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Ranking Hotel for Dogs trilogy
Lois Duncan is best known for her horror and supernatural mystery work that has spawned countless movie adaptations like I Know What You Did Last Summer but after the tragic unsolved murder of her daughter, she pivoted to lighter fare in children’s literature. Most notably, the Hotel for Dogs trilogy, so let’s get ranking.
- News for Dogs: This one was my favorite (mainly cuz I read it out of order so that may have colored my rankings) as Andi, Bruce, and their friends start up a newspaper for the neighborhood, cycling through news for dogs but end up stumbling into a dognapping mystery. Faster than you can say Scooby Doo, Bruce deducts that it’s the town bully who is desperate for revenge and their dog, Red Rover (whom he still thinks is his even though he’s a horrible dog owner and abuser) and plot a way to expose him. It may have also briefly inspired my dog journalism phase.
- Movies for Dogs: We all love our canine companions in movies. Here, Duncan exposes the fun and the shady side of animal-trainers in Hollywood when the kids enter a contest and get the chance to put Red Rover onscreen and must contend with the animal abuse of a fellow contestant vicariously chasing success through his “talking dog.” Cute, and a light way of introducing a serious topic.
- Hotel for Dogs: I guess it’s not a surprise that the intro gets the bottom ranking as its simple premise is predictable with boy wants dog, boy loves dog, said dog is owned by abusive bully, kid finds a way to get the dog while helping all other strays through dog hotel. Okay, maybe not the classic premise but it’s predictably heartwarming.
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Spy x Family
A spy. An assassin. A telepath. Just your average family.
In Endo’s world, Ostania and Westalis are on the constant verge of civil war and after the last civil war, the government’s SS and the WISE agency do their best to route out dissenters and other individuals that threaten fragile peace.
Twilight is the best spy in WISE and master of disguise, but his latest mission threatens to test the best of his skills. Top government official, Donovan Desmond is a linchpin to the civil war grenade, he has to get close but the man is famously reclusive and paranoid. So he has to infiltrate Desmond’s inner circle by getting a child into Eden Academy, befriend Desmond’s son and get into that mansion.
With the application deadline looming, Twilight (now known as Loid Forager) adopts a kid and manages to finagle a wife just in time. Unbeknowst to him, his child, Anya, is actually a telepath and his wife, Yor, is an assassin, alias Thorn Princess.
None of them know the other’s real skills. Well, except Anya but she’s terrified of revealing the facade in fear that Loid will take her back to the orphange so she has to do a fragile dance of playing along with the ruse while using her skills to help Twilight save the world. Yor has her own reasons for eloping with the man she knows as Loid since single women are considered very suspicious in this communist-esque society, she’s grateful that the marriage makes her seem normal and provide cover for her assassin activities. However, she comes to love the new family bonds she creates with Loid and Anya and will stab anyone who threatens their safety.
That’s the highlight of this series as the trio start to form real affection for the others, making them doubly certain of keeping their secret identities so they can keep their little family and try to incorporate it as long as they can with their “regular” lives.
Endo’s world has shades of the 60s/70s with present day technology, creating a vintage James Bond atmosphere with the humor that comes from these highly trained spies and assassins struggle in acting like regular human beings especially Twilight whose new role as a father is endearingly fraught with his overanalysis of everything and determination to be the most normal father ever. Which Anya uses to her advantage in convincing him that buying her candies and dressing in tacky tourist shirts is the best way to do so.
Plus the side characters are quite fun too. There’s Franky, Twilight’s tech guy who is sometimes wrangled as a babysitter and whose attempts at flirting with anyone is pathetically funny. There’s Yor’s brother, Yuri, whose love for his sister veers into creepy but provides drama as his role as Head SS agent and interrogator threatens Twilight’s mission since Yuri is ready to execute Loid the second he hurts his older sister and he doesn’t even know that Twilight is the infamous Twilight.
Anya’s own mission in befriending Desmond is adorable as she’s a truly weird kid among all the trust fund brats but her imagination and empathy (with a side helping of telepathy) make her attempts and failures fun to read.
Plus there’s characters introduces later on that provide new obstacles and revelations for the trio to become more immersed in their lies and point them to reconsider their priorities like Twilight’s protege, Nightfall who has a huge crush on her mentor and seeks to ursurp Yor, and the Bond the future-seeing dog.
Not to mention the obvious slow-burn between Loid and Yor that point to them developing real feelings and I can’t wait for the storm that will happen when their real identities are revealed.
But until that happens, I’m looking forward to volume 11 and 12 and watching the netflix adaptation.
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Ranking The Land of Stories
I have finally finished my fractured fairytale TBR pile! Yay me!! And this one took awhile because damn this series is popular, someone was always checking it out. But I finished and now it’s time to rank em.
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Ranking Die Kitty Die
For fans of Arhie comics, Ruiz and Parent put their considerable talent into their personal Kickstarter project Die Kitty Die! This Cheryl-look alike is Kitty Ravencroft, a witch whose adventures have dominated comics for decades. But it seems she has lost her charms and her creator has decided on a great publicity stunt to regain interest. Kill Kitty off, in real life and in the book! Now Kitty’s five ex-husbands, and old friends are vying for the chance to kill her and get their own comic line. Kitty’s own evil cousin, Katty wants to be the reboot Kitty. What’s a witch to do?
This is an R-rated, hilariously inappropriate and maybe problematic adventure for some. But I don’t offend easily, I thought it was a riot as the duo gently ribbed the comic industry while putting as many innuendos and pin ups as possible. Now there’s four volumes but since I can’t find Starstruck anywhere online or in stores, I can only rank the first three.
- Hollywood or Bust: Kitty was able to survive all the attempts on her life which is good because the mercenary saga has boosted comic sales and now she’s going to be in the movies! Kitty plans to be entirely in charge of her image but seems like someone doesn’t want Kitty to be in charge and tries to bump her off with the Hexecutioner! Maybe because this is the first one I read but it gets top spot with its balanced story, introduction of Kitty’s old friends, clever tv and Hollywood references and of course =, the lovable rascal Maxi Millions (totally not a ripoff of R.R. at all).
- Heaven and Hell: Since the last volume ended in a cliffhanger, we are all left with one question: Who shot K.R? Kitty wants to know too but first must stand trial as to whether she’s to go to heaven or hell. This was an excellent volume between Kitty’s friends on Earth engaging in Scooby Doo hijinks to find Kitty’s killer while Kitty teams up with Li’l Satan an meets God aka Bea Arthur (made in his image, of course!). I loved it, just hysterical. Plus they cleverly reference a certain old comic ad to create their version of a Satanic king. The only reason it gets bumped to second is because of a dropped storyline where the Grimm Reaper and Derek team up to find Kitty’s killer and get dropped entirely.
- Die Kitty Die: Ah the first one always has the hardest responsibility of introducing everyone, and balancing the timeline, plot urgency and stakes. Of course, this was a more comical take because comic and it’s clear they were having fun in going all out on the pervy selves but some of the storyline just felt rushed in the last two issues.
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Book Highlight: The Missing Sword
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The Grace Kelly Dress Review
Weddings are supposed to be one of the biggest days of your life and the wedding dress is the centerpiece. But for this family, the Grace Kelly dress insired by the Grace Kelly wedding dress holds differing meanings and expectations for each women on their special day.
Janowitz takes us through an intergenerational story spanning 2020, 1982 and 1958 with Rocky, Joanie, and Rose.
In 2020, Rocky dreads wearing the wedding dress. She’s a tech girl, opting for the new rather than the old and the dress just isn’t her. It’s perfect for her beautiful, girly sister, Amanda whom her mother was always closer to. But she’s the one getting married and she can’t spit out the words that she doesn’t want the dress. She doesn’t want to hurt her mother.
In 1982, Joanie is eager to get married and start her adult life. She thinks. Thing is, she’s more eager about wearing the Grace Kelly dress down the aisle than the husband greeting her at the end of it. When she finds out that her elder sister did not unexpectedly die of a heart attack, her mission to find out the truth leads to a crisis of identity, and fears of disappointing her mother after she spent all the time being the good girl for two.
In 1958, the orphaned Rose loves her job as a semestress for the famously talented Madam Michele but when her employer unexpectedly dies, she’s recruited to be her protege and complete the wedding dresses in Madam’s name. But her ruse may be discovered as she befriends the eager bride and falls in love with the bride’s brother, Robert.
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The Liz Taylor Ring Review
Jewelry has a way of making a girl shine brighter, feel prettier, sexier, like sparkly armour so they can walk into the room with their head held high. For some, jewelry can have immense meaning imbued into it, remembering who gave it to you and why, all the special events it represents.
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The Audrey Hepburn Estate Review
After years away, Emma is returning to her home, Rolling Hills aka the Aubrey Hepburn Estate due to local legend that Sabrina was filmed on the premise. Untrue. Also untrue is that Emma lived in the main house, she lived above the garage since her mother was the maid. It’s all in the technacalities and though others repeatedly tell Emma that Rolling Hills wasn’t really her home. Her family didn’t own it. It was part of her, lots of first occurred there, her father’s memory is there and her history with two beloved men began there.
One of those men, Leo, the son of the chauffuer is now successful and is tearing Rolling Hills down despite Emma’s protests. The other is Henry, the son of the original owners who had a clandestine relationship with her yet cruelly bowed to pressure and took the most popular girl to prom instead, and the destruction of Rolling Hills brings them together once more to air out grievences and find out lost family secrets.
Yeah, this book surprised me mainly because I thought it would be thoughtful finding oneself alongside Hollywood glamour. Which there was Emma finding herself but it has also the secret mystery of Nazi connections! What a twist!
I knew about Aubrey’s experiences of nearly starving during WW2, but I had no idea about her parents’ ties to facism and the Nazis nor Aubrey being part of the Dutch Resistance. So that was fascinating stuff alongside Janowitz’ elegance in weaving parts of Aubrey’s history into Emma’s story (abandonment from a deceased father, struggle to reconcile her history and the victims of WW2) with allusions to Hepburn’s famous films throughout. It just made me want to watch her movies again especially as the romance plot was largely inspired by Sabrina which was Emma’s favorite movie in the novel.
And the story is so much more than the love triangle although it takes up a bulk of the flashbacks, it grows alongside the character development and mysteries taking place inside Rolling Hills. It sets the scene for the jealousy between Henry and Leo which Emma can’t navigate because she’s hung up in her childhood imaginings of her and Henry, prince and princess, and finally being more than the maid’s daughter. Yet she and Leo have plenty of easy chemistry throughout their adolescence as they try to uncover whether Henry’s father is really a Nazi thanks to the memorabilia they found in a hidden kitchen chamber.
Here, we see two flawed choices. Henry’s flawed in the past and Leo is flawed in the present and Emma is mixed up in this as she can’t set her boundaries because she’s so mixed up even as she doesn’t realize it. Honestly, I thought Janowitz was going to end with Emma single even though the choice was obvious from the beginning. But it just shows how Emma’s personal growth was a priority and her need to work on herself before commitment.
Which brings to what does home and family represent. It’s something Emma had been chasing most of her life since her father’s death and her mother’s distant relationship. Emma put all that meaning into Rolling Hills but she soon finds that it really comes from the people you surround yourself with and the life you’ve created which compared to the nostalgia of the past, the present wins out every time.
It was a good journey though I felt it was a bit rushed in the end as Emma comes to accept her past through a time-skip so we don’t see how she has become so assured when a few chapters ago she was dithering whether she was a good person or not. I also some questions about the timeline as it is implied that this is the present day but all their parents were teenagers during WW2 so I’d feel they’d be a lot older than they were in the story. But then I’m not very good with math so I could be wrong.
This was a wonderful book with mystery, history, romance and old Hollywood charm as Janowitz put so much care and research into this. 5 stars.
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Ranking Commercial Breaks
You may think commercials are those nuisances interrupting your favorite shows but for these girls, being famous for thirty seconds is a big deal. Commercial acting is its own world with its own terms, protocols and competition that Kain makes as exciting as any Hollywood set.
- Picture Perfect/Dramatic Pause: Normally I would put two in the top spot, especially in a trilogy but this is such a close tie that I truly cannot decide. In Picture Perfect, Cassie Harold loves commercials for its pristine, perfect life so unlike her mom who is her complete opposite and her father’s long distance work. In commercials everyone is happy and perfect and for those thirty seconds, she can be perfect too. In the course of the book, Cassie’s attempts to mold her real life to commercial life fails miserably especially as she reels from the news of her parent’s divorce. Kaine does an excellent job in showcasing Cassie’s numbness and denial over her changing life. Unlike other divorced kids, she doesn’t blame herself but wonders why her parents can’t remember what brought them together in the first place. You can understand how commercialism is her escape in a life where she feels pretty dumb and average but it makes it more triumphant when she starts to see how reality can be more affirming even if it isn’t perfect. Also it’s unique in that there’s no love interest, sure there’s a guy who has a crush on her and she learns to befriend him beyond his nerdish appearences but he’s like three years younger than so it would have been weird if it went in that direction. The only flaw is that Kain get repetitive in bringing the point home and some lines seemed to repeat or at least be a variation of the same. Dramatic Pause features Isabel Flores who yearns to be a serious actor in Broadway and she has the prodigy chops to back it up when she gets accepted to an acclaimed academy on scholarship. But it’s expensive, so she desperately accepts a ridiculous Japanese commercial job. Since it is supposed to only air in Asia, she is assured that her humiliation will never reach her serious actor crush, but then it comes to the U.S. Isabel’s struggle to reconcile the two highlights the snobbishness of the industry but it’s nice to see her learn as she befriends her fellow commercial actors and understands that one can be both. Her acting cred won’t tank because she appears as a dancing banana but just shows her versatility, one can be both. However, it’s one flaw is that Kain is just not great at burgeoning romances. I didn’t buy why Chuck would be still into Isabel after she acted like a snob to him and they only talked thrice.
- Famous for Thirty Seconds: Brittany Rush is a big deal. She booked the most commercials in the industry ever since she was 8-months, but one year off the grid because her stupid family had to move to Hong Kong she finds her position as it-girl has been usurped. Honestly, Brittany is unlikable throughout the book. Her career is more important to her than anything else, so much that she barely knows how to interact with people her own age or fathom niceness without ulterior motives. Most of the book has her planning to sabotoge her really nice rival, Phoebe who genuinely believes they are friends by dating Phoebe’s brother aka her good luck charm. On one hand, Kain does a good job in pinpointing why Brittany is this way. How she has spent so much of her life on screen that she doesn’t have much idea of who she is on her own. That she confuses being viewed through screen as being seen. But I found her chemistry with Liam, the guy she ends up falling for despite her initial plan to dump him to ruin Phoebe’s mojo to be predictable and just cartoonishly self-involved for most of it. However, it did introduce me to the series and does an excellent job in illustrating the commercial industry, its lingo, process and such.
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Howl’s Moving Castle
After reading Howl’s Moving Castle last month, I finally got around to watching the Ghibli movie. Of course, it’s not totally accurate but damn that studio is amazing in creating such a beautiful world that is inspiring and magical and whimsical. I mean that opening scene where Howl suavely steps up to those guards bothering Sophie and flies her over the buildings was just full of wonderment. I literally gasped at the same time as Sophie.
The beginning is pretty accurate minus the Howl floating Sophie scene but I enjoyed it as it added a great meet cute moment I suppose whereas in the book Sophie’s romantic feelings towards Howl feel so muted that I thought she was more of a mom than a romantic interest to him.
But after Sophie meets the turnip scarecrow and gets Howl’s castle, the moving rushes through the story and changes it up focusing on the war the king has wrought on the waste to find his son and the terrible effects of it on the rest of town. Makes sense as that is Miyazaki’s calling card. Creating beautiful moments of natural solitude with the horrors of war so the triumph of peace at the end will be so much sweeter.
Not that it completely cuts out the book. It adds some of the most memorable moments like Sophie meeting Howl’s mentor, Sulliman, and Howl’s breakdown over his dyed hair. The latter was very effective in depicting the slimy ooze Howl emits during his temper tantrum. In the book it was a funny mess, but the movie made it eerie yet amusing.
Howl in the movie is much more sophiscated and put together. Honestly the dyed hair temper tantrum was the only time he reminded me of the book as Jones depicts him as an flirtatious, flighty, dramatic wizard full of bravado to cover his cowardice. The movie adds some more poignancy (no, it doesn’t include Howl’s family) by having Howl be somewhat cursed by his lack of heart. The scene where he transforms into a nightmarish bird that Sophie tries to comfort gave me major Beauty and the Beast vibes.
Sophie is a bit more emotional than her no-nonsense, crochety grandmother self. That still forms a majority of her personality, but she is more likely to tear up as her feelings for Howl are more prominant and a major focus of their deepening relationship. I thought it was too fast but I didn’t mind as it was necessary for the plot to go forward.
I totally did not expect Merkle to be a little boy but as the movie cut out most of the family plot involving Sophie and Howl’s family, there was no reason for Merkle to be a young adult. Honestly, I wish they kept that plot in as the loving yet chaotic family would have provided some humorous scenes and would have continued the themes of looking beyond one’s external presentation to find their desires, and feelings are completely different from what is assumed.
I totally didn’t expect for the Witch of the Waste to be redeemed but I liked the message it was trying to convey in understanding your enemies and befriending them to break the cycle of violence.
So while it is not completely true to text, I enjoyed the more linear, focused message the movie presents. The book is like a fun adventure of seemingly disconnected friends that are nicely woven together while the movie is a quieter, more poignant narrative.
What do you think of movie vs book? Comment below!
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