BOOK: The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

The Wind Through the Keyhole Year: 2012 Author: Stephen King Length: 627 minutes / 10.45 hours Backstory can often be a difficult element to work into a series. To keep the action in the present and moving forward, there’s rarely time to go into the background of the characters, let alone the main character of the series. This is why side stories like Fairest and The Wind Through the Keyhole exist. There’s a subtle need to explore the troubled past of a main character, but to get into the depth of their backstory requires a significant amount of words that won’t fit into already full books in the main series. In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King lets the reader see the origins of Roland the Gunslinger. What’s interesting here is that King does so in a series of nested stories, almost evoking something from Inception (2010) or Cloud Atlas. After all, a single story hardly affects real people but is instead a string...
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MOVIE: West Side Story (2021)

West Side Story Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 156 minutes / 2.60 hours I absolutely adore West Side Story (1961). When I heard it was being remade 60 years after it dominated the Academy Awards, I was skeptical. Why mess with perfection? Even with Steven Spielberg directing, I had my doubts. Then I watched the first trailer and had chills of nostalgia. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. After finally watching West Side Story (2021), I had to admit that this remake mostly recaptured most of the magic of the original. It even had some improvements, which I appreciated. The qualms I had with this version of the hit Broadway musical were relatively minor. First, Spielberg has a visual style that sometimes went a little overboard on the lens flare. We aren't talking J. J. Abrams-levels of lens flare, but it was enough to be distracting. Second, the choice to have more of the Puerto Rican characters speak Spanish really helped sell...
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BOOK: Fairest (2015)

Fairest: Levana’s Story Year: 2015 Author: Marissa Meyer Length: 392 minutes / 6.53 hours I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere in the last decade or so, the idea of “redeemable villains” took off. So many stories had antagonists that had their heinous acts justified by some past trauma that somehow made them more human and understandable. While I appreciate flawed characters and the bad decisions that eventually led them down the dark and evil path, I don’t think it’s always necessary to make villains redeemable. That is unless it’s done well. Fairest does it well. Right from the first pages of Fairest, the reader understands that Levana was the runt of the family. The amount of teasing and hypocrisy that formed this young girl into the evil queen she would eventually become is understandable. However, the real brilliance of this story comes in when Levana tries to solve her problems the only way she knows how: by manipulation. It’s not entirely her fault,...
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BOOK: The Warded Man (2008)

The Warded Man Year: 2008 Author: Peter V. Brett Length: 453 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE PUBLISHER*** For anyone who thinks that fantasy is a childish genre, The Warded Man shows that it can have very adult themes. While this adds an element of realism by including sex and violence, it also means that the intended audience for this book should be mature enough to be able to pay attention. Unfortunately, this book takes a repetitive approach with its character arcs, almost as if writing for children who need the point constantly driven home. In the end, I’m mostly just disappointed at what this book could have been instead of what it was. I’m not sure if there’s a minimum page count/word count for fantasy books, but The Warded Man seems to be an interesting novella, padded out with tons of unnecessary backstory—or at least backstory that could be covered in a relevant line or paragraph when needed. I did like the concept and the magical system in...
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