Eggp > Recent Status Updates

16. Andrew O'Hagan - Keepsakes, 2 stars. Angry wastrel blames his problems on everyone else.
17. Rachel Kushner - The Girl with the Big Red Suitcase, 3 stars. Finally, something related to the source material! People stranded at a castle during lockdown take turns telling stories.
18. Kamila Shamsie - The Walk, 2 stars. Two women decide to walk a new route, encounter their friends and neighbors.

13. Paolo Giordano - The Perfect Travel Buddy, 2 stars. Petty stepfather resents stepson for coming to quarantine in their home.
14. Mona Awad - A Blue Sky Like This, 3 stars. Lonely woman finds a spa still illegally open, exchanges her recent worries for a healthy glow.
15. Leila Slimani - The Rock, 4 stars. Blandly successful author is assaulted, rides a sudden wave of fame.

10. Uzodinma Iweala - Sleep, 2 stars. Interracial couple runs hot and cold.
11. Liz Moore - Clinical Notes, 3 stars. Parents try to decide if they should take their feverish child to the hospital.
12. Etgar Keret - Outside, 1 star. Everyone forgots what they did for a living, but not how to be callous.

07. Colm Toibin - Tales from the L.A. River, 3 stars. Couple feels insecure about their lack of common interests, everyone on social media looks so happy.
08. Victor LaValle - Recognition, 3 stars. A chatty woman and a painfully shy woman seem to be the only neighbors left in a virus hotspot.
09. Mia Couto - An Obliging Robber, 3 stars. Ignorant man in the boonies hasn't heard of the pandemic.

04. Charles Yu - Systems, 2 stars. People google stuff to make themselves feel better.
05. Karen Russell - Line 19 Woodstock/​Glisan, 3 stars. Bus and ambulance have a near collision, get stuck in time.
06. David Mitchell - If Wishes Was Horses, 2 stars. Prisoner is quarantined after bunking with positive case, chats with cellmate during his illness.

01. Margaret Atwood - Impatient Griselda, 3 stars. Alien tells quarantined group of people a story to keep them entertained.
02. Edwidge Danticat - One Thing, 2 stars. Woman waits by the phone while her husband is in the covid ward.
03. Tommy Orange - The Team, 1 star. Used to run, now stares at wall.

01. The Courage Consort, 4 stars. Experimental singing group travels to Belgium to perform a difficult piece, close quarters change relationship dynamics.
02. The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps, 3 stars. Pained archeologist suffers recurrent nightmares, flirts with handsome man & gorgeous dog.
03. The Fahrenheit Twins, 2 stars. Hansel and Gretel in the Arctic, mom dies and dad sends them off to deal with her body.

07. A Cryptograph, 2 stars. Religious teacher looks for her radical son, loathes her students.
08. Haunted Earth, 2 stars. Teen loner is obsessed with Vietnam, tries to get in mixed girl's pants.
09. Nepal, 2 stars. Young gass maker is an asshole assured of his own genius, takes advantage of a desperate girl.

05. Between Here and the Yellow Sea, 2 stars. Townie and old man drive to California to kidnap oldun's porn actress daughter.
06. The Guild of Thieves, Lost Women, and Sunrise Palms, 1 star. Wannabe hardcase deals drugs to highschool students, idolizes an injured vet that doesn't like him much.

01. Ghost Birds, 2 stars. Base jumper doesn't want his new girlfriend to base jump.
02. Amy's Watch, 2 stars. Youngest daughter sleeps with absent older sister's high school boyfriend.
03. 1987, The Races, 2 stars. Shitty father takes his kid to the racetrack to play the big man, fools no one.
04. Two Shores, 3 stars. Cold man is told he may have fathered a child, but never finds out.

01. The Beckoning Fair One, 2 stars. Failed writer moves to a swanky apartment, lazes around all day, disdains the only person who cares about him.

06. The Accident, 2 stars. Insecure man sets up a reunion date with his former rival, intending to gloat about his many successes.
07. The Cigarette Case, 2 stars. Young gents spend a musical evening with two pretty English ladies while backpacking in France.
09. Hic Jacet: A Tale of Artistic Conscience, 2 stars. Sellout is commissioned to write the biography of his artist friend, clashes with sister of the deceased.

08. The Rocker, 2 stars. [2018]
02. Phantas, 2 stars. Stranded sailboat makes contact with another ship.
03. Rooum, 3 stars. Ignorant but clever construction worker has a fear of echoes.
04. Benlian, 3 stars. Sculptor convinces neighbor that he's going to animate a statue.
05. Io, 2 stars. Sickly girl tires of her dull fiance, senses something calling her.

07. Doing Clarence a Bit of Good, 3 stars. Old flame convinces chump to steal painting to make her new husband happy.
08. The Aunt and the Sluggard, 3 stars. Lazybones poet's distant aunt pays him to enjoy the nightlife, but his letters convince her to experience it for herself.

04. Absent Treatment, 3 stars. Forgetful man can't keep track of any important dates.
05. Helping Freddie, 3 stars. Lovesick friend's girlfriend won't talk to him, plans involve kidnapping a child.
06. Rallying Round Old George, 3 stars. Man smooches the wrong girl, has to assume another identity.

01. Leave it to Jeeves, 4 stars. The plan to make a rich uncle fond of a girl is rather too successful.
02. Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest, 3 stars. Plotting to cage a country boy gone wild.
03. Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg, 3 stars. Lazy nephew depends on his allowance, but wants to impress his uncle with his imaginary success.

04. The Nowaks, 3 stars. Moving in with Otto's (young adonis) poverty stricken non-stop bickering family.
05. The Landauers, 4 stars. Befriending a wealthy Jewish family that are about to have a their lives destroyed by the nazis.
06. A Berlin Diary - Winter 1932-33, 4 stars. Hitler is being taken seriously, political murders and riots are becoming commonplace.

01. A Berlin Diary - Autumn 1930, 2 stars. Rambling description of his landlady/neighbors, their and living/working situations.
02. Sally Bowles, 2 stars. Terrible singer has no skill as a gold digger, sluts it up unprofitably.
03. On Ruecen Island - Summer 1931, 2 stars. Spending the summer with a neurotic sugar daddy and his young adonis that bicker all the time.

Wiki: "...Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint."

05. Fort Apache, 3 stars. Birthday boy wants to run away and look like a film star, the real world sucks.
06. The Daughter, 4 stars. Grief-stricken woman behaves oddly after her mother's death.
07. Lazarus, 3 stars. Pastor is gently given the boot after his son's death leaves him unable to fulfill his duties.
08. Volt, 4 stars. Sheriff has a rough day, looking for a man turns violent and complicated.

01. The Staying Freight, 3 stars. Man has a nervous breakdown after the accidental death of his son, runs away from home.
02. Smoke, 3 stars. Injured father uses son's physical strength to cover up a crime.
03. Peacekeeper, 4 stars. Sheriff finds a missing girl, takes the law into her own hands.
04. Furlough, 3 stars. Soldier on leave escorts a girl to her boyfriend's big surprise party.

05. The Captives, 4 stars. Man hitches a ride on honeymooners' chartered coach, cowardly husband offers his wife as ransom to cutthroats.
06. Jugged, 4 stars. Young husband can't stay out of trouble with some drinks in him, comes to in a cell with a conniving murderer.
07. The Kid, 3 stars. Cruel man makes an orphaned boy his slave, unsuccessful but kind-hearted gold miner takes issue with the arrangement.

01. Cavalry Boots, 2 stars. Terrible soldier gets to be a posthumous hero.
02. Under the Friar's Ledge, 3 stars. Retired doctor saves tortured stranger, is thanked with silver.
03. Three-Ten to Yuma, 3 stars. Law man can't be bribed, intends to get his prisoner aboard the train on time.
04. Long Night, 3 stars. Expectant couple has an extended run of bad luck, unwanted visitors turn up to make demands.

01. The Diving Pool, 3 stars. Daughter at a family run orphanage/ministry has a sadistic streak a mile wide, obsesses over athletic orphan.
02. Pregnancy Diary, 4 stars. Woman observes her pregnant sister's condition, tends to her dietary quirks, possibly tries to harm her fetus?
03. Dormitory, 3 stars. Woman's cousin asks for a housing recommendation, gets settled in, but nevers happens to be home when she visits.

05. Epilogue, 3 stars. Long after human beings destroyed the planet and themselves, an emergency seed colony pops in for a look. Captured by a wild robot, the scouting team quickly regrets their curiosity.
06. Starfog, 3 stars. Descendants of a long lost colony blunder out of their home region, hopelessly lost. An official is summoned to confirm the veracity of their unlikely story, and to locate their home system.

03. The Ways of Love, 3 stars. First contact with aliens is scandalous for bigots on earth. Fearing loss of power, the government lashes out in an attempt to end peaceful negotiations before they can begin.
04. The Voortrekkers, 2 stars. Man and woman have their personalities copied into machines to supervise space exploration, eventually get reanimated/regrown in fleshy bodies when the time seems right.

Word: "Perforce, we became a pair of jackleg xenologists."

Used as a term of contempt or depreciation:
a. adj. Incompetent, unskilled; unscrupulous, dishonest. Freq. used of lawyers and preachers.
b. n. An incompetent or unskilled or unprincipled person.

01. The Saturn Game, 2 stars. Daydreamy crew members go overboard with their LARPing, clinging to their fantasies even after inattention leaves them injured and possibly beyond rescue.
02. The Bitter Bread, 3 stars. Fundamentalist Christian zealots control space travel (and the world?), a wife moves heaven and earth to reunite with her husband after his ship is permanently stranded in space.

Wiki: "The game board that is a sphere and a braid and a forest of pleached trees encompasses her and the grasses."

DNF