June 2023 – More murder books? I really need to branch out.

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

This book is nothing like I expected. Somewhere between the title and the book jacket summary (“for years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove … she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand”) I expected this to be a modern day Jungle Book, with the “marsh girl” being raised by animals. Which, frankly, barf. BUT … an injustice has been done! The “marsh girl” has a real name that isn’t Mowgli, it’s Kya. And she wasn’t raised by animals, she was raised by her dysfunctional family who abandon her one by one, leaving her to be looked after by her abusive father until she is reasonably old enough to know how to take care of herself. On her own, she associates with people from the nearby town as little as possible: Jumpin’, who sells Kya gas and buys mussels from her; Tate, who teaches her to read and to count; Mabel who provides clothes and feminine products (can I just say, thank GOD for a book that acknowledges that young women need feminine products on a very regular basis, regardless of their heroics volunteering as tribute in the hunger games, or casting spells, or dating vampires?? FFS)

Anyhoooo …. The book quickly becomes a satisfying murder mystery intertwined with Kya’s efforts to just survive, all the while documenting the local flora and fauna to surprising success. I recommend it!

Blackwater Bluff, by S. M. Hurley

I picked this book up at the local Local Store from a display stand of Prince Edward County authors. Mostly I picked it because I’ve been to the bluff featured on the cover (yes, that’s how I pick books, by the familiarity of their cover art.) It’s actually called Little Bluff Conservation Area, and you can google it to see what I mean.

Blackwater Bluff is the first book for writer Shelagh Mathers, a former PEC lawyer. She is currently working on book 3, featuring her main character, Augie de Graaf, an enjoyably aggressive PEC Crown Attorney. In this first book, Augie has to solve the murder of her friend and mentor before the police arrest the wrong person and abandon the investigation. Meanwhile, she has to stick-handle her a-hole boss, who is working hard to sideline her. (I know how it feels, Augie.) Two thumbs up for this one! I look forward to reading the next two books in the series.

Shit, Actually; by Lindy West

A quick aside. It occurs to me that I have no idea when to use a colon versus a semi-colon. I seem to remember some grade-school rule-of-thumb about “upgrading” the punctuation if you are using a comma to separate details, when the individual details you are separating also include commas. But truthfully, I have no idea. So I’m just making it up.

Aside over. Lindy West has wasted 46 hours of her life revisiting popular movies from the 90s so that she can generously gift us with 23 glorious essay take-downs, and for that I am grateful. This book made me laugh and laugh and laugh. She starts off with The Fugitive, deemed to be the perfect movie (incorrect: The Princess Bride* is the perfect movie. however I give her some leeway because it’s an 80s movie and she is focused on the 90s). Lindy ranks the remaining 22 movies on a 1-10 Fugitive-DVD scale, validating my own movie-rating strategy of using other movies as yard metersticks**.

I didn’t always agree with her – she gives Face/Off a ridiculous 6 Fugitive-DVDs when it clearly deserves zero, and that’s being generous, because the scale doesn’t appear to allow for negatives. But I forgive her because she rates Shawshank Redemption at 11/10. Hilariously bad reviews include Love Actually, The Notebook, Titanic, The Santa Clause, and American Pie. Don’t get me wrong, there are good reviews as well (Top Gun, Speed, Terminator II, Jurassic Park, The Rock), but all of them have extremely funny bad bits that don’t escape Lindy’s laser eye.

WARNING: If you love love LOVE Love, Actually, then be prepared either to hate this particular essay or to rethink your relationship this movie. Me? I chose the latter. In the end, Lindy gives it 0 out of 10, which seems about right. I would have once said this movie doesn’t age well, but in hindsight that would suggest that it did, once upon a time, have some 90s-specific redeeming qualities. I’m no longer sure that’s the case.

*Musings on The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a wonderful, and wonderfully funny, movie. Dare I say it’s one of my favourites of all time! That’s right, I said it. And I’ll tell you what, I’m awfully sick of people judging me for it. I once was chatting with a couple of coworkers in my office at work, and one person asked us what our favourite movie was. When I said The Princess Bride, she literally laughed in my face. For giving my OPINION, which she ASKED FOR. You know what? If there was a wrong answer, maybe you should have told me up front instead of being a dick about it, or perhaps made it a multiple choice question (“What’s your favourite movie? a) Heat, b) Casino, c) the Usual Suspects, or d) If you didn’t choose a, b, or c, you obviously have bad taste in movies and can no longer be permitted to engage in this conversation”).

What makes The Princess Bride so great? Peter Falk describes it best to Kevin from the Wonder Years, playing his grandson: It has “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…” He did forget hilarity, but he’s Peter Falk and he’s forgiven.

Here’s a short list of other great reasons to love this movie:

1. Peter Falk (“when I was your age, television was called books”).
2. Kevin from The Wonder Years playing Peter Falk’s grandson with perfection (“that doesn’t sound too bad, I’ll try to stay awake”)
3. ALL THE REST OF THE CAST. There is no bad casting in this movie. None at all.
4. The hilarious battle of wits between Vizzini and The Man in Black / Dread Pirate Roberts / Westley the Farm Boy. “I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of me!”
5. Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father. Prepare to die. (Count Rugen: “Stop saying that!”)
6. …OK OMG I’m laughing just thinking about this …
7. Andre the Giant rhyming. It’s the best. I mean it! (“Anybody want a peanut”).
8. INCONCEIVABLE! (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”).
9. Mawage is wot bwings us togevver today.
10. The choreography of sword fight between Inigo and Westley is just the absolute best! (“I am not left handed either”).
11. Kevin from The Wonder Years continually interrupting Peter Falk’s reading (“Is this a KISSING book????”)
12. Inigo being given a new purpose in life after finally achieving avenging his father (honestly, most stories just leave the avenging hero with nothing else to do).
13. The way the movie rewinds the water chase scene when Peter Falk is trying to figure out where he left off in the story.
14. The introduction of Robin Wright, before she meets Sean Penn.
15. The sweet, sweet ending, when Wonder Years Kevin asks Peter Falk to come again the next day to read the book again, and Peter Falk answers “as you wish”.

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS MOVIE??? That’s MY judgement. But I’ll at least try not to be a huge jerk about it.

**My Movie-rating movie scales:

The Old Yeller Scale – how much a movie makes you cry. Nothing over a 7 for me, thanks very much.

The Prometheus Scale – how much a scifi movie sucks to death. A bit counterintuitive because the best scifi movies score a 1 on this scale.