Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi

Here we go, The Last Jedi! I was surprised to find it on Netflix – this is the only Star Wars movie they have on there. I wonder why? Maybe because it’s gotten so many negative reviews, that not many people want to pay to see it.
I am here mainly because the current Captain Marvel controversy is being compared to the uproar that was created by the Last Jedi. So I am very curious.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am not a huge Star Wars fan. In fact, I prefer the prequels to the original trilogy. A lot of it has to do with the prequels premiering during my time – they were the cinematic Star Wars experience for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching those three movies in the cinema. In fact, I’ve seen each of the prequels twice in the cinema, and then several more times over the years on DVD.
So when Star Wars Episode VII came out, I even went to see it in the cinema (which is a rarity for me) to remember the good ol’ days. And I was entertained while I was watching the movie, but it didn’t have a huge impact on me. In fact, it was so bland that I didn’t feel the need to watch Episode VIII, and I’m only watching it now because it’s on Netflix and I wanna see if it’s really as bad as people say it is.

MY REVIEW (contains SPOILERS)
To sum it up: this movie is terrible. You can find plenty of reasons why in the ramblings section down below, and note that I stopped writing things down because it got to be too much. The level of incompetence of these filmmakers is startling. But not as startling as the disrespect that these filmmakers have shown all the Star Wars fans by making this abominable movie. As I already said, I only like the prequels, and even I am personally offended by the way that this movie ruined all the already existing characters and introduced new, insufferable characters.
I don’t want to spend much more time on this, as this dumpster fire of a movie doesn’t deserve to have so much of my energy invested in it, so let me just say EVERYTHING apart from the visuals IS TERRIBLE. Disney clearly doesn’t care about its own legacy, as it keeps churning out terrible live-action versions of our beloved animated movies; and it gives even less forks about other iconic films, so we should have known that the Disney Star Wars would be bad.
Yet they could have been less terrible if anyone bothered to apply sense to making this trilogy. They could have at least hired the same writer to work on this entire trilogy, maybe then some of these characters would have made sense. But I guess no one cares about characters, or story, or legacy, when you have IMPORTANT AGENDA to push. Again, I don’t wanna go into details, because the SJWs deserve even less of my time and effort than Disney does, so I will only say this once – a feature film needs to have a plot and characters, not just blatant political and social agenda. The best films have always had an underlying agenda, but it was not just plastered onto the screen, it was subtly visible among compelling stories and fully-developed characters.
This abomination is so badly written that even when the scenes are supposed to be epic they’re boring as hell. The pacing is off, there’s no tension. In fact, I stopped caring about anyone or anything when Leia turned into Space Jesus. Meanwhile Luke Skywalker apparently died at the end of Episode VI, because the person we have here is his body double, who has nothing in common with the original Luke. Not that Leia is any better, but her character is so perfunctory that it might as well not exist. Finn, who was a promising character in Episode VII, has to suffer through a boring and useless subplot and doesn’t even get his big heroic moment at the end. Po Dameron is a white man, so he has no right to exist in the Brave SJW World. Speaking of which, Strong Purple-haired Lady is a terrible leader, who inspires no confidence in her subordinates, has secret plans that she doesn’t share with anyone, and lets so many Good Guys get blown to pieces before she decides to execute her heroic effort in destroying the Bad Guys’ ships. The effort that makes no sense, just like nothing else makes sense in this movie. As for Rey, I can’t even with that Mary Sue…
Please proceed to my ramblings to see more of my bewilderment and grievances.

RAMBLINGS

I hope this is going to be somewhat coherent, given that I don’t remember any actual details of the previous movie. The iconic introduction is being vague about the state of affairs. At least the main idea, as always, is that the Resistance is fighting the Bad Guys.
How do they make Domhnall Gleeson look so unlikable? He’s such a charming fellow, but here he’s just repulsive. He’s being a bit too dramatic, no? Again, I’m a fan of the prequels where Palpatine was a more subtle baddie.
Oh look, Aunt Lysa fell through the Moon Door and right into the First Order attack ship.
Did they just make a “yo mama” joke on Star Wars? I gotta say, this prank call would have been fine in the Star Wars parody, but in an actual movie it doesn’t work.
Why is Leia dissing C3PO? Is that an inside joke that I don’t get?
These bomber ships are such easy targets. They’re giant and un-maneuverable, of course they’re all gonna get destroyed. And how are the bombs supposed to work anyway? There’s no gravity in space, so you can’t drop a bunch of bombs down the shoot and expect them to land in the same spot down below without gravity. I would buy it if the bomber ships were kamikaze – they crash into the target, exploding all the bombs in the process. But to have the bombs dropped down like that – I don’t buy it. I also don’t buy that the girl was able to catch that remote. She watched it fall past her, and didn’t make a move for it. Unless she has four-feet-long arms, she cannot catch it.
Am I supposed to remember why Finn woke up in a jacuzzi bag? Cause I sure don’t.
I wish that at least one movie would skip this whole “Battle-scarred hero refuses to go back and save everyone, spends half a movie being persuaded to help, adamantly refuses to help, but then changes his mind at the last hour” routine. It’s only implemented to pad the movie’s running time, and I would rather have a 90-minute coherent film than two-and-a-half hours of pointless rhetoric and will-he-won’t-he fake suspicion.
THAT IS SNOKE?! This shriveled old thing?! Hell no! Why couldn’t they keep him as a giant hologram? He was an enigma in the previous movie, and a real threat. But this thing… nope, not working for me. Palpatine was played by an actual human actor and was much scarier than this thing.
Adam Driver does look like a child! What a difference the absence of facial hair makes.
Luke has a point. Why do they need him so badly? He’s just one man, even if he is a Jedi. They had many Jedi in the prequels, and they all got slaughtered by the Bad Guys. So what’s one man gonna do? I guess the answer is in the original trilogy, but I don’t really like it, and I don’t wanna see it again to get the answers.
So, Luke knows that Rey has seen this Jedi Temple before, yet he has to keep asking her who she is?…
I know it’s not supposed to be funny, but I laughed when the Bad Guys appeared next to the Good Guys’ ships. I kept waiting for a giant Snoke hologram to beam into Leia’s ship and go, SURPRISE, BITCH.
I’ve seen too many episodes of Cinema Sins, to the point where I can’t watch movies normally anymore. Like in this scene where Kylo Ren blows up the Good Guys’ ship and Dameron gets caught in the explosion and thrown across the room, I’m like “He survives this”.
“Burning fuel”? What is this, Fast & Space Furious? I don’t know that much about Star Wars, but I’m pretty sure they never had a problem with fuel before.
IS PRINCESS LEIA SPACE JESUS NOW?!
Subtle vegan messaging is subtle.
It IS a cheap move, R2D2. Made even cheaper by the fact that, apparently, Princess Leia can’t be killed.
I’m sensing the SJW agenda radiating off Laura Dern. Again, I don’t remember the previous movie at all, as it turns out, but I’m pretty sure that Poe Dameron was the good character then. And now he’s a problem?
Fuel, space trackers, other stuff… what a bunch of nonsense. I kind of miss the Senate hearings from Episode I and those giant pod conferences from Episodes II and III. At least there were all kinds of different characters there, and so much pathos. Now there’s a casino? What?! I’m so confused… Are they doing a cross-over with the Matrix? The master code-breaker sounds like the master key-maker.
What the actual duck is happening with Rey and Kylo?! Since when can people Face-time through the Force?!
Ah, the old “I was cleaning my gun and it went off” defense. I had no idea it worked with blasters.
Wait… “Reach out with your feelings”?! I thought the Jedi aren’t supposed to have feelings. That was the whole problem with Anakin in the prequels. Was that all a lie? Is this a lie? Why is this movie so confusing?!
No one will be seated during the “Casino Royale” portion of this movie. And now there’s weird horse racing? Why the hell do we need that?! I feel like I’m watching an actual Star Wars movie and a Star Wars parody cut together into one long, idiotic movie.
How is there still an hour-and-a-half left?! I feel like I’ve been watching this for about five hours, and there’s still over half a movie left…
Oh so this is a Star Wars and Marvel cross-over. Hello, Benicio Del Toro!
I can’t with this Finn subplot. Why is this important?! I know they’re supposed to disable some tracker device, but what does Space Horse Casino Royale have to do with it? No wonder this movie is so long.
Adam Driver is a much better actor than Daisy Ridley. He conveys more emotions through subtlety than she does with all her shouting and being over-dramatic. It’s like watching the early Harry Potter movies where the over-acting kid actors were obliterated by the adult actors who barely had to move a facial muscle.
Are Rey and Kylo friends now? What the fork just happened?! Kylo is the last hope now? And Yoda is back, this time to be an anarchist. Burning books like a child delinquent. Because of course the perfect Rey already knows all the sacred Jedi texts. She was born with the knowledge, as she is perfect. Ugh. Pass my barf bag.
Wow, Oscar Isaac looks like he really doesn’t want to be there. I feel you, man, I don’t want to be watching this either.
How are Rey and Kylo “seeing the future” now?! This plus Face-timing makes them either the most powerful couple in all the Galaxy, or it makes this movie stupid as fork. I’m gonna go with the second option.
This is so boring! And there’s 50 more minutes left, how?!?!
I guess the fight between Rey and Kylo and Snoke and those red guards was supposed to be epic and stuff. But it was so boring. And Daisy is such a bad actress that I can’t take anything seriously. Ugh. And people were complaining about Hayden’s acting, yet he was never this bad.
This is stupid and pointless. I don’t care enough to comment anymore.
Oh for fork’s sake! They can’t even let Finn sacrifice himself?! Because she loves him all of a sudden?! What the actual fork!?
I knew that Luke wasn’t really there, and the whole fight with Kylo was fake, but why the fork did he actually die?! And how strong is Rey, who comes from nothing, that she is able to move entire huge piles of rocks with no training?! Didn’t Luke spend years training with Obi-Wan and Yoda? THIS MAKES NO SENSE.

After Life, Season 1

This is a very personal review. I can’t believe I’m even posting it, but here it is.

What a brilliant show! I just finished the last episode – there’s only six half-hour ones, thank you, British television! So I’m full of the feels, and this is not going to be very coherent. Which, I figure, is perfect for a show like this.
Ricky Gervais continues to surprise me. I know that he’s very funny, with his own brand of humor that many people find offensive, but I like most of his stuff. And I think of him as a comedian – both as an actor and a writer/director. So every time he does something serious and thoughtful, I am amazed at the level of depth, humility and kindness he brings to his creations.
“After Life” is the story of a man who just lost his beloved wife, and with her, the will to live. He probably would have killed himself immediately, if he didn’t have a dog to take care of. So he manages to get out of bed every day, and lead an existence devoid of any shred of happiness or hope. He titters on the brink of death, yet doesn’t cross the line; he manages to anger, but not completely alienate those closest to him. People annoy him, probably because they go on living despite the fact that his world has ended. Worst of all, he claims to not care about his own life to the point where he deliberately puts himself in harm’s way, yet the only people that he’s hurting by his behavior are the people who still care about him.

I recently lost the person that I loved most in this world, and who loved me the most, and this show displayed so precisely all the feelings that I’ve been going through. All the terrible feelings and thoughts that you don’t share with anyone, because they are too dark to put into words. I can safely say that I’ve gone through the lows that Tony has gone through, and I didn’t even have a dog or a cat to pull me from the threshold. I have my best friend of almost 30 years, who lives on the other side of the world, and talks to me everyday through the wonders of modern technology. And the thought of something bad happening to me and her not knowing about it, is really the only thing that kept me from doing something terrible.

I can’t believe I just wrote that. And I can’t believe that I’m going to post it, but what good is a personal blog if you can’t share personal feelings on it? And what good are those feelings if you can’t share them, in the hope that, if nothing else, sharing those feelings can let someone else know that they’re not the only ones going through something so awful.
That’s exactly what Gervais did with this show – he not only showed those who grieve that they’re not alone, but that it’s okay to feel like you’re already dead. Because you’re not really, it’s only a feeling, and that feeling will fade away over time.

“After Life” has many precise quotes about life, death and the impact that people have on the world and the people around them. My favorite one has got to be this exchange between Tony and a widow that he talks to at the cemetery:

Tony: When you’re a good person, doing things you want to do is the same as doing good.
Widow: And you’re a good person, and I’d really rather you didn’t kill yourself. Because that would be a waste. You may not like living much, but you made the world a better place. And don’t give up because then they’ve won.
After Life, season 1

Death March Escape, by Jack J. Hersch

The full title reads – Death March Escape: The remarkable story of a man who twice escaped the Nazi Holocaust.
I would say “remarkable” is an understatement in this context. There have only been a handful of recorded cases of prisoners escaping from concentration camps during WWII and not all of those who managed to escape, ever made it to freedom. Many were hunted down, found and killed; many perished on their own, without food and shelter.
Which is why the story of David Hersch, a man who escaped a death march – got captured but somehow not killed – then escaped again – was taken in by kind and courageous people – and lived to tell his tale… is unbelievable!
And yet that is the story we are fortunate to read in this amazing book. I was going to say “wonderful”, but I’m always hesitant to use such words when talking about horrific events. Yet Jack Hersch, David’s son, wrote a truly wonderful book, in the way that it tells the full story without skipping details or minimizing the horror, yet it’s almost a light read. In other words, you can read this book and still sleep well at night, compared to reading some other books on the subject that leave you with nightmares for days and nights to come.
I loved the way that the book was framed as both the story of David’s life and time in the camps, but also as Jack reconnecting with his father. In fact, the idea of writing the book came to Jack after he happened upon a photograph of his father on the memorial website for the Mauthausen concentration camp. A photograph that Jack had never seen before, of a man who used to be his father before the horrors of WWII. This discovery prompted Jack on a quest to find out as much as he could about David Hersch, and in a way to find out more about himself.
I highly recommend this book to a variety of people! If you’re interested in WWII – this book is for you. If you’re interested in the Holocaust but are afraid of the more harrowing stories – this book is for you. If you’re interested in stories about the strength of the human spirit – this book is for you. If you’re interested in stories of survival against unimaginable odds – this book is for you.
Finally, if you’ve ever wondered if your family has any secrets or fascinating tales to tell – this book is definitely for you, as it will spark curiosity in you to find out more about your own family.

xoxo, Dan Humphrey’s murderous alter-ego

I hope you guys enjoyed my rambling reviews! I definitely enjoyed writing them. It felt liberating to share my thoughts unfiltered, unrestrained by the standard reviewing conventions. Thank you for reading, liking and commenting – let’s do this again very soon!

THIS POST IS LIGHT, BUT FULL OF SPOILERS!

On the whole, YOU proved to be much more interesting than I expected.

I’ve read and seen variations of this story plenty of times before, yet YOU brought something fresh and unexpected. For instance, it gave us a new version of Dan Humphrey and Serena Van Der Woodsen, and it played with their characters and their relationship until I didn’t see them as those characters anymore.

In fact, Joe and Beck (yes, even Beck) are more complex and therefore interesting characters than Dan and Serena. It’s good that they didn’t try to justify Joe’s actions by his terrible childhood or the sadistic bookshop owner who used to lock Joe in the basement. Those points were made to give meaning to Joe’s character rather than portray him as a victim of circumstance. His actions are without a doubt criminal and despicable, but they seem more realistic than those of your usual fictional serial killer. You can see how a person could rationalize his actions to the point where even murder seemed okay. And Joe still cared enough about Paco to try and help him – hey, he even did a bonus murder for his sake! – and he almost succeeded at having a normal relationship. And boy, was I glad when it was over because I did not want to see Karen end up in the dungeon.

Beck is more difficult for me to digest. We have established that she is THE WORST, but there’s something irresistible about her that draws people in – I’m not going to deny that. Still, she was my least favorite character on the show – apart from Ron who was the actual worst, but at least the plot didn’t revolve around him – and I don’t want to talk more about her than I already have. One thing I will mention is that, upon further inspection, I’m not the only one who’s bothered by Beck not having curtains.

The most underappreciated character of the show was Peach – I want a spin-off just for her, but in an alternate reality where Beck is not involved. Peach is the Blair Waldorf of this show, only she’s a more tragic and far less caricature character. And she is so SO gorgeous! I will miss her and her incredible rare book collection.

The main non-character related aspect of the show that I love is ALL THE BOOKS. Those are my jam, and I am here for that! Joe is me when he says that all you need to know about him is hidden in the room full of rare books. Of course that’s also the room where he keeps his prisoners and later their dead bodies… At least I don’t have that layer to me, I swear! Still, the book love is so sincere and the store is properly moldy and cloaked in perpetual semi-darkness. And the reality of this mostly used-book store selling the latest Stephen King to stay afloat would have been painful, had I not been a massive Stephen King fan. Thank you for choosing him as you financial savior!

And the writing… I don’t want to say Beck is me when she’s procrastinating her writing assignments, mostly cause I can’t stand Beck. Yet it’s true – I procrastinate my writing assignments like it’s nobody’s business. I’m working on it, but it takes time and energy and self-control… and probably something else, but I’m too lazy to come up with more.

Speaking of writing, I am at once annoyed with Blythe for being so pretentious, and I applaud her for getting rid of all digital distractions and even going so far as trying to find a typewriter for Beck. Cause really, is there any other way to stop procrastinating and start writing?

It turns out that one of the ways is having a reason to write. YOU is the reason why I wrote all these reviews, and for that I am grateful. Let’s hope Season 2 doesn’t disappoint.

Bookworm’s paradise

I found out about NetGalley exactly a year ago.
Before then all the books that I read came from my own personal collection, or a vast, vast library that I was working at. Let’s just say, I never ran out of books to read, but rather my book piles kept growing and growing. Yet I always wanted more.
It’s in my nature. Maybe it’s the post-Soviet upbringing, where I hardly had anything, books included, and it was never enough. In fact, I could never get enough books. In those dark days of no Internet, cable or even DVDs, books were all I had.
I am a genetic bookworm – both my parents were huge book nerds. But while my mother mostly borrowed books, as she had no place to store them, my father filled his whole apartment with books to the point where he had to, literally, sleep on top of piles of books. Needless to say, with that pedigree I learned how to read at age 3 and was always ravenous for books.
I will not ramble on about this now, it’s a story for another post – or seven. Now is the moment to praise NetGalley.
So it was January 2017 and I was lamenting the fact that I barely got any new books during the holidays and I, like, ran out of reading material. Which is so not true, but you can never tell a bookworm that. I was browsing through Goodreads, looking at my friends’ reviews and getting more and more agitated because I kept running into the same disclaimer – I got a free copy of this book through NetGalley.
What was this NetGalley, I wondered, and how can I get some free books from it? God knows I’ve earned the right to get free books over a lifetime of obsessive devotion to literature! A quick Google search revealed that NetGalley was a treasure trove of brand new and upcoming releases that could be yours free of charge, if only you’d be so kind as to leave a review on your Goodreads, blog and other social media platforms (also don’t forget Amazon).
Oh em gee, thought I! All these free books in exchange for something that I already do – writing reviews?! Sign me up and give me all the books, please and thank you! It turned out that NetGalley and all the publishers were incredibly generous and really enthusiastic about literature, to the point where most of the books that I requested I would receive. I never even hoped for that much! Pretty soon my Kindle was bursting from countless electronic pages, and my mind was bursting from all the stories that I could help share with the world.
And then my mother got really sick and all my reading and especially reviewing whittled down to nothing…
2018 was officially the worst year of my life. The most challenging, devastating year. One where everything about me was put to the test, including my natural-born love of literature. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t lose myself in a book. Partly because I couldn’t sit still for longer than five minutes at a time, so consumed was I by taking care of my mother and trying to hold on to a job. And partly because reading requires more work than watching movies or shows, especially when you want to write a good review when you’re finished.
Long story short, I closed out the year of devastation and despair without my mother, and with a gaping hole where my heart used to be. And now, at the start of 2019, I realize that I need to fill that hole with something. Could it be my old soulmate Literature? After all, we’ve had some amazing times together over the years. Literature was my constant companion, even when all else failed me. Hopefully it will pull me out of this deep, dark hole now, since nothing and no one else can.
And the reason why I started and concluded this post with praise for NetGalley is that one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get my reading and reviewing back on track. I feel terrible about getting those wonderful free books and then letting publishers down by not reviewing them on time.
Well, if any publishers or NetGalley team is reading this, please know – I will get better, I will keep reading, I will improve my reading and reviewing habits, and I will make you proud! Okay, that last one was kind of cheesy, but when it comes to books I am a cheesy, over-the-top, unapologetic book lover and I will prove that with my actions in 2019!
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to my Kindle – stories await!

A muser and a rambler

I am a reader, a writer and a movie/show watcher. In no way am I a critic. I’m not even sure one can call oneself a critic, and yet so many do. Call yourself a reviewer, if you like, because reviewing is what you do. Meanwhile, I shall call myself a muser and a rambler, since that is what I do – I muse and I ramble.
I love those words! I muse when I’m calm and simply wish to ponder what I’ve learned. My favorite part of the definition of “to muse” is that it’s done to oneself – you muse to yourself. In my case, I muse to myself cause there’s no one else to muse to. Now that I’ve lost my mother, who was the only person capable of listening to my musings and ramblings, I have no one else to share my thoughts with. So I shall muse, and sometimes I shall ramble – which is a more irritated variation of musing – on the pages of this blog. Hopefully, there will be other, virtual people interested in what I have to say.
Still, reviewing is what we are expected to do, at least on the sites like NetGalley, Amazon and Goodreads, so that’s what I’ll also try to do. One of the reasons why I decided to launch an actual blog was to keep my reviews in the same place, or rather to provide the master version of those mini-reviews. Cause as I see it, people don’t need particularly lengthy reviews on those sites. They’re choosing, sometimes in a hurry, whether or not they would like to read a particular book or watch a movie or show. They don’t want to read my ramblings on said shows and books, but they’d probably be interested in some key things to expect and some pros and cons of each item. And that’s what I’ll continue to provide on those platforms.
Meanwhile, the blog will be dedicated to the master versions of those various reviews. In fact, as I’ve already mentioned, there won’t be any reviews here – just musings and ramblings. And yes, there is a difference, which I will try and establish. Or perhaps I’ll come to find out that there isn’t a difference and that would be fine too.
There’s only one way to find out – start writing!

Diary of a wimpy kid: the meltdown, by Jeff Kinney

Somehow Wimpy Kid became one of my favorite characters, and certainly a constant in my reading life. Every year I wait for the beginning of November to get my hands on the new volume of Greg Heffley’s misfortunes. And I’m not the only one. My library used to purchase up to 10 copies of each Wimpy Kid book, none of which would come back to the shelves for another six months or so. Every kid, and their mother, had to read Wimpy Kid. At this point, there is no need to prove the merits of this series. You either love it, or you don’t know about it. Still, since I’ve come up with this new reviewing template, I will follow it for a more coherent review.
WRITING STYLE: Wimpy Kid books are consistently well written and illustrated. Greg Heffley has his own established voice and it never seizes to amuse and entertain. The illustrations are simple, but detailed and have an endearing quality. I love the ratio of illustrations to text, making it a kind of wordier graphic novel.
NARRATION: “Meltdown” takes us through a climate-changing winter. January is blessed (or cursed) with sunshine and warmth, which makes Greg very nervous that the ice caps will melt and the frozen dinosaurs and other creatures will be free to roam the Earth. Once the weather gets properly cold, we get more of how and where Greg lives. I am terrible at remembering books, but I feel like this is the first time we’ve had such an in-depth glance at Greg’s neighborhood. Other stories were set mostly at school, or on a road trip or vacation. “Meltdown” does a great job of inviting us into the world of Greg Heffley, exploring his life on the Upper Surrey Street, which is complicated by the existence of the Lower Surrey Street. There is a feudal war going on between those who live on the Upper and Lower streets, and that’s a fun war to witness. Especially when the novel culminates in an epic Snowball Fight with various fractions, alliances and snow forts. The author mostly keeps track of everything that’s going on, but I sometimes found it hard to follow the action.
SETTING: As I’ve already mentioned, “Meltdown” gives us a whole new setting, or rather expands on the previously introduced setting, of Greg’s neighborhood. The illustrations are very helpful in establishing all the locations, houses and the people who live there. I would love to see more stories taking place in this setting.
CHARACTERS: We get introduced to a whole bunch of new characters – the various occupants of the Upper and Lower Surrey Street. Some were mere faces in the overall picture, while others played a substantial role in the Epic Snow Battle. My favorite new character was the guy who opened his own snowball store – you go, small business owner! I also enjoyed the role of the parents in this novel – nonchalant bystanders who don’t get the whole Upper/Lower Street Feud and who low-key don’t care that their kids spend days and sometimes nights outside in the freezing cold. A nice break from the overbearing parents that I so often encounter.
PERSONAL LIKES: EVERYTHING! Alright, almost everything. This is one of my favorite series of all time, and this is one of the best books in it, so I will be flailing over it, if you don’t mind. I just loved the world building! The previous book felt like such a letdown, with that silly vacation that they took. And this one brought it back home, literally. Now I feel like I know Greg so much better, know exactly where he lives and what goes on in his neighborhood. It’s really exciting for me. I especially loved the part where he would sneak into his grandma’s house to get warm and watch TV – that is such a Greg thing to do.
PERSONAL COMPLAINTS: My own concern was the school bus situation. We don’t have school buses here in Moscow, so I only know the situation from American movies, shows and books. And I always thought that the bus would either take you straight to your house, or at least close to your house. But Greg has to walk all the way to school if his parents can’t take him – that is messed up! Although, later in the story I learned that the bus actually could take Greg closer to his house. He either wouldn’t take it, cause he’d be late for it, or something else happened – I wasn’t exactly clear. But this is such a minor thing, and maybe it’s even explained, but I was dealing with indigestion while reading this book, so I may have blanked on some details.
IN CONCLUSION: This is one of the best books in the series of Wimpy Kid! The series had been kind of a letdown for the past several years – I didn’t really like the previous one, I don’t even remember reading the one before that… But “Meltdown” brings the series back to its glory days! I loved exploring more of Greg’s world – heck, I didn’t even know there was more world to explore! I hope that Jeff Kinney keeps this up for the next installments, which better be in the works. I can’t imagine my Novembers without the new Wimpy Kid.
YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF: you’re in the mood for a quick, fun, illustrated read; you like your middle-grade characters wimpy, but snarky; you are not ashamed of loving a series for middle schoolers.
SUPER-OBJECTIVE CRITIC-LEVEL RATING: Five Wimpy Stars! Keep up the good work, Jeff Kinney!