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⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) This is the sequel to The Witness for the Dead and if possible I liked it even more. It's just specially geared towards me! It continues to follow Thara Celehar, my favourite lonely gay elf of all time, as he solves murders and other death-related mysteries, and makes friends, and begins to overcome some of his struggles. I just love all of the characters so much and want things to go well for them, and I love the ongoing theme in these books that happiness isn't always easy to achieve, but it is out there for you. I'm extremely excited for the last book, especially with the mystery of where Celehar left off at the end of this one.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I'm giving this book a 10 because I can't think of a single way it could be improved. And also because the reading experience was ideal (reading it aloud with my favourite sisters). It's a fun, somewhat silly, overall delightful story about a 29-year-old "old maid" in vaguely early 1900s Canada who is miserable living her dull, uninteresting life with her overbearing family, and then discovers she will die within a year and decides to live it to the fullest. It's not at all depressing (don't worry!) and incredibly endearing. The characters all had so much personality, and LM Montgomery has such a fun, clever writing style that really shone. And it gives a very lovely outlook on life! I think I'll be thinking about it for a while.

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) Wouldn't you know, a game just came out where you're on a ship that gets trapped in the ice on a polar expedition and you have to keep your crew alive after the captain disappears! (I've been eagerly awaiting its release for months.) Anyway, this is a resource management/strategy game, something I'm absolutely terrible at, but with enough story and character building that I was INTENSELY invested in that I was able to stick it out, even though I was doing VERY badly at first. I had to restart about halfway through because I had planned so badly haha. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I thought my crew members were going to freeze to death, but with a little bit of help (and a redacted amount of reloading previous saves), I made it through, and it was totally worth it for me specifically. It had a ton of references to Antarctic expeditions, it had some really fun characters and cutscenes, the stakes felt very high,...

⭐ 7.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I started reading this book when I picked up the physical copy a year ago, didn't get super far because I hate reading with my eyes, and then finally got the audiobook and finished it in a week. Honestly, it didn't really grip me, even as an audiobook. I think Andy Weir has improved a lot since he wrote this one--more character development, relationship development, etc. I kept finding myself zoning out, then snapping back to attention and saying, "Oh, it was just science stuff," but the whole thing was science stuff. It's about an astronaut getting stranded on Mars and all the things he and NASA have to do to rescue him, and I LOVE survival stories, but somehow it just wasn't THAT interesting. Maybe because I've seen the movie, so I knew what was going to happen? In any case, I spent a lot of time being like, "I don't think this author even read about the Endurance." I really think he should have expl...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) After this book sat on my to-read shelf for nearly an entire year, I impulsively looked it up on audiobook and listened to it in a single day. It's a fascinating concept--from the point of view of whales, who hunt humans because humans hunt them. In this book whales are highly intelligent and even quite developed, with tools and cities and language. The story revolves around a hunting party of whales coming across a shipwreck, finding a human, and going on a journey to face the "devil," Toby Wick. It's a short book, illustrated, which makes it feel like a children's book, but it's also quite bloody and dark. I found it really interesting--a look at the demons we create, the way we rationalize killing and war, and the utter vastness of the ocean. Especially considering we do know that whales are highly intelligent animals, and yet we don't factor that into our killing of them at all (though granted the whale killing ...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) What's that? A high fantasy murder mystery about a sad, lonely gay elf? Say no more!! Seriously though, in many ways this book was tailor made for me. It's the sequel to The Goblin Emperor, which I really enjoyed last year, and I think I liked this one even more. I'm incredibly fond of the main character, and I want things to go well for him SO BADLY. It has the same (maybe unavoidable?) downsides as the first book, mainly that it's quite dense sometimes and there are so many characters that I just can't keep track of, but it's much shorter and therefore didn't feel so intimidating. I loved the world building and character development, and I loved the theme, like in the first book, of finding your place and finding people who love and appreciate you, and finding warmth and happiness in your life when you thought it wasn't possible. I'm very excited to read the next book and am looking forward to spending more ...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) After watching Three Pines, I was very interested in reading some of the Inspector Gamache books, starting with the first one, which wasn't covered in the show. I loved it! It was a very classic cop mystery, but really dove deep into the cast of characters, into human nature, etc, and I LOVED the setting, which is smalltown Quebec. It was really vivid and atmospheric, and I enjoyed the little local details and the look into French Canadian culture. Inspector Gamache was really likable himself and, I think, a great example of non-toxic masculinity. The cast was diverse without feeling forced, and the story hit on some really interesting topics outside of the main plot. I'm really looking forward to reading more!

⭐ 4.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) It was so bad :') Only my loyalty to National Treasure the movie compelled me to finish it. It's just bad. (But Riley Poole had a cameo!)

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I watched this movie last year and really enjoyed it, and only really intended to read the book because I'd found it at a book sale for a dollar and it was sitting on my shelf. Today on a whim I downloaded the audiobook and listened to all 6 hours in one day. Maybe it's all the Edwardian non-fiction I've been reading recently, but this story got me in ways I REALLY did not expect. I know E.M. Forster was a gay man himself, and I felt like the portrayal of a gay man in Edwardian England was incredibly, heartbreakingly authentic. I have a lot of feelings about this story, but I'll just say that it made me weep a little bit, alone in my room, and leave it at that. “Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep." TEARS. (This story has a happy ending, by the way! Forster couldn't publish it until after his death because of it! ...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) The real reason I read the last two books about the Nimrod Expedition were because I wanted to read THIS one, which bears the subtitle "Sketches of the homely side of polar life, by two of Shackleton's men." It's essentially a companion book to the official record of the expedition, centred around all the little stories and jokes and events that wouldn't make it into the official narrative, from two of the guys who lived at the hut on Antarctica but didn't join any of the major sledging trips to the poles. Murray was the biologist, and Marston the expedition artist. One of my main interests in polar exploration has always been the everyday daily life bits, which is why I voraciously consume diaries, and this was a PERFECT addition. Murray did most of the writing and is VERY funny, and Marston contributed a bunch of great illustrations. They go over the whole expedition, telling "yarns" and talking about life i...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) This was a book of short stories written and published in the Antarctic, on the Nimrod Expedition in 1907-1909, as a way to keep the crew occupied during the long polar winter when there wasn't much else to do and it was important to fend off that polar depression. It includes 8 short stories written by different members of the crew, and then 2 poems contributed by Shackleton himself. It was really fascinating to read the stories that everyone came up with during those long winter months! Some were retellings of true events, some serious and some comedies, and a few were fun fictional stories about their time there. I especially enjoyed surgeon Mackay's (fictional) story about meeting a 6-foot Emperor penguin that for some reason speaks Scots. There are also illustrations done for most of the stories by the expedition's artist, Marston, which are a delightful touch. It only took me a day to read all of these, but I had a great time!

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) What can I say that I haven't already said about books about polar exploration? This one's about the Antarctic expedition Shackleton went on BEFORE Endurance, the Nimrod Expedition in 1907-1909. It wasn't nearly as exciting, but it WAS very cool to get a bunch of backstory. It was like unlocking a bunch of Shackleton lore. On this expedition, they were attempting to reach the South Pole (no one ever had at that point), and they didn't manage it, but they DID get closer than anyone else had before. There was a lot of running out of food and nearly dying in blizzards etc, but I felt a lot less sympathy, considering they were really just doing exactly what they signed up for and it was kinda their own fault. But I did keep having to go update Maggie on their progress and all the terrible things that were happening to them, so that says something. The first 1/4 of this book was a slog, though, mostly covering Shackleton's life up...

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I was stoked to see this movie because I really enjoyed Searching, made by the same people a couple years ago. However, I didn't know a single thing about the plot, which honestly I think is the best way to go into a movie. I thought it was fantastic. Similar to Searching, it's a movie about someone going missing and one person's desperate attempts to find them using a wide range of digital resources, told completely via device screens, and it was incredibly well done. In this age of true crime fanaticism, it's so fascinating to see how regular people can solve crimes/mysteries, and how much information we truly have at our fingertips. The twists had me gasping. I was coming up with all KINDS of theories. Shoutout to the lady in the theatre who said "NO WAY" after one twist loud enough for everyone to hear. I really felt that. I had an absolutely incredible time, and I'm eager to see it again.

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I was really excited to reread this book because I loved it sooooo much in grade 7 when I first read it, but I don't think I've read it a single time since that year. It wasn't really what I expected! It's a very classic high fantasy story about a young woman and a prophecy and an evil sorcerer, but the style is a lot more sedate and formal, somehow, than I remembered. Not a lot of emotive writing, not much for jokes. I enjoyed it, but I was kind of surprised that I liked it so much as a kid. The main thing is that I was in love with one of the two love interests, and if he hadn't gotten the girl in the end, I think I would have thrown this book in the garbage. And I'm still in love with him now so I can't not love the book! Overall, it's a bit slower than I remembered, but a very enjoyable read. It's hard to separate my opinion on it from sentiment though.

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) That's right, I'm still on my bullshit (reading books about antarctic exploration during the turn of the 20th century). I don't know exactly what drove me to read this one, a 600-page tome about the 1901-1904 Swedish expedition, except that I do and it's that it sounded a lot like the Endurance expedition. Similarly, these fellas ended up stranded out there for several years without knowing exactly how they'd get back. But they had it a bit better--there was more wildlife for them to eat, and most of them had pretty decent shelters. "Most of them?" you ask? Yeah, they were separated into 3 groups, all separately stranded on different islands. Anyway, the twists in this one were pretty insane, but the really interesting stuff only started like 40% of the way in, and before that it was a lot of science and geography. The book was written by 4 different guys from the expedition, and the main guy wasn't exactly a gr...

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I was mostly interested in this movie because I heard it featured Disney's first gay character (for the 5th time). I was a little doubtful, since they've said THAT before, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised! He's gay for real! He has a crush on a boy and he mentions it a number of times! And overall I thought this was a really sweet movie with a nice, relevant theme and some genuinely surprising twists. I had fun watching it and I'm glad it exists.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I was extremely excited for the Knives Out sequel and wasn't disappointed in the least. I was losing my mind in the theatre. I think the setting and characters weren't quite as memorable and lovable as the first one, but otherwise perfect in every way.

⭐ 7.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I watched this miniseries in England with my friend Sam, since I was out there looking at lots of boats. It's about a man with a troubled past who has taken a job as a doctor on a whaling boat in the Arctic, and a murder that takes place onboard, which sounds like everything a girl like me could want! But unfortunately it's really dark and depressing, with a completely psychopathic Colin Farrell as our main antagonist and a lot of death, some of it pretty brutal. I think it's probably a very good show for someone who isn't me. I did enjoy watching it, but mostly for the boat parts and the social aspect of watching it with a friend, not for the plot, which was a pretty big bummer. Can't a girl just enjoy a nice murder mystery on a boat?

⭐ 6.5/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I love to choose movies at random from Netflix when I'm home alone, what can I say. This one was a movie about surviving in the Arctic after a plane full of oil rig fellas crashes in a storm, which sounds right up my alley. I got more invested in this movie and the characters than I intended to, which was a bummer because the movie wasn't that good and it was more of a movie about dying than a movie about surviving. Plus the wolf CGI was just awful. But still, I keep catching myself thinking about a couple scenes. I hate it when mediocre movies are compelling! Also they really don't know what wolves are like.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Rebecca) I hadn't heard a single thing about this movie until my friend mentioned it to me, which I thought was weird, but as soon as she did I was eager to go see it. It's a really classic whodunnit mystery, set in the 50s, starring Saoirse Ronan. It's super funny, it all comes together beautifully, and I had a delightful time. Zero complaints!