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Hola! Grab yourself a cuppa coffee and sit down to read our review of Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. It's finally here. Please ignore Emily's grubby fingerprints on the picture above. She just really wanted to show off her teacup from the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London. Points to your house if you can tell me what character inspired this teacup. Anyway, onto the book, amiright?
Spoilers ahead.
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The live shows are here! We’re finally through the extremely long process of auditions that lasts as many weeks as the live shows themselves for some reason. So here I am, attempting to recap this show for the first time.
There is so much I love about this show, which is why I enthusiastically watch it every summer. I love how unlike most reality television, SYTYCD seems like a genuinely supportive environment. Sure, there is some emphasis on character storylines because that’s how you get people to pick up the phone and vote for their favorite dancers; however, the main focus of the show isn’t about creating manufactured drama. It’s about dancing and genuinely fostering an environment where these talented people can push themselves to become even better. The judging, for all of its faults (which I will get into a lot this season, probably), is constructive. These judges really want to see these dancers improve and grow from this experience. What’s more, it seems like a good majority of the people who get on this show go on to have successful careers in dance following this process. That’s a lot more than I can say for many other reality TV shows (-cough- ANTM -cough-).
But there’s also a lot that annoys me about this show…
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Roppongi at night
Othersode #17: Murder Murder Murder, Kill Kill Kill / Sorry to Bother You
Hi, um, sorry to bother you, this is the #BookSquad, and we just want to talk to you about this movie we saw. Listen as we discuss Boots Riley's directorial debut, Sorry to Bother You, starring LaKeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. We talk about "white voice," political satire, and that VERY weird thing none of us saw coming. (Yes, there are spoilers, as always!) Plus, we read some great listener feedback on Westworld and Hereditary. Check out the #BookSquadBlog for more awesome content on books, video games, tv shows, and movies. Next up on our fullpisode: The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. Read along and join the discussion! Send listener mail to thesquad@booksquadgoals.com and rate & review us on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening!
Click through for table of contents and show notes!
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On a hot summer day in Houston, Texas, my friends and I found ourselves wandering into a very special bookstore called Murder By The Book. Why is this bookstore so special, you're wondering? Well, the most obvious reason is that they're a delightful independent bookstore that specializes in all things mystery. But there's so much more to love about this bookstore, and I'm here to tell you all about it.
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Look at that lil bug.
Welcome to Late to the Game, a blog post series where I explore games that I have played long after everyone else has finished them! This week, we’re looking at Hollow Knight, a 2017 platformer by Team Cherry.
The premise of this blog post is pretty straightforward, folks. Kelli and Emily both saw First Reformed, the new A24 joint written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Schrader. Now they have feelings about environmentalism, religion, self-loathing, and Pepto-Bismol that they need to work through. Come along on their journey.
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BSG #17: YOSS Queen! / Super Extra Grande
Drink along with us as the #BookSquad discusses Super Extra Grande, a short novel by Cuban sci-fi author and metal band member, Yoss. Find out what our metal band personas would be before we delve into some serious misogyny issues in this book. We talk sci-fi tropes, Spanglish, and how the heck a thing can be both giant AND a single-celled organism. For listener feedback, we go all the way back to Fates and Furies to revisit Lotto and Mathilde and talk about our favorite books we never want to revisit. We've also got tons of great posts for your reading pleasure on the #BookSquadBlog, so check them out! Next time on the othersode, we're talking about the film Sorry to Bother You, so go see it and join our discussion! Send feedback to thesquad@booksquadgoals.com, and don't forget to rate, review and subscribe!
Click through for table of contents and show notes!
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We've moved into high fantasy territory.
I hate fantasy novels, and the genre as a whole.
Okay, that’s not completely true. I play two Dungeons & Dragons games a week and act as a dungeon master, too. I frequently inhabit fantasy worlds and write stories that take place within them, but I don’t read fantasy novels. Growing up and attempting the endeavor that is Lord of the Rings, I always found the genre sexist, racist, and overall, well...boring. As an adult, newly interested in tabletop RPG games, I thought maybe I should read some fantasy in order to get in the mindset of the games I loved. I tried some authors recommended to me, but most of it--even YA fantasy, which aims to break the mold of the genre--carried the vestiges of Tolkien.
Stylistically, fantasy has always seemed expansive, pages and pages of descriptions. Part of this is the world-building aspect of the genre. How do you describe a world that doesn’t exist? You explain it until you can’t anymore. But all that detail, delivered in painstaking monologues and narrator asides, wore me out. It’s not fair to say that all fantasy is this way, and I know that, but I’ve never been able to get into it.
I recently committed to read the first book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I’ve heard people at my local game shop talk about it, saying that it was great, or maybe terrible, or maybe something in between. In my mind, I simply said, “it’s a fantasy series, so I’m not interested.” But then someone I really like said it was a good series, that it was sort of different from other fantasy novels, and--since I trust his opinion on books and because I thought it might be fun to reread it together--I caved. I bought my mass-market paperback of The Eye of the World (TEotW) and started on the journey.
Read moremade with love by emily, kelli, mary, and susan. <3 thanks to Katelyn Elaine Photography for our group photos.