Love Story Turned Movie Reviewed by Film Critic and Poet

TITLE It Had To Be Us

AUTHORS: Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence

AUTHOR'S WEBSITE: AuthorsDen (http://www.authorsden.com/harryandelizabethlawrence)

GENRE Romantic Memoir

AGE / INTEREST LEVEL: Adults of all ages.

PAGE #: 98

AWARDS: First Place in E-Book category at the 2006 Hollywood Book Festival

PUBLISHER: Long Story Short Publishing Company

LINK TO WHERE THE BOOK MAY BE PURCHASED:

 https://amzn.to/3LBogDw   

The Stuff That Love Is Made Of 

Reviewed by Richard Jack Smith originally for Amazon

It Had To Be Us, a funny and original memoir, overflows with detail from both sides of their love story. For this special romantic odyssey, Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence take turns illuminating events, often shedding light on little moments which the other person might have missed.

From the initial encounter to scenes both light and heavy, it's a narrative bathed in the glow of Technicolor. The potential for a feature length motion picture is strong here. (NOTE: It’s already been made into an award-winning short film titled CAKE: A Love Story, which can be seen on YouTube.)

After the reconciliation love affair ends, we get some excellent appendices. Readers can indulge themselves in a tasty selection of movie treats, including well-written critiques of romantic fare such as "Music and Lyrics" and "Love Actually."

This tome maintains a beautiful flow throughout, and it's exactly the kind of literature you want to read again instantly. 

You'll laugh and wish that all true stories could be this enchanting. 

Highly recommended. 

More About the Reviewer 

Film critic and poet Richard Jack Smith was born in London and currently resides in South Wales. His unique movie and soundtrack reviews and poems can be found on ReelTalk Movie Reviews (www.reeltalkreviews.com).Richard also wrote the Foreword for Cinema Stanzas Two: Poet Laureate of the Movies, an award-winning E-Book by Betty Jo Tucker (www.bettyjotucker.com). Richard’s own website link is https://www.facebook.com/hipnoticcritique. Reach him at  filmscorer@mail.com. 

More About the Author

Harry and Elizabeth Lawrence (not their real names) live in the same Colorado town where they were born in the early 1930s. They married soon after high school graduation and divorced after 24 years of marriage. Estranged from each other for  nearly two decades, they met again and rediscovered their lost love. A former educator, Elizabeth now writes poems and reviews films for various outlets. Harry, once a hardworking engineer, enjoys his retirement by watching movies and T.V. with Elizabeth plus keeping up with the world of golf.    Reach Harry and Elizabeth at reeltalk@comcast.net. 

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog

Computer Graphic by Gene Cartwright

Cover graphic by Doug West

The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Karen A. Wyle Releases New Nature Picture Book

Title: Wind, Ocean, Grass

Author: Karen A. Wyle

Illustrator: Tomasz Mikutel

Author's website: http://www.KarenAWyle.com

Genre: Picture Book, Nonfiction: Nature \

Age/Interest Level: ages 2-8

Page #: 50

Publisher: Oblique Angles Press

Purchase the paperback at Amazon,  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1955696004 and other retailers

 Kindle edition coming soon. 

Reviewed by Jill Franclemont originally fort All Things Jill-Elizabeth.

By now, readers of my blog are familiar with the work of the talented Karen Wyle. From adult books to children’s picture stories, Wyle’s work is consistently original, lovely, and magical. (If you need a refresher, check out my posts on a number of her previous adult titles and her writing experiences – Twin-Bred, Wander Home, Division, Leaders, and Water to Water in a two-part series of posts – as well as her first few forays into children’s books – You Can’t Kiss a Bubble and When It’s Winter. This latest book is no exception. The focus is on nature, and the results are as lyrical as the movement of the eponymous wind.

In her own words: This unique picture book has neither human nor animal characters, but instead features the wind speaking to the grass, explaining how long grasses are both like and unlike the waves of the ocean. Through lyrical prose and breathtaking impressionist-style paintings, the reader follows the wind’s journey over sea and land: the many moods of the ocean, the different seasons of the grassy field. We see glimpses of the birds that live off the bounty of the ocean, and the birds and flowers that live among the  grasses.

Through this nature metaphor, the story, without becoming didactic, teaches children about seeing commonality and celebrating differences.

And if that description doesn’t encourage you to take a look, the lush and evocative illustrations certainly should. For each of her children’s books, Wyle has done an absolutely magnificent job finding the perfect illustrator – and illustrative style – to convey the wonder of her story. Mikutel’s art is visually stunning and provides a counterpoint to the language of the tale that makes both more robust an experience.

I really love the message here. The back and forth between the elements reminded me of the way a parent talks to multiple children about how it is possible to love them each differently but equally – and  how the happiness of the parent requires the thriving happiness of each child. I am constantly amazed at Wyle’s knack for taking complex subjects – life, death, love, nature – and putting them into narratives that children can appreciate and that can help parents teach life lessons. It is no easy task, and I applaud her willingness to tackle the large subjects – and her deft hand at managing them.

The book is truly lovely and I encourage you to take a look!

----------

More About the Reviewer

The reviewer is Jill Franclemont, who blogs at All Things Jill-Elizabeth. Here's the link to the review: http://blog.jill-elizabeth.com/2022/05/09/book-review-wind-ocean-grass-by-karen-wyle-author-and-tomasz-mikutel-illustrator/. The general blog URL is http://blog.jill-elizabeth.com/. Jill has given permission for the review to be reprinted. She's on Twitter as @jill_a. Her email address (which she's allowing me to provide) is jillelizabeth@jill-elizabeth.com.

Author bio:

Karen A. Wyle is an appellate attorney, author, and photographer. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in English and American Literature. Also interested in both logic and psychology, she applied to law school in the hope of combining those subjects with her love of writing. She has been writing novels since 2010, and has published eleven of them, their genres including science fiction, afterlife fantasy, and Western historical romance. Wind, Ocean, Grass is Wyle’s third picture book, with more on the way.

Learn more about her at:

http://www.KarenAWyle

https://www.facebook.com/KarenAWyle 

https://www.twitter.com/KarenAWyle

Illustrator bio:

Tomasz Mikutel is an independent artist living and creating art in Northampton, UK. He was born in Lodz, Poland, and began drawing as a child, inspired by his oil painter father. He often paints animals, but his favorite watercolour artists include Alvaro Castagnet and Joseph Zbukvic. He describes his style as classic and traditional. He prefers painting “loose,” as opposed to photorealism: the looser style allows him to express more emotions and to “leave part of himself inside the painting.”

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog 

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Kudos to Emily Jane Hills Orford - Winner of the Tales2Inspire Reviewer of the Month Award

TITLE: Tales2Inspire ~ The Diamond Collection - Series V

SUBTITLE: Stories of Turning the Page 

SERIES TITLE: Tales2Inspire ~ The Diamond Collection 

AUTHOR: Anthology of authors of contest winning inspiring stories

AUTHOR'S WEBSITE: https://www.tales2inspire.com 

GENRE: Inspirational, non-fiction personal stories 

AGE / INTEREST LEVEL: 21 + 

PAGE COUNT: 236

PUBLISHER: Independently Published

PURCHASE LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Tales2inspire-Diamond-Collection-Moonstone-Collections/dp/B09MBVRB2S/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Tales2Inspire+Collection&qid=1649016550&s=books&sr=1-3

REVIEWED BY: Emily Jane Hills Orford

REVIEW LINK: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/tales2inspire

X  PERMISSION RECEIVED FROM REVIEWER TO REPOST THIS REVIEW

Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

“Change is the current that drives our lives.” Janet Rice wrote these poignant words in her creative nonfiction story, Bygone Brooklyn. Change is also what makes our stories so empowering, so sensitive and compassionate, and so important. Life is all about stories; it’s what defines us as humans. Stories reveal our history, but stories also heal, nourish, and make us whole, make us complete, like the protective powers of the moonstone. Stories like a father hearing for the first time from an adult daughter he never knew existed; a woman who explores her connection to Holocaust survivors after attending a talk given at her grandson’s school; a child who blends in well with children of different races and doesn’t experience her own sense of alienation until her comfort zone, her home, changes; a teacher struggling with the pandemic-infused new teaching format and, stressed to the limits of endurance, seeks another path to follow. Powerful stories and there are many, many more that will open your hearts and minds to the depth of the human spirit and the strength to survive against all odds.

Lois W. Stern’s book, Tales2Inspire – The Diamond Collection - Series V, is a compendium of stories from the two Moonstone Collection anthologies. The stories collected cover a number of topics, from grief to love, from family tragedies to triumphs, and so much more. The binding theme of these stories is the ability of the author of each story to overcome the trials, the challenges, and to find another way forward, to accommodate the change that life presented. Like the heartwarming stories of Chicken Soup for the Soul and many others like Trisha Faye, these stories will have you laughing and crying and often cheering on the author, as we all can relate to these life-changing, challenging moments. Coupled with photographs, these stories are meant to be savored and enjoyed, one at a time.

Solstice Literary Reviews Jendi Reiter's Newest Book of Poetry

TITLE: Made Man

AUTHOR: Jendi Reiter

AUTHOR WEBSITE: https://www.jendireiter.com/

GENRE: Poetry

AGE LEVEL: Adult

PAGES: 142

PUBLISHER: Little Red Tree Publishing (March 2022)

LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Made-Man-Jendi-Reiter/dp/193565666X

Reviewed by Robbie Gamble originally for Solstice Lit Magazine

A quick scan of the table of contents of Made Man, Jendi Reiter’s third poetry collection, indicates that the reader is in for a comitragic, day-glo accented, culture-hopping, snort-inducing, gender-interrogating rollercoaster of a ride. Titles like “It’s Not Sensory Processing Disorder, You’re a Werewolf,” “My Longest Female Relationship Is With My Subaru,” “Don’t Get Your Penis Stuck In The Bubble Wand,” “Dreaming Of Top Surgery At The Vince Lombardi Rest Stop,” and “Buzz Aldrin Takes Communion On The Moon,” erupt from the pages with a fierce irreverent energy, and we know at once that this is not a collection to be savored quietly by the fireside in slippers with a cup of herbal tea. We also sense we will be entering a smart, challenging, multifaceted world.

In the author’s words: “Made Man explores female-to-male transition and gay masculine identity through persona poems in the voices of unusual objects and fictional characters with some aspect that is constructed, technological, or hybrid.” And further, “…these character studies open up onto a broader consideration of humanity’s relationship with technology and the shadow side of male dominance of nature.” But far from being a didactic examination of gender identity and our tech-obsessions, these poems are often laugh-out-loud funny, as the table of contents would suggest. Reiter is a founder of the Winning Writers organization, and oversees its literary contests, including the nationally-acclaimed Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, so they are well-grounded in the business of tackling complex subjects with a comedic toolkit. In “All Cakes are Bastards,” a wry persona-poem take on the gender-reveal party phenomenon, the in-utero speaker says,

they drove, masked, to the mall for plastic feet
to spear into frosting
in the dry wind they dreamed
of lures or lace, of my two choices
under an orange sky
as I slumbered normal in the blood-rich sea
as ash fell on the green courses
as I grew into my ultrasound assignment
they directed the baker’s hand, putters
or pearls, rifles or ruffles
the sugared script radiating pink and blue…

There is humor, to be sure, especially in the title which draws us in, but the humor darkens around the edges, with references to out-of-control fires raging across California (one ignited by a gender-reveal fireworks display gone awry), the COVID-19 pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd at the hands and knees of the police. It’s an ironic and scary world to be born into, especially if one will be wrestling with their assigned gender.

Reiter shifts tonal gears in poem after poem, dragging the reader along at a dizzying pace, creating a sense of disorientation that is evocative of a long journey of transition through a surreal, often unwelcoming cultural landscape. In “Dreaming Of Top Surgery At The Vince Lombardi Rest Stop” they imagine “the great men of New Jersey”: Walt Whitman, Joyce Kilmer, Thomas Edison et al, availing themselves of the men’s room while the speaker intones, “O, Vince Lombardi…/ I believe you would agree…/ that purity of heart is to will one thing.” In the title poem, “Made Man,” the hormone-injecting subject veers into scriptural syntax:

Became incarnate
            and was made

man or a god barely an age
to shave, that mirror-ritual of boys
            aping the father,

making their bones
his,
            yours.

The pace slows in the poem “when people look at me I want them to think, there’s one of those people,” an intimate elegy for Lou Sullivan, thought to be the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay.

Reiter shows their aptitude for given forms, dropping in odes (“Butternut squash, you are the War and Peace of vegetables”) and ghazals (“My body is the Tomb of the Unknown Penis”) to great effect. The penultimate poem in the book, “Transfag Semiotics,” is a mini-crown of sonnets, an extraordinarily crafted sequence where the speaker drills deep into their quest for identity:

Sometimes you vanish like a father
or a breast. Drop the handkerchief,
the theory, drop to your knees. Whether
you can explain it or not, do you want to live?
Faggot is becoming. What is a man?
I experienced what I wanted to understand.

It’s an absolute tour-de-force, and the comedic gestures fall away as Reiter grows deadly serious about the cost of becoming, of being made, and ultimately, what it means to authentically be.

In the current season of culture wars, where state legislatures are enacting “Don’t Say Gay” bills, and trying to reframe gender-affirming treatments as parental abuse, Made Man stands as a testament to the humanity of trans people everywhere. It’s also chock-full of intelligent, often hilarious and sometimes biting poems that will leave you spinning and exhilarated. Jump in, crank down your safety bar, and head out for the ride.

More About the Poet

Jendi Reiter (they/he) is the editor of WinningWriters.com is a prolific (and prolifically published!) poet. His New poetry collection! Made Man is from Little Red Tree Publishing. The American Library Association's Rainbow Round Table Reviews reports it is:  "A mix of somber moments and charming wit, Reiter’s collection makes space for humor in the maelstrom of navigating gendered experiences." 

             "Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they 

              otherwise." --Surangama Sutra

More About the Reviewer

This review by Robbie Gamble was originally published in the spring issue (2022) of  solsticelitmag.org. Robbie's poems have appears in the Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, RHINO, Spillway, and The Sun, among other journals. His essays have appeared in MassPoetry, Pangryrus, Scoundrel Time, Solstice, and Tahoma Literary Review.  Recipient of the Carve Poetry Prize and a Peter Taylor  Fellowship at the Kenyon Summer Writers Workshop, he holds an MFA from Lesley University and serves as poetry editor for Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. Learn more about him at  https://robbiegamble.com/. Email him at 

rgamble@solsticelitmag.org

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Dr. Wesley Britton Reviews "Tales of Rock Legends"

TITLE: Cover Stories 

SUBTITLE: Tales of rock legends and the albums that made them famous

Author: Robert L. Heimall

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (June 13, 2019)

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1096400448

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1096400448

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Available on Amazon 

    

As former Electra Records president Jac Holzman reminds us in his introduction to  Robert L. Heimall’s Cover Stories, the cover art for those 7” musical artifacts were often the most important and sometimes only marketing tool a given album would get to capture the eye and then hopefully ear of the record buying public. While the musicians, producers, engineers etc. invested their time in creating what would appear in those old grooves,   the equally creative visual artists like Robert L. Heimall were hard at work finding just the right cover art to visually represent something of the flavor of the music to us, the buying public.

 

Not surprisingly, Heimall’s fast-paced memoir is a long series of anecdotes telling us just how many album covers came to be.  That means behind-the-scenes stories of his working relationships with the likes of The Doors, Carly Simon, David Peel, Paul Butterfield,  Patti Smith, The Kinks and lesser known names like the highly influential Mickey Newbury and  Lonnie Mack. Did you know Mack not only played bass throughout the Doors’ Morrison Hotel but also the bluesy guitar on “Roadhouse Blues”?

 

Especially revelatory to me were stories of bands I never heard of like Wild Things, Gulliver and Bamboo. The chapter on Barry Manilow was entertaining where we learn New Zealand shopping mall execs learned playing Barry Manilow music discouraged the presence of rowdy teenagers. A Colorado judge learned sentencing loud noise offenders   to an hour of loud Manilow albums greatly reduced the number of repeat offenders.

 

Along the way, we learn much about the artistic decision making process of album designers,   a lot about  Heimall’s private life, like the protracted disillusion of his marriage to his bosses’ daughter, and his increasing religiosity.

 

Judging from some reviews at Amazon, there are readers who will be turned off by the growing evangelism in the latter chapters. Perhaps some readers might be miffed by the amount of repetition. Did I mention he married the bosses’ daughter?  He points that out so often there’s no way you’ll ever forget that fact.

 

Of course, one dimension of the book not typical of most rock memoirs are the record covers being discussed, front, back, gatefold. So if you’re a fan with a nostalgic love for the music of the ‘60s and ‘70s and have a fondness for the packaging the old vinyl was protected in, Cover Art  might just fit a slot on your rock and roll bookshelf.

 

           MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

  Dr. Wesley Britton is a reviewer for BookPleasures.com and #TheNewBookReview. He is the author of four nonfiction books on espionage in literature and the media. Starting in fall 2015, his new six-book science fiction series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles, debuted via BearManor Media. In 2018, he self-published the seventh book in the Chronicles, Alpha Tales, 2044, a collection of short stories, many of which first appeared at a number of online venues.  

For seven years, Britton was co-host of online radio’s Dave White Presents where he contributed interviews with a host of entertainment insiders. Before his retirement in 2016, Dr. Britton taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College.  H

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog 

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Servant of the People Review Netflix Featuring Zelensky from 2015

Servant of the People now on Netflix Featuring Zelensky from 2015 Season One Review

Zelenskyy (he likes his name spelled that way) created and produced a series now on Netflix, Servant of the People. I watched season one (begun in 2015) and am impressed with his talents, foresight, bravery, and message. I highly recommend everyone watch these episodes to help see how corruption worldwide might be stopped. The subtitles are in English. The series is a Ukrainian political satire comedy television show. Zelenskyy, who stars as Vasily Petrovych, is a high school history teacher who wakes up one morning as part of a family who is less than helpful to him (mom won’t iron his shirt, he can’t get a turn in the bathroom) when the doorbell rings. Ding-dong, you are now the President of Ukraine. Attitudes change at first (hysterical to see) but not so much when his family disagrees with his political moves, such as increases in taxes.

However, behind the scenes, much is being done to determine where the tax money is going. Unfortunately, it is being funneled through the Prime Minister (the audience is privy to this information) to fund the exotic lives of representatives who have houses and horses in Monte Carlo. Funds are being drained from the taxpayers. The mystery is solved by the amazing Zelenskyy by the end of series one. Don’t just watch the final episode, which is excellent, but watch the entire season to understand how it was achieved. Corruption is tracked but not solved in season one. There is a series two, but I do not as yet see it on Netflix. The episodes were filmed in Kyiv before Zelenskyy became the actual leader of Ukraine, which is impressive.

In the show, to apply to run for President, Petrovych needs millions, and his high school class has a crowdfunding collection for him. Why? His rant about the government becomes viral when a student unknowingly films it. His students tell him, and he learns that almost all of them and their parents agree with his rant comments. The Prime Minister asks Petrovych how he funded his application and doesn’t believe his answer of crowdfunding. “Ha, ha, you can tell me later,” he says.

I’m sure I missed much of the humor and insights I would have had if I had understood Ukrainian. Still, the acting is so well done that what is going on is obvious. Sometimes I found myself not noticing the subtitles.

This show was interesting to me not only because it is concerning sad current events. I have had dear students from Ukraine (I am a retired teacher), and my Grandparents were from nearby Slovenia. I shared a quick write about my Grandmother’s potica previously. I love the accents and feel close to the struggle Ukrainians are enduring. My Grandmother was hidden under potatoes to keep her safe from soldiers in World War One.

Won’t we ever learn? I so wish I could erase corruption and war from the world. We have an International Court. Why isn’t it used more?

I have donated to Ukrainian relief funds, but such efforts are a drop in a war bucket. It just makes me so sad. I think Zelenskyy is setting an excellent example for the world. 

Carolyn Wilhelm

Midwest Book Reviews

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Some Quick and Easy New Ideas for Getting More Book Reviews

A Fresh New Approach to Getting Reviews for Your Book

BY LOIS W STERN 

YOUR ADVOCATE FOR GETTING NEW REVIEWS FOR YOUR BOOKS!

Hi, I'm Lois W. Stern here, your Review Acquisition Coordinator for Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s THE NEW BOOK REVIEW BLOG. I have a fresh new idea for those of you on my list of book review requests to help you get more reviews for your book. 

I just initiated a mini review writing contest for Tales2Inspire, which I want to share with you, so that you can adapt it to initiate your own mini review contest.