Top Ten Tuesday: Should I Buy These Books?

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Technically, this week’s prompt was “Books I Bought/Borrowed Because…”. I tweaked it to better fit my reading patterns since almost all of my reading material is borrowed from the library.

I’ll share the titles and blurbs from some books I’m thinking about buying this spring while remaining in social isolation due to the pandemic we’re all dealing with. None of these books are available at my local library, and the library frankly can’t keep up with my reading needs these days! Perhaps some of you could tell me which of these titles I should buy first?

The Snow Dragon by Abi Elphinstone book cover. Image on cover shows a girl riding on a snow dragon.

The Snow Dragon by Abi Elphinstone

Blurb:

In Griselda Bone’s gloomy orphanage, daydreaming is banned, skipping is forbidden and Christmas is well and truly cancelled. But for Phoebe and her sausage dog Herb, is it possible that, just when things seem at their bleakest, magic awaits in the swirling, snow-filled air?Wicked Nix by Lena Coakley book cover. Image on cover is of cottage in the woods. A child is sitting on a tree branch breathing in the smoke from the cottage.

 

 

 

Wicked Nix by Lena Coakley

Mischievous woodland fairy Nix is up to no good. His beloved fairy queen has gone away, leaving him with a very important job: He must protect the forest from a most dangerous enemy—humans.

When a determined invader trespasses on his territory, Nix’s skills are put to the test as he invents several wicked tricks to chase the sorry fellow away. But when his efforts don’t go quite according to plan, it becomes clear that this intruder—and this sprite—may not be at all what they seem.

The Curse of Misty Wayfair by Jaime Jo Wright book cover. Image on cover is of a sheer curtain blowing in front a wooden chair in a crumbling room. The Curse of Misty Wayfair by Jaime Jo Wright

Left at an orphanage as a child, Thea Reed vowed to find her mother someday. Now grown, her search takes her to Pleasant Valley, Wisconsin, in 1908. When clues lead her to a mental asylum, Thea uses her experience as a post-mortem photographer to gain access and assist groundskeeper Simeon Coyle in photographing the patients and uncovering the secrets within. However, she never expected her personal quest would reawaken the legend of Misty Wayfair, a murdered woman who allegedly haunts the area and whose appearance portends death.

A century later, Heidi Lane receives a troubling letter from her mother–who is battling dementia–compelling her to travel to Pleasant Valley for answers to her own questions of identity. When she catches sight of a ghostly woman who haunts the asylum ruins in the woods, the long-standing story of Misty Wayfair returns–and with it, Heidi’s fear for her own life.

As two women across time seek answers about their identities and heritage, can they overcome the threat of the mysterious curse that has them inextricably intertwined?

What I Carry by Jennifer Longo

What I Carry by Jennifer Longo book cover. Image on cover is of stylized drawings of plants in blue, green, purple, and yellow hues.Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she’s learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase.

Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope! There’s no room for any additional baggage.

Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she’s free. One year to avoid anything–or anyone–that could get in her way.

Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean.

And everything changes.

Hyperlink from Hell: A Couch Potato’s Guide to the Afterlife by Lindy Moone

Hyperlink from Hell: A Couch Potato's Guide to the Afterlife by Lindy Moone book cover. Image on cover is of bats flying around a belfry.

Murder haunts The Haven, celebrity James Canning’s home since he lost touch with Reality TV. What’s his “shrink” to do? Assign writing therapy, of course. But when the good doc reads Canning’s memoir, Hyperlink from Hell, he checks into his own padded suite and Canning disappears. To save the doc from madness, The Haven’s new director must analyze the hell out of Hyperlink from Hell. Is Canning’s tale of kidnapping, murder, time travel and wardrobe malfunction fact or fiction, deceit or delusion? Can she solve the murders, save her boss and find Canning? Or will she need a padded suite of her own?

“Hyperlink from Hell: A Couch Potato’s Guide to the Afterlife” isn’t just the latest of the funny vampire books. It’s the great American mystery… in hyperdrive.

Defying Doomsday by Tsana Dolchva

Defying Doomsday by Tsana Dolchva book cover. Image on cover is of a woman with a robotic leg walking towards strangers on a cracked, barren landscape. Teens form an all-girl band in the face of an impending comet.

A woman faces giant spiders to collect silk and protect her family.

New friends take their radio show on the road in search of plague survivors.

A man seeks love in a fading world.

How would you survive the apocalypse?

Defying Doomsday is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the “fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when everything is lost.

In stories of fear, hope and survival, this anthology gives new perspectives on the end of the world, from authors Corinne Duyvis, Janet Edwards, Seanan McGuire, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Stephanie Gunn, Elinor Caiman Sands, Rivqa Rafael, Bogi Takács, John Chu, Maree Kimberley, Octavia Cade, Lauren E Mitchell, Thoraiya Dyer, Samantha Rich, and K Evangelista.

112 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

3 Things I Like About Yoga

women doing yoga

While I briefly dabbled with trying yoga once many years ago, I actually dove into it for real a couple of weeks ago.

With all of the restrictions on when and why we’re permitted to leave our homes in Toronto these days due to the Covid-19 epidemic, this seemed like the perfect time to branch out and try something new.

Here are a few wonderful things that have stood out to me about this form of exercise as I’ve been acclimating to it. I’m keeping this post short and sweet because I’m still so new to yoga in general. Perhaps I’ll write longer posts about it in the future!

If any of you have been doing this form of exercise longterm, I’d sure love to hear your favourite things about it as well.

The Focus on Balance and Flexibility

Black silhouettes of various yoga posts against a white background. All of my other regular workout routines are heavily immersed in cardio and strength training exercises.

Yoga requires my body to bend and flex in ways that are quite different from dancing or lifting weights.

Instead of bracing myself to lift a heavy load or pivot to a new dance move, I’m learning how to better hold my balance with a tricky position and gently stretch just a little bit further every time.

The Attention Paid to Breathing Patterns

Dandelion seeds being blown away from a mature dandelion plant. Breathing isn’t something I consciously think about with other forms of exercise unless I’m out of breath for them.

Even then, the only aspect of it that crosses my mind is generally how many seconds or minutes are left until my body can slow down and catch up on some of the air it requires.

The incredible thing about yoga is how much your breath matter even though I’ve yet to become out of breath with any of the poses I’ve done so far.

I’ve actually started to pay closer attention to my breathing during times of the day when I’m not exercising as well as a result of these workouts.

It’s so interesting to see how these sessions are affecting me in that way. This wasn’t something I was expecting to happen at all.

The Reinforcement of Mindfulness

White clouds against a bright blue skyYoga is the slowest type exercise I’ve ever discovered. Everything about it encourages me to pay close attention to what I’m currently doing and think of nothing but holding my current pose.

There is something incredibly relaxing about turning away from all of the distractions of the world we currently live in and existing in a moment.

The fact that I can do that while also getting a good workout in only makes it better.

16 Comments

Filed under Fitness, Mindfulness and Meditation

Hopeful Science Fiction: Monsters Come Howling in Their Season

Click on the tag “hope” at this bottom of this post to read about all of my suggestions for hopeful science fiction. If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.

Recently, I discovered the Better Worlds series, a science fiction anthology of short stories and films about hope that was published at The Verge two years ago. This is the fourth story from this anthology I’ve covered here, and I will eventually blog about all of them.

There are mild spoilers in this post. 

Monsters Come Howling in Their Season

Like many of the other stories in my Hopeful Science Fiction series, this might not sound like a particularly hopeful place to begin. Keep reading.

The characters in this tale were ordinary, mostly working class people who pooled their resources together for the greater good. I love seeing this perspective in the science fiction genre. There’s something heartwarming about finding out how characters who aren’t wealthy or powerful protect their community from climate change.

Some of the most compelling scenes were the ones that described how the AI was designed to function, especially once it became too complex even for programmers to fully understand. It truly had everyone’s best intentions in mind.

Technology might have caused climate change, but it was also a force for a lot of good in this world. That is such a refreshing change for this genre.

I also appreciated the way the characters’ emotional reactions to hurricane season were portrayed. Violent storms like that are dangerous as Dr. Stevens and her community were far too aware of already. The act of finding hope for people whose lives had been turned upside down by hurricanes that happened before the AI was developed only made these changes in their lives more poignant.

As complete as it story felt in and of itself, I wished it could have been expanded into a full-length novel. There was so much more I wanted to know about the characters and the artificial intelligence they’d created to protect and provide for them during hurricane season.

Maybe someday we’ll get that sequel. In the meantime, this was such a soothing thing to read.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Book Series and Why

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Hominids book cover by Robert J. Sawyer. Image on cover shows a picture of a neanderthal and a homo sapien.It was tough to narrow this down to only one answer, but I’m going to have to go with Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy.

This series showed what happened when a link was established between our Earth and an Earth in a parallel universe where Homo sapiens went extinct and Neanderthals survived until present day.

Readers who have followed my site for a while may remember how much I enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction about the different human and human-like species that have lived on Earth.

What made this series even more interesting were the many cultural differences between us and Neanderthals.

If you picked out two humans on our Earth who had the least in common as far as language, culture, and life experience goes, they’d still be miles ahead when compared to introducing a Neanderthal to a Homo sapiens in this series.

To give a few of the least surprising examples, Neanderthals in this series have remained hunter-gatherers, have no farms or other formal agricultural systems, do not have a monetary economy, have no concept of religion or a belief in any supernatural being, and have a rate of serious crime that is all but non-existent.

Honestly, the world building is the most unique one I’ve ever seen. I can’t recommend it highly enough for that reason alone.

26 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Signs You’re a Book Lover

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

1. If you visit a new city, you immediately look for the nearest bookstore or library.

2. If you’ve ever taken a cruise, packing enough reading material is more important than remembering that extra outfit or having room for a souvenir.

3.You quote your favourite books without necessarily mentioning where those quotes came from.

4.You get excited when you meet someone who enjoys the same genre(s) you do.

5. If you’ve ever been hospitalized, you ask for new reading material when loved ones ask you what they can do to make your stay more comfortable.

photo of woman lying down on a stone wall while holding the pages of a book open.

6. You give baby-friendly board books as presents to families with new babies.

7. You’ve dreamt about your favourite characters or worlds.

8.Your local librarian recognizes you when they see you somewhere other than the library.

9. If you use online dating sites, your love of books is mentioned somewhere in your profile and you screen new potential partners at least in part based by whether or not they’re a reader.

10. Your pets get to have a story time, too.

110 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

A Photo Essay of Toronto in March

Note: I wrote this post in early March before Toronto began shutting down businesses and public places in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. There were no restrictions on travel, spending time near other people, or park usage at the time of my visit. What April’s post in this series will be like still remains to be seen. I will do my best to visit it again if I’m still healthy and we’re allowed to walk through the park at that point. 

This is the second instalment of a monthly photography series I started back in February. Each month I will share photos from one of the parks in Toronto to show my readers what our landscape looks like throughout the year.

As I mentioned last month, this is a slushy, muddy, and unpredictable season that has only grown sloppier and more unpredictable as climate change has disrupted our traditional weather patterns.

The  interesting thing about this part of the year is that we never know in advance what to expect. Will there be a blizzard? Will we have sunny, spring-like weather? Everything can change in a day or even over the course of a few hours while winter is slowly giving way to proper spring weather.

It turns out that the temperature on March’s visit was 10 C, exactly the same as it was on the day I visited in February. That wasn’t so much as coincidence as me not wanting to do this photoshoot when it was 0 C and raining outside. Ha!

Photo of a World War I monument at a Toronto park. There are bare tree branches in the background and dry steps leading up to the monument in the foreground.

The monument I blogged about last month had a reprieve from the snow and ice of February.

A dirt running trail at a park. Part of the trail is filled with mud and a little water.

The running trail I shared earlier has changed as well. It was less muddy when I visited it this time, although this is something that will continue to fluctuate quite a bit for at least the next month.

If you look at the background, you’ll see two people using that trail! Other than the reduction of snow piles, the biggest difference between last month and this one is that there were about a dozen other people and a few friendly dogs using this park during my visit.

Bare tree branches against a blue sky.

You’ll notice no changes in the foliage this time. Everything is brown and dead or dormant now. April is the absolute soonest I’d expect to see any greenery in Toronto, and it generally remains somewhat rare for most species until closer to the end of that month. Dead leaves on the ground.

You can still see leaves on the ground from last autumn.

A tree that is still covered in brown, dead leaves.

And some trees still haven’t released their leaves from last autumn. I hope this little one survived the winter.

A bird's nest in a dormant, leafless, tree.

One of the really cool things about March is that you can see last year’s bird nests in the trees. I’ve read that some species here return to the same nest every spring to raise another brood of chicks.

Sights like this aren’t possible once the trees have leaves again. You can hear the chicks peeping sometimes if you walk right underneath their home tree, but it’s hard to spot their nests in May or June. A dirty patch of snow on a sidewalk. There is a blue glove and many leaves stuck in the snow.

Yes, we still have snow here and there. If anyone is missing a blue glove, I know where you lost it!

Toronto can get snow in April, too, although it generally melts fairly quickly.

A photo of a park in March. The trees are bare and the ground is brown. But there is no snow on it.

We definitely have less snow than my previous visit, though. Look how clear the ground is. In month or two, I’ll be able to walk on it without getting mud all over my shoes. For now, I’m sticking to the mostly-dry sidewalk.

A dead tree. The top half has been shorn off and is lying on the ground. Was it damaged in a storm?

My final photo is a sad one.

One of the trees in this park didn’t survive our winter storms. I saw a couple of other trees that had sustained minor damage, but this one is unfortunately gone for good. The last time this happened, the city cleared away the stump and debris before planting a new sapling in its place several months later.

I hope to share photos of that new sapling whenever it arrives. If this happens after the conclusion of this series, I’ll write an addendum to it.

10 Comments

Filed under Personal Life

My Final Update on My Walk to Mordor

Photo of red, mountainous region that looks like Mordor

Photo Credit: Dawn Endico

Last spring I blogged about my plans to walk to Mordor. I updated my progress at the end of August when I was a third of the way through with it and again in November when I was about two-thirds finished.

For anyone who needs a refresher or wasn’t following me when this series began, Walk to Mordor is a free app that lets you chart your miles walked every day and gives you updates on where Frodo and Sam were when they’d travelled the same distance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As I mentioned in previous updates, my kilometres logged varied quite a bit once again for the last third of the journey. I came down with influenza for the first time in many years at the end of December. It was an unpleasant experience that slowed down my progress in this journey. Some days I only logged a kilometre or two of walking, and the recovery period took a while as well.

It’s probably a good thing that none of the good guys in the Lord of the Rings saga caught the flu while they were travelling. They would have been in for a pretty miserable time if they had. Although maybe the elves would have had a secret remedy for that illness?

Pandemic Distraction

Finishing up this trek was a nice distraction, especially during the last part of it when Coronavirus began shutting down so many places to go in Toronto. I’m quite lucky to be able to work from home, but the days do feel long now that I only leave home for walks and occasional visits to the grocery store or drug store.

Reading updates on where Frodo and Sam were and what they were doing in the last third of their adventure has been a wonderful distraction. The challenges we face are obviously quite different from theirs, but I’m seeing interesting parallels between their journey and what we’re all facing this spring.

Like Sam and Frodo, we live in dangerous times where the future is uncertain. All we can do is put one foot in front of the other and do our best to keep pressing forward.

I Recommend This App

Screenshot of progress on Lord of the Rings walking app. It shows that all destinations have been reached. I’d definitely recommend checking out this app to anyone who is interested in the fantasy genre, keeping track of their fitness goals, and/or getting distracted by something useful.

As I mentioned earlier in this series, this is something that can be used for competitive or  non-competitive purposes. There are no time limits on how long you can use it. People who want to push themselves to walk or run more often can do so, but it’s also accessible to folks who move at a slower pace or who don’t like the idea of turning exercise into a competition.

Reading the plot updates is reward enough. There was no need to add any extra layers of pressure to this game, so I’m glad the developer kept it so simple.

The image in this section of the post shows what the screen looks like after you complete all of the challenges. It was nice to see that long, green list of completed challenges.

One of the things I did have trouble with while participating in this challenge was remembering to log my kilometres walked every day. The app doesn’t have any sort of notification system to remind you to do that. Sometimes I’d have to log several days to a week’s worth of activity. Once I got very behind and logged about a month’s worth of data at once!

With that being said, this is a free game, so I wouldn’t expect it to have all of the bells and whistles that a paid app would have.

If anyone knows of similar games out there, I’d sure like to hear about them. It’s never too early to start planning for amusing things to use next winter.

6 Comments

Filed under Fitness

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Things to Do in the Spring

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I’ve been looking forward to this prompt for weeks. Spring is my favourite season, and it’s the nicest time of year in Ontario in my opinion! Some of the things on this list aren’t currently an option this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic and how much Toronto has been shut down to contain the spread of it, but my hope is that I can do all of these things next spring.

But all of items on this list are either free or inexpensive. As I’ve said on this blog before, I’m a frugal, minimalistic person who is easily amused. There simply isn’t a reason for me to spend a lot on entertainment the vast majority of the time.

So what tops my list of fun stuff to do in the spring?

Parks. Yes, I gave this as an answer last year for the Favourite Things to Do in the Summer prompt. I enjoy visiting parks even more during mild spring weather for picnics, walks, outdoor exercise, and maybe even a few minutes on the swing set if there’s a swing available.

The nice thing about this time of the year is that the sun hasn’t reached its full strength yet. While I always need protect my skin and eyes for medical reasons, I can spend more time outdoors now than in July or August.

Photography.  I love walking around and looking for new subjects for my photography hobby. Mild weather makes it easy to keep wandering until I’ve taken as many pictures as I want to before heading home to sort and edit them.

Festivals. There are very few parades in the spring in Toronto, but this is the beginning of festival season. I love getting out and about after a long winter spent mostly cooped indoors. There’s nothing like feeling the warm sun on your back as you listen to music or eat a delicious meal there.

Vegan Restaurants. I’m not vegan, but I love visiting vegan restaurants because they’re some of the only places on Earth I can go and order dessert due to my milk allergy! I usually don’t order  a full meal at them. A bowl of cashew ice cream or a brownie is more than enough to satisfy me. It’s cheaper, too, to have dinner at home and only pay for dessert when I’m out and about.

Farmers’ Markets. Have you noticed the food theme of this post? I honestly hadn’t thought about how many of my favourite things involve food in some way before I started writing it. But I think it’s a good idea to buy fresh, local produce at farmers’ markets to support local farms when possible. There are also some foods like gooseberries for sale there that I rarely see at conventional grocery stores.

A duck and her three ducklings swimming in a pond.Streams, Lakes, and Ponds. If Toronto were near the ocean, I would have added that to this list, too. Whether I’m paddling on them, sitting quietly on a ferry gliding through them, or watching from the edge of a watery place as duck families swim by, I love being near water no matter what form it takes. (Swimming isn’t on this list because it’s usually too chilly to swim outdoors in Ontario until summer begins).

Doors Open Toronto. Every spring, Toronto has a weekend where all sorts of historical buildings open to the public so we can see their architecture, get a glimpse of their areas that normally only staff members can see, and learn more about their history. This is the sort of nerdy, educational event that I adore.

 

32 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Top Ten Tuesday: Short Ghost Stories Everyone Should Read

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Sheets in a tree that were arranged to look like a ghost floating up in the branches.These freebie posts are so much fun!

Today I’m going to be sharing ten short ghost stories from around the world that everyone should read. Click on their titles to read them for free.

1. Hover” by Samantha Mabry 

Sometimes ghosts are more annoying than they are frightening.

2. Ngozi Ugegbe Nwa” by Dare Segun Falowo 

This is the perfect thing to read for anyone who likes antiquing or a good bargain.

3. Who Will Clean Our Spirits When We’re Gone?” by Tlotlo Tsamaase 

I was picturing spirits taking bubble baths when I read this title. Spoiler alert: that’s not exactly what the narrator had in mind.

4. Live Through This” by Nadia Bulkin

This was one of the most creative approaches to helping a spirit find peace in the afterlife that I’ve ever read about.

5. Joss Papers for Porcelain Ghosts” by Eliza Chan 

Are hauntings less scary if you know the person who is now a ghost?

6. “Therein Lies a Soul” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu 

Sometimes spirits become celebrities. This shows how a spirit might react to such an odd response from the living.

7. The Muse of Palm House” by Tobi Ogundiran 

Would you fall in love in with a ghost? I should warn my readers that this is rooted firmly in the horror genre, not in the romance one.

8. Emergent” by Rob Costello 

A haunting from the perspective of a dead person who acknowledges they’re dead but absolutely refuses to be referred to as a ghost.

9. The House Wins in the End” by L. Chan 

Imagine the typical plot from a haunted house story:

  • A new family moves into an old, abandoned home
  • Someone notices the first paranormal act
  • More paranormal acts follow
  • The family attempts to help the spirit(s) find peace
  • If it works, they stay at the home. If it doesn’t, they generally either die at the hands of the ghosts or move away.

This is about what happens to a haunted house after that basic plot has already played out.

10. The Stories We Tell About Ghosts” by A.C. Wise 

Two words: ghost hunters.

 

94 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Wholesome Adventures: A Review of Frozen II

Film poster for Frozen II. Image on poster is of Elsa using her powers to create ice against a purple background.Frozen II is the 2019 animated fantasy sequel to Frozen. It is about Elsa and Anna’s attempts to figure out the origin of Elsa’s magical powers and save their kingdom from being destroyed by the elemental spirits of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

It isn’t strictly necessary to watch Frozen before checking out Frozen II, but I do highly recommend the first film in this series to anyone who loves the fantasy genre or animated films in general.

In order to avoid spoilers, I will only be discussing characters who were also in Frozen.

Characters

Idina Menzel as Elsa

Idina Menzel as Elsa

Elsa was the Queen of Arendelle and Princess Anna’s elder sister. She possessed magical ice powers whose origins were unknown. While she’d grown quite comfortable with using them, she had a deep longing to understand where they came from and why she had them.

Kristen Bell as Anna

Kristen Bell as Anna

 

Anna was the Princess of Arendelle and Elsa’s younger sister. She was deeply in love with her boyfriend, Kristoff. 

Josh Gad as Olaf

Josh Gad (right) as Olaf

Olaf was a sentient snowman created by Elsa’s magic who was first introduced in Frozen. He was as intelligent and silly as always.

Jonathan Groff as Kristoff

Jonathan Groff (centre top) as Kristoff

Kristoff was an ice harvester and Anna’s boyfriend. He was strong, loyal, and determined to help the people he cared about in any way he could.

Sven was his pet reindeer. He was a good reindeer.

My Review

Prepare yourselves for a story filled with wholesomeness and joy.

I love a good adventure that ramps up quickly in a storyline, so I was glad to see this film move so fast in the beginning. That snappy pacing was exactly what Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven needed before setting off on their journey.

Yes, there was a brief summary of what happened in Frozen for anyone who isn’t familiar with this franchise. It was shared by Olaf and was as hilarious as it was accurate. As mentioned earlier, I think anyone who hasn’t seen the first film would have no trouble getting caught up to speed if they jumped straight into Frozen II. The nice thing about film series written for kids is that they tend to be pretty welcoming of new or distracted viewers, and this one was no exception to that rule.

Every sequel has to live up to the story that began that series. I had high expectations for Frozen II based on how much I loved Frozen. While this was a fun story, I thought it didn’t quite have all of the magic of the first one. Many of the jokes in it were references to things that happened in the first instalment, so they had to be explained for people just tuning into this series. I did find myself wishing the screenwriters had spent more time developing new, original jokes, especially when it came to characters that hadn’t been introduced previously. With that being said, I still enjoyed Frozen II and do recommend it.

Olaf was by far my favourite part of this film. Just like in Frozen, he was a regular source of amusement for both the audience and the other characters. His understanding of how the world works was childlike in certain ways and yet quite mature for a snowman of his age in others. I desperately wanted to include one of his jokes in this review, but I think it’s best if you discover all of them for yourselves.

If you need a lighthearted distraction for viewers of all ages, Frozen II is a good place to start.

Frozen II is available on Netflix and Apple TV. It is no doubt quickly attempting to catch up with Frozen and become available everywhere else in the known universe as well.

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy