Like many of you I consume a fair amount of media; if you are curious about the content I consume then here you will find my reviews.
Hoppers: The Review
I absolutely loved this movie!
Not only was it a super cute movie, but it also provided a lovely lesson about complicated grief. I think this movie will resonate with alot of people who feel misunderstood and one day lose the one person they felt actually saw them. Mabel always loved animals and would get in trouble in elementary school for trying to rescue the classroom pets at school. Mabel’s mother would get called to pick Mabel up from school and take Mabel to her grandmothers house. Mabel’s grandmother taught Mabel how to be still by observing nature.
When Mabel faced hardship, this was her peace that she would share with her grandmother. As Mabel got older, Mabel’s grandmother got sick, and Mabel cared for her in her passing, keeping the grandmother’s jacket and visiting the lake in the woods that brought her peace. This place of refuge was targeted by the mayor of the city Mabel lived in, as he wanted to use it to mark his career by building a beltway using invasive tactics to get the animals to stay clear of the area.
Mabel attempted to get enough petition signatures to halt the beltway, but that was unsuccessful. Mabel followed an animal she felt to be suspicious into the basement at her college campus to find that her professor was conducting research that allowed humans to “hop” their consciousness into a robotic animal. Mabel “hopped” into a robotic beaver and began trying to try to save the lake where her grandmother taught her the very important lesson of being still, and yes, there were several mishaps along the way. Hopper is both cute and purposeful as Mabel navigates grief and finds her sense of belonging.
Pretty Painful By K.A Knight: The Review
SPOILER AHEAD :
Pretty Painful is from K.A Knights Fallen God series. Pretty Painful is the first book in the series, and in this story, Dabria has been kidnapped by an unknown group that keeps kidnapping women, assaulting them, and killing them. At first, Dabria would fight back and try to resist the men who were harming her, but at some point, she realized they seemed to feed on fear, so she resigned herself and stopped fighting them. That was until her sister was kidnapped and brought in, and Dabria reacted to her arrival. Guards assaulted Dabria's sister in front of her, and Dabria’s rage fueled her to unlock something dormant within her that she didn’t know existed. This resulted in her ripping out the hearts of some of her captors. The guards then killed her sister and tossed Dabria into a locked cell with a male that even the guards feared as punishment for what she had done to the guards she killed. This man turned out to be a fallen god that was captured many years before Dabria and was being held hostage. Unable to escape due to the chains placed on him, he remained captive, but that changed once he met the delicate human the guards tossed in the cell, expecting him to kill her. Dabria and the fallen god named Mishal formed a bond, though rocky and certainly not pleasant or gentle at first. Mishal’s inner being was a dragon. This is what made him powerful; while dormant, the dragon was still present. Dabria’s presence awakened him as the dragon recognized her as a mate. This bond is how Mishal woke the dormant being within Dabria, whom he referred to as a nightwalker, and together the two escape their prison, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.
My Opinion:
This story was short in my opinion, so everything in the story happened at light speed. While there was a framework for the story, there was little time for backstory details. This is a romance book with an edge, as this book does have portions that are vulgar. If you are someone who is put off by books with sex and explicit language, you will not like this book. I would classify this book as a sexual romantic fantasy. Due to the contents of the assaults in this book, the book does have a trigger warning, so this book should be read with caution. This book is easy to read and can be completed in a day if you are engaged with the story. In my opinion, the story is interesting as it creates space for the rest of the fallen to be introduced in future books of the series allowing for the story to get better over time. In this way, the book felt like the introduction to the series, which makes sense as this is book one. Because the story was fast paced alot of the things that happened in the book are done with little detail. This will make the readers' heads tilt a bit. If you are looking for a semi-dark romance book laced with smut thats a quick read for a road trip, this may be the book for you.