This Is Us (2016 - present)

This Is Us is an American television comedy-drama series created by Dan Fogelman that premiered on NBC on September 20, 2016. The ensemble cast stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Sullivan, and Ron Cephas Jones. It is about the family lives and connections of several people who all share the same birthday and the ways in which they are similar and different.

This show is amazing! I love the writing, the story and the characters are just so loveable you can’t help but get sucked in from the pilot. I was a little weary of this show at first because of all the hype (how many network shows are promoted shamelessly regardless of their quality??), but it actually lives up to everything I’ve heard. Primetime tv has been missing a good family drama ever since Parenthood ended and This Is Us is a great replacement. All the stories are interwoven together so you get to see the evolution of the family almost immediately which is GREAT for my inner-binger, but the story is so well written that you don’t get all the info at once so you have to keep coming back for more – so smart!

I think my favorite storyline is ‘the parents’. I love the filter they use to really set the mood, their story is adorable, I just love Mandy Moore, and best of all you get to see all the kids when they were little and how they grew into the people they are today.

I can’t give it 5 stars just yet because there are some slow parts in the early episodes (to set up the plot understandably). I don’t think I’ll be watching re-runs of it though, it loses the magic when you know how everything is going to unfold. But other than that it scores really high in my book!

I just can’t gush enough about this show and it’s only midway through season 1. I’ll definitely be watching this through for as long as it’s on tv. If you haven’t yet you really should check it out!

4 stars

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.

Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.

Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.

Now I know everyone has already read this book, seen the movie or both, so I'm gonna keep this review brief since I'm so late to the game.

This book was different. It was very off the cuff and real, Greg is the most lovable and relatable character around and I just loved his telling of events. Sometimes it was painful to read how little confidence he has, but that just made me root for him more. Earl, on the other hand, was not my favorite character, but his interactions with Rachel opened up a whole new side of him to the reader. He was suddenly very self-aware, goal-oriented and very kind-hearted which we don't see from Greg's POV. Lastly, Rachel was the classic dying girl: she was every cliché in the book. She was really only there to help develop Greg and Earl's characters. But I'm ok with that, because that’s kinda assumed walking into any book with cancer as a main plot device.

Now to semi-review the movie: it didn't do the story justice. I'm not a huge fan of this type of film style (I didn't like Perks of Being a Wallflower either) and after reading the book you just can't get the same POV from Greg because you just can't be in his head when you're watching him on the screen. If that was translated better to the screen, I could happily love the movie as much as the book. I just couldn't form the same loveable bond with any of the characters while watching the movie - except Rachel. I liked her more in the movie for whatever reason - I still can't pinpoint what it was.

All in all, I loved the story the book told and I just feel like we missed out on that in the movie. Had I watched the movie first I might feel differently, but that's the way the cookie crumbled.

4 stars

Survive the Night by Danielle Vega

In a tunnel nearby, Casey regrets coming to Survive the Night, the all-night underground rave in the New York City subway. Her best friend Shana talked her into it, even though Casey just got out of rehab. Alone and lost in the dark, creepy tunnels, Casey doesn’t think Survive the Night could get any worse . . .
               
. . . until she comes across Julie’s body, and the party turns deadly.
 
Desperate for help, Casey and her friends find themselves running through the putrid subway system, searching for a way out. But every manhole is sealed shut, and every noise echoes eerily in the dark, reminding them they’re not alone.
 
They’re being hunted.
               
Trapped underground with someone—or something—out to get them, Casey can’t help but listen to her friend’s terrified refrain: “We’re all gonna die down here. . . .”

Where do I even start with this book? Unfortunately, this was not as gripping, terrifying or just plain amazing as Danielle's other books. I had pretty high hopes based off the title, but the story was slow to get going, the characters weren't very developed, and the ending just wasn't satisfying enough.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

So first the story: we start off with Casey in a creepy AF rehab and she's leaving to go home after recovering from her oxycodone addiction. In my opinion, this was the best part of the book. Her rehab-mates are weirdly deformed and mentally scarring. Why we didn't get this story I don't know. (lowkey hoping for a prequel because I would read that in a heartbeat) But anyway, Casey is going to a sleepover at her friend's house to bond with the soccer team she used to be on. Some of her old druggie buddies show up and whisk her away to NYC for a night of fun and partying. All of this is fine and good except for they end up getting stuck in the abandoned subway tunnels at a rave: Survive the Night (why's it called that...we don't know!!! It's catchy, but as far we know no one else is dead??). BTW - it took about half the book to get here plotwise, Casey and her friends are not very interesting; that part dragged like nobody's business. One of their friends is found strung up (Jesus-like) and dead. Cue the chaos for the rest of the book.

Now reading that back I would still read that story because the set up was so good! I really kept wanting to be horrified but I just wasn't. When we finally figure out what was in the tunnels it was weirdly anti-climactic and not very terrifying; not to mention it didn't really make sense with what happened in the beginning of the book. The set up was just so misleading in my opinion.

About the characters...they were the high school cliches, which is fine for the teen horror genre, but I honestly forgot most of their names about halfway through. All Casey does is whine about Shana and Sam so they were the most memorable, but otherwise until someone died I pretty much forgot about them. Also, when they died I didn't really care. Wanted to, but didn't.

Lastly, the ending. It was terrible. I hate when suddenly there's an alien or 'monster' without any reason for it. Once we find out that there are tentacles in the tunnels - that's what's killing everybody I'm intrigued, but we never know how they got there, why they're there, or if it's even part of some giant octopus. It's always just 'the tentacles'. End of story. I really had a feeling that Casey was high the whole time and Shana went crazy and killed everybody. The ending kind of alludes to that, but it's one of those 'what ifs' and literally the book just ends. THE END. I was so frustrated and now I'm mad that I bought the book before reading the reviews. I trusted the talent of the author and she let me down this time.

Don't get me wrong though - this book may have been a bust, but I'm definitely going to finish the rest of The Merciless series - those are AMAZING!!!

3 stars