Simple Words

Dear All,

I really like this words from Lucid 9 so I want to share it.

I think ... I've been here before
That's right. This ... is a familiar road
There's a sign at an intersection. I think. It's rickety and rusted.
Worn from use
There's no words on it. Just two arrows: one pointing forward, one pointing backward.
I'd ... just like to stay here.
A fork in the road... is such a dangerous thing
Left. Right. A one-time decision. And -- if it turns out that you run into an obstacle - then you'll find yourself wishing that you made the other choice
Then... don't you start overthinking everything ?
What if I'd taken the other road ?
What if the other road was worse ?
What if there was another road, if only I'd looked harder ?
What if I hadn't taken a road at all ?
What if I'd gone backwards ?

"Two words diverged in a wood and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
A poem written by Robert Frost, originally intended to be a simple teasing joke.
A hint of playful satire at indecision
But people saw it as something else.
Even though they weren't poets, they started adding their own kinds of verses to the composition.
Independence. Individualism. Science, discovery, curiosity.
Free will and the human condition.
Poor Robert Frost. Suddenly, he had written an entirely different poem even without touching his pen.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took --
I--

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chip chop chip chop, the last man's dead."

Sometimes ... I really wonder about children's nursery rhimes
Why do we let young kids listen to such twisted ideologies ?
Children aren't supposed to deal with that kind of stuff
They're supposed to be innocent...
Supposed to be ... innocent...

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and ..."
...
... ?
My world ... suddenly feels warm
What is that ?
Why is it happening ?
...I suddenly get the impression that I'm awake
I think someone's holding my hand. The tips of my fingers feel warm, like they're being cradled in a loving palm.
Everything else is blinding light that drills into the back of my eyes.
Home. Home is here.
Home ....

... I dream a little longer
My dreams are softer, now. A little more delicate, like lace instead of sandpaper.

... My eyes peel open, sluggishly, like they haven't done so for a decade.
My muscles feel weak and lifeless. Spindled slugs on a sidewalk. My throat's dry and my head is smarting.
So. Looks like I'm in the hospital.
I notice that a nurse is at my bedside, fiddling with the IV drip on the table. She seems... tired. Drawn eyes, tight frown.
I clear my throat to get her attention.

---

It's not my fault
I decide to say this to the mirror every morning, even if I don't believe it.
Maybe if I say it enough, maybe if I raise my chin and put my hands on my hips, maybe if I act like I believe it--then I'll believe it.
It's not my fault, it's not my fault, it's not my fault
I stare into my reflection, meaningless words pouring from my lips

Mirror, mirror, on the wall.. who's the most broken of them all ? 

It seems to whisper back

Broken you maybe, young man -- but I see one broken more still.
Someone with nothing but blood in his eyes and no person to love. Someone who fell into darkness until, one day, to ease his pain, he had suddenly become a serial killer.

Mirror, mirror ... Couldn't I have become that man myself ?

In another world --  a boy, damaged by an accident, growing up alone and reserved, with nothing but the shadows as his constant companion.
That boy could grow into a twisted teenager, who could grown into a twisted man.

... But I think I understand
None of that happened. What more do I need to worry about ?
Maybe I disfigured an innocent student. Maybe I stabbed a human being. Maybe I took part in a nightmare that never should have been dreamt.
But in this world -- in this circumstances -- I'm not a twisted, lonely little boy.
I grew up showered with love, surrounded by friends, given an ordinary school life.
The me standing here and now... wouldn't voluntarily lift a pipe or a knife to hurt someone without purpose.
Because I'm ... not anyone else.

Book Review: The Vastness of Us (2017)

Synopsis:

When India Maxwell' mother Hayley decide to married a guy, India have to follow her mother plan. There she will live with her new stepfather Theo and his daughter, Eloise. Unexpected things happen and Finn, Eloise' boyfriend seems disliked her very much.

Review:

I think this is more likely as fiction novel than a romance novel from one of my favorite author, Samantha Young. The story is India is moving to Boston with her mother, Hayley. Hayley decide to married a wealthy man named Theo Fairweather and lived with him and his daughter Eloise. Eloise' boyfriend Finn Rochester seemed to disliked India and Eloise' friend seemed to back Eloise very much.

At first, India feels really lonely but as time passed, she started get to know Finn, Eloise' boyfriend. I feel like India is a bit aggresive to be Finn' friend because she felt she felt Finn had the same abusive father as she had. she had they had similar past and can be good friends because of that. Of course Finn seemed shocked. Later, when they kissed and India started to get away because she realize Finn is Eloise' boyfriend and she did not want to hurt her stepsister, Finn told her that Eloise is a gay and they just pretend their relationship because Finn want to put his father behind his back and Eloise can hide the truth that she is gay.

When things get tough because everyone accused India was stealing her stepsister' boyfriend, she asked Theo to help Finn. Theo decide Finn had to stay with his grandparents. It means that India had to have long distance relationship with Finn. She accepted it because she thought the most important things that Finn had the freedom from his father. That the right ending can be the happy ending too.

What confused me is the way Bryce, Eloise' friend can eavesdropped what Eloise talked to India in India' room and know that she is gay and spread the news through social media. It is kinda really nuts for me. I hope there is another drama, they all get to know about Eloise' sexual orientation than this way. Other than that, I think this is a pretty good frienship family drama book you can read this year. I recommend if you like frienship or family fiction book or if you like high school life book, You can try this. The writting is good, as usual. Samantha is good at the story plot. I enjoyed the story plot.

Rating: 4/5


Best regards,


Selene.

Book Review: Play On (2017)

Synopsis: 

Nora O'Brien had bitter past, she had to take care her sick dad and her mother work double job to cover their life. She married Jim at age 18 without know what she really wanted in life. Later Jim dead because brain aneurysm. She once meet music producer named Aidan Lennox but she married at that time. Later she meet again with Aidan yet after that, there is some issues and Aidan left her. They meet again later after 18 months and Aidan really mad with her and she had no idea what is really going on between them.


Review:

I really can't wait to read this book. First it is written by one of my favorite author Samantha Young and second it is the new series after On the Dublin Street series which I really liked so much. What I liked about this book is this book described Nora' thoughts really well, like what Nora really thinks about her future and what her doubts and worry about pursuing her love with Aidan. Nora had mature  thought like she wanted to feel self sufficient and self contentment by herself first. So, she did not seek self contentment from Aidan. Its really mature thought and quite unbelievable it is come from 22  year old girl named Nora O' Brien. I still thinking Nora should be age 27-28 with that maturity.

I like how they meet again at children hospital, while Aidan is Sylvie' uncle and they started to have feeling for each other. Its all sweet until Aidan childhood' friend Laine started created whole lies to separate them. I feel this Laine is really annoying. She disrupted their love-making two times and I can't believe how she created big lies and still both Aidan and Nora just believe her without really doubt and separate them for 18 months. I mean even Seonaid (Nora' friend and ex sister in law) knows Aidan was looking for her but lied to Nora and the next day after that "Big drama lies" created by Laine, Nora went back to Indiana her home at states. Why don't Nora stay at Scotland and wait Aidan at the studio or do some weird stalking to make sure what Laine said is right? I mean Laine is mean woman and Nora knew it. It just does not make sense to me. About Nora' father that keep the big sum of money for himself also did not make any sense to me. How could a father keep his daughter from school and let her waitresses and ruin her future? Honestly this does not make sense to me her father could do that to her, while it is pretty clear her father loved her so much.

Other than that, I enjoyed Nora and Aidan love story. I prefer they played more "love games", because they are sweet together and I prefer the story longer because the ending of this book is pretty rush for me. I hope there is a second book about Nora and Aidan' love story with pretty solid problem. Hopefully the author would continue this series with more realistic and serious problem. I still recommend this book if you liked romance book.

Rating: 4/5


Best regards,


Selene.

Game Review : Sunrider Liberation Day Captain's Edition

Dear all,

At last I managed to finish another great game. I really really like this game. I have played many great visual novel games. Still I really appreciate another great game. This is another gem from Sekai Project Humble Bundle. Since then I have buy many other great visual novel game. So their strategy to lure me become another visual novel lovers worked. 

Well, the story is sad and tragic one. Basically, Kayto Shields and Sunrider is the only military carrier from Cera planet that survived attack from PACT. The situation is very dire and it looks that there's no hope for him to survive and free Cera from PACT. But slowly he gain money, weapon, and pilots to plot strategy to free Cera. But most importantly he gained a strong ally in the name of Alliance. And the rest is history. Depend on player choice it can end in one or another way. 

Well, I don't really know how to clearly explain this. But this game was preclude by free game Sunrider Mask of Arcadius. So before someone play this game, they should play Sunrider Mask of Arcadius. Otherwise, they won't follow the story in this game because it was direct sequel. There are many choice that you can make in the game. You can choose to become pragmatist or an idealist. Depend on your choice, it will affect your weapon supply. I mean being nice to alliance will get you another weapon from alliance. But of course, it doesn't really matter since if you choose visual novel difficulty type, the enemy is piece of cake. 

For people worry that this is action type game, you have nothing to worry about. There's plenty slice of life in this game. I mean there's story that make you improve your relations with your pilots (aka harem). I have to warned though from what I heard this is not finished story because the ending is tragic (I refused to accept tragic ending). Hope the developer will make the next game to make official happy ending. But there's alternative story in the name of RETURN episodes. You will know about it when you play it. 

The graphic is good, the music is good, and the story is amazing. I really recommend this game for visual novel lovers or people who just want to play space opera game. Just choose higher difficulty level and it will become a challenge to win each battle. 

Rating : 9.5 of 10 stars

Regards, 

Angela

Book Review: Without Merit (2017)

Synopsis:

Merit Voss believe she had abnormal family. Cancer mother who lived in basement, a father who married her mother' nurse, gay brother, jealousy sister until one day she accidentaly want to suicide and that moment leads her to the truth about everything she never known before.

Review:

Collen Hoover is one of my favorite author. However, this book is different from her previous books. Seems like she wants to write something out from her usual zone. This books talks about a lot of things, atheism, Syria war, Syria refugee, gay, mental illness, depression and Jesus statue.

Merit fall in love at the first sight from Sagan, but Sagan seemed to be 'boyfriend' of her identical sister, Honor. Actually I feel this book is less romance and more to family issues and reality issues of whats world's had going on at the moment. I think that this book really want to talk a lot of things until it loses the focus of its story.

I can feel when the family start to amend whatever wrong and apologize each other and given hug. Yet other than that, I can't really see the point issue of the story. It is just Merit attempt to suicide because she can't handle the ugly truth of the family.

I did really enjoy Coho' romance book like Ugly Love, but this book really does not meet my expectation as romance book. It is more like family drama book.

Rating: 3.5/5


Best regards,


Selene.

Book Review: Hart's Broadwalk series by Samantha Young

Synopsis: 

Jessica Huntington served as doctor in woman prison. One day she found love letters from Sarah the prisoner to someone in Hartwell. Out of curiousity, she decided to deliver the love letters by herself. In Hartwell, she met the pub owner Cooper Lawson and fall in love with him. She found out what she really want in life.

Review:

Honestly this book is different than what I excpected from 'On the Dublin street' series. I love 'On the Dublin Street' series. Still, Samantha Young is one of my favorite author. I like her taste of romance.
I like how sweet the story between Jessica and Cooper. It provokes a lot of emotion here.

The thing that bother me is that I am not really enjoy that the every 'Cooper' chapter is told from third party point of view. I prefer it writes from Cooper' point of view rather than third party or writer' point of view. It is kinda disturbing for me. I prefer it is told from Jessica point of view alone or if writer decide to write from Cooper' POV, then writes it in Cooper' POV.

Rather than that, I enjoyed this book. Even tough I think this is not the best book of Samantha Young asI expected. Cooper Lawson is not hero-ine like Braden Carmichael. He is just ordinary pub owner. As I was reading, I realize he will not be my favorite man. Maybe for Jessica, but not for me.

Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis: 

Bailey Hartwell is the owner of the inn she inherited. She disliked arrogan sexy businessman Vaughn Tremaine at first. Yet slowly, they started to love each other rather than hate.

Review:

I can see in this book, author tried to create more hero-ine alpha man character like Braden Carmichael in 'On the Dublin Street' series. Yet, I do not think it is success. Frankly said, I feel Vaughn Tremaine character is more likely as Christian Grey in 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series.
I disliked that the character of Vaughn Tremaine is not that strong and even the reason he scared to be fall in love is also not that reasonable enough for me.

The passion of love between Bailey and Vaughn might be the highlight of this book. Yet, I want more than just passion of love between them. I did not enjoy this book as the first book (Jessica and Cooper). The writting of the book is okay as I like Samantha' way of writing. I suggest the next book of this series will be Emery' love story and I expected some story that more original and have strong characteristic. Yet, if you want to know what happens between Cooper and Jessica, you can read this book, because they have the wedding at Vaughn' hotel. You can continue to know their story in this book.

Rating: 3/5.


Thanks for reading.


Best regards,


Selene.

Book Review: Truly Madly Guilty (2016)

Synopsis: 

Six peoples at barbeque, threee kids and one big event at barbeque that changed their life.

Review:

I was intrigue to read this book because I like tv series Big Little Lies so much. I actually never read the Big Little Lies book. I have to say that Liane Moriarty has good writing skill and good story line, it is smooth and makes you wants to keep reading. The thing that I did not enjoy is that the plot pretty slow and some unnecessary detail character description that I want to skip until I find important points to read.

I have to admit this book really provoke much thoughts and little feelings. The characters are so strong and they are very likely described in this book. I can see Liane is good character observant and she is very detail.

Over one hundred plus page, you still can not find what happens in the barbeque. But the writting makes you want to go with the flow until you find what truly happens in the barbeque. Tiffany, Vid and their kid named Dakota, Clementine and her husband Sam bring their kids Ruby and Holly and Oliver and Erika. One moment, When all adults talking. They shock to find Clementine daughter Ruby was drowning in the fountain. Yet she is saved by CPR by Oliver, Erika and Clementine. Ambulance arrived. Apparently, Holy is the one who push her sister because Ruby stole something belong to Holly. When that happens, There is neighbour who watch the barbeque from afar named Harry. Harry tried to shout to them yet, Erika wasn't aware and freeze in shock. Harry can't let Ruby drowning, so he ran very fast unfortunately he bumped to something and fall to death.

This book talks a lot about marriage, parenting, kids, sex and friendship. Like I said, this book provokes thoughts. Like when Erika, Clementine best friend asked her to help her do IVF, to be egg donor. Clementine agreed to be egg donor for Erika, tough inside her heart, she feel like heavy burden because biologically Erika' child will be her biological kid. Yet, she fill guilty if she did not help erika to be her egg donor, tough inside her heart she feel big dilemma. I personally think, Clementine should not force herself if she is not sure to be Erika's egg donor. If Erika really her best friend, she would not do something that one day would be Clementine' burden and regret.

Talking about marriage, since the barbeque happened, which is always be regretful by marriage couple Sam and Clementine. They blamed each other to what happened to Ruby, even before knowing Holly is the one who push her sister, mother in law also blamed Clementine because she is not paid much attention to her daughters. Eventually they forgived each other and continue their marriage instead of end it.

I also get friendship rivalry between Erika and Clementine. Tough they claimed to be best friends. But still, sometimes Erika did not want to admit that Clementine do better. I can feel Erika jealous to her best friend, Clementine. Until she did not care about Clementine' feeling and beg her to be her egg donor, because she also wanted a family with kids like Clementine had. This book exposed the ugliness behind each character. There is jealousy between marriage couple too. Like when Tiffany caught her husband Vid staring at Clementine, she felt jealous. Even we all know Clementine is mother of two daughters and wife to Sam.

This book makes me realize that peoples are complicated tough they wants to be displayed as simple by others. There always be ugliness in every people, because human is not perfect. Guilty is not the solution, it is the begining to regretful life. Try to forgive people and let it go like Clementine did eventually. If you liked Big Little Lies or you like very detailed characteristic book, This book definitely should be in your shelf. This book is complicated but hard to be put down.

Rating: 4/5 


Best regards,


Selene.

Game Review : The Confines of the Crown

Dear All, 

I just finished my next game which is The Confines of the Crown. Maybe from the images, you can guess that this is OELVN. What is OELVN ? OELVN is the short for Original English Language Visual Novel which mean it was not translated from Japanese Visual Novel. Some people may prefer Japanese Visual Novel but for me I like both of them. They have their own style. I buy this game recently from Steam Halloween Sale. 

The game is quite simple but not that simple. I mean you can only know the whole truth after you play all routes. In this game, you are Madeleine Valois, prince Oscar from Gweinor country. Your role is like butler. Basically you take care Oscar needs and prepare him to become future king by marrying princess from other countries. You can guess that Oscar loved us and want to marry us. But the situation was complicated. Don't worry though, we have other princes as choices. They are prince Callum, prince Nazagi, and prince Gaston. Depend on your choice, it will affect your ending whether good, bad, or normal. From my experience, prince Oscar and Callum happy ending is the most satisfying and proper one. The others are meh. 

There are nothing special with the graphic or sound. More likely that you will be disappointed if that's what you after. The story is quite short and you will have no trouble finishing all route. There are skip button to help you fast forward the same scene again and again. Overall, I find the story quite unbelievable but hey.. who play visual novel or any games for realism. Anyway, I recommend this game for people looking for light and simple visual novels. And get this game only on sale. It's not worth its full price. 

Rating : 6 of 10 stars

Regards, 

Angela

Film Review: THe Big Sick (2017)

Synopsis:

Kumail Nanjani is a Pakistani stand up comedian. One day he met Emily and both of them start their romance. Regardless their cultural and race difference and the sickness of Emily, they try to survive their love story.

Review:

I like this film a lot. I did not expect this film will rock my heart and emotion. I cried and laugh a lot. The stand up comedy itself are good, makes me laugh. The relationship between Kumail and Emily also good, it feels natural and sweet. This film really caught me to keep watching this film and I did enjoy it.

I cried when Kumail gave bad performance during Montreal audition because he admit his feeling to Emily' sickness. I like how Kumail choose to chase his dream to be stand up comedian. He is really talented.

I really recommend this film if you like stand up comedy, romance or sweet drama. This film will absolutely caught your emotion like it did to me.

Rating: 8.3/10


Best regards,


Selene.

Film review: The Lost city of Z (2016)

Synopsis:

British explorer named Percy Fawcett journey to Amazon to find the lost city of Z.

Review:

The story of this film is simple, it is about the ambition of British explorer named Percy Fawcett to Amazon to find the lost city of Z. In his journey, he lost friends, see friend died because of Piranha and meet ancient Indian in Amazon. He even mingle with them.

Later He brought his son with him to find the city Z but has never come back. Some claim Fawcett already find the city Z. Who really knows what exactly happens to him because the ending is bias and unclear.

This film is entertaining. Only I don't like the unfinished ending, I am curious what city Z looks like. Percy Fawcett devoted his life to find Z, even he sacrifice his family, to be apart a long time with his wife, in order to go his journey to Amazon. It is a big sacrifice to something that is not really exactly known whether its exist or not.

If you like adventurous film, you can try to watch this film. It is a good cast and plot too.

Rating: 7/10


Best regards,


Selene.