Hello friends, happy Friday and welcome to my Weekly Update!

Currently Reading:

The Dead Zone: I’m 86% of the way through; things are starting to come together. At first the chapters didn’t seem to relate to one another and this really confused me, but then we got a chapter that sort of started to bring things together. Now I’m super interested to see how this is going to end.

Lastly I’m reading Alone in the Wild by: Kelley Armstrong. I only started reading this, this morning and I’m already motoring through it. It’s been fast paced and has kept my interest. With every passing Rockton novel it feels like Armstrong outdoes herself.

What I’ve Read:

Last week I finished reading By Your Side by: Kasie West. I enjoyed the fluffiness of this novel, but it didn’t really wow me, and the secondary characters really bothered me.

I also finished Tatouine by: Jean-Christophe Réhel. This was a short, quirky read about a man who lives with cystic fibrosis. This felt raw and honest and blunt, filled with dark humour. Basically make light of a dark situation.

I lastly finished The Sleepwalker by: Chris Bohjalian. This was interesting and definitely had me guessing until the end. I appreciated how he would bury a seed and let his plot grow; sometimes you’d think it be odd but later on it all makes sense, it was a pretty clever novel.

Links to my my blog posts this past week:

Weekly Update #17 🐦

Review: Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Unicorn Training

Let’s Talk About… ER Season Four

Review: Villain

Links to posts I enjoyed around the blogosphere:

Kristin @Kristin Kraves Books talked about her favourite bookish podcasts – I love podcasts and I really need to check some of these out

Éimhear @A Little Haze posted a great review of When You Were Everything – I loved that book so much, I think there needs to be more books about friend break-ups!

Kate @Your Tita Kate wrote a great post about the Anti-Asian Racism in the show Shadow and Bone – I’m slowly making my way through this show and it’s good to point out and hold the show accountable to what was done wrong and what can be done better

CW @The Quiet Pond posted a pond-cation with author Aamna Qureshi for a trip through Pakistan – this was so visual and just so much fun to read, wanderlust happening for sure!

Em/Zainab @Em’s Bookish Musings wrote about an important topic regarding advocacy beyond media – she speaks to the book community to step up and show support to real issues involving real people and not just about book characters and tv shows, powerful post

It’s the end of another week; nothing too exciting happening here. It’s been rainy and cloudy all week (minus Thursday) so it’s really just put me in a meh kinda mood. Hoping for some sunshine. This blog post is going up a little later because I just came back from getting my first Covid vaccine, woot woot!

A few positives from this week:
– got my first vaccine shot!

What I’m watching:

Gilmore Girls; season 6. I actually started this season last week, but I’d only watched 1 episode, now I’m a little bit further and wow, Emily is horrible. Like I think I always knew she was horrible, but the past few epiosdes she’s gotten worse. It’s interesting to watch Rory go to her community service… where Emily assumes she’s doing it with wanted criminals, which I thought was overly presumptuous and I hated watching it. I have like watching Luke and Lorelai together, they’re cute.

One Tree Hill; season 6. I’m almost done this season and what I realized I don’t care about Lucas and Peyton; I find them so boring – I know they are going to leave the show, but man it feels like they already left. None of their plots have the same heart that they used to have. I really love Sam, I love how she’s grown and become part of Brooke’s life. I have to say seeing her with Victoria is really sweet, but I can’t forget how awful Victoria has been to Brooke. When she goes to Brooke begging her to come back to the company, guilt tripping her about everyone losing their jobs, it really shouldn’t be on Brooke’s shoulders and I hated that. I also thought it was a little rushed that after a month Julian wants to whisk Brooke and Sam off to LA to be a little family. If it had been 6 months, a year ok, but not 1 month. The weird plot where they make Jamie have a crush in his teacher was so strange – it felt so out of place. I also can’t forget about Dan’s heart being eaten by a dog – that still makes me laugh.

Schitt’s Creek; season 4. I’m slowly chipping away at this season, like one episode a week but I’m now 4-5 eps in and I love David and Patrick, they are so cute. Every time they’re on screen my heart melts. Watching Alexis go to school and do something for herself is fun, and speaking of fun, John trying to run the motel is hilarious. He really does love it!

Shadow and Bone; season 1. Like everyone else I’m on the hype train. I haven’t decided if I’m going to write a wrap up blog about this because I feel like my thoughts are just I liked this, there are things that could have been done better, but for the most part I’m really liking this more than I thought I would. I enjoyed the books for the most part, but this show has put it all together really well – I also really like Ben Barnes, he’s such a great actor.

Station 19; season 4. This came back this week and boy what a heart pounding episode where we didn’t know if Miller and Warren were going to make it after diving off the boat to save a dead man. The flashing back and forth between them in the water and their lives a few days before was really effect storytelling.

Grey’s Anatomy; season 17. I think I heard that this got renewed for a season 18 😱 but I have to say the epiosdes have really gotten good. This episode we pretty much said goodbye to Avery. He wants to take over the foundation and make it better for all people, especially for people who the system fails. His journey to get there was hard for him, but he knew the decision he wanted to make, plus we got to see April again and it was such a beautiful episode.

What I’ve watched:

Orange is the New Black; season 3. This season was all over the place, but for the most part I enjoyed this season. Like I mentioned last week, I didn’t like the whole panty storyline; I don’t like or care about what is happening to Piper – I did like the addition of Stella; I don’t really care about what is happening to Alex either – but I did like the addition of Lolly. What I did like – the different friendships that were formed because it felt like so many unlikely pairings happened that I actually enjoyed seeing. I liked that we got to start seeing backstories to characters we’ve seen for 3 seasons. I also liked the season finale, watching them all escape to the lake felt fun and freeing. I have a feeling that next season is going to be very different as it looks like so many new characters will be joining the show.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed; (rewatch). I remember this movie, but not as much as the first. In the first movie I hated Fred, he was such an airhead, but this movie he actually came off as an actual person so it wasn’t as cringy to watch. I hated the way Velma felt she needed to dress up and be “hot” to get the guy; I do like that she got together with the guy by being herself. The jokes were pretty funny and overall, it was a fun watch.

School of Rock; (rewatch). Clearly I’m on a rewatch spree, I saw this on Netflix and just knew I had to dive in. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this and it still holds up. There are great moments and I just love Jack Black.

My latest Instagram posts from this week: