The Trouble with Loving You

The Trouble with Loving You

By: Sajni Patel

Blurb:

Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents’ latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she’s out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later — the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What’s not surprising: he’s not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco.

Jay Shah looks good on paper…and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He’s also arrogant and infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

Review:

***Trigger Warning for sexual assault***

The Trouble with Loving You put me through the wringer. I cried a lot at the end. I love it when a loving family embraces someone not from one. It always gets me.

Liya is a driven woman. She’s earned her MBA and has just been given a promotion that puts her very high up in her company. She has a group of female friends that are supportive and loving. Her family, on the other hand, is a different story. Her father is emotionally and verbally abusive, and her mother is so beaten down that she’s unable to stand up to it. I feel for Liya, her situation is complicated, and you can tell she feels like she’s being torn apart.

Jay has his own issues, but he’s also got the support system of a very loving family. They’ve been through the traumatic death of their father years before and come out stronger on the other side. It’s heartwarming. The way he pursues Liya does at times fight with my enjoyment of making sure consent is acknowledged and that a woman’s answer is taken at her word, but it doesn’t go too far. He’s never domineering, and I only noticed it because most of the newer books I’ve read have been leaning very clear on no being no. Part of that was Liya wanting him to keep asking, even though she would never have admitted it. She had high walls built up, and his methods helped bring them down and open her to love.

This was a kind of enemies to lovers romance. Often, the enemies part is too heavy, and it’s difficult to believe that they could overcome their issues and fall in love. That did not happen in The Trouble with Loving You. Liya and Jay had a rough start and didn’t like each other at first. However, they never went hard into the bitter, loathing enemy territory. It made the romance believable and that much sweeter.

The Trouble with Romance was the first book in a series, but I don’t know the series’s name. Goodreads has been pretty poor about getting that information updated, though that might be an issue with the publishers, not with Goodreads. The next book in the series comes out in September, and it’s about a character I’m eager to read. A few of the book characters were married, but there are at least a couple that I hope get their own stories.

4/5

The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Director:

Lewis Teague

Writers:

Mark Rosenthal

Lawrence Konner

Diane Thomas

Starring:

Kathleen Turner

Michael Douglas

Danny DeVito

Blurb:

When Joan Wilder is abducted while on a trip along the Nile, her boyfriend, Jack Colton, and pal Ralph rush to rescue her and retrieve a fabled jewel.

Thoughts:

There are many things wrong with The Jewel of the Nile. One of the biggest things is Michael Douglas. Not just his character, either. Kathleen Turner was right to fight not to be in this film. I own it, I know, but it’s because it came with Romancing the Stone in a collection.

I always forget just how bad Jewel is. I’ll be high off of how much I love Romancing the Stone and decide to pop it in, and I get completely deflated. The story doesn’t make sense. It’s wildly racist and sexist and not fun to watch. Unless you’re watching with a friend and making fun of it the entire time.

Jack, Douglas, is such a giant dick in this movie. He’s low-key abusive. He can’t handle Joan’s fame or that everything he ever wanted is because of her. He resents her and lashes out a few times when he feels threatened. He blames her for his problems, implies that she was sleeping with a dude, and is just an all-around douche bag.

What’s worse, the movie focuses as much on him as it does on Joan. I don’t care about him! I loved the first movie despite him. I loved it because of Joan. Focusing more on Jack made a bad story worse. They should have never wound up together. She should have spent her six months with him, realized she deserved more and left him. She could have had a different love in this movie. They do it all the time for male leads. What’s the issue with doing it here?

I don’t typically want a reboot of an older movie, but I would love to see a reboot of this series. As long as the female character was the lead and the man wasn’t a sexist dick. Maybe don’t even have a dude. Just give me an adventure movie with a female lead who’s a famous romance novelist. Is that too much to ask for???

And now it’s time for Random Facts I learned from the Wikipedia Article!

-Kathleen Turner did not want to make this movie, she thought the scripted sucked, but she was contractually obligated to and was threatened with a $25m lawsuit.

-Multiple crew members died in a tragic plane crash.

-The crew got sick while filming in Morocco and were told it was hepatitis, but then told if they paid a bribe, everything would be okay.

-After hours of setting up an intense night shoot, it was discovered there was no film in the cameras, and they had to scrap the day entirely.

And that’s been another edition of Random Facts I learned from the Wikipedia Article!

After all I learned about Romancing the Stone, I thought that the writer for it, Diane Thomas, had died before Jewel came out, and that’s why she didn’t write it. Come to find out, she was alive and well and could have written the movie, but Douglas felt she wanted too much money. They ended up bringing her in to help with re-writes, but who knows how much she actually did.

It’s a miracle Jewel of the Nile got made. Sadly, it’s a miracle I wish we hadn’t been given.

Currently Reading 02-25-21

Well, I finished reading Ready Player Two. Obviously not a fan if you read my review. I’m moving on to The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel. Based on the blurb it sounds not quite an enemies to lovers, but definitely not a love at first sight. I like the prospect of some witty banter. I’d love witty right now.

Ready Play Two (Ready Play One #2)

Ready Play Two (Ready Play One #2)

By: Ernest Cline

Blurb:

An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?

Days after Oasis founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vault, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous, and addictive, than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle and a new quest. A last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who will kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

Review:

Did Cline increase the references, or did Ready Player One really have this many? Holy shit, Ready Player Two was almost unreadable. Every single page was talking about some kind of 80s entertainment. Oh, they need to go to this place because of…cue a two-page explanation about an obscure arcade game. There had to be twenty pages alone on John Hughes movies and at least double that on Prince. The information dumps were at best mildly interesting, but they did not move the story forward. There were supposed to be relationships between characters, and I was meant to believe that Wade and Samantha were still in love, but that part of the story could have filled two pages.

Also, somehow, Wade became an even bigger asshole. The first chapter is you relieving every stupid decision he’s made in the last three years, and he refuses to acknowledge he might have been wrong. Then at the end of the book, he’s supposed to have changed when he experienced memories from a long-dead woman. I just—no.

I truly wanted to like this book. I wanted past me to have enjoyed something good, but after reading Ready Player Two, I can’t even go back to read Ready Player One to see if it’s better.

I could almost get past all of the references if the ending wasn’t just sooooooo bad. He’s spent the entire book learning why it was a bad idea to upgrade the OASIS, even goes so far as to say that he never logged into it again with the ONI system. Yet, he still “steals” the brain scans of all the dead people who’d used an ONI and sent them off into space. He says they struggled with the decision, wondering if they should ask, but decided that it would take too long to get an answer, so they’d do it anyway. Are you fucking kidding me??? He knew it was wrong, but did it anyway because it’s what he wanted to do.

Then magically, Samantha meets him halfway and says that she may have been wrong about her judgments of him, and he says that she was partially right. Then they’re back together again. Basically, Samantha changes completely during a quest that she wasn’t on half of the time.

They all lived happily ever after, having found love again. Even though they still lived in a world on the brink of total collapse that was addicted to their machine. A world that was suffering from extreme overpopulation, but they all had kids. I just—I can’t understand the complete lack of logic and the character’s absolute selfishness. Wade is the definition of a Gary Stu. Which, I normally have no issues with a Mary Sue character, but he is just so damn unlikeable. I can’t think of a single redeeming quality that he has. Yet in his universe, there are now two versions of him, and he’s getting everything he’s ever wanted.

I love the idea of the OASIS, even the ONI, to a degree. However, there is no denying that they’re drug pushers. They’re selling a drug at cost and then doing little to help their addicts. They have unlimited billions, trillions between the four of them, they’re the largest company in the world, and yet they can’t help with climate change? They know that people are being killed when they log into the OASIS using an ONI, yet they provide only a couple of places around the world for protection? They own the company, a company that makes unheard-of amounts of money through micro-transactions. Why can’t they use that money for good? It talks about the charities that the characters have created, but they’re so focused that it leaves out a considerable section of the population. Basically, they are children and make decisions like children. It was frustrating.

I’m giving this two stars instead of one because I was able to read the whole thing. I skimmed a lot, but I did make it through to the end. I’m being generous because of how much I remember loving the first book.

2/5

The Goonies (1985)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

The Goonies (1985)

Director:

Richard Donner

Writer:

Chris Columbus

Starring:

Sean Astin

Josh Brolin

Jeff Cohen

Corey Feldman

Kerri Green

Martha Plimpton

Ke Huy Quan

John Matuszak

Robert Davi

Joe Pantoliano

Anne Ramsey

Blurb:

A group of young misfits called The Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on an adventure to find a legendary pirate’s long-lost treasure.

Thoughts:

I missed The Goonies when I was making my Best Adventure Movies list. I’ll be correcting that shortly. It fits my definition of an adventure movie to a ‘T.’ A group of underdogs go on a quest to find the lost pirate treasure of One-Eyed Willy. What more could you ask for?

I can’t think of much to say about The Goonies. I have no thoughts.

It’s fun to see all these young actors since most of them went on to have active careers. I like the treasure and booby traps and all the character’s little quirks. The truffle shuffle is a bit fat phobic. There are probably a couple of other less-than-acceptable moments as well, there always seems to be in these older movies, but nothing stands out.

Reading over the Wikipedia entry, there isn’t much there either. They built a full-size replica of a pirate ship for the movie, then had to destroy it when they were done because no one wanted it. In the 120-page script, there was a scene with an octopus that ended up being cut, which explains Data’s comment at the end. A sequel has been discussed more than a few times, and it’s also been denied. Who knows? Does it even need one? No.

That’s all I’ve got. It’s a great movie, but my brain has nothing more to add to that. *shrug*