March 2024 – Chapin City Blues

Rating:

What It’s About:

Something strange is happening to the people of Harrow; they’ve all grown obsessed, addicted, to the apples growing in Dan Paxton’s orchard. It’s an apple so delicious that it can help anyone who eats it achieve their inner desires. But at what cost?

Let’s Talk About It:

Chuck Wendig’s writing never fails to keep me at the edge of the seat. He has this way of spoon-feeding me hope and snatching it from me abruptly which leaves me wondering if I can ever let my guard around the man. His ability to take something as banal as an apple and turn it into this sinister object spreading a demonic mind virus which possesses almost everyone who eats it is insane. I don’t think I have ever encountered a writer with such a talent that I daresay he is this generation’s Stephen King (even though, technically, Stephen King is this generation’s Stephen King. You know what? Shut up! Just go with it!).

His ability to craft scenes and character makes it so there is never a lull in the story. His use of interludes only builds the story, (in this case) a cut-up narrative that lights the path you are on without giving away the ending, letting it build slowly until the big reveal.

What hurt me most is not the story, but how long it took me to read it! Because I am an adult student with a full-time job and a parent, certain things get pushed back. This is why I opt to borrow audiobooks from my local library (and not-so-local libraries), which helps me follow along with the story at a faster pace than I can read on my own. And no matter what anyone else says, listening to audiobooks is reading (even if you don’t follow along like I do). Xe Sands, Brittany Pressley, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Cindy Kay, Kalani Queypo, Gabra Zackman and Victor Colomé all do an excellent job bringing their respective characters (and all the characters) to life.

Until next time, keep on huntin’.

Don’t you just hate it when someone on the Internet feels the need to compare a movie to the book it’s adapted from? It bugs the piss out of me, right? It’s so annoying? I am so glad we’re in agreement, because last month, I decided to hunker down and watch one romcom flick a day for all twenty-nine of them (thank you leap year!). One of those movies was The Map to Tiny Perfect Things. Of course, when I learned the movie was based on a short story by Lev Grossman (who also wrote the screenplay), I had to read it.

Part of me wanted to compare the two versions of the story, but I did it in the wrong order. Most pretentious, the-book-was-better people always read the story first. It wasn’t until I was half way through the movie that I questioned if it was adapted from something. It had all the markers of a young adult novel.

So…What’s It About?

Mark finds himself trapped in a time loop, reliving August 4th over and over. The world resets itself each morning and everyone follows the same script unless he interacts with them. What’s worse is that he’s going through it alone. That is until he sees Margaret, an outlier just like him. Together they set off to make the most of August 4th, finding every magical moment and mapping them out until they find a way to break free.

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