The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a Netflix television show based on a comic/graphic novel. There was an earlier show starring Melissa Joan Hart, and it was good, but this version was much darker.

Sabrina is a half mortal/half witch who is approaching her sixteenth birthday, the day she will have to choose if she is willing to let go of her mortal side and become a full witch. She, of course, struggles with this decision as she feels that she is giving up some part of her, or disappointing her mother if she gives up her mortal half. Living with her aunts Hilda and Zelda, and her home bound cousin, Ambrose, they aren't much help for Sabrina, as none of them have ever been mortal. Her boyfriend, Harvey, doesn't know what is going on, nor do her friends, Rosalind or Susie. In the end, Satan gets what he wants, and Sabrina, while trying to help, sets a path of destruction that she can't fix.

Like Riverdale this is a darker version of the Archie universe. But, unlike the plot in Riverdale, there were issues with the plot and the story in Sabrina. I admit, I did binge this in one day, but partly because I was stuck home due to my car breaking down. I was actually supposed to go and see the new Halloween movie yesterday (Sunday, 10/28), but instead my car decided to be a little brat and I was stuck home, with nothing to do because I was also dealing another day of a seven day migraine (which I do still have today). I really only liked two characters in the show, Hilda, who was hilarious and honest, and Salem, who didn't get enough screen time.

The issue I had with this show, it isn't that it was a darker version of the original story or the show. The issue wasn't that most of the characters were unlikable. The issue wasn't even that it seemed to veer too much from the original work. The issue was the stupidity of the characters, especially when things seemed so obvious, and they had the ideas right there in front of their stupid faces. One example, and the one that I found the most annoying, is when Sabrina travels to limbo to looks for someone's soul. While there she sees her dead mother (as we know this is why she is living with her aunts, because her parents are dead), who asks Sabrina why she is there, an that she hadn't seen her since she was a baby. This scene is never expanded upon, and I was frustrated as to why it was even there if no one was going to talk about it. The problem are that there are several scenes like this, when someone says or does something and it is never finished. Another was when Susie is looking through the books on the shelf of a coffee shop/bookstore. Hilda approaches her and she runs away, leaving behind the book she was trying to steal, but it wasn't ever explained why she was trying to steal the book she had, as it is not a common book for teenagers to read.

Now, while I felt there were several plot holes, I did enjoy some things. I enjoyed the darker tone of the story, and I liked how, unlike the previous television show, Salem was always a cat. They never tried, or at least they didn't seem to, to use cheap animitronics or CGI. I enjoyed that Sabrina wasn't perfect, and she was trying to do good, and questioning why she should give herself to the Dark Lord. It was interesting to me how she continually questioned things that the other witches seemed to accept as fact. To be honest, accepting things we are told as fact seems to be a thread that runs through religion. As someone who grew up in a Christian household, and went to a Christian school until the age of fourteen, I too grew up not questioning what I was told.

In all honesty, I should have asked more questions of my faith. For example, why is there no mention in the bible I read of Lilith, or how demons came to be? Why are we told that hell is an excruciating place and that those who worship Satan are evil (I've met some Satanists, they aren't evil)? There are so many questions I would have liked to ask before leaving the church. I do believe in a higher power, I believe a lot of what I was taught, but animals do have souls, and maybe we are living in hell right now because humans are evil (or is that their nature). I would have liked to have someone like Sabrina helping me question why we do the things we do, and why other Christian faiths have some of the same ideas but some different.

But enough about my own religious issues, and my own questions. I liked Sabrina's willingness to learn and question, and I think more people should question while they are learning things.

So, yes, I think you should watch The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It isn't perfect, and there are times when I became both frustrated and annoyed, but it was a fun thing to watch, especially as a fan of the older television show and the Archie universe.

The Haunting of Hill House is a short novel written by Shirley Jackson, who also wrote on of my favorite short stories, The Lottery. There have been a few movies based on this novel, one of the more well known is the 1963 movie, the lesser known version is the 1999 version (which was terribly miscast). This review is for the Netflix series, which was recently released.

If you haven't read the book, you should read it. It isn't very long, and is a quick read. It has none of the characters of the television series, however both movies do try to remain true to the book. The story revolves around Eleonore and her experiences in the house. She is there as part of an experiment to discover if or what might be going on in the house. The study is done by a cocky man, Dr. Montague, who is a supernatural investigator. In the end, the house may be haunted and it takes it's toll on the psyche of Eleonore. 

Some of the names of the characters are the same, there is an Eleonore (sometimes called Nell), and there is a Theodora, and a Luke, but none of them are related. The story of Hugh Crane is a lot darker, in one version he was keeping his family in the house, as prisoners, in the 1999 movie the children he killed and entrapped in the house were calling Nell home to protect and save them. In the Netflix series Hugh Crane is a man who loves his wife and his five children. He doesn't know that the house has ghosts and it is built much like the Hotel in AHS: Hotel. Once you die in the house, you become part of the house.

The children, Steve, Nell, Luke, Susie, and Theodora, are all experiencing nightmares brought on by the psychosis of one of them. And after one of the siblings dies, the rest are called back to the house, to either save each other and find out what happened that night they were forced from the house by their father, or they are there to die and become part of the house themselves. None of them have talked about what they have seen, and none of them want to believe that what they saw when they were there, for one summer, in that house, but now, along with their father, they need to figure out what the truth is, and what is just a facade built by the house itself.

I know that several people out there found this frightening or scary, but for me this was, overall, sad. It isn't about an evil house, but more about mental illness and the destruction of a cohesive family. Some of those who have died in the house are only there because they had an untreated mental illness, and the house took advantage of that. There were scenes that were suspenseful, but the show was not scary. It had spooky moments, but mostly, it was sad to see how broken a family was because they didn't talk about one night that forced them to leave the house, and become a broken family. They children are kept in a single home, but not with either of their parents. The audience isn't really told why the father never took the children back in, although the audience does learn why the mother doesn't, and maybe this has some reason as to why the father didn't go back for them. What this did was led to the children staying quiet, broken, and finding different ways to cope with losing their parents. They each have a problem, and each has something they don't want to face.

I did enjoy this, but wonder where it will go for season 2. This may be titled the same as the Shirley Jackson novel, but it really didn't have anything to do with the book, besides some of the characters having the same names as the characters in the books, and the caretakers of the property being the same. Of course, one thing every single version has, which did make me laugh and almost choke on a cookie, was the the words, "In the dark, in the night." This is said by one or more characters, and when I saw it in the 1999 movie, I couldn't help but laugh, and when it was in this version I, like stated earlier, almost choked on a cookie.

I do hope it finds a way to relate more to the book. I enjoyed the book, and I thought, even though neither movie was fantastic, they at least both related to the book as well. For me, this version only made me appreciate my siblings more, and made me think about how much life we take for granted, even when we don't realize we are taking it for granted. Each day is a gift. Each day, we can make a change, and look at what things really mean or what they really are.

So, if you have the time, check out The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and you decide if it is scary or not.

Amber Heard, plays Mandy Lane in this film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. She is a beautiful girl who all of the boys lust after, and even some of the girls. After she is invited to a high school gathering among a few of her new friends, she goes with the hope that people will be having fun, and no she herself can have fun. In the end, the party goers drop one by one as a mysterious killer takes them out.
 
This movie, at first, seems like a normal movie about high schoolers who party and end up being killed one by one, and at first there is nothing to suggest that this isn’t what the movie is about. However, at the end of the movie the audience sees more than they thought they would.
 
Every high school student can appreciate, and well every person in general, the things these students go through, and the insecurities that they all show. All of the boys have a plan to be the one to score with Mandy Lane. The beginning of the movie starts with a student injuring himself after proclaiming his desire for Mandy Lane. So, obviously every male student has some desire for Mandy Lane, and this causes the movie to feel like something bad is going to happen to Mandy Lane.
 
I can’t say this was a great movie, but I don’t think it was a horrible movie. It didn’t go into very much detail as to what had happened to Mandy’s parents, as she is now living with her Aunt and cousin. There is no exposition and no definitions to Mandy’s life before the movie, so the audience doesn’t get to know much about her, which is annoying. The movie is a little bit of a problem in itself, because it wants the audience to feel bad for and fright for Mandy Lane, but it doesn’t give us much to go on.
 
The movie is very slow at times, and the ending doesn’t really make sense, although it is the most interesting part of the film. But if a movie is going to involve killing characters, it needs to make the audience care that the characters are being killed, otherwise it is only one more minute in a movie. And if I am going to be honest, I can’t say that any of the homicides were very interesting, so the only thing that could have made the movie interesting was the ending.
 
Do I recommend watching it? Only on streaming, and only if you have an hour and a half to kill.

I am a busy girl. Not only do I write, but I am also an artist and a professor. I teach English at a local college. This last week I started teaching my students about the loved and despised Literary Analysis. I, personally, enjoy it. I often wonder what authors mean when they write the things they do. Then again, being a writer myself, I know that sometimes writers mean nothing. Sometimes they write something because they can't get the story out of their head. However, I also know that sometimes deeper meaning can be found, and those deeper meanings can either give hope, or break a person.

I was broken when I first read Black Beauty. The breakdown of Ginger, the ending of her life, and the way she was treated, all a reader wanted was hope for her. In the end it was one of the first moments of loss, and how not everyone gets a happy ending. It was the same feeling I had when I read  Little Women and Beth didn't get her happy ending.

In a lot of things we can interpret meaning. We can listen to a song and it can mean one thing to another person, and another to someone else. If you listen to "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind it is a catchy song that you may want to sing along to or dance to. Listen to the lyrics and it doesn't leave a happy picture. It is a song about addiction and letting go, if you can. There are several songs like this, but they are masked by the tune they are sung to. Looking at the words things are different, and this is what I teach: WORDS ARE IMPORTANT.

Not only in literary analysis, but all words are important. When we talk, we often don't think about what we say. The place I've noticed careless words is on social media. People feel that because they are online they don't have to watch their words, or are free to say whatever they want. In reality, yes people are free to say whatever you want, but why say things that are hurtful or disgusting? Why can't we argue and be respectful?

If we look into books like Moby Dick a book about God and why we often think he abandons us or makes us suffer, but then brings up the question that there may be no God and we have to survive and makes things better for ourselves, because there is no one to do it for us. We can also look at Fahrenheit 451 a book about destroying free speech and creativity. This is where we are headed, with the hastag #fakenews and the thought that someone can't say something without it meaning something. We call people snowflakes and libtards, and worse. Yet, we apologize for everything. We apologize for the clothes we wear if they aren't made in the USA, we apologize for our hobbies, we apologize for everything.

Stop apologizing, start either doing or stop talking. Stop writing the words that cause you to apologize. Look at the words you are using. Look at yourself and look to the past. The answers we look for might be in the literature of the past, and the literature of the future. Either way, realize the importance of words, they mean something.

Now, I am tired. Today is the first day I've had a break in many months, and the semester isn't over. I'm tired because sometimes I can't. I can't deal with the neediness and the politically correct atmosphere and the name-calling. I can't deal with people not listening, and posting "facts" on Facebook anymore. I can't help but wonder if we will get better, or if these dark and dangerous times will spiral towards the beginning of anarchy or apocalypse.

Taken from Rotten Tomatoes, Dig Two Graves centers on Jacqueline, a 14-year-old girl nicknamed "Jake" by her older brother Sean. After Sean mysteriously disappears at a rock quarry, Jake is visited by three Moonshiners who offer to bring her dead brother back to life in exchange for taking another life. As Jake wrestles with this morally uncertain proposition, the dark history of her family is unearthed and the mystery surrounding the Moonshiners is illuminated.
 
From the little research that I have done, this was a movie that people were split on. Several people liked it, and several people did not like it. I thought it was a little convoluted. There were several story lines, from Jake’s grandfather and Jake.
 
The things the grandfather did when he was younger were horrifying, and the things he did were often done because he was the deputy of a sheriff who was the one doing even deeper horrible things. The problems with these scenes were that the reasoning behind them were never explained. The sheriff was a really bad guy, but the audience is never told why he was the way he was, or why he had custody of his grandson. So, there wasn’t enough backstory to make the sheriff a relevant being, besides being a rock to be a hard place for others to cross.
 
Now for the Jake parts of the story, I often don’t understand why movies often seem to make children so stupid. Jake, after her brother’s disappearance, is desperate to get her brother back, so when promises are made for a sacrifice, she tries to follow through. This only causes problems for her family, and the family of a friend who she is trying to protect.
 
Parts of the story are interesting, but the heart of it is in the character of Willie. He is a young boy who is being bullied by some classmates, and is living with his over-protective grandfather. The audience doesn’t know why he is living with his grandfather, but can only assume that something happened to his parents.
 
Dig Two Graves wasn’t a bad movie, but the different scenes from different timelines can be confusing because they aren’t quite in chronological order, and they were oddly filmed. The end of the movie was a little surprising, and unexpected, but it fit movie and what things the characters had done. I felt that part of it was fitting, and the revenge subplot was well done.

I didn't realize that I had this book on my TBR shelf. I received it for free, exchanging it for another book I had. I wouldn't have exchanged it if I had read Anna Dressed in Blood first. I didn't like Anna Dressed in Blood, and I didn't like Girl of Nightmares.

Now am I saying that Kendare Blake is a bad writer, no, I am not. I am only saying that these books weren't good. I thought the main character was conceited and annoying. He had friends and yet he continually states, "You don't have to do (blah) with me." He, Cas, knows full well that his friends are going to join him no matter what. Another problem with this book is that the setting in some parts just don't make sense. At one point they are walking through the Suicide Forest, and everyone knows that the Suicide Forest is in Japan, yet the characters are not in Japan. It didn't make sense, and I wonder if the author knew what she was doing at that point.

Another thing that annoyed me, these kids are under the age of 18, yet no one seems to care when they jet off to England, or that they skip school, or that they continually put themselves in danger and get hurt.

I also disliked the characters because none of them were really developed, again, and I didn't care that they were looking for Anna. I didn't care about Cas and his nightmares or desires because he is NOT a nice person. There is nothing about him that I like. Zero. The only character I think has any redeeming qualities is Thomas, and he is constantly put on the back burner, forgotten and left to whither.

I am not a fan, and after reading that this was the last book in the series (of two books) I am also frustrated. I feel as if Blake has so much more that she could say, and more to develop so that readers will care for these characters, yet she leaves things hanging and says there won't be a third book.

Meh. Not for me.

For the book Final Girls bu Riley Sager, I was torn about reading it. On the cover I have it has a quote by Stephen King, "If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this." I almost didn't buy this book, only because of that quote. See, I hated Gone Girl, hated it with a passion. I hated it because there was only one character to like and he wasn't int he book enough. Otherwise, it was overrated and not at all interesting. Plus, I don't mind a twist, but I don't want to read an entire book of lies (which almost half of Gone Girl was). However, this isn't about Gone Girl, this is about Final Girls.

This book revolves around Quincy, a young woman who ten years earlier survived one of the most horrific experiences of her life. A night that was supposed to be fun turned into a night of betrayal and tragedy. In that night, Quincy and five of her friends, including her best friend, Janelle, were staying at a cabin. At the end of the night, only Quincy survived. Now, years later Quincy is pert of a group of three girls called the "Final Girls" all surviving a night of horrific tragedy, where several others were killed and they were the ones to survive. Suddenly, the original "Final Girl" is found dead of a supposed suicide, and Quincy's life is dramatically changed when the other "Final Girl" Sam shows up wanting to talk. What does Sam want to talk about? Not the death of Lisa, no, she wants to help Quincy remember what happened that night at Pine Cottage.

This book started out strong, and for a while kept me going, wanting to find out what happened to all of the girls and why Lisa, the strongest of the three, would kill herself after all of this time had passed since her tragedy. All three girls, Lisa, Sam, and Quincy, had been in a situation where they had become a "Final Girl," and in fact Lisa is the one who came up with the name. I didn't start getting frustrated with this book until Sam starts pushing Quincy, and her maybe Fiance, Jeff, keeps telling her that she is fine. How could anyone thing she was fine, and how could he have been so blind to what was happening to her? Sam, on the other hand, was too pushy and her personality was so abrasive that it started to wear on me.

I, throughout the book, also found Quincy to be too much of a pushover. I don't know how I would react if I had survived what she had gone through, but for me, I didn't think she was realistically written at certain points in the book. I found the younger Quincy, the one in the flashbacks, to be almost the same as the older Quincy, as if the tragic events of ten years earlier didn't affect her, but there was no telling how she was dealing, or how she did deal, other than she was put on Xanax.  This to me, seemed unrealistic. I doubt that she would just find Xanax to be the cure, and that she would show other destructive behaviors. However, I did the book and the final twist at the end.

One other thing that bothered me about this book, was the time it took to develop anything. There was so much in between the first and last scene that I felt a lot of it was filler. It was almost as if Quincy was standing in a room, just spinning around, and that was what the reader was seeing. I would have liked a little more involvement from the outside characters, a little more to make me feel something deeper, some sense of urgency or, well, anything. As with other books I have read recently, the only character that stood out was Sam, she was well described, and I could see her each time she appeared, often disheveled and awkward. None of the other characters stood out to me, and I didn't even get one bit at the end because I couldn't remember it being described much in the beginning.

Of course, this doesn't mean I disliked the book. I was thrown off by the ending, and not expecting it at all, and it really made the book much more interesting. It was something that I didn't see coming at all, and was happy to have the surprise, especially when most of the book I've read recently were obvious where they were headed.

I do recommend this. I would love to be able to give it a strong recommendation, but can't because of the the slow parts and the fact that none of the characters were really developed (Jeff was super flat).

Scary Mary by S.A. Hunter is a pretty good novel. Mary is a young woman stuck as an outcast in high school. She is called a freak by almost everyone, until she meets Cy, a new kid who doesn't seem to care what anyone has to say about her. Mary's best friend, Rachel, is away on vacation when Mary is invited to Cy's house. Mary isn't sure what to do, as Rachel has been her only friend for several years. Once at Cy's house things don't go as planned, and Mary finds herself once again the outcast. See, Mary can't see them, but she hears ghosts, and there is a nasty one in Cy's house.

This was a fun, fast book to read. The book is only 14 chapters, although I felt it could have been a little more to it. We don't get a lot of backstory on Mary, or Rachel, so I didn't really care about the characters as deeply as I could have. Another character who could have used more development was Mary's grandmother, or Gran. Gran is a fortune teller and the reader doesn't quite have a clear picture of what she looks like, or even how the house they live in is set up.

I would have liked a little more descriptions of several things, since after reading it (and I only finished about 3 hours ago) I can't remember what any of the characters look like. None of them really stuck with me, and I would have liked a little more from the teens who were terrible to Mary. There were more than a few, but the only name I remember is Vicki, and again, I can't quite picture what she looked like.

Now, just because I didn't care for the lack of description, and character development, does not mean that I didn't like this book. I thought the idea behind it was interesting, and found it delightful that Mary had a characteristic that I hadn't seen in a lot of other books, being able to hear but not see the dead. In the end, I thought the most delightful character was Chowder, a ghost dog who comes and goes into Mary's life. And to be honest I can remember more about him than any of the other characters (seriously, what color hair did Rachel have? I want to say red... Maybe).

I may or may not read the next book in this series. I have to think about it, and maybe get through a few more novels on my TBR shelf before buying anything new.

Whispers by Lynne Yvonne Moon was an okay book. It is about a young girl, Musetta, who has been repeatedly raped by her father. Once her father dies she thinks she is safe, but instead she finds that he continues to taunt and rape her.

Musetta is a twelve year old girl who struggles with a secret. The book begins at her fathers funeral, where she acts out and shows how much she hated him for what he as done. As life moves forward and she continues to be tormented by what she thinks is her father's ghost, life becomes more difficult. Finding that her life has been covered by dark secrets and that no one really knows the truth about what is and isn't real, Musetta relies of her group of friends to help her uncover the truth and stop the attacks on her body.

I thought this book started off well, but after a time I found it unbelievable, and even with the understanding that it was written for middle grade children, I felt that even for them it would be unbelievable and at times annoying. Musetta, after people learn of the abuse, doesn't seem to get the help from any of the adults in her life that she should. And the fact that no one seems to believe her is a serious issue. I also found it annoying that these four kids kept doing dangerous things an no one seemed to notice or care. Now, I get that kids get away with a lot, and that is life, but this seemed to take things a little too far.

After a time, I also felt that the book dragged on as the same things kept happening over and over, and maybe this didn't need to be 208 pages. The ending disappointed me a little as Musetta found out everything after a near death experience, instead of through all of the things she had been doing or researching, which to me is just like finding everything out in a dream or flashback. Also, the fact that no one knew anything at the end was a little off putting as well, as she had been going through all of this stuff and no adult seemed to really care.

I didn't hate this book and it was a fast read for me, and it did tackle a serious issue, but to be honest, even that seemed out of place as the rape was never explained except as a "control issue" which is not always why people rape, and it could have had a deeper purpose in this book. It could have been given the attention deserved.

#Murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil had a very interesting premise - killers get sentenced to death on a prison island where other killers hunt them. It is a modern day Running Man, without the technology and futuristic homicidal tools. The main character, Dee, was convicted of her sister's murder. She claims she is innocent, but isn't everyone on Alcatraz 2.0 innocent? Dee knows she is going to die, that is what happens to people who land on Alcatraz 2.0. In fact the longest survivor was a martial artist who lasted five months before she was killed. And the worst part of all of this, people can watch the deaths on an app and the more likes a suspected murderer gets the more horrific their death will become. In fact, there are fan clubs for the paid killers, and bets on how long the new criminals will last.

SPOILERS -
I had high hopes for this book, and thought it was very interesting. When Dee wakes up on the island she has been dressed as if she were Cinderella and she feels she will be forced to die at the hands of a hired killer who will torture, hunt, and kill her. Dee knows she is going to die, but she looks around for a weapon to use to save herself anyway. Once the Prince arrives she accidentally kills him, saving herself. She is then greeted by the island's welcoming agent, Nyles, a young Brit who has immunity as his case goes to appeals.

Throughout her four days on the island, the people she has met are all killed except her and three others, one who is the real killer. What keeps coming back to haunt her is the time she was kidnapped when she was younger. She was held captive by a sadistic young girl, Kimmie, who was the same age as her, and Kimmie's father. In the end, it is her past that is trying to kill her, and her past is the only thing that can save her.

I found this book to be interesting until I was 3/4 through it. At this point I wasn't happy with how it ended. It seemed a little far-fetched to have an island created for one reason, and that reason really being Dee. The ending was also a little convoluted and I was a little disappointed that it left things a little open. For example, as all of the paid killers are being executed, a group of new paid killers are headed to the island to revamp the audience. This is where the book ends, with Dee and the survivors waiting to be rescued, while a new set of killers are on their way.

This ending felt like a cop out to me, as what I really wanted was a bloody gorefest of criminals, or suspected criminals, fighting hunters paid to kill them to the death. Instead I got a book that seemed to two different parts of two books. The first 3/4ths was one part, and the last 1/4 was another.

Now, I didn't hate this book, in fact until the end I did really enjoy it. I only wish that it had stuck to what I was reading in the beginning, with both the people watching on the app and people on the island coming together in a purge like focus, killing the hunters, the Postman (the guy who created the island), and the government who sanctioned the use of the island. Especially since it becomes obvious that the island is cheating people and sending innocent people to die.