Romance

The Man from Snowy River (1982)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

The Man from Snowy River (1982)

Director:

George Miller

Writers:

John Dixon

Cul Cullen

Starring:

Tom Burlinson

Kirk Douglas

Sigrid Thornton

Jack Thompson

Blurb:

In 1880s Australia, after young Jim Craig’s father dies, Jim takes a job at the Harrison cattle ranch, where he is forced to become a man.

Thoughts:

The scene near the end of The Man from Snowy River, where Jim, Tom Burlinson, rides his horse down the mountain, always fills me with excitement. I can’t help but grin at the screen while he rides after the wild horses. I love it. After years of re-watches, that feeling is always there. I hope it never goes away.

A few factoids on The Man from Snowy River, it’s based on a poem by Banjo Paterson, an Australian poet. It was the highest-grossing Australian film until Crocodile Dundee came out. My last one, the Craig family home, was actually built in Clear Hills and remains there. It burned down in a brush fire in 2006 but was rebuilt.

The film has a sweet romance, but the main story is Jim becoming a man. He’s inexperienced in life and sheltered in a way. Through the movie, he learns that he can stand firm in his morals and ideals. It’s really sweet.

Also, there are tons of shots of beautiful horses. It’s a gorgeous movie. The scenery almost makes me want to overcome my intense fear of all the spiders in Australia so that I can visit.

The Twelve Dates of Christmas

The Twelve Dates of Christmas

By: Jenny Bayliss

Blurb:

When it comes to relationships, thirty-four-year-old Kate Turner is ready to say “Bah, humbug.” The sleepy town of Blexford, England, isn’t exactly brimming with prospects, and anyway, Kate’s found fulfillment in her career as a designer, and in her delicious side job baking for her old friend Matt’s neighborhood café. But then her best friend signs her up for a dating agency that promises to help singles find love before the holidays. Twenty-three days until Christmas. Twelve dates with twelve different men. The odds must finally be in her favor . . . right?

Yet with each new date more disastrous than the one before–and the whole town keeping tabs on her misadventures–Kate must remind herself that sometimes love, like mistletoe, shows up where it’s least expected. And maybe, just maybe, it’s been right under her nose all along. . . .

Review:

I didn’t read all of The Twelve Dates of Christmas before I set it aside. I read about forty percent, and I feel like that’s enough to write a review.

I read the back of the book blurb before I began reading, and I almost wish I hadn’t. It gave away who she would wind up with, so the entire premise of twelve dates meant nothing. It was frustrating and annoying to know what was going to happen and that most of what I was reading meant nothing for the overall romance.

Kate was in her mid-thirties and had never settled down with anyone. Her longest relationship had been for four years and had ended long before the story starts. The book starts right before her first date on a Christmas themed blind date marathon. She’s paid a lot of money to go on twelve dates before Christmas in the hopes of finding the perfect person. Each date that I read had something “wrong” with them. One guy was a no show, one guy was gay, one guy didn’t want kids, one guy was hung up on his past girlfriend, and another guy was as well. It was ridiculous.

In case you couldn’t figure it out from the blurb, Kate winds up with her friend Matt. They grew up together, had a thing during college that ended poorly, and he was in a long term relationship with another woman. Still, Kate rejects every man she was presented with, and Matt’s girlfriend realized he was in love with Kate. So it all worked out beautifully.

I was not a fan.

2/5

The Awakening

The Awakening (The Dragon Heart Legacy #1)

By: Nora Roberts

Blurb:

In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword—representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own…

When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father—and it’s worth nearly four million dollars.

This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home. Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies—through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny…

Review:

As soon as I started reading The Awakening, I struggled to put it down. I wasn’t able to focus on anything once I started. I was surprised by that because I expected this story to be like Robert’s The One Chronicles. It was very light on romance, like that series, but The Awakening was nowhere near as dark. It was almost like reading a wish-fulfillment book. The main character was miserable in her life, though she had a found family that she loved completely. She finds out that her mother has been hiding a fortune from her and can then live the life she’s always wanted. She goes to Ireland, something I’ve always wanted to do. She starts writing a book and ends up being very good at it, something I’ve tried to do with varying levels of success. She then finds out that there’s a multiverse, and she’s got powers, something I think everyone has wanted at some point in their lives.

Even with how much I loved The Awakening, I did have a couple of complaints. Well, not complaints exactly, but things I wasn’t all on board with. The biggest one being the relationship between the main character and what will inevitably be her love interest. He was a bully while training her and gruff and rude while not, but I was supposed to believe that she was attracted to him. Their “relationship” would have seemed to come out of nowhere if I wasn’t used to these types of books. It was seriously lacking in any kind of attraction or build up.

I also wish it hadn’t ended on a cliffhanger. That’s only a complaint because it was so good I want to read the next book NOW. The next book doesn’t come out till November, so I’ve got a wait ahead. Considering how long I had to wait for this book from the library, I might pre-order the sequel.

Besides all the wish-fulfillment going on with The Awakening, I loved the world that was created. It’s not one I necessarily think I could live in, I love technology too much for that, but it sounded beautiful. More than a few times, I set aside the book and searched for cottages in Ireland. The descriptions were gorgeous. I also loved that all these fairy tale creatures were able to live together in harmony. The world sounded like a utopia, except for the whole fact that a demon god was trying to destroy it and everything else.

The Awakening was an excellent read, and even though it wasn’t like Nora Robert’s books of old, it was one I’m incredibly excited to keep reading. It’s the middle of January, and I’ve already read one of my favorite books of the year. It’s crazy.

5/5

In a Holidaze

In a Holidaze

By: Christina Lauren

Blurb:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

Jam-packed with yuletide cheer, an unforgettable cast of characters, and Christina Lauren’s trademark “downright hilarious” (Helen Hoang, author of The Bride Test) hijinks, this swoon-worthy romantic read will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays.

Review:

In a Holidaze is a Christmas Groundhogs day story, two things that I love, so I was particularly excited to read it. I was hoping for a bit more Groundhogs day than I got, unfortunately.

Maelyn does her best not to make waves. She wants to make sure everyone else is comfortable, sometimes at her own expense. She’s also a stickler for tradition. When everything seems to go wrong at her usual family Christmas vacation, she finds herself reliving the entire trip. It wasn’t until she decided to say f-it, I’m going to do what I want when things started to go right. I was actually a bit disappointed by that. I wanted more times through, but at the same time, I was annoyed at how obvious what she needed to do was.

Andrew, Maelyn’s love interest, seemed like a good guy. She’d had a crush on him for half of her life, but he had her firmly in the little sister category. Things, of course, changed in that department. Their intimate scenes were closer to fade to black than explicit, which was fine.

In a Holidaze was a fine book. It just needed to be punched up in a couple of plot areas. There was a large cast of characters, and they didn’t all get the time they deserved. They seemed interesting and were fleshed out, but several didn’t contribute much to the story. I was also disappointed in the handling of Andrew’s brother, Theo.

It was a cute holiday book and, with the right expectations, enjoyable.

3/5

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Director:

Ernst Lubitsch

Writer:

Samson Raphaelson

Starring:

Margaret Sullavan

James Stewart

Frank Morgan

Joseph Schildkraut

Blurb:

Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other’s anonymous pen pal.

Thoughts:

You’ve Got Mail was inspired by this movie. Even if you didn’t know, specific conversations in the film should clue you in. At least two are almost verbatim. The Shop Around the Corner is not the original of this story, though. That would belong to a Hungarian play titled Parfumerie by Miklós László. You’ve Got Mail is also not the only adaption. I have another version of this story that is coming up relatively soon, In the Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland. I clearly like this story. I should probably look into the play.

This film is from the 40s, so it’s very dated, especially in its views of women. Clara, Margaret Sullavan, talks a lot about how she won’t have to work anymore because she’ll be married soon. Kralik, James Stewart, discusses supporting a family on his salary.

I want to take a step back and focus on that for a moment. Kralik was a sales clerk. He had worked at the store the longest, so had more responsibilities, but he was still a sales clerk. There was also another clerk there that was married and had children. They were able to support a family on the salary of a sales clerk. Eighty years ago, one person could support themselves, in a city, on the salary of a retail worker. Sure, this was set in Hungary, but it was made for American audiences. Can you imagine a salesperson in a department store being able to support a family nowadays? It’s mind-boggling.

Back to the movie. Writing letters and falling in love in that way is one of my favorite tropes. It feels like the ultimate romantic storyline. Two people, who’ve never met, fall in love through words. In some cases, it’s so much easier to be yourself through words. Of course, it’s also easier to deceive, but I prefer to think of the previous scenario.

Obviously, I’m keeping this movie. It’s one I re-watch fairly frequently, even though I only own it on DVD. I should probably look into upgrading that, actually.