Gifs Galore

Awhile back I figured out how to make gifs on my phone, which when you watch cool dance videos a lot, it can be very very addictive.

Reading Recap Catch Up: February through May 2018

Okay fine. I had plans to keep up my monthly reading recap but suddenly it's June I haven't done one since January!? What the heck. So I'm catching up, not because I think you're all dying to know what I read, but so I can, you know, make a list. And be snarky a little too.

February Books Read

In February, we had a thing for Kazakhstan.

Lucky in Love by Kasie West: She wins the lottery and everything changes. Not for the better.
You May Already Be a Winner by Ann Dee Ellis: She lives with her mom in a trailer park and takes care of her sister instead of going to school.
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell: He finds a dragon and trains him! LOL!
Mustaches for Maddie by Chad Morris: She has to deal with several brain surgeries.
Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West: She wants to experience life better so she makes a list of things to do!

March Books Read

The Magical Monkey King: Mischief in Heaven by Ji-li Jiang:  A monkey learns magic which doesn't help with his tendencies to get into trouble.
Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea by Sungju Lee: True story of a boy who lives on the streets in North Korea to survive.
Celebrity Superhero by Jennie Bennett: Her childhood friend ends up being her kpop idol crush. WHO KNEW??
The Princess and the Beggar: A Korean Folktale by Anne Sibley O'Brien: The princess gets banned to the forest and falls in love with the beggar who was banned there years before.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman: An older dude gets especially ornery when new neighbors move in.
Older Brother, Younger Brother: A Korean Folktale by Nina Jaffe: This story is all about karma.

April Books Read

Got to see the granddaughter in April!!

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: Anne with an E gets adapted by Marilla and Matthew and the adventures begin!

May Books Read

A Totally Awkward Love Story by Tom Ellen: WE NEED TO HAVE SEX BEFORE WE GRADUATE OR WE WILL DIE!!
#fangirlproblems by Jennie Bennett: What if your idol kpop idol crush actually loves you back???!!!
Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi: Juliette is having issues getting going on leading the... whatever this new country is called. I forgot.
The Dam Keeper by Robert Kondo: The little pig has to make sure the toxic fog doesn't get into the town.
Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch: She goes to Italy to live with her dad that she doesn't know and also learns what happened with her mom there the summer before she was born.

Favorites from this big list: A Man Called Ove, Every Falling Star. Anne of Green Gables, Love and Gelato.

Plans for the summer:  Read as much as I can. Keep up with book club books. That's it. That's my plan. :)

The Great American Read!

This program is just what I need to get excited about books again!!!

So at the library were I work, they started to promote a program where they planned to kick off a series that they will be doing with the other library in our area. All in conjunction with the series on PBS called The Great American Read. My interest was instantly piqued.

The goal of this is to choose America's favorite book. Not best book. Not most meaningful book. Just plain old FAVORITE book.

They (PBS) surveyed people from all across the country and from all walks of life and came up with a list of 100 books. It's a very diverse list and the only parameter is that the book be fiction.

So the kick of show on PBS highlighted all these this 100 books, and now all summer it's our mission to read the books and vote for our favorite!

Anyway, it was so fun for me to watch this and see famous people, celebrities, authors and etc talking up their favorites. So much fun!

Then we went to our library's kick off program and some of our local people talked about their favorite books. It makes me want to read ALL THE BOOKS again!

(I took the test and have actually read 61 or so books on this list... but there's a bunch I want to try!)

But I truly don't need to read more books to figure out what I'm voting for!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Yeah, it's not going to win. But I love that it's on the list. "It's an honor just to be nominated!" There are lots of other books on the list that I love and the fun thing is you can vote for all of them. So, it's not as painful as you might think!

In the fall there will be more shows on PBS and more programs at the libraries to reveal what book is the final winner and American's favorite book. Watch for it!

Anyway, if you haven't watched the show, you should and see if it makes you remember (if you need remembering) what you love about books!

Kdrama Review: Radio Romance

Drama: Radio Romance

Genre: Romantic comedy
Starring: Yoon Doo-joon and Kim So-hyun, with Yoon Park and Yura.
Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤

I wanted to watch this one because of all the buzz that Kim So Hyun is all grown up now and doing an adult roll (not sure if this is her first one, but still... all grown up) She is the one that played the young girl in Moon Embracing the Sun and got RAVE reviews back then. The people love her.

But it also introduced me to a new guy to love, Yoon Doo Joon who is in the kpop group Beast now known as Highlight. He plays such a sour faced dude that it was hard to imagine him as an idol singer and dancer, but yep. He is!

This is the story of a girl who is working as a writer at a struggling radio station. When of their DJ's quits she is commissioned to bring in a famous leading drama dude as their new DJ. He wants no part if it, but somehow, he is intrigued anyway and since she refuses to give up, he relents and comes to be part of this show.

So of course, as we go along, we learn that they actually have some ties to the past together. And so it's fun to watch that be revealed. It's also fun to see this sour faced emo actor (the actor plays an actor, remember) start to loosen up and relax and become human. Of course, that's my favorite part.

That being said, this drama was just okay for me in the end. Not near as gripping a story as most dramas are. Cute and fun, but not near as powerful as most are.

Here's a trailer:





 And a song sung by some NCT boys. :)

 

 And of course you need to see Doo Joon in action: (he's in the long blue coat, the darker blue one)

 

Book Review: Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

Book: Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

Genre: YA contemporary
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ 

What a fun summery book! I loved it. It's about a girl whose mom dies in the beginning and she gets sent to live with her dad in Italy, at least for the summer, maybe for longer. Problem is, she didn't even know this dad existed until her mom was dying and saying to her....how about you go and live with this dude!

He lives in Florence, in an American WWII cemetery where he runs the place. This creeps Lina out at first, but it grows on her. She meets a boy one day when she is out running and... he grows on her too.

In fact, she actually enlists his help in solving the mystery behind her mom and dad. Like what really happened and why did they never keep in touch all these years?

Lina gets a journal that her mom left behind which is an account of the summer she meet her dad and between that and doing some digging on their own, they piece together the story.

So in fact, it's the story of both Lina dealing with her mom's death and learning about her dad, and the story of her mom and what happened that summer many years ago. So there's some heavy subjects, but they are handled well and lightly. If that makes sense.

It's so fun to have been to theses cities (both Florence and Rome) and to be able to picture everything that's being talked about. They truly are awesome romantic cities where awesome love can blossom!

This Week in KPOP: BTS Edition!

It's been such a CRAZY week in kpop. So much has happened that for this post, I'm going to concentrate only on BTS.

Here's what went down, just in the past week:

** BTS released their latest full album. (You can listen to it here on YouTube or on Spotify.) I forget what number it is... 5th maybe? I should know, right, but it gets confusing when they release mini albums and repackage albums and etc etc. But it's somewhere like their 5th or 6th full new album. It's called Love Yourself: Tear. Instead of buying it from some online place and getting it shipped from Korea... I walked into Target on that day and JUST BOUGHT IT! Seriously. This still feels so weird. But Target has since restocked with their previous album (Love Yourself: Her) and there are tons of each there at the moment.

BTS at the 2018 BBMAs in Las Vegas
They went looking much more casual than they did last year. I loved their look. From left to right:
Taehyung (V), Yoongi (Suga), Seokjin (Jin), Jungkook, RM (Namjoon), Jimin, Hoseok (J hope)

** Two days later they appear at the 2018 BBMAs in Las Vegas and win the Top Social Artist award just like last year.. and they perform their title track Fake Love in the USA for their "comeback stage." (Kpop term, maybe I'll explain terms some day. We have a video planned for this actually.) Doing their comeback stage in the USA is CRAZY! But they did and it seems all the celebrities there fell in love with them, and I'm sure a whole new crop of fans were born that watched them on TV.




** They had recorded an appearance on Ellen again, just like last November and that aired this past Friday. They performed Fake Love again and got teased and scared by Ellen. Though as last time, she didn't leave much time to actually talk to them.




** They flew back to Korea and did a comeback show where they performed choreoagrpahy to two more songs from the album besides Fake Love. I love them both, but I will show you the one called Anpanman because it's so fun and show another side of these guys:



** Yesterday, it was announced that they made the number one spot on the Billboard 200 in the US with that new album. They, a Korean band, outsold everyone else this past week. It's an insane accomplishment. And something that I'm not sure they even ever thought to dream of.

** Due to that accomplishment, the president of SK wrote them a letter and tweeted to them a congratulations. I don't even know what to think about this. And BTS is reeling I'm sure.




** Basically, I'm hoping that the world is looking at kpop in a different light, even just a little. And while BTS fans (crazy ARMY I call them. There's actually sane ARMY and there's crazy ARMY) they claim that BTS can no longer be called kpop, that they've broken the mold and the stereotype... while that may be true ( about the stereotype) I want to argue that they will always be kpop and that they should embrace being the ambassadors for this music.

Anyway. If you've been curious at all about them, it's good time to investigate!

My favorite song on the album (besides the title track Fake Love) is a ballad sung by the 4 vocal guys and it made me tear up (ha tear... get it? Love Yourself: Tear) the second (no joke here) that I heard it for the first time. Something about this song moves me like nothing I've heard:



So, you'll let me know if you listen to something and let me know what you think, right?

Bottom Line: It's been a GREAT week for BTS! Like there are truly no words to describe how awesome it's been.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

Movie: A Quiet Place
Genre: Horror/suspense
Starring: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds
Rating: PG 13
My Rating: Two thumbs up


I really hadn't heard about this movie, I seem to be not in the right circles these days. But my daughter said, let's go to a movie and this one was the one she wanted. She'd heard a ton of great things about it. And so we went. I knew to be worried though. I knew it was going to be a bit... jumpy.. shall we say.

Which is sort of an understatement!

Anyway, the premise is this is our world awhile after an alien invasion. We first see this family as they are trying to get drugs at an abandoned pharmacy. (The scene reminded me a lot of Walking Dead scenes... rummaging through a store hoping to find what you need.) It becomes clear right away that it's very important not to be noisy. But that is not confirmed until a few more minutes into the movie... in a very big and traumatic terrible way.

Now we know. It's very very important not to make ANY noise.

Another year or so passes. The family seems to be surviving pretty well and has established a very quiet way of life. This is all thanks in part because they know sign language since their daughter is deaf.

We also see that the mom is now pregnant. Yeah, and so HOW THE HECK IS THAT GOING TO GO DOWN?

Well, you'll just have to watch the movie. All I can say is that it's VERY intense and VERY edge of your seat and.. yes... lots and lots of jumps. And yes.. it's so very very quiet. I was worried there would be no music, but thankfully there was. But lots of times there wasn't. And you know, the scenes in movies when a person is sneaking around and you are just waiting for something to jump out... this WHOLE movie is that way! AH!!! But then the characters can't scream!!! I was so exhausted by the end! LOL!

But it's a great scary movie because it is all about the suspense. I love that. These guys were all great actors too because they truly had to rely on actually acting... without hardly any dialogue. It was awesome.

And the ending. I just have to say, and hopefully it's not too much of a spoiler... BEST ENDING EVER! (Even despite some... stuff.) The audience reaction is the BEST too. It's all worth it for that.

So if suspense movies are your thing, don't miss this one.

Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet. Beware, even the trailer is pretty intense!