Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)

the Chipmunks and the Chipettes went on a cruise vacation with Dave. they turned the ship into their personal playground, causing trouble to the humans aboard. at one time, they messed up and landed on a deserted island. they were stranded, lost in the wilderness, waiting for Dave to save them. they met with the only human who lived on the island named Zoe, who turned out to be less innocent than she appeared to be. the six was forced to survive the wild by relying on themselves and teamwork.

the Chipmunks remained almost predictable throughout the sequels, with Alvin being the troublemaker, Simon the rational one, and Theodore the childlike figure. fortunately in this sequel, part of the characters were switched half way through the film, which made things fairly interesting! they were also generous with the singing and dancing, which entertain us further. on the down side, Dave and Ian were still a bunch of sad humans to look at. we never did like them, not the cartoon nor in the movies.

Darkest Powers #3: The Reckoning (2010)

Chloe with her gang formed by a werewolf, a sorcerer, a witch, and herself, a necromancer, finally arrived at a safe house owned by Andrew, a friend of Simon and Derek's father. or so they thought. being an ex-employee of the Edison Group, the group that experimented on genetically modified children, Andrew had more thoughts than what he was sharing. before long, a pack was sent to retrieve Derek, the werewolf. which happened to be the same bunch of werewolves that taunted them during their journey in The Awakening (2009). the people that they thought to entrust their future with turned out to be as dangerous as those they met back in the Edison Group. again, they had to rely on themselves in life threatening situations, to save themselves from the adults.

Chloe's growth was so tremendously impressive that she had me falling for her throughout the series. for being neither overly pretty, or exceptionally smart, she made a perfect heroin! she stumbled her way through being a necromancer, struggled with ways to make summoning the dead more in control than they were over her. like Derek, they were both imperfect, yet so perfectly together! i love the way that the book doesn't circled or get too sidetracked with romance. despite having the series' focus on surviving the moment, their romance bloomed and went the prefect direction that i absolutely adored. the Darkest Powers (2008-2010) trilogy was one of the most engaging series i had read. however, the story didn't exactly ended like expected. it was left open-ended, hopefully meaning there will be more adventures of theirs to read about!

A Pillow Case of Mystery II (2010) 施公奇案II

after losing 2 out of his 4 wives, Sailun became dispirited with the political world. he brought along his mother and the 2 remaining wives, spending all his time traveling around the country in search for fun. in one of the town, he met with Kwanyau, a con artist, who somehow got caught up in a mysterious murder case. it was originally not Sailun's case, but the moment a pillow came flying in his way, he was forced to look upon the case with the assistance from the pillow-spirit.

like most crime solving series that TVB came out with, it was highly entertaining. adding in humor made it not only fun but engaging. i wasn't a fan of Kwanyau due to her characteristic, but her being with Sailun made it a fun combination to watch. Sailun easily stood out as the story evolved around him, but we were not engaged in him as personally as we were with Kwanyau. although the pillow-spirit played a huge part in the crime solving part of the drama, he and his hints weren't as important as Sailun tried to portray it to be. in a way, crimes were solved as long as he went along with the flow. despite all these flaws, the drama was fun and easy to watch as it progressed from one case to another.

Relishable.

if only she had known what was going to happen. but even if she knew, would she had stop searching for answers like she did? would she had accepted everything that was thrown in her face, shut up, and saved all the trouble that she was put through? would things travel the same wavelength and arrived at her feet either way? staring up at the uneven patch on the ceiling, she remembered telling him over and over again, reminding him that whatever that will come, will come. for harsh truth was definitely more tolerable than comfortable lies.

真実を受け入れる。