Review: “Dream Your Joy” Oracle Cards
Posted: February 17, 2023 Filed under: Fantasy, Inspirational, Review | Tags: Dream Your Joy Oracle Cards, Judy Mastrangelo, Kaye Lynne Booth, Review, Writing to be Read 7 Comments
About the Deck
Dream a vision of the Joy you have always wanted. Through this 59-card deck, learn the author’s technique of “Mind Painting” to create an ideal picture in your mind of the way you would like things to be. Although we have aspirations throughout our life of doing wonderful things and becoming an amazing person, sometimes those dreams go unfulfilled, affecting our health—physically, mentally, and spiritually. Let the guidebook’s card descriptions and interactive activities, including dream meditations, affirmations, dance and pantomime exercises, automatic drawing experiments, and color correlations, provide the inspiration to help you seek answers inside your soul. Let the colorful, whimsical, “inner childhood” images of these cards empower you to feel the great joy and love in the universe, even through the darkness that may surround us. It’s never too late to continue building your ideal dream!
Purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Your-Joy-Oracle-Cards/dp/0764365320
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I was thrilled to be asked to review the Dream Your Joy Oracle Cards. I have long been a fan of the beautiful illustrations of Judy Mastrangelo. In 2019, I had the privelage of reviewing Flower Fairies: Portal to the Land of Fea, a brightly illustrated children’s book, which you can read here: https://wp.me/pVw40-46F. And you can find my 2020 review of her Inspirational Visions Oracle Cards here: https://writingtoberead.com/2020/09/04/inspirational-visions-a-very-special-review/
My Review
In The Dream Your Joy Oracle Cards, each individual card features one of the beautiful illustrations by the talented artist, Judy Mastrangelo, in colorful pastels that will brighten every day, as well activities and actions to help find answers to your deepest questions and take steps to become the person you long to be. There is no darkness is to be found in these oracle cards, only positive energies that will refresh your outlook on life. The perfect gift for anyone who needs some cheer and positivity.
You will enjoy perusing this deck, even if you don’t hold stock in the power of oracles and divination. This deck is not designed to predict the future, but to help bring out the natural brightness of your being that is generated from within. It comes complete with a book which tells you about each card and how to use it effectively, although your attitude is likely to improve from just looking over these wonderful llustrations. These cards are sure to be enjoyed by adults and children alike.
Since I’m a bird lover, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the “Our Animal Friends” card above, which shows us the important roles which animals play in all of our lives and offers ideas on how to identify our animal spirit guides, and “Butterflies”, below speaks of symbols of rebirth and offers ideas fir bringing about your own transformation.
“Seasons of Enchantment”, above, introduces exploration of the seasons through the fantasy realm to spark inner creativity, and “Garden Party”, below, helps us to find and explore our inner child.
The illustrations speak for themselves. See if you don’t agree.
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
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Art’s Visual Media(/Life) Reviews: My Life With Jazz
Posted: September 25, 2020 Filed under: Art's Visual Media Reviews, Opinion, Review | Tags: Art's Visual Media Reviews, Count Basie, Jazz Music, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Review, Writing to be Read 2 Comments
Jazz has been one of the great loves of my life. I know, I get it. Jazz is not popular music. Jazz appeals to musicians and people with unusual tastes. It can’t be forced on anyone. It’s pointless (as I learned painfully) to throw it into the mix at a party. It’s a good way to get thrown out of a party.
It’s possible that you know nothing about Jazz. You might have seen films like “Bird” or “Round Midnight”. In spite of its relative obscurity, Jazz has nonetheless crept into our Pop Culture like the ink from a cephalopod. That is…an octopus or a squid.
Jazz has been for me a lifelong experience. I first heard Louis Armstrong when I was twelve. I was in the sixth grade! I had joined the Capitol Records Club, and ticked Jazz as my favorite category. I don’t know why. I had been listening to classical music, especially that of Richard Wagner, and I was getting a bit bored. Thank you, Capitol Records Club, for sending me this LP in the mail. I eagerly withdrew the vinyl record from its sleeve and put it on my blue and white Zenith Portable Stereo Record Player. This rig was built like a suitcase. There were snap-locks on each side and those opened up to become speakers that deployed to the left and the right. For a kid in the early sixties it wasn’t a bad place to start with regard to sound systems. The MacIntosh and Dynaco amps and pre-amps were cool as hell, but I could wait. In a couple of years I would be all over amps and pre-amps until my basement began to look like a used electronics warehouse.
I put on the Louis Armstrong record and held my breath. The music began with a blare of brass. At first it sounded like some kind of Asiatic music, it was alien and incomprehensible. I heard charging rhythm and thickets of notes. My confusion lasted about half a minute. Then, as if someone had rotated my brain, I started to hear that shining trumpet of Satchmo and it started making sense. I’d been playing trumpet in the school band since I was in the fifth grade. Okay, that’s only a year. I hated practicing and did as little work as possible. I was a Natural and I could coast on my good ear. I could play a little bit.
The next album I acquired was recorded by Count Basie And His Orchestra. The album cover was a photo of a mushroom cloud, all scarlet shades and orange flame. It was called, of course, Count Basie Explodes! I put that on the record player. I oh so carefully lowered the tone arm with its precious cartridge transducer until the needle hit and the speakers went “hissssssss” for a second or two before the wildest most confusing outburst of twenty two instruments raged forth and I thought, “Aww shit. Asiatic music only bigger.” Again, it took a little while for the music to come around and reach my precocious ears.
The mail man drives down the street in his little cart. He’s bringing another record from Capitol Records Club. Miles Davis’ “Birth Of The Cool”. This is one of the most important jazz records ever recorded. Miles had organized a curious group, an eight piece band otherwise known as an octet.
I didn’t have many friends in the fifth and sixth grades. I had Jay, who was a fellow musician and jazz fan. His mother was a jazz fan. This was in suburban St. Louis in 1962. It was rare but it happened.
My mom, on the other hand, wasn’t gonna support this shit at all! If I had to play the goddam trumpet, she often screamed; at least I would play respectable music like Mantovani or Andy Williams.
No mom. No. Not happening. I’m going my merry way and you can screw yourself.
My bedroom was at the far end of the house. I had some distance. Some. I could play what I wanted while my mom popped Seconal and slept away her life.
By this time I’m fourteen and I’ve moved into Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderly and…ultimately…John Coltrane. If there is a magnificent Ganesh-Guru Hindu Monster Elephant Deity of Jazz Music it is John Coltrane. He was doing the impossible. His ideas were so deep and complex that they became equal to the founding of a neo-Buddhist philosophy. A School. A dynastic lineage of Consciousness.
Coltrane became my teacher. He became thousands of musicians’ teacher and remains so to this day. Get on Youtube and join the session. It’s alive and well. The young musicians, the ones who are serious, want to study and learn. And music’s everywhere. It’s in the air. Then it’s gone. That’s what Eric Dolphy, one of the unsung monsters of Jazz, said at the end of one of his precious recordings. Both Trane and Dolphy passed in the sixties. They were young. We don’t really know what happened. How did these magnificent musicians leave the scene so suddenly? It was shocking and it knocked me off my feet. I had yet to understand how dangerous was the jazz life, how stressful it was to make a living play Jazz.
Fortunately, we were left with other dynamic musicians. We had Charles Mingus and his epochal release of the album “The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady.” This is some of the most sensual music ever recorded. It outrages church goers, it shocks listeners who aren’t prepared for music so graphic as to be well….erotic.
I developed new Jazz heroes. Ornette Coleman was sawing his way through musical tradition and his ideas caused fights on the Lower East Side. Imagine that: ideological fistfights over varying philosophies of Jazz. Strange but true. Jackie McLean kept the tonal orthodoxy but added intensity and adventure. I was pushing sixteen at this time and my world was filled with all this musical color, all these vibrant creative characters who courted addiction and death to get through the pressures of the jazz life.
By the age of sixteen I had acquired a set of drums and my instrumental voyages took on the nature of a student: a dedicated student of a peculiar art form. That was my jazz. That was my passion and I was about to leave home in the summer of ’65. I was determined to meet the by-now world famous Ornette Coleman. And so I did…but that’s another story. It’s in another book.
You can find a fictionalized story which mirrors many of Art’s young life in Confessions of an Honest Man: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Honest-Man-Arthur-Rosch-ebook/dp/B01C3J0NK2/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Confessions+of+an+Honest+Man&qid=1601086887&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
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Inspirational Visions: A Very Special Review
Posted: September 4, 2020 Filed under: Creativity, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Illustrations, Inspirational, Review | Tags: Book Review, Fantasy, Illustrations, Inspiration, Inspirational Visions, Judy Mastrangelo, Oracle Cards, Review, Writing to be Read 3 Comments
When I received the Inspirational Visions Oracle Cards, created by Judy Mastrangelo, I was delighted. My previous experience with Tarot cards and the like is minimal, with an understanding of them that relates more to the archetypes found in storytelling more than anything else. However, these cards are not a deck of Tarot cards, used to tell you what your future will be, but a deck designed to reveal what you can make of your future through inspiration and interpretation.
The deck comes with a booklet which explains the meaning of each card and instructions in how to use them to guide your own destiny. Each card comes with an inspirational message attached and the use and interpretation of the cards is up to you. The intent is for each individual to find their own personal meanings in the cards.
The Inspirational Visions cards are designed to inspire creativity and encourage soul searching, with uplifting positive measages. There is no hangman lurking in the deck, no death or destuction images ushering in ill fate. Even the menacing dragon carries connotation here.
Even if you don’t believe in fortune telling, you’ll want to own a deck of these colorful and inspirational cards of your very own. I could sit for hours, just looking at the delightful illustrations on each one. I am particularly drawn to the Bunny Gardner card, which the book describes in part as, “Tending your beautiful flower beds is so healing, as you contact Mother Earth.” I have some gorgeous flower beds this summer, as I planted sixty-five gladiola bulbs in the spring, and my garden is bursting with color, and it is healing to go out and work amoung them. Perhaps this card represents a validation for who I am?
These lovely oracle cards are wonderful for personal enjoyment, spiritual enhancement, creative inspiration, or as a gift for someone special who is dear to your heart, the bright, colorful illustations and inspirational messages are sure to delight. I give the Inspirational Visions Oracle Cards five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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“Awesome Tales #10”: An awesome tribute to pulp fiction of old
Posted: July 25, 2019 Filed under: Book Review, Classics, Crime, Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Stories | Tags: Awesome Tales #10, Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Quintin Peterson, Review, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Writing to be Read 7 Comments
You just don’t see a lot of pulp magazines anymore in the classic tradition from days of old, but Awesome Tales is a modern pulp magazine pulp fans will take delight in. If your a fan of the dazzling heroes and diabolical villians of the classic pulp traditions, Awesome Tales #10 takes you on a refreshing trip down memory lane with four masterfully written contemporary tales, by four different authors, told in classic pulp form and style.
“No Virtue in Patience”, by John L. French is a futuristic pulp story with tech gangs and computer generated card tournaments. A heist of the biggest solitaire game in town, with a proize of a solid gold deck of cards.
“No Patience for Fools” by Aaron Rosenberg offers a different perspective on the solitaire tournament of the previous story. Cleverly crafted to tell the same story from the opposite side of the law, it has a surprise ending, as well.
In “Broken Doll” by Quintin Peterson, tough guy bionic P.I. Luther Kane sets out to save a one-legged streetwalker named Gypsy, and maybe his own guilt ridden self, but he learns the classic lesson all P.I.s should know the hard way: never trust anyone.
“Give Them a Corpse Part 2” by Rich Harvey is the second part of a three part story featuring the Domino Lady, a classic masked superheroine, complete with crime fighting skills and secret identity, fights against the classic villians of The Black Legion. Like all good cloak and dagger crime fighting serials, this story easily stands alone.
Every one of the stories in Awesome Tales #10 are well-crafted and entertaining. They will satisfy hardcore pulp fans and maybe even earn the genre a few new fans. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Game Of Thrones: IS It Toxic?
Posted: March 22, 2019 Filed under: Art's Visual Media Reviews, Film Review, Television review | Tags: Art's Visual Media Reviews, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, Review, Writing to be Read 6 Comments
My wife and I watched this series, all five available seasons (at the time), in one big gory splurge. Maybe that was our mistake. It is addictive viewing, it has memorable characters and every episode ends with a cliff-hanger.
I’ll be candid and admit that we have been in an emotional slump. My wife and I have had a difficult year. That being said, perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to expose ourselves to such villainy and gore. I can imagine that viewing this series one episode at a time might be less harrowing. But who does that? Are you kidding? In this age of Streaming?
Nah! Binge viewing is the thing we do. Doesn’t everybody grab a series and watch every episode, one after another? Don’t deny it. TV isn’t a guilty pleasure any more. TV is survival, an alternate reality in which to hide from our terrifying world.
Game of Thrones is High Fantasy. It has the medieval world-set, the armor, weapons, horses, castles, all that stuff that goes into High Fantasy. It has dragons, magical creatures and a looming menace that evokes our own present-day world with its apocalyptic terrors. As we watched we found that our depression began taking on a more vicious edge. Our dreams were disturbed. My wife muttered curses in the night and I went on a sleepwalking excursion, standing at the window completely unaware that my junk was exposed beneath the wrinkled edge of my t-shirt. I think I was waiting for some demon to creep into our home to steal our souls.
As a writer I must always ask a question of the story I’m writing: Is this story worth being told? If I apply that yardstick to Game of Thrones, I’m not sure it passes muster. Without the genius of Peter Dinklage playing “the imp” I wouldn’t have gotten sucked into the plot. Acting is an interesting process to watch. Great actors take good roles and define them for all history. Dinklage will hereafter always be known for his Tyrion Lannister role. Before Tyrion he was a famous dwarf and an actor. Now he is far more famous and completely identified with his character. No one cares that he has short legs. He has earned RESPECT. He carried Game of Thrones on his talent. The series is unimaginable without the work of Peter Dinklage.
There were so many beheadings, throat slittings, impalings, knives to the gut, arrows through the throat, squished eyeballs, spear thrusts through-and-through that it became like a creeping poison, leaking from the TV screen and crawling along the margins of the room, heading straight for our vulnerable psyches. We have no one to blame but ourselves. No one forced us to watch this wretched excess of medieval mayhem. We watched. We were sick with flu, flattened with fibro, fucked up with gastric distress, hamstrung with hernia….and we watched ten thousand extras get squashed by rocks and broiled with flaming oil. Oh, what a violent series! Add a healthy dollop of perfect naked titties and asses, muscular adolescent boys all frolicking with one another and whaddayaknow? It’s really all sex and violence, tits and ass. I can imagine the producer shouting on the set: “Did we book enough tits today?” He points to a Production Assistant. “We’re running out of tits! You, boy! Go find some tits, get out there on Sunset and round up a few dozen nice tits. Get some handsome boys while you’re at it. We need some asses, too….make sure they’re eighteen and have them sign their releases.”
Game Of Thrones. It was a relief when Season Five ended. We’d had enough. It was like eating a whole bag of miniature Reeses Pieces. It made us sick.
It was delicious when we started. Then it got a little cloying but we couldn’t stop. Then we wanted to puke and still we couldn’t stop. It was crazy! Get us to some Hallmark Entertainment, or….some Disney. No, wait. When you look deeply enough into Disney you find shit that’s even more creepy than Game Of Thrones.
Now, the temptation to watch Season Six looms ever more seductively.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
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A Published Author At Last – Now It’s In My Readers’ Hands
Posted: April 24, 2017 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Western, Writing | Tags: Books, Colorado, Delilah, Fiction, Kaye Lynne Booth, marketing, Novels, promotion, Review, Reviews, Western, Writing 2 Comments
The exciting news this week is, Delilah is now available in digital format! It’s something I’ve been waiting for for quite a while, so of course, I am ecstatic. But, something many aspiring authors may not realize is that publication isn’t the end of the road. No, it’s actually just the beginning of a new chapter in the book of writing, this one titled Sell that Book.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with my road to publication, I started Delilah back in 2012, when I entered the M.F.A. in Creative Writing program at Western State Colorado University. The assignment given by my instructor, Russell Davis, was to write an excerpt in a genre outside our comfort zone. I was assigned to write in western genre, and low and behold, I found not only am I good at it, but I like writing western. Four years later, that small excerpt, grew into a 60,000 word western novel which I’ve been trying to find a publisher for over the past year.
You see, writing the book, while a great accomplishment unto itself, is only half the battle. It doesn’t do any good to write a story, if no one ever reads it. In order for that to happen, the book must be published, and while I could self-publish, (I had considered it), I held out hope of finding a publisher, and in the end my persistence paid off.
So, now that I got Delilah published, with the help of Dusty Saddles Publishing, I must get the word out through marketing and promotion. I must get people to read, and maybe more important, write reviews.
Reviews are where it’s at these days. According to Amazon, reviews are how you get your book promoted, and I just read somewhere that Amazon has recently increased the number of reviews needed for them to promote your book, from thirty-five to fifty or one hundred.
The question is, where do I get reviews from? Although I do honest reviews here, on Writing to be Read, I don’t know many other bloggers who do. So, it comes down to appealing to you, my readers, to buy Delilah, read it and then go onto Amazon and Goodreads, (Delilah will be listed there soon -another thing I still need to do), and leave a review.
If you are willing to go to the trouble of doing all that, I thank you, but I also ask that you leave a review that is honest. While I would love you to leave a review which sings Delilah’s praises, I want it only if it is heartfelt. If you see problems with my story, I need to know what they are, in order to improve my writing of future books, so I am asking for honest criticism, if you are kind enough to leave a review at all.
In the end, it’s up to you, the reader, how successful Delilah, or any book, will be. So, buy the books you want to read, (which I hope includes my debut novel), and be kind. Leave an honest review.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs at no charge. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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“Once” May Not Be Enough for This Love Story
Posted: December 30, 2016 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, Inspirational | Tags: Book Review, Books, Inspiration, Inspirational Fiction, Mian Mohsin Zia, Novel, Once, Opinion, Review, Reviews Leave a comment
Once – Ask Me Anything, Not Love by Mian Mohsin Zia, is a inspirational tale of the struggle for love by one man, Morkel, whose brand is “M–, No Time for Love”. But love strikes when it is least expected and who you would least expect to fall under it’s spell. Although it is a love story, it’s no romance and there are no HEAs in this tale.
I can’t deny that this is a cute story, but I had a hard time suspending disbelief, due partially to the fact that the characters weren’t deep enough for me to be able to care, and also because the dialog did not feel real to me. People just don’t talk that way in my experience. The characters are idealistic and I felt they acted in ways that were very unrealistic, as well. Morkel, the protagonist, comes off as being full of himself and he claims that as a novelist, he can read people, yet when love walks up and stares him in the eye, he doesn’t see it.
That being said, it is a well structured story with a clear character arc. Morkel changes as he realizes his own need for and ability to love. I found it very entertaining, but the ending was disappointing for me. I guess I’ve come to expect a HEA when I think of a love story, and I felt the promise of the premise was not fulfilled.
I will admit that Mian Mohsin Zia puts out a quality eBook, with very few typos. Obviously, he spends the money to have it edited and promote it right, as well. I suspect this may account for his amazing popularity as an author. In self-publishing, it seems, you really do get what you pay for.
Once – Ask Me Anything, Not Love is a love story from the male perspective, a unique and entertaining tale, but not a romance. I give it three quills.
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A Peculiar Experience: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Posted: November 5, 2016 Filed under: Commentary, Film Review, Screenwriting, Screenwriting, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: Movies, Opinion, Review, Reviews 1 Comment
The first word that came to mind after seeing Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was peculiar. The movie is peculiar. I went into the film knowing next to nothing about it. I haven’t read the book, I think I may have seen a trailer at some point but don’t really remember it, and I hadn’t looked into the story at all. All I knew about the film was that it was directed by Tim Burton, it was based on a book, and it was about some kind of school for gifted kids.
I am a huge fan of fantasy films, and I love Tim Burton’s work, so I was super excited to see what this movie had in store for me. That being said, by the end of the film I couldn’t quite put my finger on how I felt about it, other than that one word I mentioned above—peculiar. The film is just peculiar. It’s beautifully shot, and the actors, especially Eva Green, do a wonderful job, but the film didn’t leave me feeling satisfied. It left me with a lot of questions, and a few complaints.
——————————SPOILERS BELOW—————————
Visuals and World
I like starting by talking about something I liked, and this film was visually beautiful. It had some great shots, and everything from the camera angles to the clothing was spot on for me. The style and artistic elements of Tim Burton’s films are always one of my favorite parts, and this film was no exception. The one thing that truly kept me hooked throughout was the visual element, and just the fact that I was enjoying looking at the film.
The other element I really liked was just the concept of the world. I loved the idea of Jake traveling through the time loops at the end, working his way back to the peculiars. I’m not sure I have a clear idea of how it would work, but I do think I got enough of a sense that it was believable. The details they gave at the end as well were just enough to create this sort of romanticized image of his journey back to the group without extending the final act unnecessarily, which was perfect.
The Conflict
I think the biggest downfall for me in the film was the fact that the real goal and conflict of the story took more than an hour to get to. I know because I looked at my watch when they finally started discussing Samuel L Jackson’s character and why they had to stop him. I don’t mind a long movie, and I don’t mind giving the plot time to build and unfold, but this film felt like it just took too long. Yes, the visual elements of the movie were stunning and wonderful, and it was a fascinating world to get lost in, but I wish we could have got lost in it while the plot was moving forward.
From the moment Jake first sees Samuel L Jackson’s character outside his grandfather’s house to the moment we finally learn he’s the antagonist almost an hour had passed. I usually have a good memory for details in a story, but by this point in the film I had almost forgotten that Jackson was in it and I was mostly just trying to figure out where the story was going. I feel like part of the problem that made the story seem like it was standing still was that Jake’s goal in the story initially was not to find out what happened to his grandfather, it was to see if his grandfather told the truth. The moment Jake arrives at Miss Peregrine’s we know that he was and then Jake has no real goal, no conflict. Yes, there’s still some information he can find, but he doesn’t actively seek it.
If there had been slight more focus on the thing that killed his grandfather, and more determination behind Jake’s search for answers, I think the time it took to get to the plot wouldn’t have been as bad, but it still went on too long. Getting lost in the world was great, but it felt like the plot paused for a short period of time while we got immersed in the world. Instead, entering the new world should have boosted the plot into action.
Plot Holes
The one thing that really surprised me about this film was that there were three big plot elements that I felt were too big to have been missed. The first is a simple one—Jake’s parents. I love Chris O’Dowd, but the parents disappear from the story when they’re there at all. I guess I could buy the whole impulsive trip across the world for the story, but once they get there the dad becomes almost a burden to the plot. Instead of being a smooth element in the story, a problem Jake has to work around to get where he wants to go, it feels like the dad is forced into the story in a clunky way that makes it completely obvious that he’s supposed to be in the way of Jake’s goal. It’s never more obvious that the dad doesn’t fit in the story then at the end—he doesn’t even get a proper wrap up of his plotline! While I think Chris O’Dowd played the role beautifully, and he always makes me laugh, his character never comes back into the story at all, making it feel like the whole plotline shouldn’t have been in the movie.
The second thing that surprised me is the reveal of the twin’s powers at the end. Throughout the film I wondered about the two of them as they were the only ones to not have their powers clearly shown or mentioned (unless I missed the first mention). At the end when their masks are lifted and the woman turns to stone, it immediately made me think two things. 1. Oh, that’s cool. 2. Wait, why didn’t they just do that to Samuel L Jackson in the house when he first came into the time loop? Their powers defeat the whole movie.
If we had learned about their powers earlier and there was some kind of explanation about why they couldn’t use them all the time—such as on Jackson’s character—it would have ruined the reveal, but it would have kept the sequence of events justifiable. By not having this, we got the cool reveal of their powers at the end, but it makes all the other characters look stupid. The twins could have dropped into the pit with all the evil people and turned them all to stone. They could have done it the first time they saw Jackson. They could have followed Jake downstairs when he goes to rescue the birds and done it then. Not justifying the lack of use of their powers creates a huge plot hole.
Final Notes
Overall, I did enjoy Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children despite the flaws. As I said above, visually it’s just a fun movie to watch, and seeing Eva Green embody Miss Peregrine was fabulous. She really is wonderful in the role. The plot holes and issues mentioned above are just things that made the movie go from great to just okay for me. I’ll have to watch it again at some point to see if there’s something I missed regarding the twins or the father, but overall I think the first word that came to mind when watching the movie is the right one. It really is peculiar. It’s fascinating, and alluring, and I wanted to love it, but I just couldn’t get lost in it the way I wanted to no matter how hard I tried.
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“DeadPool” works on so many levels
Posted: September 16, 2016 Filed under: Film Review, Super Hero | Tags: Action, Anti-Hero, Dead Pool, Film Review, Review, Super Hero 1 Comment
This week I had the pleasure of watching the movie, Dead Pool. (Not the one with Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, the 2016 one about the Marvel Comic character.) This movie was so much what I expected, but also so much which I didn’t expect. In Dead Pool, Marvel has given us an anti-hero we can’t help but stand behind.
Right away, in the first scene we learn that Dead Pool, aka Wade Wilson, has an axe to grind against someone named Francis. The rest of the first half of the movie is spent giving us the backstory, so we understand the reason that axe is so sharp. Our villain, Francis, aka Ajax, not only tortures Wade in some extremely cruel and unusual ways, but in essence, he steals his life from him, forcing him to mutate in ways that make it so he can never go back. Believing that he’s lost the one thing that means the most to him, his super-sexy girlfriend, Vanessa, (and she’s not even a super hero, she’s just human), Wade takes on the identity of Dead Pool and will stop at nothing to make Francis cough up the cure.
In the movie description, Dead Pool is described as coming out of the experiment with “a ‘dark, twisted’ sense of humor, but I maintain the sense of humor was there in Wade, an ingrained part of him that even mutation couldn’t change. As we get to know Wade through flashbacks, it’s apparent that he is the perfect anti-hero, not real likeable, an ex-special forces killing machine turned mercenary. But, we also see that he has redeeming qualities through his obvious love for Vanessa and his ultimate, unselfish sacrifice, walking out of her life rather than burden her with his terminal cancer. Even though he’s not the most likeable guy, it’s hard not to empathize with him.
Okay, so his character is snarky. This may or may not be a redeeming quality. He says whatever is on his mind, prompting many chuckles from viewers, he says the things average folks might want to say, and behaves in ways which are undesirable. But the guy is honest and straight forward, in a smarmy kind of way. He makes it clear that he’s no hero and he is not out to help anyone but himself, in his quest to get Vanessa, and his life, back. You’ve got to give him credit, even if he is kind of a jerk at times. One more reason why he is the perfect anti-hero.
In fact, his character reminds me a lot of the characters Jim Carey plays, especially in the way he talks incessantly and often doesn’t think about the possible consequences before opening his mouth, or his totally outrageous behaviors. The trait certainly ticks off Francis/Ajax, creating a tension between the two adversaries, which leads to Francis/Ajax pushing harder to cause Wade’s mutation. So, in fact, Wade brings his circumstances down upon himself. In fact, that may be Wade’s fatal flaw, but he doesn’t seem to ever learn when to keep his trap shut. But then, that could be because for an immortal, a flaw really can’t be fatal.
Wade/Dead Pool may not be the most likeable character, but Francis/Ajax, the villainous character who forced the mutation on him, is even more unlikeable. In fact, it’s easy to actively dislike Francis with his super-fast reflexes and total inability to feel anything, making him a truly bad guy, and providing us with yet another reason to root for Dead Pool. No doubt that’s why Francis/Ajax is the villain. His lack of feeling also makes him the perfect adversary for Dead Pool, who heals super-fast, but feels the all pain, both physical and emotional. They balance each other out.
I’m not usually a big fan of digital imaging. I think most of it comes off looking pretty fakey. However, knowing Dead Pool came from the world of comics, I think I expected it to not be realistic and the digital imagery works for me. Comic book characters are expected to do things that seem totally unreal. They have super powers that allow them to do these outrageous things.
Which brings us to the discussion of Dead Pool’s super powers. I’m not sure exactly how his mutation has affected him or amazing feats he is able to perform beyond miraculous healing, accelerated movements and super human strength. Although they are alluded to, they are not spelled out for us. He doesn’t breathe flames or shoot webbing to swing from building on. Apparently, he puts his red tights on one leg at a time, like the rest of us, (no phone booth transformations for this guy). He uses weapons to defeat his adversaries and feels pain when he’s injured, just like a regular Joe. And he knows his limitations, too, calling on the help of Colossus and Nagasonic Teenage Warhead when the going gets tough and Vanessa’s life is on the line.
In many ways, Dead Pool was your basic super hero movie. Guys with super powers get out there and punch the crap out of one another. On the other hand, it wasn’t what I expected in a super hero at all. Dead Pool doesn’t save the world, or even his city, and his motivations are selfish. I think this movie was well written with interesting and colorful characters who are full of surprises, is filled with action, and is very entertaining. I give Dead Pool four quills. 
Writing to be Read 
Looking Back Over 2016
Posted: December 26, 2016 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Articles, Book Review, Books, Children's Books, Commentary, Fiction, Film Review, Horror, Movies, Nonfiction, Poetry, Promotion, Publishing, Screenwriting, Self-Publishing, Steampunk, Stories, Weekly Writing Memo, Western, Writing, Writing Event, Writing Tips, Young Adult | Tags: 2016, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, marketing, Movies, Novel, Novels, Poetry, Review, Reviews, Writing, Writing to be Read | 4 CommentsThis will be the last reflective post of the year. Next Monday’s post will find us in 2017. For my writing career it has been a slow take off, but I’ve seen progress. In July, I completed my Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. With emphasis in both genre fiction and screenwriting, and two completed novels, Delilah and Playground for the Gods Book 1: In the Beginning, two full feature film scripts and one comedy series pilot script in hand, I eagerly jumped right in to get my feet wet in either the publishing and/or screenwriting industry. I began submitting my work to agents, publishers, and competitions like crazy. I received mostly rejections, as expected, and although I still haven’t found a home for either novels or scripts, I did manage to find a home for two poems and two short stories. Not too bad. While the poems, Aspen Tree and Yucca! Yucca! Yucca!, appeared in print, (in Colorado Life (Sept.-Oct. 2016) and Manifest West Anthology #5 – Serenity and Severity, respectively), my short story, I Had to Do It was published on Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, and my not so short, short story, Hidden Secrets was published on Across the Margin.
2016 has been a pretty good year for Writing to be Read. The revamping of the blog site was completed in March, I’ve managed post things on a fairly regular basis, we were honored with guest posts by my friend Robin Conley, and my visits and page views have risen, with almost 2000 visitors and over 2,500 page views. Looking at this, makes me feel pretty good about the blog, as a whole. Another good change is the addition of screenwriting content, which I believe has drawn a larger audience by widening the scope of the content.
Many of my posts were reflections of my own writing experience. These included: Why Writing is a Labor of Love; Fear is a Writer’s Best Friend; I’ve Come A Long Way, Baby; Writing the Way That Works For You; Creating Story Equals Problem Solving; What’s A Nice Girl Like Me Doing Writing in a Genre Like This?; Acceptance or Rejection – Which Do You Prefer?; A Writer’s Life is No Bowel of Cherries; Write What You Know; Discouragement or Motivation?; What Ever Happened to Heather Hummingbird?; How You Can Help Build a Writer’s Platform; and Why Fiction is Better Than Fact.
Screenwriting content included this past year seemed to be popular. In addition to my Making of a Screenplay series and Writing Horror is Scary Business, Writing to be Read also featured Writing Comedy for Screen is a Risky Proposition, and a book review for Hollywood Game Plan, by Carole Kirshner, which I can’t recommend highly enough for anyone desiring to break into the screenwriting trade. Robin’s Weekly Writing Memo also included several writing tips that could be applied equally to literature or screenwriting.
Another project I’m particularly proud of is my ten part series on publishing, Pros and Cons of Traditional vs. Independent vs. Self-Publishing, which I just finished up last week. In this series I interviewed nine professionals from within the industry to get the low down on the three different publishing models. My interviews included self-published authors Jeff Bowels, Tim Baker and Art Rosch, traditionally published authors Stacia Deutsch (children’s books) and Mark Shaw (nonfiction), and independently published YA author Jordan Elizabeth. To balance things out a bit, I also interviewed children’s author Nancy Oswald, who has published with all three models, Clare Dugmore of Curiosity Quills Press and Caleb Seeling, owner and publisher at Conundrum Press.
I feel very fortunate to have had Robin Conley join us with her Weekly Writing Memo and her guest movie reviews. The useful writing tips in her Weekly Writing Memos covered a wide range of topics including critiquing, using feedback, ways to increase tension, Relatability or Likeability?, 3 Types of Plot, story research, what to write, making your audience care, world building, handling feedback, writing relationships, establishing tone, editing, word choice, How to Start Writing, endings, queries, Parts of a Scene, making emotional connections, the influence of setting, Building a Story, Inciting Your Story, movement and dialog, Writing Truth, time, Overcoming the Blank Page, Networking, character names, theme, set up, cliches, parentheticals in screenwriting, horror inspiration, and Learning to Write. Robin’s guest post movie reviews included Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Batman vs. Superman, Miss Perigrin’s Home for Peculiar Children, and The Neon Demon.
I am thankful for Robin’s valuable content and am glad that she will still be contributing Memos on a monthly, rather than a weekly basis. Although I was sad to lose her weekly content, I am happy for her as she moves forward in her own writing career and I wish her well in her writing endeavors. For those of you who looked forward to her weekly posts, you can catch more of her content on her own blog, Author the World.
2016 was a great year for Writing to be Read, even if it was kind of rough for the author behind the blog. You readers helped to make it a good year and I thank you. Now it’s time to look ahead and see what’s in store for 2017 Writing to be Read. I mentioned some of the things I hope to achieve above: more posts pertaining to the screenwriting industry, and coverage of more events throughout the year are two of the goals I have set for my blog. I also plan to add some author, and hopefully, screenwriter profiles into the mix. I had good luck with author profiles during my Examiner days, and I think they will be well received here, as well.
I also hope to bring in some guests posts by various authors or bloggers, or maybe screenwriters, just to give you all a break from listening to me all the time. I believe Robin plans to continue with Monthly Writing Memos, which will be great, too.
I look forward to all the great books that I know are coming my way in 2017, too. The first reviews you have to look forward to are a short memoir, Banker Without Portfolio by Phillip Gbormittah, a YA paranormal romance, Don’t Wake Me Up by M.E.Rhines, a Rock Star romance, Bullet by Jade C. Jamison and a short story, How Smoke Got out of the Chimneys by DeAnna Knippling.
I hope all of you will join me here in the coming year. Follow me on WordPress, or subscribe to e-mail for notifications of new posts delivered to your inbox. Have a great 2017 and HAPPY WRITING!
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