Happy Friday! I hope you’re getting ready for the weekend — and for those in the US, preparing for Labor Day Weekend. An extra day to spend time with my family and relax is always appreciated. Plus, it means an extra day I can spend being creative and working on different ideas. I’ll talk more about writing on Monday but typically need to work on multiple ideas simultaneously. There are other novels and ideas that I’m fleshing out and workshopping before I get to the writing stage. More on Monday, though.
This week has been pretty light regarding taking stuff in, but I’ve got a few things I want to shout out.
- Inside Out 2: I finally got to see this movie this week. My wife took our kids earlier in the Summer to see it, but I had to work and had other things to take care of around the house. The first Inside Out is a favorite of my wife’s — and was one of her favorite things to do in Disneyland. It’s a carousel ride there if I remember correctly. Still, I’m also a fan and enjoyed the second one. Pixar knocked it out of the park with this one — twisting the formula of the first one to keep it fresh while still not losing what made it great. The Riley scenes felt better this go around, which provided better balance throughout the movie. I felt like the first movie’s scenes with the emotions were the highlight and this go around, you really got into the story of each ‘world’. Must watch.
- Top Boy: We started watching this show based in East London, which is focused on gang culture. This show came to my radar just recently, and it did not disappoint. The first season of this show is exceptional — produced by the BBC if I’m not mistaken and starts a young Letitia Wright before she made her breakout in Black Panther. She leaves at the end of the first season (disappointingly, since so much of the first season cast returns), which thus far is the strongest of the first two seasons we’ve watched. We’re going to dive into the show’s back half soon — which picks up five years later (and was filmed five years later — the show was done and then came back). It’s an excellent show to pick up, at least for the first two seasons, as it’s a total of eight episodes.
- Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle: I read anything that looks interesting. That’s just something I’ve always done in my life, it doesn’t matter. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action, General Fiction, Romance, etc. — if it looks interesting, I’m going to grab it. I picked up her novel during COVID called In Five Years, about a lawyer who has this vision of her life in five years and it’s completely different than what her life is currently. Well, she does another unique twist of a romance novel about a producer’s assistant who receives notes that reveal how long she will stay in a relationship with someone — and the ups and downs that come along with it. Serle writes a book that is easily digestible and fully enjoyable. You are invested in the characters and the story, rooting for her to be with certain people and peeling back the layers of the main character with a few shocks and twists along the way. Great stuff.
Alright, that’s all I got this week. See you on Monday. Have a great one!