Hockey Pucks and Neighbors

Hi bookworms, how’s your week been? We finally came out of the deep freeze up here, and it went from -5F to +48F in a couple days, which was a crazy change, followed by a big wind storm. It feels like Miami in comparison. We will take it. Check out this photo I took yesterday driving home from errands.

Meanwhile the month has been flying by and there was a “little” hockey game on Thursday night in Boston between the U.S. and Canada that apparently drew over 16 million viewers across both countries. We were glued to it and it was very exciting for Canada to win in overtime. The game stayed civil and seemed to mean a lot to the northern nation amid all the talk of tariffs and annexation by the current White House occupant. The two countries have been friends for over 150 years, and I know many Americans stand with Canada, which is very helpful.

Just a reminder, this week the 10-part nature documentary series The Americas will air on NBC and Peacock. Narrated by Tom Hanks — I think it should be a captivating show, spotlighting the creatures, habitats, and ecosystems found throughout North and South America. My husband and I will be checking it out. Also over the past several months we’ve been trying to catch some of the Oscar-nominated films. We only watch one show or movie per night but have added some new ones to our seen list including: 

• September 5 — 4+ stars, a pretty gripping look chronicling when ABC Sports came to cover the Israeli hostage crisis live during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Apparently this was the the first time a terrorist attack had been broadcast on live television and it was viewed by approximately 900 million.  
• A Real Pain — 3.5 stars, about two mismatched cousins (played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) who take a tour of Poland to honor their late grandmother. This had some funny and poignant moments, but it seemed to be a bit undeveloped and I wanted to know more. 
• Anora — 3.7 stars, about a call girl from Brooklyn who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch and finds trouble when his parents come to annul the marriage. This is a grim, tough film! Rated R for good reason. I had no idea what I was getting into. This is harsh and hits hard but is an eye-opener. 
• Gladiator II — 3.5 stars, Beforehand I thought this sequel wasn’t going to measure up and would have too much fake CGI, but I found it entertaining and actor Paul Mescal was easy to root for as a Roman gladiator trying to end tyranny. 
• Short Film Documentaries — We had never seen these before but our local theater was playing the five Oscar-nominated short films together. They were all quite strong. One is about Japanese elementary school students who create a musical performance; another follows a Parkland school mass shooting survivor; another a police incident shooting in Chicago; another follows a Texas death row inmate’s last days; and the last is about the double bassist and only woman in the New York Philharmonic in 1966.

So these movies are in addition to the ones we’ve seen listed here. 

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of books that I finished lately. 

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin / Holt / 240 pages / 2023

I want to thank Stargazer at the blog For Book People and Random People for telling me about this Vietnamese immigrant story, since I’d been picking up various immigrant stories lately. And I couldn’t resist another. 

3.7 stars / This is about Anh (age 16) and her two younger brothers who take a perilous boat trip in 1978 as refugees out of Vietnam to Hong Kong, where they await their parents and other siblings who never arrive. The three languish in refugee camps there until eventually getting the green light for the UK, where they are put in resettlement camps for a long while until public housing later becomes available. Anh watches over her siblings, while struggling with the grief over the loss of their parents, and trying to pick up a new culture and language. As the years go by, the three begin to separate a bit. Anh works as a seamstress in a factory, Thanh tries hard in school and ends up in insurance, and Minh drops out and gets into drugs. 

I think I would’ve liked the print novel a bit better than the audiobook since the author jumps around with chapters among various perspectives and it can be a bit confusing with no labels on a few. There’s primarily Anh’s story, but also: the voice of a dead brother, news reports and letters, soldiers, survivors, and an unnamed narrator who you find out at the end is a second-generation immigrant relative who is writing about Anh and the brothers’ experiences. 

It is interestingly told and much is quite moving, though other times it felt like it was done with broad brushstrokes with Ahn and her brothers going from camp life to housing and on with their lives without enough detail or development. It seems the author is doing a lot with the various perspectives and maybe it was a bit too much (when less could’ve been a bit deeper). Still it lends a heartfelt and eye-opening look into the Vietnam boat people who dispersed to various countries in the late 1970s and the sheer odds they faced. Many overcame so much to fit in and flourish in their adopted countries. This story tells of their amazing resilience. 

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware / Scout Press / 341 pages / 2016 

3.7 stars. I’m one of few who hasn’t read a Ruth Ware novel until now. I am not a big thriller reader and one reason is: they often get a bit crazy or unbelievable at some point … and this one was no exception. Still I enjoyed it at various points. The lead character journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock is quite a mess when she gets onboard a glitzy one-week cruise ship the Aurora. Her place was burglarized before leaving and she had a fight with her boyfriend. Since then she hasn’t slept and drinks like a fish … in addition to taking her regular pills for anxiety and depression. 

So when she hears what she thinks is a person being thrown overboard late at night from next door in Cabin 10, no one really believes her. Since everyone is accounted for, the crew thinks she’s been hallucinating or is paranoid. But a crew member takes her around to interview staff and others. Her ex Ben Howard who’s onboard seems really suspicious – as well as some of the others aboard. But it’s takes quite a while to unravel if there’s anything amiss on the ship. 

Meanwhile it makes for a good confining setting amid an array of guests and seasickness … with Lo’s head in agony too from a nasty hangover, minimal sleep, and claustrophobia. It’s the perfect uneasy setting and Lo makes a wobbly main character. It reminded me a bit of The Girl on the Train mixed with an Agatha Christie. But towards the end the plot seems a bit of a stretch and gets a bit crazy, and I was ready, like Lo, to get ashore somehow, someway. 

Still the madness is a bit fun, and I will likely get to the sequel The Woman in Suite 11 (coming in July) and see the upcoming Netflix movie of this one with Keira Knightley as the boozy and anxious Lo Blacklock.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you seen any of these movies, or read these novels — and if so, what did you think?