A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

All month long we've been building to a special announcement here on the blog in celebration of our ten year anniversary.  And now this announcement is here: we're moving!  That's right "A Series of (Un)Fortunate Reviews" is moving to a new blogging platform and getting a new URL.  This is something I've often thought about doing, and the decade anniversary is the perfect time for a new start! What does this mean for the blog?  It means that today's post is the last new post that will go live here on matthewslibrary.blogspot.com.  After today all new content will be posted on the new platform.  Don't worry--this blog will remain on Blogger for the foreseeable future to ensure that our readers will find us at our new home.  However, all this blog's content has been migrated to the new blog platform, so you will also be able to access our back catalog at the new blog. Where are we moving?  We're breaking up with Blogger and moving to WordPr...

Before we roll out the extra special surprise next week, let's take a look back on the top viewed reviews.  It's no surprise that the reviews that have the most page views over the life of the blog are all book reviews.  We'll take a look at the top viewed one or two DVD reviews too at the end.  But first we'll count down the top viewed book reviews.   In honor of our tenth anniversary, we'll re-visit the top ten most viewed book reviews starting with the tenth most viewed post and so on.  All reviews will be linked so if one piques your interest, please click the link to read the full review. 10.   Shock Wave by John Sandford is the fifth novel in the Virgil Flowers series.   Flowers is the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's best agent, and he solves his cases by digging up as much information as he can about the major players connected to the case at hand.  I've reviewed all the Virgil Flowers novels thus far in the series; these ...

I reviewed the first season of Broadchurch at the end of August.  Each season runs eight episodes long.  In addition to the primary players who return from last season, some powerhouse actors join the cast for the second season.  Marianne Jean-Baptist and Charlotte Rampling join the cast as defense counsel and prosecuting attorney respectively and Eve Myles and James D'Arcy play pivotal roles as the main suspects in the Sandbrook case.  The third season will be released on DVD in September.  I'm not sure how season three and its respective review will go down.  These two reviews had the advantage of being written upon the second viewing of both seasons.  I won't see the third season until I get the DVD. Where we left off at the end of season one: The arrest and charging of Joe Miller, husband of D.S. Ellie Miller, as the confessed murderer of Daniel Latimer sent shock waves through Broadchurch and shattered the Miller and Latimer families. The s...

We're celebrating the blog's ten year anniversary all month long, and this week we're taking a look at some raw numbers.  Last week's anniversary post was timed to go live to the day on the ten year anniversary of the very first post on "A Series of (Un)Fortunate Reviews."  But ten years today the first reviews were posted to the blog! I took a look at some raw data recently to tally up the number of posts and reviews broken down by format.  Content posted up to September 5, 2017, was included in the tallies.  There were also a few posts that were single posts that contained reviews for two different titles.  In these cases each of those reviews was tallied separately for the review numbers.  So if you add up reviews, and it comes to a couple more than the total number of posts, this is why.  Now.  Let's take a look at the numbers! Over the past ten years this blog has posted 422 posts.  More recently I've made an effort to post a n...

I wasn't going to review this movie but I had opinions, so here we are.  Before I get to those opinions, let's get some business out of the way.  This movie stars Anna Kendrick, June Squibb, Craig Robinson, and Lisa Kudrow.   Table 19 is a romantic comedy that isn't very romantic. The premise of this movie is that Eloise (Kendrick), after breaking up with the best man who is also the bride's brother, is ejected from her role as maid of honor despite having assisted in planning half the wedding already.  After much conflicted back and forth, Eloise decides to attend her oldest friend's wedding. Upon arrival at the reception Eloise is seated at table 19, the table at the back of the ballroom, mere feet away from the restrooms, the table where "all the random people who should have RSVP'd their regrets are seated."  And indeed her table-mates are random.  There's the bride's childhood nanny, a couple who know the bride's father through ...

This month marks ten years since this blog was born.  Incidentally this month also marks ten years that I've been editing the library's website since one lead to the other.  To celebrate this milestone, readers can look forward to some special programming all month long in addition to the usual weekly reviews.  The celebration will culminate in a huge surprise that will roll out towards the end of the month. While I don't remember too many details about what lead to the blog, I do remember it sprang from a brainstorming session between the director and I.  At the time I was working evenings at the library, and when I suggested starting a library blog to review books, the director let me run with it.  I brainstormed blog titles that night, and "A Series of (Un)Fortunate Reviews," a play on  the middle grade book series title A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, was by far the best one.  This blog was almost called "The Lovely Reviews"...

Miss Shayne is back with a savage book review!  And stay tuned this week for some special programming on the blog. Reading the synopsis for this book, I wasn't sure I would like Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones. It sounded like a meager fairy tale. Since the cover was beautiful and plastered with appraisals that made reading it seem worthwhile, I decided to take a gamble. Never let me into a casino, folks, because I will never hit the jackpot. Wintersong tells the story of Liesl, who grew up playing her violin for the Goblin King in the Goblin Grove, a clearing in the woods by her house where the Goblin King was able to cross into the world above the ground. In addition to playing her violin, Liesl would play games and make careless gambles, not understanding the gravity of what she was promising the Goblin King. Now that she is grown, the Goblin King expects her to fulfill all that she had promised as a child. Because years have passed, Liesl has forgotten the Goblin K...