BlackberryJam

I absolutely agree about Winter! Even when they are playing him just for comedy, he's giving a ton of emotion. Maybe it was in the scripts for Nelson and the actor just wasn't very good? At one point I thought they were going to pair up Nelson and Kate romantically, but that never happened. It would have given Nelson something to do. I adore Fleur. I love that they gave her the name Fleur, which I mostly associate with the young pretty girl from Harry Potter, and not an "old lady" name like Shirley or Gertrude. I love that she has sex, drinks, bikes, all the fun stuff. She looks like Miss Marple but parties like Mic Jagger. And she knows her forensics.

Just finished Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe. I listened to Anderson read it. He's a great narrator. This is stuffed with a lot of facts, but it was all really interesting. You can tell how much Cooper loves the topic. I also read The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen Oakley. Louise is 81 and recovering from a broken hip. Tanner had to leave college because of a knee injury ending her scholarship. They go on the run. It's fun. No great revelations. No stunning moments. Just a lot of fun. I realize I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield. Certainly more than I enjoyed American Wife. RC was light-hearted and fun. I'm down with that.

Nelson is a big personality void for me. He was "fine" but I never took to him. I like Winter so much better. I'm sure I'm one of the many, but I do not miss Cully at all. I do miss Joyce though. I wish we would get more of Sarah working now that Betty is older.

Finished Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy. I recommend. It’s a Sister Holiday mystery, so looks like the start of a series. A tattoo-ed, smoking, gay nun in New Orleans. No one in the book is particularly likable, but I still enjoyed it.

But he’s pretty and there are better things for him to do with that mouth. ;)

My Steelers are dreadful, and yet somehow, they pulled it out. I despise the Ravens and I had been only semi-watching with the sound muted. Ahh...Kenny Pickoff is terrible, but that Defense manages not to totally suck and then makes just enough magic to pull out a win.

I saw it live. I gasp/screamed and then prayed they wouldn't show it again. And for once, the broadcast didn't disappoint me. I remember the Theismann injury replayed on endless loop. (Fuck, I'm old.) Kenny Pickett is kind of dreadful. It's going to be a long season for this Steeler fan.

California Golden by Melanie Benjamin. Did anyone enjoy this? It’s just three women (mom and two daughters) being horrible to each other. I enjoyed the time period and the setting, but ugh.

@EtheltoTillie I agree about TJR. I’ve never found her books to be more than mediocre.

I rage quit Yellowface. I just couldn’t take the main character. Hello Beautiful. I don’t get it. Maybe because I don’t revere Little Women, but it just wasn’t good. For funsies, I read Helen Tursten’s An Elderly Woman Is Up to No Good and the sequel. Nothing earth-shattering, but they made me laugh. The House of Eve was great, but also, I’m tired of books about motherhood. I feel like I’m not reading enough books where women aren’t defined by their relationships with children or men.

Okay. Laurence’s dress was a structural rip off of Chanel’s 2014 Spring Collection. How did she not get called out for that? COME ON. ETA. I mean, LOOK at this.

I can totally see Rami’s a wedding wear for men or red carpet for Tilda Swinton. I can see the idea that it could have been more fitted, but I liked it as is. I would have liked it better with a ginormous brooch. Huggy Bear was exactly what Bishme did. Put that outfit in a Starsky and Hutch remake. Laurence’s out fit was somehow ugly, weird and dull. Prajje’ s turtleneck was a fashion crime. Brittany would have done better to have used some of her topstitching in the blouse to make it unique.

Just FYI, it's Joan Hickson, not Joan Dixon as Marple. In The Body in the Library

She did! I was on my phone responding though. I could have liked McEwan because she got that appearance of scatterbrain. However, the changes to the mysteries were just terrible. Do not get me started on that MacKenzie abomination of The Secret of Chimneys.

Call me crazy but I loved Helen Hayes in that one film she did. She nailed woolly and fluffy.

Here's the forum. https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/9028-miss-marple/page/2/#comment-7872008

The Last Mrs. Parrish sucks. Fuck that book and its hatred of women.

I thought Anna's dress idea had real potential, if she'd had another 3 days to work on it. I just don't get the Anna hate. It reminded me a lopsided tiered cake. It could have been really cool. At least she had an idea with interest and merit, unlike Prajje. Ugh. Seriously, UGH. I like Anna's ideas and vision, so her personality doesn't grate on me. I love me some Rami and I want him to dress Rania, Queen of Jordan every single day, but his aesthetic has become stale. He's in his wheelhouse dressing women in their 40s, when the show wants him to dress 20 year olds. His attempts at fresh and young just fail. And I love him. It hurts me every single time I see him putting together something as dowdy as that outfit. Not even Mimi could have sold that.

Humphrey was my least favorite but Mooney was scraping the bottom too. I adore Neville.

Anna’s dress was ugly and repetitive, but so was Korto’s. The named the right winner and sent the right person home. I love me some Fabio, but that garment was awful. I liked Rami’s dress, but Lena was right. The zippers were too small to have made a detailing difference adn there was some puckering. A dress that simple needed to be perfect. It wasn’t. I say that when Rami is one of my all time favorites. Bishme’s was interesting, but those sleeves were silly and poorly constructed.

Finished Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? Using the Amazon description of the novel, I'm going to add in my thoughts. When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions. Can you guess? I bet you can guess. But really, this question isn't the driving force of the novel at all. A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could―and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty. So there are three sisters, but only Elise matters. The other sisters are less than cardboard cutouts and have no POV chapters. I say Elise matters, but she doesn't. She so DOES NOT. She's not interesting. Her fiancé has no personality and is barely in the book and the social media scandal is far from developed. The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them. The beginning of this sentence is the part of the book where you'll find good writing, developed characters and a compelling storyline. And I DID NOT CARE about the St. John sisters. As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Elise turned the lens upon herself? When? I'm pretty sure that never happened, at least not in this novel. Elise wasn't introspective and certainly not interesting. She existed to give a big speech at the end of the novel to give it a "dramatic" ending. UUUUUGHHHHHHHH. I loved the parts from Kitty (and Kitty's mother's) POV, but the whole St. John Sisters storyline could have easily been excised from the novel and it would have been such much better for the edit. Instead of "finishing" Kitty's story, it simply switches to Elise at one point and I stopped caring then. I just wanted more Kitty chapters.

I don't know if that's fair for any dress because Cher can make any crazy ass design work. It's the power of Cher.

Seriously, I betcha Elaine couldn't even name a non-British royal, let alone anticipate what they would wear. Look, a lot of these challenges are just ridiculous "theme on a pretty dress." I'm fine with that. But Judges don't tell me, "I could see a young, modern royal wearing that." Wes Gordon was crawling out of his skin every time Elaine spoke. Then again, I don't think Teen Vogue knows much about the royals, so it's really not Elaine's bag. The right dress won, definitely. And Victor was not long for the PR season, but wow, those judges are on crack. I posted over in the Royals Small Talk thread about the episode so I don't inundate the PR thread with things like, "Anna and Brittany's dress was so in Mette-Marit's color wheelhouse..." We need @MissLucas and the other Royal Forumers to weigh in!

I clocked Victor going home the minute he chose that metallic leather. It was ugly and the idea was awful. I do a lot of royal fashion watching. That dress Korto and Prajje made could be worn by Rania (Rami dressed her and she’s fucking gorgeous) of Jordan (with a little editing because royals like coverage). I could even see Kate in that, but neither of them would wear the head wrap or cape. I loved those items though. Queen ‘Masenate of Lesotho could pull all off the whole thing. Hester and Fabio’s dress, while gorgeous, has no place in royal fashion. Rami and Bishme’s looked exactly like something Maxima of the Netherlands or Mary of Denmark would wear. Maxima is my spirit royal, and she could totally make that drape sleeve sing. Korto and Laurence. NO. That dress was just a damn hot NO and the model couldn’t even walk in it. I have seen some royals wear some damn ugly crap (Mathilde of Belgium enters the conversation) but there isn’t a royal out there who would wear a tiered ruffled sheer skirt. That’s the kind of dress Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, would wear and she’d make it sing. The guest judge was right. Those pieces did not belong together. Kanye’s dress under the corset was made for Victoria of Sweden. That color would go great with her dark hair and brown eyes. That sad drippy mess made by Brittany and Anna. *sigh* I like Anna. I think she has some interesting design ideas. I don’t hate Brittany even if she is always “pretty and romantic.” However, that dress. There isn’t a royal out there who would wear something both that ugly and ill-fitting, and there are a LOT of royals who wear ugly, ill-fitting clothes (Maria-Teresa of Luxembourg and her stumpifying pants, Camilla and her 10,000 versions of a housecoat, Sophie of Liechtenstein who takes fashion cues from Lady Bird Johnson and Mamie Eisenhower.) Not even Beatrice (toilet seat hat anyone?) and Eugenie, two royals known for going ugly with their fashion, would put on that hot mess. Mentally, I dubbed that dress, “Depression in the form of Bridal Wear.” They both deserved the aufing. I’d like more of that guest judge, please.

I don't think Shiv has any maternal feelings other than, "Wow, my parents sucked. I don't want my kid to suffer the same kind of suckage, but I really don't want to actually parent this thing* either. Tom's childhood didn't suck the same way mine did. Therefore, it will be better if Tom and I stay together because then he can do the majority of the parenting and we won't be able to use our kids as weapons the way Mom and Dad did. But yeah, we gotta find a great nanny ASAP and I'm getting ALL the drugs during labor." *Thing is used deliberately. There is a reason we didn't see Shiv cupping her belly and picking out names.