Jamie Smith Stranger Than Fiction #QuestusReviewus

Stranger Than Fiction… this screenplay/play write was most definitely one of my favorite materials we’ve looked at in my English 137 class. There aren’t many negative things anyone can say about this work of literature. First and foremost, let’s talk about the plot. The plot is extremely unlike any other narrative I can think of. Harold Crick, the main character, is a tremendously OCD guy that doesn’t really have much of a life other than his work at the IRS… until he begins to hear a woman’s voice narrating everything he does in his head. Meanwhile, Karen Eiffel is writing a novel about Harold Crick without even knowing of his existence. Long story short, Eiffel was planning to end her novel with Harold’s death, but it turns out to end with a love story between Harold and Ana Pascal and a happy ending.

 

The way that Harold gets over his OCD by trying to cope with the thought that he could die any day soon is interesting and sweet. Harold goes from a boring IRS agent to a man that falls in love with not only a girl but with playing the guitar, eating cookies, and living his life to the fullest. I was nervous in the beginning that Harold really was going to die, and that Karen wouldn’t change the ending to her novel, but I was pleasantly surprised with the ending of the plot.

 

Now on to the topic of Harold’s watch. Harold has a watch that seems to have a fictional aspect of it in the movie, and it represents the way that Harold is so OCD over time and numbers. For example, Harold gets to the bus at the exact same time every single day and brushes his teeth the exact same amount of times every single day. The watch plays an important part in this plot because when Harold’s watch stops working, he sets it to the wrong time which leads him to get to the bus stop at a slightly different time than he normally would, saving a child’s life and almost dying. Furthermore, the topic of time has been something we have focused on in my English 137 class which made the relation of time to Harold’s life all the more intriguing.

 

Overall, I found this play funny, sweet, and a great life lesson: live in the moment and stop worrying so much about what your next move is – focus on the now. This was not only a great play but an awesome movie and I rate it 5 stars.

The OA Review by Jamie Smith #questusreviewus

Well… if I am being honest, The OA took me a hot minute to get interested in. But once I was interested, I was definitely hooked. I am still shaken by how crazy this show is, and I have great respect for the producers and story writers because who thinks of this kind of stuff? I am a true believer that if anyone gives this show a chance, they will end up loving it. Here are some reasons that anyone who loves a good mystery or is intrigued by the whole world dimension, sci-fi thing should totally give this show a chance:

 

First of all, this show is so open-ended that the viewers can never quite tell what is truly going on or what is going to happen next which keeps them wanting more. Is Prairie actually a person that can travel from one dimension to the other, an angel, or is she just plain out crazy? The way that the episodes display her character makes it extremely difficult for the viewers to decide what they think is true of Prairie. At one point you see Prairie in an alternate universe talking to some sort of god, and at the next moment, you see her creepily talking to a camera. I find this a great aspect of the show because it makes The OA stand out from other similar TV series. Honestly, can you think of any show like this one?

 

Secondly, I find each character in this show someone worth wanting to know more about. Obviously, everyone wants to find out what is really going on with OA. But even other characters such as Hap are extremely interesting. We initially don’t like Hap because he is doing illegal and immoral things to his subjects of this demented project he is trying to complete. Hap kills many people, and some viewers might grow to dislike him very much. For me though, as the show went on, I became interested as to why Hap was doing these awful things. I wanted to know why. Did he lose someone special? Is he just curious where he will go when he dies? I found his character very intriguing for this reason.

 

All in all, this series and by far worth the watch. Whether you hate it or love it, you won’t be able to stop watching until you find out what you are dying to know starting in the first episode. I don’t have any complaints at all. The characters were great, the storyline is amazing, and the suspense makes the show all the better.

Pierre:or, the Ambiguities Amazon review by J.S.

Pierre: or, the Ambiguities is an all-over-the-place story that is extremely difficult to stay interested in. Although I tried to stay absorbed in this novel written by the famous author Herman Melville, I found it challenging to stay focused past reading one book! As stated right in the title, Pierre is ambiguous. In my opinion, Pierre’s thoughts are so ambiguous that the novel becomes boring quickly.

The summary of the story is intriguing – Pierre and his mother have a strange relationship that gets even more complicated when he finds out he has an illegitimate sister and then decides to marry her. But to actually read the novel is nowhere near as intriguing because as soon as the drama starts, Melville adds an extra chapter that slows down the storyline far too much making it very hard to want to continue reading. Overall, the novel is much too slow for enjoyment… unless you’re a reader that actually cares about something as irrelevant as Pierre’s encounter with the Memnon rock.

Melville makes the novel even more tough to read due to his usage of complicated words and phrases. I found myself looking up definitions to words too often to the point that it took away from the story plot. The language used in the novel is just too much for almost anyone.

In conclusion, I found this novel difficult to read for reasons that could’ve and should’ve been fixed. The long, drawn-out chapters about irrelevant and uninteresting things made me feel like I would never get to the good parts, and the language used was also an unnecessary barrier making the novel even more difficult to read. Although the plot was exciting, the way I felt when actually reading the novel takes away the positive aspects of this story.