iN Review

The story is a well-known epic about Odysseus, king of Ithica, as he journey's home after the Trojan war. Many have adapted this over the years, but none have done it like Christopher Nolan.

The Sweetest Getaway by Sasha Preston Released: August 26, 2025 Genre: Cozy Heist Age Recommendation: 16+ Available: eBook & Paperback on Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble The Sweetest Getaway is about Nari and Jennifer - two roommates who have different outlooks on life. Jennifer is your typical "goodie two shoe", but with some persuasion from Nari she gives in and joins Nari on a heist that she thought would just be a one-time event. Nari would describe hersel

Forgive me is about a college English professor who has a reputation for being harder than neccessary and his graduate assistant who is starting her final year of grad school. Both characters have complex pasts that they would like to leave behind, and despite their colleague and student-professor relationship statuses that are the most obvious obstacles as to why they cannot be in a romantic relationship, they cannot help but fall for each other.

NOTE: there is always a chance for spoilers. When I watched the first season of the show that is based on this novel, I somehow missed that it started as a book. I chose to watch the show because one of the writers of the show - Imogen Browder - co-created one of my favorite webseries, and it's cool to see what different creators whose content I consumed in college are doing now. But when I found out that this was a novel, I had to pick it up. The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk

I wonder how many will choose to pick up this novel because the author will be sworn in to office as Vice President of the United States this month. Is that why I picked it up? No. I picked it up because some other family members said we were starting a book club and this was the first book - so here I am, kicking off my 2025 blogging with a review of a memoir. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance was published in 2016. He recounts his own upbrining and paints a picture of what it c

NOTE: It is interesting to see how our perception of different things change as we go through life. Today's post is not your typical iNR. If you didn't know, iNR stands for imaginationNERD Review. Today, the 'R' also stands for revisit as I will be revisiting the focus of this post. There is no previous review, as I was not writing or recording reviews in 2005 when I first experienced this piece of media. The Hope Dialect is an album released by the rock band Greenwood in 200

A bit of a historical dive before we get into the details of the animated film and the broadway production: the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia. She was born in 1901. In 1918 after a revolution that marked the beginning of the Soviet regime, her and her family were executed. It was confirmed in 2007 that her possible survival was officially disproved. But it is this idea of survival that gives life to the stori

From the creators of Edgar Allen Poe's Murder Mystery, Invite Only/Gala for Friends Potlock (aka Poe Party), comes another fun literary journey. Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story is a modern retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. In its ten epsidoes, we get to know Ichabod Crane (Sean Persaud), Matilda Bishop (Sinead Persaud), Brom Bones (Gabe Greenspan), and Kat Van Tassel (Mary Kate Wiles), as they work together to find the head of the Headless Horsema

Overview Script by: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, & Christopher McQuarrie Story by: Peter Craig & Justin Marks Characters Created by: Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. Director: Joseph Kosinski Director of Photography: Claudio Miranda Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Charles Parnell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis Released: May 27, 2022 This is an example of nostalgia done right. From music choices t

Overview Writer: Ron Bass & Alice Victoria Winslow Director: Carrie Cracknell Director of Photography: Joe Anderson Starring: Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Richard E. Grant, Henry Golding Released: July 15, 2022 The latest take on Jane Austen's novel of the same title. Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, does her best to help those around her. Specifically as her family enters a new phase in life. Recommendation: I wouldn't. It feels like it's trying to ble

Overview Writer: Johnathan McClain & Graham Moore Director: Graham Moore Director of Photography: Dick Pope Starring: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Johnny Flynn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, & Simon Russell Beale Released: March 18, 2022 Set in Chicago not long after Al Capone was in charge of The Outfit - a prominant organization in mafia history; a tailor shop owner (Mark Rylance) has a run-in with two of his frequent customers (Dylan O'Brien & Johnny Flynn) that start a d

Overview Based on the Novel by Agatha Christie Writer: Michael Green Director: Kenneth Brannah Director of Photography: Haris Zambarloukos Starring: Kenneth Brannah, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Sophie Okonedo, Tom Bateman, Annett Bening, Rose Leslie, and Russell Brand Released: February 11, 2022 It is a decent story experience, but it is not a strong adaptation of the source material. Recommendation: If you enjoy the novel, proceed with caution. This is the secon

Spider-Man: No Way Home Based on Comics by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Writer(s): Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers Director: Jon Watts Director of Photography: Mauro Fiore Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Faveru, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon Released: December 17, 2021 This film is a nice blend of Spider-Man universes and semi-introduction to the multiverse. I say "semi" because this is the first time the idea is really explored on the silver screen, but the MC

As yet another movie that is based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women had been released, let's talk about the similarities, differences, and preferences between them. This post is going to focus on the movies, but I am mentioning a couple of series to provide perspective of how many adaptations there are (which is more than some - including me - are aware of). THE BASICS Before the adaptation that most hold a "the" adaptation, Little Women had been adapted in 1933, 1949, and

author's note: this is a mix of review of the books as well as sharing my own experience with the series. Being a part of the generation that grew up with Harry Potter has been interesting, mostly because until now I had never completely read the series. Several years back - in college - I had the first book put in my hands and I was told to read it. I did. I liked it. I never got around to reading any of the others. It had nothing to do with whether or not I liked it, becaus

The 2018 adaption of Louisa May Alcott’s well known novel, Little Women is a modern one. We are truly getting to see the story unfold through the eyes of Jo March in a way that helps the audience connect with her best. Similarly to the novel itself. The film opens up with the March girls acting out one of Jo’s stories, but when the story comes near the end we jump to “present day” Jo presenting her novel to a panel of potential editors — which is where we get to meet Professo

Have you ever seen a trailer that looks like the movie is going to be so bad it might actually be good? That was just one of the many different reactions I had to the trailer for The Spy Who Dumped Me. And I still chose to go see it. The premise of this piece is that Audrey (Mila Kunis, Black Swan) gets dumped by Drew (Justin Theroux, The Girl on the Train) who is a part of the CIA. Sebastian (Sam Heughan, Outlander) is MI-6, worked with Drew, and is the one to tell Audrey th

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is set in the aftermath of World War II. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows create a beautiful experience with the entire story being told through the correspondence of the novel’s characters. With the story being told through letters, telegrams, cables, night letters (not sure what the last two are but they were some of the types identified), it does leave an opportunity for details to be lost. For example when Juliet, our lo

The adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel — that was unfortunately co-adapted by the author. I’m not sure if the film was better, but I know it wasn’t worse than the novel. The over all experience of the piece is great. The inside of the Oasis is beautiful, and looks as you would expect a virtual world to look. The snippets of “real world” we are given are shot beautifully. Steven Spielberg did beautifully with the visuals he chose and helped the actors with the less than stella

The closing novel to Roth’s sci-fi duology, The Fates Divide, continues the story of Cyra and Akos, but adds a few more characters to the forefront of the novel’s conflict. The prologue is crazy! Literally. It shows how crazy Eijah is as he shares body and mind with Rizek. And while we don’t get to see a whole lot from Eijah’s perspective, what we do get to see helps us understand a little more about the other interactions we see throughout the novel. The increase of narrator