Book Review Quickies

Mpepper/ November 8, 2020/ Reviews

If you’d rather see/hear me talk about the books I’ve read lately, check my YouTube channel for all the videos. (Like, subscribe, click the bell, share, etc.) But if you’d rather read, here are the quick versions of my reviews. The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel This is the final tome in the three-part historical fiction series about

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Television: The Movies

Mpepper/ October 29, 2020/ Reviews

This is a 2019 documentary miniseries from CNN that my husband and I watched via streaming. Rather than watch them in the order that Wikipedia lists, the streaming service (I can’t remember which one it was on now) had them in chronological order by era/decade. So we started with the “Golden Age” and moved to the 2000s. I’m not sure

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RIP Quibi

Mpepper/ October 27, 2020/ Uncategorized

Okay, so I may be one of the only people in the world who actually enjoyed some of the content on this platform. Quibi drew me in with their all-star remake of The Princess Bride. I stayed for their reboot of The Fugitive (which, let’s be honest, was just 24 mini). I laughed at Mapleworth and was a bit confused

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Books: Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

Mpepper/ October 4, 2020/ Reviews

Like a lot of people from a certain Internet era, I used to read the Hyperbole and a Half site all the time. So I was primed to enjoy this book from the start. Then again, I didn’t actually enjoy the Hyperbole and a Half book all that much, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one. The

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Movies: Enola Holmes

Mpepper/ September 27, 2020/ Reviews

This was cute. That’s kind of the only word I can come up with to describe it. We watched it for family movie night, and everyone enjoyed it (my 12yo daughter most of all). Based on the first in a series of novels by Nancy Springer, the film features Millie Bobby Brown as the titular Enola, younger sister to Mycroft

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My 9/11 Story

Mpepper/ September 11, 2020/ Flashbacks

I’ve told this tale many a time, but now that I have a brand new site, I will post it once more. This is the story of a newlywed living on Beacon Hill in Boston. At the time, I worked for Houghton Mifflin (pre-Harcourt). I used to walk to and from work—across Boston Common and the Public Garden to the

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Movies: Mulan (2020)

Mpepper/ September 5, 2020/ Reviews

So this was… okay, I guess. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe something epic. It wasn’t that. It was just kinda fine. It starts well enough, with a young Mulan showing off her chi as she chases a chicken through her village. Here is a girl with the energy, power, and abilities that have been traditionally reserved for

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Books: My Favorite Series

Mpepper/ September 4, 2020/ Lists

Authors often get asked what some of their favorite series are. I guess maybe people think that, if they like the same books as a particular author, they might also like books by that author? I don’t really know. Maybe people think that authors must know which books are good because we know about books in general. The thing is,

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My Complicated Feelings About Holly Gibney

Mpepper/ August 31, 2020/ Think Pieces

My husband and I have been watching The Outsider. No, we haven’t finished it yet. No, I haven’t read the book. And no, I haven’t read any other books featuring the character of Holly Gibney. So I can only go on this sliver of information taken from watching six of the ten episodes. There’s my first disclaimer. My second is

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Books: Classroom of the Elite (Light Novels 1-5)

Mpepper/ August 27, 2020/ Reviews

Ayanokouji is a first-year student at a government-run high school in Tokyo. His strangely deadpan expression leads others to believe he is morose, stupid, or maybe just sleepy. But it actually conceals a devious mind. Students at this school are divided into four classrooms, A through D. Ayanokouji is in Class D, known colloquially as “defective.” That’s because the school

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