Summer List Review {The Blue Mirror + Amber Alert}

This is the fourth installment of me reviewing a list of books and movies I set out to read, watch, and enjoy throughout the summer. You can check out my other posts in the following links. 
Summer Reading and Movie List
First Installment
Second Installment
Third Installment

I want to start this off by saying I'm rather proud I got this far into being on top of things. As a resident procrastinator, I'm surprised I actually have read four of the books and watched four of the movies and gotten the reviews up in the timely manner I wanted them to.

Anyways, onto what you came here for. I read The Blue Mirror by Kathe Koja.

Personally I was not a huge fan. I adored Ms. Koja's writing as the book was like a never ending off beat poem (I'm sure that made sense to everyone lol). On the other hand, I was quite disappointed in the story line, but that might have just been the need of feminism in Maggie's life (the main character), that made me go up the wall throughout the entire story.

Granted Maggie has an alcoholic mother who she takes care of like her own kid, but this girl literally falls head over heals for a kid named Cole who I very early own predicted would ruin her life. Which by the way, I predicted correctly.

I'm not a big fan of love stories to begin with, so maybe I'm not qualified to give an unbiased review here, but I wanted nothing more than to shake Maggie and teach her a thing or two about unhealthy relationships. I could have told you as soon as Cole started forcing Maggie to wear blue lipstick that she should have run all the way to Mexico before it was too late.

Honestly, the book was quite painful to get through because I already saw the ending. Maggie was going to discover the dick that Cole was, but by then it would be far too late. Once Maggie got her act together and realized Cole was as good for her as a cigarette and a case beer, he was already showing up unexpectedly at her apartment and stealing money from her mom's purse. Like come on sister, why did it take this long?

Overall, Ms. Koja is an intriguing writer whose writing style I thoroughly enjoyed. The book itself, not so much.

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My next movie was called Amber Alert, which like The Blue Mirror, I didn't much enjoy.

The movie follows a duo of friends who are auditioning for a reality tv show. The movie opens with Samantha and Nate goofing around and I really wanted to love them. They were doing all these fun things around their home town and the directors started out just right. They made them likable and fun.

Then things turned shitty when they got into the car. 

The entire movie is like one of those found footage-low budget-one camera-Blair Witch Project-type movies. The audience believes that what they're seeing is being filmed by Samantha's younger brother whom you only see and hear from maybe twice the entire movie. Personally, these kind of things are waaaaay overdone. It seems all horror movies nowadays follow the concept of "real life" events, when you can obviously tell after a few scenes that the movie was made up.

Anyways, once Sam and Nate get into the car things really go south. They see an amber alert sign and not long after see a car with the same license plate that was on the alert. Sam immediately calls 911 and they begin following it. And then they follow it. And then they follow it some more. And then they continually follow it, which is about 75% of the action within the movie: them following behind a car. 

Also about 2/3 of the movie is spent with Sam and Nate arguing nonstop. I honestly wondered how the directors expected us to believe that Sam and Nate were as good of friends as they were portrayed to be in the beginning because they were both so whiny and different and oh yeah, very irritating. 

First Nate didn't want to follow the car so he complained. Then he wanted food so he complained. Then he didn't know how they were supposed to find the car again after they stopped for food so he complained. Then he had to run a red light to keep up with the car so he complained some more.

Then came Samantha. She got mad a lot. She was mad that Nate didn't want to follow the car. Then she was mad that Nate was hungry. Then she was mad because they lost the car. Then she was mad because Nate said he didn't want to follow the car anymore. She was mad because Nate had no interest whatsoever in catching this kidnapper man, while she wanted nothing more than to save the little kid in the car.

Ugh.

Also it was extremely hard to believe that there was as little of police involvement as there was in the movie. At one point Samantha was giving the 911 operator a direct play by play of where the car was and where it was headed and yet somehow THE POLICE WERE STILL JUST AS CLUELESS.

Yeah, I don't recommend this movie.

Anyways, have a fabulous day.