Music Monday - Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

This was the first video I watched on youtube today, and then I got sucked into an hour of watching music videos, mostly from the 1980s, but came back to this one.  I still love this song, and this is a beautiful version played live at the Albert Hall, London. 

Middle Aged Lady Movie Night - Suite Francaise

I do remember that I read the book years ago that this movie is based on, but I didn't remember what it was about.  So  I added this one to my watchlist on Apple TV, and had to watch it last night so that I didn't waste my 99c investment.  Suite Francaise is a Second World War Drama.  Lucille is a young French woman played by Michelle Williams, who is living in a small village in a large house with her mother in law Madame Angellier (Kristin Scott Thomas). 

After the Germans occupation of France, a German Officer Bruno (Matthais Schoenaerts) is billeted at their home.  He is quiet and unassuming and plays the piano, gradually charming Lucille.  When one of the local farmers kills the officer billeted at his home, the whole village is searched to find him and the local Viscount is threatened with execution if he is not handed in.

I did enjoy the quietness of this movie, and thought that they did some things very well.  The touches and looks between Bruno and Lucille were well done, but I would have thought that they would have been more discreet at the time.  I liked the production of this movie, the houses and villages where they filmed, the womens clothing, hats and hair and makeup all felt authentic and not over done.  4/5

Last Witnesses - Svetlana Alexievich

This is a bit of a tough read in many ways.  The author spent several years in the 1980s interviewing Russian adults who had been children during the Second World War.  Now translated into English, this book is pretty harrowing.  We know nothing about them as adults, only their names and professions, but and we get a brief glimpse into their lives.  We only get a page or two and their experiences are often just about one particular incidence or day. 

These adults tell us about how as children many of them saw family members, siblings, neighbors and parents killed in front of them.  Starving and forced into eating bark off trees, grass or even dirt to try to survive. How children as young as 10 going off to work or at 12 trying to sign up to fight.  Children left alone after their homes and villages are burnt to the ground, left in the forest or with strangers, and some put on trains and sent to Siberia or to concentration camps.  So many experiences that so hard for us to understand in our modern world.  Yet part of you is reminded that these were the lucky ones, the ones who survived such hardships and got to grow up when so many children died or were killed.  5/5

Music Monday - You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones

It's interesting what you can end up watching on youtube.  Sometimes the videos make me smile, and the comments can be quite entertaining as well.  Found here if you want to look.  Anyways a bit of classic rock for Monday.

Run Away - Harlan Coben

Look it was a solid start for this book, with a fast paced promise of a real action thriller, but about 1/2 way in it all began to be a bit forced and spun out into a bit of silliness.  Harlan Coben is a top notch writer, and he usually is able to give you an even paced story with lots of twists and turns.  I think I was thrown when there was a two part narrative for a while which didn't make sense for some time.  I just wanted to hear more about the story that the story was based around, Father Simon who is searching for his daughter Paige.  Paige has been missing for some time, living on the streets with her drug addict boyfriend Aaron. 

So I was a bit disappointed by the time I reached the end.  It all seemed to reach a unbelievable climax to the story and I felt a bit let down.  Sadly not one of my faves.  3/5

The Last House Guest - Megan Miranda

Littlepoint Maine is a summer town, where the tourists come for their holidays renting expensive holiday homes.  Sadie is from the wealthy family running the show and she makes friends with Avery who lives with her grandmother after the death of her parents.  When Sadie goes missing on the night of a party, a small group of friends are all suspects.

While I got the premise of the story, it all fell a bit flat for me and didn't really resonate as all the characters were not particularly likable or memorable, although I could picture the windswept rocky coastline and pricey holiday homes in my head, the characters themselves seemed wispy creations. 2/5

Critical - Matt Morgan

I like the honesty of this book, like many of the recent medical memoirs published it talks more about taking care of the patient, of doing what is best for them, rather than doing heroic measures at any cost.  Dr Matt Morgan is an Intensive Care specialist who melds the stories of his patients, with his own life and experiences and also  provides motivation for the reader to look at their own lifestyle choices and how they may affect their future health. 

I like any book that provides conversations around end of life choices and how we should all discuss our options well in advance, sharing with our loved ones what we would want to happen.  When confronted with these choices in real life, it makes it so much easier when we know how our family would want to proceed.  4/5

The Farewell

It is the $11.50 special at the lighthouse cinema today and I had wanted to see this one at the Film Festival, but missed out on tickets.  It is the story of Billi  who is living in New York, but has a close relationship with her grandmother Nai Nai.  When her grandmother is diagnosed with lung cancer, it is kept from her, but the whole family comes to see her to see her with a family wedding happening at the same time.

It is mainly a drama, and veers only a little into the comedy side which is nice as it seems like something we can all relate too, even if it is trying to show us the Eastern importance of family.  Most of us can relate to the mum left in the kitchen to help cook, while dad and uncles drink too much and all the Chinese food made me hungry.  I had to go and have some dumplings afterwards.  3.5/5

Music Monday - Truth Hurts - Lizzo

I found this one on youtube today and I keep listening to it as it makes me smile. 

Maid - Stephanie Land

This is not the book I thought it might be from reading the cover.  Sure for Stephanie Land  her life is not working out how she imagined it. After leaving her partner trying to  raise a young daughter mainly on her own is pretty tough.  Living with a new unsupportive partner, Stephanie takes on jobs for house cleaning services.  With minimum wages she struggles to pull in a couple of hundred dollars a week, and once she leaves to live with her daughter alone in a  small studio apartment there are only pennies to spare each week.

Don't get me wrong I admire the heck out of a single mother like Stephanie who obviously loves and cares for her daughter and puts her needs above her own, often going without food or any treats in order to provide for her child.  I did however get annoyed with her unprofessional attitude towards her clients, going through their cupboards, trying on clothes and even looking at clients family members ashes. She also seemed to not be looking for any alternative jobs that may provide more consistent hours or higher pay rates or gotten work on the weekends her daughter was with her father?

I grew up with second hand clothes and toys - I was lucky though as my mother was able to look after me, but as a child my dad worked three jobs and did night school to provide for us.  Hats off to parents like Stephanie doing it by themselves.  3/5

Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself - Florian Huber

This is a pretty confronting book.  It mainly concentrates on eye witness accounts of what happened in one particular town at the end of the Second World War in Germany.   In Demmin a population of aprox 15,000 people had the numbers swelled by refugees.  The retreating German army blew up the three bridges surrounding the town as the Red Army advanced.  Mass panic arose, and hundreds of people killed themselves and or their families rather than be trapped, raped or killed.  The book is pretty graphic in its descriptions, and it is a part of history that I was unaware of, and it seemed that had been hidden until relatively recently.  The numbers vary in different reports from the one town from several hundred to thousands.  4/5

The Daughter's Tale - Armando Lucas Correa

In 1939 thinks have become hard for young Dr Julius, his wife Amanda and their two young girls Lina and Viera.  After Julius is arrested and their bookstore is torched  Amanda is forced to make the hardest of choices to save her daughters.  Based on a true story you can't help but feel for how hard things must have been as nowhere in Europe is safe from the War.

I enjoyed the setting of the book and the characters, I just felt a little short changed with some of it as there was little depth.  To be German in a small French village during the occupation would not have been without many challenges especially attending school.  I wanted to hear more about the girls and their experiences which seemed a little thin.  Still it was a good read, just not a great one. 4/5

Music Monday - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Isn't It a Lovely Day

Just pure class.  For a song written in 1935 and covered by these two in 1958 it still feels honest and transcends the decades past.  I wonder if any modern songs will last as long?