorn, its one that works thoroughly from the society’s lowered population built up and almost driving everything back to the basics in older times with different societal classes doing different jobs and someone ruling over the different cities/districts by richer families and the concept to carry on the family name by passing it on.

This brings in all kinds of characters that weave together a story of bringing back the concept of faith in the Bible and having the community come together to be better in order to reach the Light. With that, it brings up questions of how truthful the situation actually is as well as the motives of different decisions by the different characters that manage to bring in some deeper characters. Characters is where the story is executed well as it bounces between the perspective of three characters: Lieutenant August Hemsley, a lower class baker Evie and guard Byron Lewis. Their different perspectives of the different elements of the society completes the picture in many of the scenarios and fills in those blanks to connect the dots while at the same time, having perspectives from different characters also creates enough gaps of the unknown to have their own secrets and msyteries in the story that slowly unveil in the third part. With that said, the book is divided into three parts plus an epilogue, giving it a progression of time and shift in time and events as well as Blackthorn’s position.

If there was something to criticize about this book, its that the pacing at times felt lacking here and there. It had to do with its length perhaps and that some moments were made to create a link between the perspectives of the three. Provided that most of the time, the three views did work very well together but at times, it did make some situations a little longer to read. Plus, with three characters, it also needs to create enough dilemmas to solidify their purpose, push and feelings towards the society and predicament. Although, I say this, overall Blackthorn is a satisfying read. Its world-building and dystopian future plus the intricate details of putting all the three characters together from little events popping up in their passing at the beginning to having the three characters’ path intersect was done really well. Despite its little moments, its still well-executed in the scope of the story that it wants to tell.

Score: 4.5/5

Check out my review of Terry Tyler’s other book, Hope HERE.

What’s Up 2020: Week 12

Week 12 everyone! I’m guessing everyone is starting to settle into having more time at home. Last week, aka this week that we’re covering right now, was my last week having to commute to work and under a lot of stress of how to make as many preventative measure as possible so that actually affected a lot of writing. However, I did try to stay on track with doing as much as I can. Next week will definitely bring some difference hopefully as work shifts home.

READING

Currently reading: Blackthorn

As I’ve mentioned before, most of my reading is done via commute. Due to the preventative measures during commute, I actually stopped touching my devices on the bus so hence, no reading was done. Blackthorn is still on my mind and as this goes up, I’m back to reading. However, absolutely no reading progress last week. I’ll talk more about it in next week’s update!

PLAYING

Currently playing: Demon’s Tilt, I Love Hue

Not too much of change in the gaming department either! I actually have been pretty obsessed with these two games. Pinball games just bring out the challenger in me apparently and I keep wanting to beat the game and beat my own high score. I’m actually improving in it which is pretty nice. Hopefully that I don’t peak at a certain point, but that tends to happen. We will see as I do also need to move on and play something else.

At the same time, I Love Hue is perfect for downtime. While I’m still loving this one, I realized that they recently released a sequel called I Love Hue Too and I can’t wait to try it out! I’ll report back next week to talk about it once I give it a go.

WATCHING

• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Blair Witch (2016)
• Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018)

Unknowingly, we ended up watching all horror movies this weekend. The one thing that was unexpected was finally catching up (for both myself and my husband) to the very talked about The Blair Witch Project when it was first released and probably put found footage films on the map back then. I still remember hearing all kinds of talk about it back then about the shaky camcorder style and such. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person who hasn’t caught up with this one. While I can’t say that I’m completely enthralled by it, there are quite a few things that I did like about this one.

Of course, this was all lead by my husband’s random choice to start 2016’s Blair Witch thinking it was 1999’s Blair Witch Project so we just decided to rent the first and check both of it out. Of course, we also decided to continue on with the Hell House LLC franchise onto the second movie, which isn’t as good as the first one.

BINGING

• Restaurants on the Edge (Season 1, 2020)

Currently binging: The Singer 2020, Youth is You 2, The Circle Brazil, Skate Into Love, J-Style Trip

TV binging is just all kinds of new things that updated daily or weekly with one to four episodes depending on the series. The Singer 2020, Youth is You 2 are both variety shows from Mango TV and iQiyi that I watch via their international apps. I’ve been watching those the past while so nothing new there. Still very fun. The Circle Brazil aired its 2nd week of its 3 week event (so it will all wrap up next time) and you can see the difference of the competitive vibe in this one compared to the US version. I’m going to talk about it once the whole thing ends. Its definitely a fun concept. J-Style Trip is also a new Taiwanese variety show with Jay Chou and his buddies exploring the world. Suitable for now as a lot of us are sitting at home. Its pretty fun especially since the first episode is was Jam Hsiao, a musician that I’ve really been loving the past few months, but its only updated one episode per week. Good things come in small doses, I guess, and makes us appreciate it more. Finally, a series I’ve been waiting for to start finally aired called Skate Into Love and its update daily and 5 episode in and I LOVE it!!

We switched things up a bit this time and talked about the currently binging before what I finished. Restaurants on the Edge is a Netflix series about making over restaurants. Its something of a Queer Eye concept but targeted at restaurants around the world as the three hosts help with making over the interior design, food as well as bringing in the culture for the owners and the vibe of the restaurant. Its really nice because it may be a makeover but its so much more than that, which is what I appreciate about the show and I’ll talk about it more in the TV binge. Working on that soon..but as usual, the TV binge is piling up right now.

That’s it for this What’s Up 2020 for Week 12!
What are you reading/playing/watching/binging?

 

What’s Up 2020: Week 11

Week 11, friends! Last week was a bit of a crazy phase that hit everywhere, I’d wager. We all know what’s going on around the world and I’d like to keep this space a little safe haven away from it. Whether you joined into the toilet paper shopping or grocery stocking up in preparation, it was all a crazy development of events when the week ended. More time at home over the weekend gave us a chance to catch up on TV, movies and gaming and well, surprisingly, a very slow blogging week. It has been a long time that I’ve taken so many days off.

READING

Currently reading: Blackthorn

I’m going to say that reading hasn’t quite gotten the attention that I’d like mostly because I’m trying to not touch too much of my devices when out and about, especially on the bus. I’m in one of the few businesses that haven’t gotten to stay home from work. Either way, final thing is I need to find time to catch up on some reading and it didn’t go quite as quickly as I’d like. Blackthorn is intriguing so far.

PLAYING

Currently playing: I Love Hue, Demon’s Tilt

Playing some really quick games lately. I still am on the I Love Hue mobile game that I like to play to calm down. There’s a lot to calm down about especially since our situation is possibly the minority currently so its all a bit nuts. Lots of things to chill out about as there’s also been a lot on my mind. I’ve also gone to check out Demon’s Tilt which is a pinball game on Xbox Game Pass. I like winning at these things so its addictive in that sense where one game never is one game, more like ten. Good thing is I’m somewhat getting better..yay! Both games are pretty fun in their own ways.

WATCHING

• Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not To Steal (Interactive 2020, Review)
• Child’s Play (1988)
• Child’s Play 2 (1990)
• Child’s Play 3 (1991)
• Child’s Play (2019)
• Paradise Hills (rewatch 2019, Review)

While everyone (in Netflix Canada, at least, seemed to be on a Contagion film watching phase, I guess to see whether we are living a movie, we spent this weekend watching Child’s Play. Sure its not the entire franchise but we watched what we could (except for Cult of Chucky which didn’t seem to correlate to any of the others anyways..but I might be wrong). Its all because I had rented the remake and wanted to finally catch up with Child’s Play, which had been in line for Halloween theme so we’ll be doing those earlier and I’ll fill in the missing movies from the franchise later.

Aside from a rewatch of Paradise Hills for Movies and Tea, the fun movie of the week went to Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or  Not to Steal, which is the latest interactive game/movie on Netflix, more geared towards children and people who like the new series, I suppose, which I’m in neither category but still liked it a lot.

BINGING

• Ugly Delicious (Season 2, 2020)
• Unrequited Love (2019)
• On My Block (Season 3, 2020)

Currently binging: The Circle Brazil, The Singer 2020, Youth is You 2, Me To Us

Netflix’s new TV series was really landing hard last week when it had Wednesday which released the 3 week event for The Circle Brazil with its first week and then Ugly Delicious Season 2 landed with a mere 4 episodes which was pretty quick to binge and then wrapped up the week with Season 3 of On My Block which was as usual, 8 episodes. On top of that, I finished up Unrequited Love which is a pretty decent series although it seems a lot of people didn’t think so which is why this year, they are releasing a  remake of it with new casting. Its only been a year so I find that kind of crazy and maybe a little ridiculous because Yitian Hu is heading right back into a role similar to his in A Love So Beautiful (review). We’ll see since there isn’t a release date yet.

While all three of the completed series could have been picked as a highlight, Ugly Delicious was half the length of its previous season and yet, I really enjoyed all 4 episodes and the depth and message each of them wanted to deliver and I learned quite a bit from all of the episodes.

On the currently binging side of things, a lot of new things there. Youth is You 2 started on iQiYi app (with english subtitles). I liked the first season when it was called Idol Producer and produced the now disbanded Nine Percent and never finished Youth is You which created UNINE. Its still preliminary ratings but there are some pretty talented girls if not memorable and unique as well. While I’m hoping to catch up with the new series as I only watched the prologue episode for Me To Us which has Nicholas Tse (fangirl here!), Jam Hsiao and Karry Wang (from TF Boys) grouping together to create a band with talented artists from all over China. It looks really fun but then, it all depends how they execute this show.

That’s it for Week 11 of What’s Up!
This recaps last week but this week, I’m sure everyone has been up to more if you are part of any quarantine process (I’m not so let me know what you are up to). What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?