The Sunday Post (#14)

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

Before I get in to this week's recap, I just want to address two huge, sad stories that have broken overnight. 

Firstly, the fact that George Zimmerman has been acquited of the murder of Trayvon Martin. This stuns me. My thoughts go out to Trayvon's family, and I hope one day they get the justice they deserve.

Secondly, the passing of Cory Monteith. I've been a huge fan of Glee since day one, and have stuck with it even though good and bad. Finn was never my favourite character, but I liked Cory, his sense of humour and the fact that he was very honest about who he was. Thiry-one is no age, and my thoughts go to his family, friends and colleagues.

Now, on to the recap.

Book stuff this week on Girl!Reporter
After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross (review)
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (review)
Making History at London 2012, edited by Brendan Gallagher (review)
Stacking the Shelves (#10)

Non-book stuff this week on Girl!Reporter
Review: Thorpe Park and The Crash Pad
DVD review: The Paperboy

Coming up next week on Girl!Reporter
I'm toying with starting a new feature, so keep an eye out for that.

What have you been up to?

The Sunday Post (#7)

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

Reviews this week on Girl!Reporter

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Seizure by Kathy Reichs

Memes

Teaser Tuesday (#6)

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Books When You Need Something Light and Fun

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (#3)

Stacking the Shelves (#6) 

Non-book stuff this week on Girl!Reporter 

Game of Thrones recap/review: The Climb

Glee recap/review: All or Nothing 

Coming up next week on Girl!Reporter

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (review) 

What's new with you?

Glee recap/review: All or Nothing

Wow, what a thoroughly disappointing end to what has been a pretty disappointing season of Glee. They should have just finished with Wonder-ful rather than giving us this week's episode, All or Nothing.

There were five main strands to this episode:

• Brittany going off to college
• Kurt and Blaine's will-they-won't-they
• Ryder and the 'catfishing'
• Regionals
• Rachel's audition.

And there was also Will and Emma as a secondary storyline.

Let's tackle them sort of out of order.

According to the opening credits, this was Glee by Brittany. While that might indicate she brought this episode together, nothing could be further from the truth.

At the start of All or Nothing there was a ridiculous scene where two professors from MIT interviewed Brittany, telling her she completely failed a basic maths test, and then telling her she was a complete genius, before offering her a place at MIT.

This caused Brittany to go off the rails, be mean to everyone, and then finally see sense when Santana (drafted in by Sam after Brittany broke up with him via text while standing in front of him) called her on her behaviour.

Then came a sort of sweet moment where Brittany paid tribute to everyone and said goodbye (everyone apart from Kurt, who was standing right there). And she told them that she'd been offered early admission and was leaving after regionals.

Also leaving glee club was Ryder, who finally found out who'd been catfishing him. After Marley initially confessed, Ryder quit New Directions, only to find out later Marley was just covering for Unique, who'd started the whole thing as a joke and then found herself getting ever deeper as Ryder confided in "Kitty". Ryder did come back to New Directions, but only for regionals, after which he said he'd quit (again).

So to regionals, where we wasted the time it takes to sing two songs on that glee club fronted by some girl from American Idol. As I'm not in America and don't watch American Idol, I have no idea who she is.

Then New Directions sang, and it was, to be honest, one of the blandest performances we've seen from them. Hall of Fame was quite good, I Love It was alright, and All or Nothing was just blah.

Yet they won anyway. And to celebrate Will and Emma got married in front of the glee club. It was actually a sweet moment, but only because I like Emma.

Over in New York Rachel auditioned for Funny Girl by singing Celine Dion's To Love You More. And that was it. That's all we saw. Rachel auditioned and we left it there. I'm not the biggest Rachel fan, but I expected a little more, especially as her audition was actually really good. Instead, she was told she'd get a call about the role, and the we didn't see her for the remainder of the episode (and she was at the beginning of it).

And so to the final strand, which is the most disappointing.

There was a time when Kurt and Blaine were the heart and soul of Glee. Whatever else was going on, however ridiculous, these two characters were sweet and real. Not so anymore. Yes, they're still sweet, but the investment I felt in their relationship has slowly but surely disappeared.

After hesitating last week (mainly due to stellar advice from Papa Hummel), Blaine was back to wanting to propose to Kurt this week. He tried to draft in Sam to help with ring shopping, and Sam initially resisted. So Blaine went with Tina instead, and met the cute old lady at the jewellery store, played by Patti Duke. She was one of two highlights of this episode.

Blaine and Kurt then went out on a not quite double date with Patti Duke's character and her long-term partner, and Patti Duke's character (no, I don't know her name), proposed to her girlfriend while Blaine looked on at Kurt longingly, and Kurt leapt at the first chance he could to say that he and Blaine are just friends. And the episode ended with us seeing Blaine standing next to Kurt in the choir room, holding a ring box in his hand behind his back.

What happened to these guys? Actually, I know what happened. They broke up, and then the writers of Glee proceeded to pretty much ignore how Kurt felt about the relationship and just decided to concentrate on how Blaine felt.

We saw lots of Blaine's heartbreak and regret, and a tiny bit of Kurt's heartbreak (in Glease). We saw Blaine happy about he and Kurt hooking up, and telling Kurt they'd be back together. We saw Kurt saying he didn't know how he felt about Blaine, and then Blaine telling Burt he wants to marry Kurt, and then ring shopping, and then about to propose to Kurt.

But how does Kurt feel about Blaine? In my heart of hearts, I know that Kurt's still in love with Blaine, but my heart of hearts does not run the show. If I go by what I've seen on my screens over the past few months, Kurt seems to be moving on, content for the moment to just have Blaine as a friend.

The writers have pretty much destroyed Kurt and Blaine, and a proposal is not going to make things better. I want to see healing, not a band aid covering the wound.

I feel kind of bad that this recap/review has been really, really negative, and more than that, it's been written with resignation throughout. But I can't help it. I'll be watching next season, if only to find out what happens to Kurt and Blaine (and to Rachel), but I won't be excited about it like I used to be a few seasons ago, and I think this is probably the last Glee recap/review I'll do. If I'm honest,  I've sort of lost my faith in Glee. It was all or nothing this episode, and I felt like I got nothing.

Best moment
It's a wonder I can find something for this, but I'll pick the other highlight which was Sam, Blaine and Patti Duke's character interacting in the jewellery shop. The acknowledgement of Sam's crush on Blaine was handled with humour, and I liked it.

Glee recap/review: Wonder-ful

Lights Out recap/review

Oh Glee I love so much, you're back! This episode was nothing short of a joy to watch, in fact, it lived up to its title: Wonder-ful.

There was laughter, there was sadness, there was friendship, there was love, there was Burt Hummel. It was as perfect an episode as Glee can put together while Rachel Berry still exists as a character. Only joking. Well, sort of.

Wonder-ful felt a bit like old Glee, pre-class of whatever year this new lot will be graduating. And it felt like that because much of the old New Directions were together at McKinley, and among them were Mercedes, Mike and Kurt.

The latter was back because his dad was due to get test results telling him whether his cancer had been beaten back by treatment. Burt's cancer was such a bombshell storyline, and it's been largely ignored since the Christmas episode (apart from one brief mention last week), so it was nice to see it readdressed.

Kurt's OCD added a bit of lightness to the storyline, while at the same time also being a marker of how dark this storyline has the potential to be.

I enjoyed Kurt's voiceover as he packed for New York and then arrived at McKinley. His comment about not worrying because he wasn't hooking up with Blaine this time made me chuckle, since the hooking up was such fun, but it was good to see Kurt acknowledging his confused feelings when it comes to Blaine.

Those feelings continued to manifest themselves through the episode in little ways, as Kurt showed he didn't know how to take Blaine's comment about Kurt looking "dirty cute", Kurt's confusion over Blaine's comforting hand on his at the Lima Bean (an echo of previous times they've done this), and Kurt's comment that Blaine is cute when he's nervous.

But first, Papa Hummel. He was fine, thank goodness. All the treatment worked and Burt is now cancer-free. To celebrate, Kurt called him to McKinley and sang You Are the Sunshine of My Life to him (while Blaine looked on at Kurt longingly).

Papa Hummel is not just there for Kurt, Blaine calls on him for advice. After presenting him with a rainbow pin and talking about gay marriage, Blaine asks Burt's permission to ask Kurt to marry him. And Burt says no. Which is completely the right answer. In another display of Papa Hummel wisdom, Burt tells Blaine that marriage changes things, that it's not something to be rushed into, regardless of whether you're straight or gay. And he tells Blaine that he and Kurt will be fine. When Blaine asks how he knows, Burt gives the best answer - when people love each other like Blaine and Kurt do, they'll be fine.

Blaine is clearly thrown by Burt's advice, having expected to be praised for his prospective romantic gesture. And Blaine almost asks Kurt to marry him, but changes his mind at the last minute and instead asks Kurt to stay for regionals instead. It might be disappointing for Blaine, but marriage is not the grand gesture needed for these two to get back together. Personally, I don't think it needs a grand gesture at all, it just needs time and then honesty about their feelings for each other.

Meanwhile Mercedes was back from LA to record the music video for her new album, which includes the "soon to be hit song Hell to the No". Nice reference there Glee, you can do continuity when you want.

In between teaching Marley and Jacob how to embrace their talent, and putting Kitty in her place, Mercedes gets a call from her sleazy producer, who tells her that she must redo a photoshoot and show more flesh, or her album will be dropped. After some consideration, Mercedes decides to go her own way, and rely on her talent to succeed. It's great seeing Glee showing a strong woman relying on her voice and refusing to change who she is to succeed (unlike Rachel's adoption of a new look to make it in New York).

I'm not entirely sure what Mike is doing back. He seems to be taking Jake under his wing, and the writers of Glee have set it up so that Mike is endorsing Jake as the new Mike so we can all love Jake. It hasn't worked. Mike is the new Mike.

Also having difficulty with their future is Artie, who got into film school in Brooklyn, but isn't going. He tells the interfering (but actually well-meaning) Kitty it's because his mum is scared to let him go, but after Kitty visits Mrs Abrams it turns out it's Artie who's afraid to let go. After a heart-to-heart with his mum, Artie is persuaded to follow his dream and not be afraid.

Over in New York, Rachel is preparing for her Funny Girl callback. She starts by calling Will to thank him for being an amazing teacher, and recounting how she sang Don't Stop Believin' in her audition. This all felt really awkward, since Will's not a great teacher, and well, it was just a weird phone call. I wonder if this was originally written as a phone call between Rachel and Finn, which then had to be changed after Cory Monteith went into rehab?

Cassandra July finds out Rachel is going for a callback, and proceeds to tear Rachel apart, calling her names and mocking her. But guess what? It's all an act. Cassandra actually wants to cheer Rachel on, and sets up the whole class to sing to her and make her posters and stuff. And then Rachel thanks Cassandra for pushing her to be a better dancer. This is such crap, I can't even get to grips with it. Rachel's idea of a good teacher is completely warped. I don't care if Rachel is now a better dancer, Cassandra bullied her for most of the season, and it's terrible behaviour.

Apart from the New York scenes, this episode of Glee was a triumph, and reminded me why I love the show so much.

Best moments
So much to pick from! There was the coffee shop scene between Kurt, Blaine, Mercedes and Mike that was just full of camaraderie and love, all the Stevie Wonder songs, which were brilliant, Artie and Kitty's budding friendship, and the big number at the end which felt like season one Glee at its best.

Glee recap/review: Lights Out

Sweet Dreams recap/review

It's a pity that some moments of this episode of Glee, Lights Out, were so offensive and annoyed me so much, because there were some parts that I found quite charming.

At McKinley, there was a power cut, yet for some reason everyone continued going to school for the next week or so with just flashlights and candles. I'm pretty sure the latter wouldn't be allowed for health and safety reasons. Then again, going to school in the dark wouldn't be allowed to happen for health and safety reasons.

The power cut is simply an excuse for Will to brand the week 'unplugged week' in preparation for regionals (why are regionals so late this year?), which begins with Sam singing a pretty inoffensive version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. It's nice, and then it gets weird when Sam has a go at Artie for being on his phone during the performance, and moans about how everyone's plugged in all the time.

Ryder is next, still on the search for his mysterious girl. He sings Everybody Hurts, and then confesses that when he was 11 his 18-year-old female babysitter molested him. This was unexpected, although I'm not surprised Glee is choosing to address an issue like this. However, the way it was handled completely p*ssed me off.

Sam and Artie react by making fun of Ryder, telling him that he should be grateful an older woman took interest in him. This is wrong on so many levels, and then they say it again when Ryder protests, and it becomes even more wrong the second time round. 

And then the thing that narked me most happened.

Will made a half hearted attempt to stop Sam and Artie, then let them continue. When he saw Ryder clearly give up and give in to the teasing, he did nothing. Will's always been a crappy teacher, but this was a step too far for me.

Kitty, noticing Ryder was upset, took him out to dinner where she shared her own story of being the victim of abuse when she was younger. While the scene was moving, I'm not sure there was a need to have multiple characters who went through the same experience. I'm sure Kitty could just have easily reached out to Ryder and told him she was there for him without having to be a victim of child abuse herself.

And after that not much happens with the New Directions. There's a version of We Will Rock You where the kids play dustbin lids and stuff, and Ryder continues talking to his online something or other, and Kitty gets jealous.

Meanwhile, Becky finally confesses about the gun to Principal Figgins (I think), after trying and failing to get Sue to come back to teach at McKinley. Sue's happy with her fitness class though, where she makes nubile young women cry and where Blaine wears really short shorts. Sue comes back to McKinley and sings Little Girls from Annie, which is cute but doesn't really fit (it's all a promotion for actress Jane Lynch's upcoming turn on Broadway).

The action in New York provided this episode's better moments, although it still wasn't perfect. 

"Concerned" about Santana, Rachel and Kurt sit her down and tell her she needs to start going to dance classes. It's all very patronising, particularly from Rachel, and the pair can't get their head round the fact that someone doesn't want to go to NYADA.

Kurt's apparently still working at Vogue.com (yay!), which means the wonderful Sarah Jessica Parker gets to come back. She provides the best moment of the episode when she asks Kurt how his dad is. I assume Blaine's been asking Kurt, but we haven't seen this, or in fact anyone asking him how his dad is doing, not even Rachel and Santana who live with him. But Isabelle thinks to ask, and Kurt is touched (leading me to believe hardly anyone has brought it up with him).

She then asks Kurt to help her organise some massive ballet event, and Rachel and Santana get involved. The three of them (plus Isabelle) sing At The Ballet, which is a beautiful song. While it's done well, and the flashbacks to their younger selves are sweet, it doesn't hold quite the same depth as the original. I recently saw A Chorus Line in the West End, and At The Ballet during the show nearly ripped my heart out. Here, it just wasn't as strong.

Still, it makes Santana realise she wants to dance again (and not just in a cage), so she heads to NYADA to take their after-hours classes. And that's that.

After two quite poor episodes, I'm hoping Glee will up its game next week.

Glee recap/review: Shooting Star

Guilty Pleasures recap/review

Well, I didn't see that episode of Glee coming at all.

Shooting Star started off pretty ridiculously, and then 17 minutes in just morphed into something completely different.

Is Glee allowed to tackle the issue of school shootings? Yes. Did Glee do it well? I'm not sure, but I thought it was pretty compelling. Was Glee right to tackle the issue of school shootings? Again, I'm not sure. While there have been plenty of serious issues tackled by the show, the threat of violence in a place where you're meant to feel safe is an issue that seems a little outside of Glee's 'everything can be made okay by singing' remit.

Still, like I said, the episode was pretty compelling. It all started with Britney predicting a meteor/comet/asteroid was heading towards earth, and everyone needed to say they loved each other. While Britney decided to focus on her love for Lord Tubbington, Ryder sang Elton John's Your Song to the girl he thought was his digital soulmate Katie, and Coach Bieste confessed to Will that she wanted him to be her boyfriend.

And then, shots went off in the school. Trapped in the dark in the choir room, most of the New Directions fell to pieces while Will and Coach Bieste did their best to keep it all together.

It was the little moments that Glee did well here - the pots boiling over while Marley's mum hid in the school kitchen, Britney crouching on the toilet crying, the metronome playing, Kitty's confession to Marley that she took in her clothes during Grease, Blaine showing that he doesn't always have the words when Artie switches on his camera, Britney's relief when Will found her and the revelation that two other pupils were hiding in the toilets as well.

Recently I've been watching Glee with my mind half on other things, but when those shots went off I found it difficult to think of anything but Glee. The acting here was phenomenal, I thought everyone caught the fear really well. Granted, anyone who's been through that terrible experience of your safe haven being not so safe probably wouldn't have found this at all realistic.

Those 10 minutes of Glee before the all-clear was called were riveting, but there were some dodgy bits afterwards - Sue's comment about stepping out of character and Kitty's sarcastic comment about dating Ryder jarred slightly. Having been pulled into something so dark for 10 minutes, it was difficult to be pulled back out of it and back into Glee world.

The gun was brought to school by Becky, but Sue took the fall for her in the first serious scene we've ever seen between her and Principal Figgins. Sue's actions are nice, but to be honest I didn't really think it was the way this should have been played out. I didn't like that it was Becky who had brought the gun in to school - it seemed a lazy of Glee's writers - but Sue taking the fall for her can't have left Becky in the best place.

However, Sue's speech to Principal Figgins about how she'll be remembered was moving - that despite all that she's done, this is what she'll be remembered for. Of course, there is a hidden meaning - Sue being remembered by Becky for her actions is more important that all the other stuff - but again, I don't see how this helped Becky to resolve her feelings about moving on and being scared of the future.

And then, after a brief scene with Tina and Blaine discussing the shooting and a scene where Will and Sue talk and Will sort of gets that Sue may have been covering for Becky (still don't see how this is responsible), that's about it. We go back to Ryder trying to find the real Katie, Will signing Coach Bieste up to internet dating (Ken Tanaka responds), and Sam buying Britney another cat.

It all ends with the glee kids together singing Say by John Mayer (followed by their messages as taped by Artie, which I didn't love). It's a lovely moment, and sums up Tina's comment about the New Directions being a family, but I still just felt so in shock from what had happened previously that I felt a little out of sorts watching the group singing.

Best moment
This is such a difficult one because of the nature of the episode, but I'll pick the acting. Everyone brought their A game to the scenes between the gun going off and the all clear being called, and it's a credit to them that that part of the episode came off as largely moving, rather than largely melodramatic.

Glee recap/review: Guilty Pleasures

This week's episode of Glee had an apt title, since the show could be classed as one of my guilty pleasures, particularly when it's bad.

Luckily for me, this week's episode was very, very good. Why did I love it so? Because, and I've said this before, I love when Glee focuses on friendships, and that's exactly what it did in Guilty Pleasures.

Yes, the episode may have been about revealing that you like the Spice Girls or Barry Manilow or have a boyfriend pillow, but what it was really about was how you can be vulnerable and truthful in true friendships.

At McKinley, with Mr Schue ill (nice one Glee for getting Sam to tease Tina about the whole Vaporub incident), Blaine and Sam decided to make this week's theme guilty pleasures. Cue Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (the band was Blaine's guilty pleasure) complete with tiny shorts, day-glo colours and a whole lot of fun and bouncing around.

In the men's changing room at McKinley Sam pulled Blaine to one side to tell him about a long-held secret that was life-changing. Blaine, holding out hope like people with crushes do, asked Sam if he was attracted to him. Negative. Instead, Sam's guilty pleasure was Barry Manilow, and Blaine encouraged him to "come out". And come out he did, with a ruffled jacket and a rendition of Copacabana that had New Directions on their feet and playing all the parts. And Sam was made more comfortable in his love for Manilow when the other glee clubbers revealed they too were Fanilows.

Sam decided to return the favour, telling Blaine he knew he hadn't been truthful about Wham being his guilty pleasure. And so Blaine sat at a piano in the auditorium singing Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), a song on the surface about Kurt, but really about Blaine's crush on Sam - something some of the glee club seemed to clock on to (Artie, Tina, Kitty). This is one of those times when Glee picks a song that isn't really lyrically appropriate, since the lyrics and meaning of Against All Odds are a little heavy for a crush, but I enjoyed the rest of the episode so much that I'll forgive this blip.

Sam confronted Blaine, revealing he'd known about Blaine's crush for ages, and then became one of my favourite people in the world by saying it didn't matter, it changed nothing between them, it didn't freak him out, and that he was flattered. This is a friendship for the ages people, and I loved that Glee continues to show that a straight guy and a gay guy can be friends. It all ended perfectly, with a great joke, and I think Glee should be applauded for showing a crush in a positive light, and not the freaky Tina/Blaine light.

Fondue for Two was back, with Brittany calling in Kitty after telling the latter she was a complete bitch. Kitty revealed her guilty pleasure was the Spice Girls (well, Brittany revealed it for her), which led to Tina, Kitty, Brittany, Marley and Unique performing Wannabe, which is a song about friendship. Hate it all you like, but its message is a good one. And the performance saw Artie start to develop a crush on Kitty. I might like where that's going.

Finally at McKinley, Jake decided his guilty pleasure performance was going to be a song by Chris Brown. This drew horror from the ladies of New Directions, who objected immediately, telling Jake that Brown is a mysogynistic, woman beating son of a gun. I agree. Glee can be heavy handed in its messaging, and it might have been in this case, but it gave Jake a few decent arguments with which to fight back - namely that liking someone's music doesn't mean you like them, and that the glee club has sung plenty of songs before that are from artists who can't exactly be called role models. Still, I was on the side of the girls here, and while it's not for Glee to be preaching about Chris Brown and his behaviour, I'm behind them on this. This little album review here sums up perfectly my feelings about Chris Brown. (And then we got to see Jake dance, and he's good and I liked that.)

Meanwhile in New York Santana had moved back in with Kurt and Rachel, who was single after Brody broke up with her and moved out. Only Rachel was blissfully unaware that Brody was a gigolo, something Kurt had told Santana to keep quiet about, at least until Rachel had her audition for Funny Girl. Santana, though, couldn't keep her mouth shut when Rachel started talking about how she and Brody would get back together, and spilled the beans.

Thus Rachel confronted Brody at NYADA, and it all got a bit messy, and Rachel confessed she sort of used Brody to try and get over Finn, and then they sang Creep by Radiohead. It's a great song, but it just didn't fit in this episode of Glee, or maybe in Glee at all. Still, Rachel is now free of Brody and went back to the loft, where she, Kurt and Santana danced around to Mamma Mia while the New Directions guys did the same thing (only they were dressed in white and gold and had platforms and everything) and it was all fun and great and I loved it.

Best moments
Kurt has a boyfriend arm. This was both funny and heartwrenching. Kurt's voiceover told us that his life would be over if anyone found out, but when Santana and Rachel did, Kurt's explanation that it felt good and made him feel less lonely was enough to win them over, and there was a surprising, but welcome, lack of mocking.

Oh, and Sam's macaroni art was great too.