In Gabriella Saab’s debut novel, Maria Florkowska, a young woman working for the Polish resistance effort alongside her parents during World War II, has her world turned upside down when she’s sent to Auschwitz.
(more…)Author: Marialena Gallagher
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Summer Concerts 2025
Working in Guest Services at a theme park, Summer is usually my busy season when I’m working consistently and making decent money. This summer, however, I took some time off to actually have some fun.
My cousins and I went to two concerts at Veteran’s United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The first one was Big Time Rush on July 19. Growing up, I was aware of Big Time Rush, but I never really followed them.
Carlos Peña seemed to be the most personable of the band members; when the band invited audience members on stage to perform one of their songs, he shared a fun fact about the girl he picked. Maybe I’m also sightly biased towards him because one of his outfits was a basketball jersey that said “Ketchikan” on it. Is that where I think it is? I definitely enjoyed the show, but by the end of the night, I was more than ready to go home.
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Superman (2025)
Superman’s arch enemy, Lex Luthor, is determined to eliminate him once and for all. But can he?
Superman. He’s iconic, right? He’s been played by so many actors over the years, most notably Christopher Reeves, and yet this most recent iteration seemed fresh. And that’s in no small part due to the cast. Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) is Lois Lane. Wendell Pierce (Elsbeth, Amazon Prime’s version of Jack Ryan) is her boss at The Daily Planet. The list goes on, but mentioning all of them here might take up the rest of the review.
The movie may be one of the most recent at the box office, but its themes were a familiar tale as old as time. One more name drop just to say that Nicholas Hoult’s — along with the writer’s and costume designer’s, of course — take on Lex Luthor seemed to be a combination of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Musk because Luthor is an obsessive, xenophobic technocrat, and Bezos because he’s bald. Much cuter than Bezos in real life, though. Obviously.
Luthor is obsessed with ridding the world of Superman just because he’s an alien. Which, while actually a fact, isn’t quite fair, because Clark Kent grew up on Earth, and he wants nothing more than to help humanity, though he may cause some collateral property damage in the process.
The visual effects were solid. That is to say, green screen or whatever other effects the movie may have used aren’t glaringly obvious. But the cutest visual effect was Krypto, Superman’s dog. He may not be the best behaved puppy, but he comes in clutch when Superman needs him. Fun fact: Krypto isn’t completely CGI. James Gunn, who directed the movie, used his dog to do motion capture.
Go see this before it leaves theaters, if it’s possible. It doesn’t disappoint.
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Sunrise on the Reaping
The book got a little beat up while on vacation. Sorry Suzanne! Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 40 years after the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s now the fiftieth anniversary of The Hunger Games, the first Quarter Quell, and a young Haymitch Abernathy is reaped on what happens to be his birthday. Such a nice birthday present, right? And because a Quarter Quell is when things get interesting, twice as many tributes get reaped as usual, which means Haymitch has 47 opponents. Loyal readers might remember how the story ends, but that’s just the beginning.
This was a really fun who’s who of The Hunger Games universe. The main character, of course is Haymitch, who just so happens to be friends with Katniss’s dad, Burdock Everdeen. Katniss definitely got her bow-and-arrow skills from him. There’s also Effie Trinket, Plutarch Havensbee, Mags, Wiress, and Beetee.
Beetee isn’t in a wheelchair at this point – was that just a thing in the Catching Fire movie? However, he does have a plan up his sleeve, a plan that involves Haymitch and his own son, Ampert. Not only is Ampert adorable, he has a really fitting name for someone from District 3.
There’s also more to Plutarch Havensbee than is seen as first glance, but knowing that he eventually becomes Head Gamemaker, it’s not clear if he’s a good guy or not.
Effie actually comes to District 12’s wardrobe rescue, because their assigned stylist, Magno Stift, is too busy getting high on whatever he can get his hands on to actually take the time to dress his tributes in anything other than what they’ve been wearing for the last half century – black overalls and miners’ hats. Sure, District 12 ends up getting hand-me-downs from the Trinket family, but that’s better than nothing.
The end of this book was absolutely brutal. Haymitch may have survived, but that doesn’t mean he catches any kind of breaks. Does Suzanne Collins get off on ripping out her readers’ hearts and feeding them into a wood chipper? Because sometimes it seems like she does.
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Back of Beyond
Cody Hoyt is a detective with the Lewis & Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Montana. He might be rough around the edges, but he’s smart and he gets the job done. However, when his friend and Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor Hank Winters is found dead, everything changes.
This is an excellent book. Author C.J. Box knows how to write an evenly paced page turner full of twists and turns the audience won’t see coming. Going back and forth between what Cody is up to and the bigger picture means the through line is tension. Pure tension.
When the two plot lines of the book meet – at times, they seem separate – that’s when the book explodes. But Box takes a long time to get there. He’s really good at building suspense and developing characters. Someone who seems harmless at first slowly transforms into someone who’s not so innocent as meets the eye.
Well, maybe it’s not a slow transformation at all. Box is also really good at writing from his villains’ point of view. Getting into their heads and revealing to the reader just how messed up they can be underneath all the charm they use to try and make people feel safe around them. Charm only goes so far, though. The mask always falls at some point, no matter how hard people try to keep it on.
This book is definitely an adventure worth going on. Be prepared to get sucked into it.
The Reviewing Fangirl 