Book Review: The Map Makers (book 1)

To our blog readers,
I know it is been a very long time since we last posted, and I am so sorry for this. We are sadly more busy than we'd like with school, jobs, writing, and other things. Part of the reason we do not post often is because we do not have much time to read/watch things to post on. I do not say this to give us an excuse not to post, I simply present it as a possible reason as to why we may not post as often as we like. We are, however, working on remedying this. In the meantime, please accept our apologies for not posting often enough and know we are doing what we can to increase the number of posts.
A blessed and very merry Christmas to all our blog readers.


Title: The Map Makers
Author: Matthew Krengel
Genre: fantasy, adventure
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: children's fiction
Age Group: 10+

Summary: Jane is a relatively normal girl by modern standards. She has an iPhone, her parents are divorced, and she takes the train to her grandparents' every summer. Usually, she does that with her sister. Now that her sister's gone missing, however, it's just her.
And a strange little old man. And a creepy tall man dressed in a black robe type thing. And a cute boy named Jacob.
After witnessing a bizarre fight and disappearance, Jane and Jacob are thrust into a world of magic which needs their help. Fairies are being captured. Slaves are being held. Jane's sister might be a captive. Magic is creating huge destructive waves on Lake Superior back in their world. The Divide between the two worlds is in danger, and Jane and Jacob might be the only ones who can help.

Word of Warning
This is not a problem, but you might want to be aware this book takes a few chapters to really get moving. It also has a prologue and epilogue which move slowly and are vague and confusing (they make more sense when you've read half the book). Other than that, it's a quick and enjoyable read with a very real feeling to the life portrayed.

This book was very clean. Jacob and Jane are 16 (we know this because they drive) but they have clean language and, aside from running off on a fantasy adventure without telling their parents (a sort of necessary ingredient in all children's fantasy books), are pretty good kids. There is some fantasy violence, but none of it is graphic. Here is a short list I wrote while reading the book of things you might want to be aware of:

• Slave ships are mentioned, and there is a suggestion that many do not return. Those who do do not come back the same.
• Mention of bloody raids on villages
• Jane's mother, being divorced, has a boyfriend.
• Jane does not have much respect for her mother. This can be seen more in her wording and annoyance in narration, Jane ignoring her mother to listen to music, and Jane lying to her mother so she can stay with her grandparents, but not in their dialogue. I can't tell if this is because the author wants her to sound like a teenager, or if he really is going for disrespect.
• There is a mention of the movie Twilight. The only detail we get is that Bella is accusing Edward of being a vampire. We are given no indication as to what that means or what the story is about.
• Jane's sister disappeared and the police have given up searching.
• Jane's grandfather calls a reporter a filthy animal. This is the best (and strongest) insult in the book.
• Jane and Jane take the train alone. This may not be a problem since they are 16 and can drive alone.
• Jacob makes a half-hearted threat to throw a man who is pestering him off a train.
• A man is beaten and falls unconscious.
• A father forgets his son's visit "nonviolently" according to the son. The son is sent back home to his mother and she is angry and yells at the father. The son also seems a bit upset about all of this.
• A man threatens kids with a knife/sword/dagger.
• A huge wave hits houses, stores, cars, and leaves behind it destruction. We later find out that seven people died.
• Kids let a stranger into their car and drive him around.
• Two kisses. One is described as quick and gentle. The other is a kiss "once long and hard" but no other description.
• Jane hits a man over the head with a baseball bat and he turns to dust.
• Jane and Jacob hang out in Jane's bedroom with the door closed to keep away from her grandparents. Nothing happens.
• Jacob's pants fall down to just above his knees when his belt is cut off so he can fit into a little fairy cave. He pulls them back up, Jane isn't there, and no further mention is made (except that he gets a new belt when he gets home).
• Jacob's mother doesn't worry about her son until he's been gone for a few days, according to him.
• Goblins are shot and killed. An old man gets a dagger to his shoulder and dies (it's a good death).
• A man threatens Jane, saying he is going to "cut you up girl" and waves his daggers at her. This is about as graphically violent as it gets.

The list might seem long, but that's because there was so little in the book I was able to take notes on everything I saw. Often with books that have more problems, I select the ones people have more objection to and share those.

My Thoughts
It was a fun read, especially for a Minnesotan. Seeing the grandfather say "oh yah" (which does happen!) and the kids refer to pop, as, well, pop, was very thrilling for me. Plus, Jane lives in the Cities and can see Interstate 94 from her window. Then they went to Duluth and we were given even more detail on Minnesota. It's not very often a Minnesotan gets to read a book set in her own state that's actually well done. Plus, the characters are decent (for the most part), have clean language, and Jacob is a gentleman (more or less. I mean, he's 16, so he's got some room to improve).
Something I did notice is that the book moved slowly at times and at other times it sounded like a grown man trying to sound like a 16 year old kid. Which, realistically, is what it was.
Overall, it was a great little adventure, fast read, and a pleasant little gem to have on a bookshelf and would like to read the other two some day. I confess I have not come across a fantasy book of this quality that is clean enough that I willingly hand it to my younger brothers without a second thought, but that is what this book is. And for that, I am so very grateful.

Movie Review: Gimme Shelter

Title: Gimme Shelter
Genre: family, drama, true story
My Rating: *****
Official Rating: PG-13 (mature thematic material involving mistreatment, some drug content, violence and language--all concerning teens)
Age Group: 16+

Summary: Apple Bailey has no home and no family. Yes, her mother is still alive and would like her to live with her. Yes, her father is alive and is willing to let her live with him and his wife and two kids (as long as she makes some changes in life). But Apple doesn't really have a home.
Neither does her unborn baby. All Apple knows is she can't abandon her baby like she was abandoned.
As sixteen-year-old Apple flees an abusive home and two people who demand she abort her unborn child, she thinks she is alone. And she is alone--until she allows someone to make her not alone.
Encountering a shelter for young women who want to have their babies, Apple finally finds a home. Still, she faces many challenges on her way there, at the home itself, and after. This is the story of Apple, her baby, and the love she finds when she comes home.

Word of Warning

• The movie begins with a fight scene in which one woman (a mother) is thrown against a wall. Her daughter flees to a cab and the mother follows, banging on the window and shouting, "You owe me!"
• The main character has various piercings on her face.
• A character tries to steal a cab because the driver tells her to get out after he discovers she doesn't have money. He pulls her from the driver's seat, throws her to the ground, and kicks her.
• A girl more or less breaks into a yard. She is caught by the police and subdued after a brief struggle.
• A man hands money to his daughter when she asks for a place to stay, clearly intending she leave and he support her from afar.
• The main character's mother is abusive and has done drugs in the past. Her teeth are yellow and she often has bruises on her face. The father of the main character abandoned the mother (they were not married) and child before the child was even born.
• A girl has been in the foster care system and has nothing good to stay about it. She says she was taken to a mental hospital because she "didn't fit in." She claims in one house the husband came into her room and "started touching me and feeling all up on me."
• As stated in the summary, the girl is sixteen and running away from home.
• We see a girl drink a raw egg. Later, she pukes (the two may or may not be related).
• Apple says she didn't know she was pregnant, she "only did it once."
• The wife of the father (Tom) tells Apple she and her husband will not have Apple's baby in their house. She then wants to know if the child's father is in jail.
• Wife and husband are heard shouting in the background.
• We see Apple sitting on a toilet (upper bare legs are shown). The camera moves to her face as she places a pregnancy test between her legs.
• Bare stomach is shown during an ultrasound. This is seen at least twice as the baby grows.
• The wife leaves Apple behind after bringing her to the doctor.
• Apple passes out.
• Tom says Apple is not ready to assume responsibility of motherhood and tells her to "turn the page on this" and she'll forget it ever happened. He doesn't use the word "abortion" but that's what he's telling her to do. It's implied that he will not let his daughter stay at his house unless she aborts the baby.
• Wife makes an appointment for an abortion against the will of Apple. We seen a room in the clinic (bed, tools on a table, etc). Apple removes her shoe as she begins to undress. She never gets any farther.
• Apple decides to live on the street. She gets into an unlocked car, eats what she finds, drinks the water, and borrows a blanket. Later, she digs through a garbage bag for food and eats what she finds.
• A man threateningly orders a girl to get into his car. She steals it and almost crashes it. Later, she is t-boned by a truck and the car swerves off the road and hits a fence. She wakes up in a hospital, cuffed to a bed, bloody and bruised
• Words: a**, h***, "Oh my God"
• The girl screams "God don't care about me. Don't waste your time!" and later demands "Where was God when I was getting abused and suffering all these years?"
• Apple shouts at the hospital chaplain to leave her alone.
• The mother tries to manipulate Apple into coming back to her. She tells the social worker things are fine at home. She shouts at her daughter and slaps her a few times and accuses the girl of being just like her mother because she wants to keep the baby. She reveals she will let Apple keep the baby because she wants the money the government will send them. She blames her daughter for her life since she gave birth to her. She gives a rather convincing story about being sorry, she messed up, she still loves her daughter. This is shown to be a lie.
• The mother is very scary looking.
• Girls break into different rooms in a shelter/house and go through stuff they're not supposed to.
• As the girls are reading their files, one reads off that she was a prostitute. The others joke about this a bit but in a comforting "we're here for you" kind of way.
• Daughter tells her mother "I hate you" twice.
• The girls in the shelter are keeping count of the different "colors" of their babies. One girl declares there will be "Four black babies and four white babies" but that gets the others talking about different shades (caramel, etc). None of this is done in a racist way. It actually sounds rather sweet and innocent.
• Mother calls her daughter a whore and tries to kill her with a razor she has in her mouth. She cuts the girl's face and blood drips onto her clothes.
• One girl taunts Apple about her mother and how even though she's really mean, Apple can't help but love her. She continues, bashing the house's rules and voicing her desire to be free of them.
• We see Apple screaming as she delivers her baby.
• The father wrote a letter saying he and Apple's mother went out a few times and she just happened unexpectedly. He left her behind because he was off to college and didn't want to disappoint his parents. His reasoning is clear, but he makes it sound like it's ok.
• The father of Apple's child is never seen or heard from

My Thoughts
What can I say? The first part of the movie starts out feeling very dirty and gritty and even frightening. Then the viewers are offered a slight glimmer of hope, followed by a glimpse of beauty. The beauty continues to grow until it consumes even the dirty and gritty aspects. They still exist, but they have been made into something more.
It was beautiful.

Unfortunate Disappointments: Movie Review: Endless Love

Title: Endless Love
Genre: romance, drama, family, loss
My Rating: -** (yes, that's a negative two stars)
Official Rating: PG-13
Age Group: 18+ (if you really must watch it. but overall, it should be left unwatched)

Summary: David has been in love with Jade all through high school. He only has one problem: Jade doesn't know that, because he's never, ever, spoken with her. It might have something to do with her being rather reserved and very focused on her studies, especially after her older brother died and left her with very loving but overbearing parents.
Or it might just be that David's a chicken. For all his talk of true love, he might just not have it in him to go get it.
At least, that's what Jade's dad says. Because when Jade and David finally do start a relationship,a rather awkward and slightly misinterpreted scene causes Jade's father to strongly dislike David. That and the fact that David is getting in the way of Jade's future career as a doctor.
But Jade is happy, and David is too. Aside from all the family problems he just became a very big part of when he chose to date Jade.
Can the two of them survive the mess and get their happily ever after?

Word of Warning

•  Jade's brother died sophomore year of high school. We don't get many details, aside from the fact that it was a car crash and his father was there, but we do know it hurt the family deeply. They can't let go of him. His father sleeps in his room and won't let anyone touch the boy's things. He takes it a step further, no longer devoting time and love to his family but becoming determined that they be as good as his now perfect (but dead) son.
• David has been watching Jade for years and hasn't talked to her. This is made to sound sweet in the movie, but since he really has no relation to her at all (other than going to the same school) it borders on being creepy.
• A man is rude to the valets who take his car. They take his car for a joy ride (out of revenge) and drag an innocent girl into the mess. The valets are fired, but not before a yelling match and a punch to the face.
• David glances at Jade's legs as her skirt flies up in the wind. She quickly shoves her skirt down but gives him a mischievous glance.
• A man remarks, "It's gonna take a lot more than stealing my car to get her to spread her legs" for which he is punched in the face.
• Girls wear short dresses with slightly low tops, strapless dresses, and bikinis.
• David prank calls the police to put an end to someone's party for a personal reason and, in addition to many other complaints, says, "Someone is pissing on my mini-cooper!" While this is comical, he is causing an apparent innocent's party canceled for a personal gain and making a joke of it, all while getting the police involved.
• We see Jade in her underwear more than once. Sometimes unintentionally (like when she spins and her dress flies up), sometimes very intentionally (like when she pulls the side of her dress up so David can see the edge of them).
• Catcalls are made when Jade and David step out of a closet. Nothing happened in the closet. They intended to kiss but were interrupted.
• Jade's father is clearly upset about what he assumes happened in the closet, but instead of speaking to either teen involved, he just separates them and doesn't tell them what he is angry about (though they would have to be stupid not to be able to guess).
• Jade's father shows a lack of communication throughout the entire movie. If he speaks to his family, it's because he dislikes something one of them is doing or because he is giving an order.
• Multiple passionate kisses.
• Jade and David meet behind their parents' backs. Later, they do the same when David has a restraining order on him.
• When Jade clearly intends to have sex, David tells her, "You don't have to do this. As much as I want to, I can wait" but she refuses him and says she wants to "feel this with you" as if that's all it is. The two remove their clothes (we see them in their underwear) and have sex.
• A couple is shown in a bathtub from the shoulders up. It's presumed neither has any sort of clothing on.
• The entire first half of the movie and its passionate romance happens in about three days. It's almost as bad as Romeo and Juliet.
• A girl throws away her internship to be with her new boyfriend she met just a few days before.
• A father tries to run his daughter's life/future/college plans and yells at her for not doing as he had planned.
• Father takes his family to the lake house to spite his daughter's decision and to separate her from her boyfriend.
• Daughter disobeys and talks back to her father.
• A husband is having an affair with someone's wife.
• David finds out about the affair and hides it from Jade to protect her. Jade's father threatens David about not revealing the truth, but David assures him he won't because it would hurt Jade.
• The father figure pressures his living son to be like his older brother (who is now dead) and the son is clearly hurt by this and feels like he will never be good enough for anyone or anything.
• The father lies and digs up criminal records on David.
• Jade suggests she and the others be "young and dumb, just for tonight" to which David agrees without hesitation. She then pressures him into doing something which he knows shouldn't be done. He ends up being arrested after fleeing the police.
• The mother desperately wants to have her romance with her husband back and comes right out and requests this. He ignores her and turns her down.
• A jealous ex-girlfriend turns her ex-boyfriend and others in to the police.
• Jade's father bails David out of jail after Jade promises to stay away from David. The father then leads David to believe Jade doesn't love him.
• The father verbally abuses David, eventually telling him that he's not good enough, that Jade will get bored of him, just like David's mother became bored of his father.
• We learn that David discovered his mom having an affair and beat the man.
• David punches two people in the face.
• A teen defends something that was stupid and wrong because "it was fun" until it went wrong. The implication is that if it hadn't gone wrong, there would have been nothing wrong with doing it. A father figure, as well as a mother figure, also seem to hold the view that a little fun (reckless and stupid as it might be) isn't really a big deal and is just something kids will do.
• David states, "I know I'm not good enough for you, but I'm not gonna spend my entire life proving that I am."
• Jade is t-boned and breaks her wrist. She has multiple minor cuts and bruises on her face.
• The father has a restraining order put on David.
• David believes in a policy where there is only one girl he is meant to be with and he is afraid of missing that chance.
• The words d*** and a**hole.
• The father sabotages David's chances at a future by getting him in legal trouble and not mailing his wife's letter of recommendation--all out of spite.
• Jade cheats on David because they have not officially broken up and she starts dating another guy. Then, she cheats on that guy by kissing David when she hasn't broken up with the new guy.
• A wife and son walk out on the father because he is so angry and controlling. It is implied the mother is going to get a divorce but that's seen as ok and everyone is fine with that. The son elopes with his girlfriend.
• The father chases David with a baseball bat and almost hits him.
• David and the father are caught in a house fire. A window explodes at David. The two almost die.
• The father is obsessed with his dead son and won't let go.
• The movie promotes a strange view of love that proposes there is only one person with whom you are "meant to be" and with whom you can truly be happy. While it also promotes the idea of love that never ends, it sees this more as a feeling and less as an ideal that both people have to work at to achieve. The movie leads the audience to believe that this "meant to be" yet all-feeling love is the only true kind of love and it is attainable.

My Thoughts
Honestly? I think the list above said it all. Aside from my frustration with the trailer making this movie look semi-decent, I still can't get beyond the dysfunctional family (which is making no effort to heal itself) and the sparkly and unrealistic view of love this movie promotes.
But let me take a moment to find goodness in the movie. Because there is goodness in everything, since evil is only goodness used for a selfish purpose.
David's attempts to reconcile his relationship with Jade's father is the goodness I find here. He honestly tries his best to get on her father's good side.
Other than that, the movie was a disappointment. The plot was poorly done, kids running around having fun in reckless ways was seen as acceptable, and the dysfunctional family knew it was not right but made no effort to fix itself.
It was sad, really. There probably is a good way to tell this story (or one similar). The actors were fantastic. It just didn't come together right.
It didn't really come together at all.

Book Review: Ghostscape

Title: Ghostscape
Author: Joe Layburn
Genre: historical fiction, children's fiction
My Rating: **
Official Rating: children's fiction
Age Group: 8+

Summary: Aisha is having a hard time adjusting to life in England after fleeing Somalia. The girls at her new school are mean to her, her mother doesn't understand her, and she can't seem to get beyond watching her father die. It's no surprise that she starts seeing things.
Only, is she actually seeing things? Aisha meets a boy, Richard, and realizes the two of them have somehow managed to time travel. As she gets to know him better, Aisha learns how to deal with the bullies at her school. She hopes to save Richard's life but has a hard time finding out what happened to him during the Blitz. The she discovers a story in an old newspaper that details a horrible tragedy. Can she save Richard before it's too late?

Word of Warning

• Aisha and a girl named Chevon fight more than once, with Chevon saying mean things to Aisha and gets her in trouble for saying things she never did. They get into a cat fight.
• Aisha faints. She is also clipped by a side mirror and knocked unconscious.
• There is mention of Aisha's father being shot by a young man wearing a baseball cap backward. She remembers how her father was just one of many casualties.
• In Richard's time, Germany is bombing England. Aisha discovers that hundreds of people die when a bomb is dropped on a school but other than calling it a tragedy and mentioning that the search for survivors was abandoned and no one knew how many people died, there were no details.
• People grumble about others (like a snoring old man or someone singing quietly to calm his nerves).
• Richard uses the word h*** as an exclamation. Many people in England (mostly Richard's time) use the word "bloody" which can be considered swearing.
• Aisha's mother is very harsh with her. Frustrated, Aisha finally loses it and yells at her mother that she has met a boy and she likes him a lot and he's not Muslim. Just to bother her mom (it's not true).
• Richard is invisible to people in Aisha's time. They play tricks on Chevon, throwing things at her (never hitting her) and causing her to think Aisha is a witch.
• The solution to Aisha's problem with Chevon is the scene where Richard throws things at her and leaves Chevon to believe Aisha is a witch. This isn't exactly the ideal solution to a problem.

My Thoughts
It was a good simple book. I grabbed off a pile of books my sister is going to sell and read it in about an hour. There weren't too many problems with it and it gave a brief glance into the lives of those living in the past, and also those displaced by war today.
In all honesty, my biggest problem with the book was the time line. There is a bit of a mix-up with Aisha changing something in the past, but the change already existing before she does the change. I can't give more details because that would spoil the book, but suffice it to say that for some strange reason it irritated me very much.
Overall: a decent book. I wouldn't buy it and wouldn't read it again, but I don't feel like I wasted an hour of my life either.

Movie Review: The Ultimate Life

Title: The Ultimate Life
Author: based on the book by Jim Stovall
Genre: drama, family
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: PG
Age Group: 12+

Summary: Jason Stevens went through an awful lot of trouble to gain his grandfather's fortune. He also learned an awful lot of life lessons and met his girlfriend along the way. But when running a charity foundation consumes all his time and he neglects those around him who need him most, he is brought back to realty by a hard punch to the gut.
Shaken and confused, he turns to his grandfather's oldest living friend and adviser for help. Mr. Hamilton hands young Stevens his grandfather's journal and shuffles off to bed, muttering something about how Red Stevens wrote the life lessons he'd learned in there and they might help Jason with his problem.
Jason kicks back to read, and we go back in time to meet a young fifteen year old Red Stevens. Long before he was a billionaire, he was a poor ice boy....

Word of Warning:
All things considered, this movie was pretty acceptable. The PG rating was quite accurate. The biggest problem younger viewers might have is the war scene (more details below) but overall language and all other elements were kept well within the PG zone. It was refreshing to see such a good movie manage to stay within its boundary of PG and still turn out so well.

• A gentle but slightly long chaste kiss between two adults.
• A man walks out on a woman he just half-proposed to to deal with business matters.
• A family is constantly bickering, even taking each other to court over money they do not need.
• Young Red says quite often in the first part of the movie with great determination, "I swear to heaven."
• The light bullying of the ice boy by "rich snobs."
• A family cannot afford medicine so the mother remains sick with a terrible hacking cough, tucked away in bed.
• A father is very hard on his son, not supportive, and quite gruff.
• A boy runs away from home so his family can afford more food and hopefully medicine for his mother.
• A man is pulled from a rail car and beaten with a police stick off screen (we here a few grunts).
• Red and another man freighthop. The other man seems to do it on a regular basis, and Red gives no indication that he sees it as wrong.
• A teen remarks, "Girls call me stud" but this is somewhere in the 1930s or 1940s.
• A bank foreclosed on a family ranch, forcing one of the boys to go out and find work away from his family.
• The slow apparently passionate (it's clear they meant it to be scandalous, but it's not even close to most movie kisses) kiss of a young couple at a dance.
• One teen says to the other, good-naturedly, "You're like toe fungus."
• A quick hesitant kiss between teens. They kiss again later but it isn't very long.
• A war zone scene shows explosions and gunfire. A mine sends shrapnel into Red. A guy runs out to save Red and is almost shot. We see Red with blood on his mouth and stomach and get a brief glance of his bloody wound before Gus covers it and applies pressure. Red screams and the scene ends.
• A dad is too busy to spend time with his son. After a good talking-to from his wife, he realizes his mistake and, exhausted from working all day and preoccupied, he trudges back outside to play catch with his son.
• Someone uses the word crap. Someone else states, "Everything's about money" and he lives his life by that philosophy. In the end, he does learn his lesson.
• A man is careless to others' wants and desires, taking what he wants with money and considering nothing but company profit.
• On the road to becoming rich, the man continually slips into neglecting his family.
• A car crash victim is shown in the hospital. We are told he will probably die and he has lost both his kidneys.
• A married couple kisses.

My Thoughts
This is the sequel to The Ultimate Gift in that it tells the continuation of Jason's story, but the prequel in that it tells Red's story.
It was a great movie but really a one-timer. I saw it twice and the second time wasn't nearly as good as the first.
Still, it has it's moments. We see Red struggling through life alone, trying to figure out how to become rich, being taught lessons by those he meets along the way. It is these lessons that he wanted to pass on to whomever would take charge of the family business one day. These are the lessons which prompted the different tasks Jason had to complete in the first movie.
Perhaps the scene that sums everything up is the one where we see Jason making his "golden list." A list of ten things he is grateful for--just from that day. Because "everybody has got at least ten."

Movie Review: Meet the Robinsons

Title: Meet the Robinsons
Author: Disney
Genre: family, adventure, sci-fi, future, animation
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: G
Age Group: 8+

Summary: Poor Lewis is an orphan who is full of great ideas for inventions that, well, just don't seem to work. He's feeling pretty down and out and is about to give up inventing altogether when he meets a strange boy named Wilbur. Wilbur informs Lewis that he (Wilbur) is from the future. Then he kidnaps Lewis into a world so much better than the one Lewis was living in.
As Lewis helps Wilbur fight off the evil Bowler Hat Man, he comes to love Wilbur's family very much, especially since he doesn't have one of his own. Time is ticking though and Bowler Hat Man needs to be stopped. Wilbur is desperate; Lewis is distracted by the family life he never had.
Can the two boys succeed in saving the world from the terrible fate Bowler Hat Man wants to bring down upon everyone?

Word of Warning

• A mother leaves her child on the orphanage steps. This being left behind haunts the child forever and he feels unwanted.
• A man turns red and swells up, reacting to peanuts. It's done more as comic relief than something serious. We find out later that he's alright, but before that his wife stabs him in the leg with an Epi-Pen (also comical).
• There is a cartoon explosion but no one is injured.
• A caffeine patch allows its wearer to stay up for days. The woman wearing it comes across as slightly crazy.
• A man is attacked by fire-ants (again, comical).
• A kid pushes another kid off a building--onto an invisible ship.
• Kids crash a flying machine but are fine.
• The line "Mom and Dad will kill me, and it won't be done with mercy" is said seriously in a mourning tone but is obviously meant to be funny.
• A kid remarks that his family is going to bury him alive and dance on his grave. He then admits that this might be a bit of an exaggeration.
• A pillar falls on a guy. We are left to assume he's fine, but really don't know.
• A frog wears a man's dentures. The owner takes them and puts them back in his mouth without washing them.
• Insults: puke face, booger breath
• Frogs go to a frog-bar and order "one dragonfly on the rocks."
• An old man is seen in boxers.
• A dinosaur tries to capture and eat a kid. This results in an episode which involves the family humorously, but seriously, trying to save the kid's life.
• A frog cries, "I gotta go pee!"
• A kid turns into smoke and blows away (because he no longer exists because the past has been changed).
• People run from mind-controlling bowler hats.
• People try to attack the main character because they are being controlled by the hats.
• A building is a giant hat which chases a kid who flees using a flying ship. The giant hat-building is clearly trying to kill the kid.
• A man claims his clothes aren't on backward, his head is.
• The last twenty minutes of the movie have a very dark tone to them as things happening in the past ruin the future and make it absolutely miserable.
  

My Thoughts
At first, I thought this was just another cute movie that involved a poor kid who doesn't feel wanted. There would be some sort of adventure, then he would learn he was wanted afterall.
And that all happened of course. But as the movie progressed it became darker. Not dark as in dark magic, but dark as in more solemn and serious and scary. Granted, it wasn't that scary, but in contrast to the first part of the movie the darkness was shocking.
Overall though, a great cute movie that can be shared with nearly the whole family. It's full of laughs, a great but crazy family, and a boy who finally learns that if he never gives up, he will eventually get something good--even if it's not what he had originally hoped for.

Movie Review: 16-Love

Title: 16-Love
Genre: romance, teen, sports, chick flick, family
My Rating: **
Official Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements and brief innuendo)
Age Group: 14+
Summary: Ally is a tennis star in high school and looking at a few matches that will lead her to becoming pro. Her life is entirely tennis and she's good. But when she sprains her ankle and is forced to take a break from the one thing she's been doing for as long as she can remember, she finds something different. A life. A real, regular, teenage life.
So how does the guy she's coaching for his own tennis match fit into all of this?

Word of Warning

• Girls wear short skirts and tank-tops (some are revealing, others not), mostly for their tennis matches. Ally's friend is constantly wearing short shorts or skirts.
• A boy who is addicted to caffeine is nicknamed "Red Bull" but that's never explained as being related to an actual drink.
• A guy spends a good amount of time practicing without his shirt on. Girls are clearly attracted to this and one wants a picture with him. Later, we see a slow-mo of him getting out of a pool.
• The father is inconsiderate of his daughter's actual desires and pushes her to do tennis because he doesn't want her to fail like he did.
• The girl disobeys her father at her friend's urging. Later, she hides things from him, ultimately outright lying to him.
• There is significant taunting between rivals and it's not friendly taunting.
• A scene intended to be comical involves a ball-boy getting hit off scene by a ball. There is a sort of shriek/yell, and the emergency truck drives by. The announcer casually tells everyone to go back to their game, the ball-boy just got on the wrong end of a serve by a famous player. We hear nothing about him after the truck is gone, nor do we see anything.
• A girl badly sprains her ankle and can't walk.
• A girl and her love interest share ice cream.
• A guy remarks that a pro sells his own line of underwear and "they're extremely comfortable."
• A girl forcefully kisses a guy who looks very shocked and unhappy but doesn't put much effort into pulling away. He is also assumed to be more or less taken by a different girl when this happens.
• A girl neglects her friends and family, resulting in anger and friends abandoning her.
• The mother tells her daughter, "All you are is a sum of your choices."
• The daughter ignores her father's orders and does what she likes, hoping he'll eventually agree that she's right.
• A few passionate kisses, almost all of which are in the last five minutes of the movie.
• The cliche of the daughter being misunderstood by her parents, doing what she wants finally, and them realizing how wrong they were and then agreeing with her.

My Thoughts
Honestly, it wasn't too bad for a chick flick. The thing that was the most irritating was all the tennis scenes in which nothing but tennis happened. It might have been a lot more enjoyable if I knew tennis or was interested in it.
But all things considered, the story was a nice (albeit cliche) one and just unique enough not to make me feel like I was watching something I'd already seen. The comical characters were a great addition, there just often enough to make sure the audience didn't become annoyed.
My biggest problems with it were honestly the over-told story of a daughter being misunderstood and then doing what she wants and the parents realizing how wrong they were (what kind of message does that send?) and the long tennis scenes.
So my star count is based less on objectionable content this time and more on boredom.

Book Review: The Silent Governess

Title: The Silent Governess
Author: Julie Klassen
Genre: Romance, Christian, Regency
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: Adult fiction
Age Group: 18+

Summary: Olivia Keene wants to be a teacher, but when she saves her mother's life through a violent act, things change. Fleeing her home town in obedience to her mother, Olivia encounters various friendly and unfriendly people before she is captured by the gamekeeper of the Brightwell Estate. It seems she has overheard a rather confidential conversation between Lord Brightwell and his son, Lord Bradley.
Lord Bradley has his own problems to deal with. He's too much of a gentleman to leave Olivia in a jail where she has been assaulted, but too careful to set her free with the information she knows about him--information he himself has just discovered and isn't quite sure how to come to terms with. The solution is simple: hire Olivia as the under nurse for his cousin's young son and two stepchildren--requiring her complete silence of course. But the problem gets bigger still. Olivia is a charming girl and the servants, and everyone around her, truly enjoys her company whether or not she can speak. That's not really a problem, since Lord Bradley has limited contact with his servants.
No, Lord Bradley has to deal with threats of violence, the possibility of losing his inheritance, and falling in love with the silent under nurse.

Word of Warning
Please note that I did not originally intend to review this book and so did not take notes as I usually do when reviewing a book. This means I may have missed some of the smaller things which should go under this section. By giving the bigger problems, and providing the age rating of 18+, I do not believe anything I may have missed with be a problem. I apologize for not being as thorough with this review as I usually am.

A few small things first:

• A man brings his young daughter to the bar and has her show off by adding or multiplying big numbers. She enjoys this and he is able to encourage men to bet on this, winning money off her talent.
• A man is hit with an iron poker from the fireplace over the head. He lives.
• A fire nearly kills a small child and a man is injured (not seriously) in his rescue attempt.
• Olivia is choked by a man attempting to rape her.
• A young woman accidentally walks in on a man bathing (she sees only his upper body).
• Lord Bradley is obviously attracted to Olivia, physically as well as her character. Most, if not all, descriptions of physical attraction are sweet and handled well (this is a Christian romance novel, after all).
• A young woman is attacked by wild dogs thought to have rabies. She hits her head on a rock and is bitten by one of the dogs.
• A young man stands in a doorway, watching a young woman sleep with a child in her arms. His excuse is that he is helping the child's older sister look for him (the child) as she was worried that he was missing. While this excuse is true, the fact that he stands there at all and is clearly enchanted by what he sees is a bit uncomfortable.
• A man is wrongly accused of embezzlement and nearly sentenced to death.
• Lord Bradley orders Olivia to remain silent even after she recovers her voice, to protect his reputation. He also forbids her from talking to the outside world without his approval, and various other small measures to keep his secret safe. Eventually he begins to trust her and finally he apologizes for treating her in such a disrespectful manner.
• It is commonly understood that servants are not allowed to marry other servants from the same household. Also, if a young women (servant) becomes pregnant, she is let go by the household and, if lucky, given a bit of extra money before being sent out into the world to fend for herself and her unborn baby.
• A young man is constantly flirting with servants and even the young woman everyone understands is intending to marry his cousin. He also squanders his money while away at college.
• Squandering of money, gambling, drinking (mentioned and sometimes a key part of a minor character's arc).
• A few rather sweet kisses.

Now for the bigger things:

Olivia escapes attempted rape more than once. A man forces her to kiss him (she promptly punches him in the eye). Sometimes she is rescued, other times she has to fight her way free.

The entire story revolves around illegitimate children. A woman who is unable to give birth adopts the child of another young woman (who was raped) who dies after giving birth to her son. A few more honorable men in the story confess to having love affairs with women other than their wives (often servants) and regret their actions, realizing the actions were not out of love for the women involved. Others do not confess or regret it, but the more honorable ones do this for them.
 
My Thoughts
The last time I actually finished a Christian romance novel was, well, I can't even remember when. Basically, novels which revolve mainly around romance, especially overly-preachy ones, drive me up a wall and I usually end up throwing them at the wall. It's just not my thing.
But I finished this one in less than a week. It's a sweet story and the romance, as well as the Christian aspect, are skillfully woven in between two mysteries and various other small plot points. Lord Bradley is not perfect and though Olivia boarders on being so, even she has her moments.
It was refreshing. And I can assure you I am off to see if I can find any more books by Julie Klassen. I'm very glad I rescued this book from the pile of books in my friend's bedroom. And I'm glad she let me rescue it and didn't keep it for her own bookshelf.