The Girl Without Skin by Mads Peder Nordbo – review
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
A mummified corpse is found on an ice cap in Greenland, which is initially thought to be that of a Viking dating back centuries. On the second day of covering the story, journalist Matthew Cave is shocked to witness a bloody spectacle at the site of discovery. The corpse is missing, and the spot where the mummy was kept is glistening red with blood. The lifeless, naked body of the police officer who was guarding the mummy during the night was lying there, and it was “gutted from groin to breastbone”.
Simultaneously, all the pictures of the corpse taken by the photographer disappear, and Matthew’s editor asks him not to report anything citing pressure from higher-ups. To keep himself occupied, Matthew starts digging into four unsolved, brutal murders that happened in 1973. Little does he know his investigation will open a Pandora’s box of lies and secrets. On top of this, he meets Tupaarnaq, a young woman released after being twelve years in prison for murdering her parents and two sisters. Is Tupaarnaq somehow related to these murders?
Ruth, a novelist living on the tiny, rural island of Whaletown, Canada, finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox wrapped in a plastic bag on the seashore. She dismisses it as garbage since the beach is often covered with trash and takes it home to dispose of it later.
However, her inquisitive husband, Oliver, opens it and finds a collection of handwritten letters, an antique wristwatch, and Marcel Proust’s novel À la recherche du temps perdu. Ruth is surprised to find that the novel conceals the diary of Nao, a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl. As she starts reading it, Nao’s story captivates her. Through this diary, Ruth finds herself connected to Nao in an unexpected way.
Fallen Mountains by Kimi Cunningham Grant – a review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
The haunting yet beautiful cover – that’s what drew me to this book, and I don’t regret picking it up.
Transom Shultz—son of the only rich person in the small town of Fallen Mountains—goes missing. Who could be behind his disappearance? Is it his best friend, Chase Hardy, whose farm Transom had bought and damaged irreparably? Is it his ex-girlfriend, Laney? Or is it Thomas Miller, the boy Transom bullied in school? It’s up to Sheriff Red to solve the case, but Red is hiding a secret too.
Recently, I watched two films, August Rush and Leap Year, and read a book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. While the films were good overall, the book was wonderful.
In A Thousand Splendid Suns, penned by Khaled Hosseini, the narrative seamlessly blends the stories of the two women protagonists, Mariam and Laila, against the backdrop of the Taliban invasion in Afghanistan.
In addition to a beautiful and heart-moving story, the writer has also employed rich prose to transport imagery to the readers, thereby, displaying his writing finesse. Hosseini has tremendously improved himself since his first book The Kite Runner. The book has definitely given me a new romantic pair to cheer – Laila and Tariq.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is as much “a story about a woman’s freedom from brutal and systematic oppression as it is about human endurance and courage to move on and start afresh.” It’s a story of hope.
As far as the films are concerned, I liked both of them, although when I checked the Internet, none of the films were appreciated by the critics. Carping is the profession of critics so, let’s leave them to that.
August Rush
August Rush tells the story of a charismatic young Irish guitarist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and a sheltered young cellist (Keri Russell) who have a chance encounter one night (the most common trope in romantic movies, lol). However, they are soon estranged, leaving in their wake an infant, August Rush, orphaned by circumstance.
Cared for by a stranger (Robin Williams), August (Freddie Highmore) starts performing on the streets of New York and uses his impressive musical talent to find his parents.
August Rush is a story about a child prodigy in music and his attempts to find his lost parents. It was a simple story and proved to be a good source of relaxation. However, I do agree with the critics on one point- the movie ended abruptly and thus, left a jarring note.
Verdict: Fairy-tale ending. Watchable.
Leap Year Movie
The other film Leap Year (2010) was a good romantic movie starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, two formidable acting talents. It had a sweet, simple, and a humorous story.
Anna (Adams) wants to propose to her long-time boyfriend Jeremy and decides to do it the traditional Irish way. So she takes a flight to Dublin, but due to inclement weather, the plane has to land at Cardiff, Wales.
From there, she boards a ramshackle boat to travel to Cork, yet her plans are thwarted once more and she has to land in Dingle.
There she meets a surly but a handsome (yeah, bring on another romance movie trope!) Innkeeper Declan (Goode) who agrees to take her to Dublin.
Voila, Declan and Anna, along with the audience, embark on a road trip and lo behold! What a transformation both of them undergo.
The transformation of both Anna and Declan has been convincingly portrayed by the lead actors. Further, the chemistry between them is undeniable and jumps right off the screen.
Verdict: Happy ending. Definitely watchable!
All in all, both the films were good for biding time.
Want to get more books and movie reviews? Then subscribe to my blog via email or Follow me on WordPress/Twitter/Goodreads (Links on the sidebar).
Debjani's Thoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.