Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure

Details of the Book

No. of Pages    : 224 pages

ISBN               : ISBN-10 : 0241458811 and ISBN-13 : 978-0241458815

Language         : English

From the book blurb

From the imagination of Wimpy Kid's Rowley Jefferson comes an adventure of epic proportions! Join Roland and his best friend, Garg the Barbarian, as they leave the safety of their village and embark on a quest to save Roland's mum from the White Warlock. Will our heroes survive? Find out in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure!

Author

Jeff Kinney is the #1 USA Today, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and a six-time Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award winner for Favorite Book. The Meltdown, book 13, was published in October 2018, and was a #1 bestselling book. His latest book, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal, was published in April 2019 and was an instant #1 global bestseller. Jeff has been named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of Time's 50 Best Websites. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England in 1995. Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An Unlikely Story.

What I think

Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure written by Jeff Kinney is supremely funny.

Rowley Jefferson (best friend of Greg Heffley from the Wimpy Kid series) decides to let his imagination go wild and writes an adventurous story about Roland and his best friend, Garg the Barbarian, who embark on a mission to save Roland's mum from the White Warlock. Do they survive the journey? What adventures awaits them all along and do they save Roland’s mum?

While Rolwey’s objective is to share the story with his parents and request his dad to read during his bedtime, he lets his Greg Heffley read the drafts. What follows is super hilarious interactions between Greg and Rowley. Greg continues to be a snob and highly opinionated in this one too. While Rowley’s story forms half of the book, the other half contains the conversations between Greg and Rowley. Poor Rowley takes those comments seriously and makes amends accordingly. After all, he is sweet, naïve, innocent and honest as ever. But can he go on like that? If so, will that still remain his story?

I recently read Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Deep End and I kind of missed Rowley. Glad that this book was a perfect compensation.

There were several moments of ROFL and LOL, if you know what I mean. The cartoons only elevate our imagination and all in all, this was a fun(nier) read.

Just grab the book and embark on the adventure…

Maybe, just like me, you may wait for Greg’s review comments more than the adventure itself. Oops! Sorry Rowley!

Rating

5/5

PS: Thank you to the Puffin publications for providing a copy for review.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Deep End (#15)

Details of the Book

No. of Pages    : 224 pages

ISBN               : ISBN-10: 0241424143 and ISBN-13: 978-0241424148

Language         : English

From the book blurb

In The Deep End, book 15 of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series from #1 international bestselling author Jeff Kinney, Greg Heffley and his family hit the road for a cross-country camping trip, ready for the adventure of a lifetime. 

But things take an unexpected turn, and they find themselves stranded at a campsite that's not exactly a summertime paradise. When the skies open and the water starts to rise, the Heffleys wonder if they can save their vacation - or if they're already in too deep.

Author

Jeff Kinney is the #1 USA Today, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and a six-time Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award winner for Favourite Book. Wrecking Ball, book 14, was published in November 2019, and was an instant #1 global bestseller. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal was published in April 2019, was an instant #1 global bestseller. Jeff has been named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of Time's 50 Best Websites. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England in 1995. Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An Unlikely Story.

 

What I think

The Deep End, 15^th instalment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, is all about an adventurous road trip the Heffleys family take. The plan was to unplan! And what happens is an hilarious joyride. As always, the book was funny, breezy and most importantly provided an excuse to simply travel while still sitting on one’s couch.

This instalment in the series, as the plot also goes, is all about a trip that the Heffleys take as a family. So, there are not many characters and one major missing was Rowley. Also, there were not too many different situations or occasions. Therefore, after a point, the rains thunders and blunders become repetitive. However, the cartoons help in visualizing better and as always, the faces of each of these characters do not fail to evoke laughter. The story begins with the Heffleys living under the basement of Greg’s grandmother. It is a very small portion of the story, but that was more relatable and funnier. If only the author chose to explore the life of Greg in cramped indoors with a strict and no-nonsense mother, perennially working from home father and, a near toddler and a teenager as brothers.

In short, the highly opinionated Greg aka the Wimpy kid does not fail to hold our attention with his ideas and laziness. I specifically enjoyed reading the incident where Greg is forced to play with a bunch of boys in the campsite. This continues to be that one book which could be read with the family and enjoyed by all regardless of the age group.

Happy reading!

Rating

4/5

PS: Thank you to the Puffin publications for providing a copy for review.

For book review requests, please reach out to locomente8888@gmail.com

Nine Years as Locomente!!!

As my alarm rhythmically ushered me to the wakefulness, I snoozed it keeping my eyes closed. Almost immediately, I opened my eyes with an excited alarm and quickly typed “L” in the Google Chrome app. The predictive typing led me to “Locomente.com/?m=1” which incidentally is my blog URL and an error message popped up – The IP server cannot be reached and something-something. Despite my slumber, I remembered that I didn’t pay for the domain renewal and I told myself that I do not need that domain anymore. I have earned not a penny in the last two years out of the blog. I barely have visitors and most importantly, I hardly write. I clearly don’t need a paid domain. This ran in the back on my mind as we celebrated Vijaya Dashami. Around noon, I sat with my office laptop. The first thing I did was to sign out of Skype and MS Teams, of course. Then I started to work towards fixing the error message. After an hour, I decided that time is money and renewed the domain. To cut the long story short, my baby blog is reborn – after all, my baby blog is 9 years old!!!! 

Birthdays are all about celebrations, isn’t it? So, lets take a stock of the journey so far…1,730 posts covering poems, haiku, stories including micro fictions and blog series, books and movie reviews, random musings/thoughts, art, photobook, kolam and what not! Last 9 years has been a great learning and I am sure that years to follow would be equally enriching.

Birthdays are also an avenue to reflect… So here are some thoughts…

• I started this blog back in 2011 when I had completed my primary education (for those who don’t know, I am a Chartered account by qualification and auditor by profession). Over the years as I wished for professional growth, I also longed for more readership for my blog. I wanted to be famous but then I know for a fact that I am nowhere close to that. That worries me and demotivates at times. Rewards and recognitions are integral for not only profession, but for passion also. I should say that’s the most epic epiphanies ever.
• With Instagram, Twitter, Vlogs and all that, I am not sure if we really care to read long articles. Even the breaking news have become super concise and often precise. We are in a constant hurry with an attention span that’s ever diminishing. I am not sure how long such mediums where we can write hundreds and thousands of words altogether would stay relevant.
• Fame and success are addictive. Unless we taste both, consistency in the long run could be very difficult. Although 9 years ago on a sunny Diwali afternoon, I didn’t think of having any readership or fame. Today I do. Change is the only constant, further proved

Anyways… This Locomente has not been as driven as it used be in the past. But, the constant urge to experience and evolve has not changed. The rigor to be agile is the only prerequisite for survival. Hopefully Locomente shall survive too – through blogs, art or at least with the sheer desire to express. After all, Locomente never gets bored of romancing words. And mind you, Locomente always creates and never copies. As Malcolm Gladwell elaborated in The Outlier, ten years of constant practice is the only means towards perfection; or at least reach anywhere close to it. So here we are hitting the 9 years mark… Let’s hope for all the perfect imperfections in the next 365 days…

With that note, let me thank my readers…

You have been a constant support. I don’t visit any blogs anymore. But you still come and drop comments. That means the world and beyond to me. Thanks to my friends for patiently reading the blog links that I share… Your critical comments are the only source of improvement, trust me…

Happy Birthday dearest Locomente…

You are my alter-ego… My source of inspiration, expression and gratitude… Blessed to have this Locomente blog in my life and simply be Locomente at times (Well, mostly always).

Afterall… Miles to go before I sleep…

Until next year, cheers!

Nishabdam/Silence

 

Cast	:	Anushka Shetty, R Madhavan, Anjali, Shalini Pandey, Michael Madson
Director	:	Hemant Madhukar
Cinematographer	:	Shaneil Deo
Music	:	Score: Girishh G. Soundtrack: Gopi Sundar and Vishwajeet Jaykar
Editor	:	Prawin Pudi
Producer	:	Kona Film Corporation People Media Factory
Release Date	:	October 02, 2020 (On Amazon Prime)
Length	:	2 hours and 5 minutes
Language	:	Tamil/Telugu

 

My Thoughts

Anthony (R Madhavan) is murdered in a haunted villa. Was he killed by the ghost as people believe or is there something more? This is the storyline. This means there is an element of horror, mystery and suspense that could be expected. There is also a deaf and muted Anthony’s fiancé - Shakshi (Anushka Shetty) which opens a gateway for lots of love and emotions. However, what we get in return is a sloppy screenplay and bored looking zombie-like actors. There is lot of emotional plotlines, but we simply don’t get the emotions. There is supposed to be a ghost angle and there are no jump scare moments, not even eerie or scary moments. The background score takes us to a trance caused by general boredom and doesn’t exactly keep us at the edge of the seat. R Madhavan and Anushka Shetty gets a song which is shot as montage with beautiful backdrop. That’s the only few minutes that looks refreshing. Other than that, everything seems staged. This is supposed to be bilingual. But people don’t even lip-sync properly. Even muted Anushka’s robotic voice app had more emotions than the people who had dubbed for human beings.

In short, this movie opens with a problem of solving a murder and ends up being a problem altogether!

Having said that, if you already have Amazon Prime subscription and are generally bored with the current Lockdown situation, why not watch it? After all, boredom is something we have common with everyone who had made this movie – we certainly have something to relate to at a personal level!

Rating

2.5/5

A Note to My Shadow

If not for my own shadow,

I’d have been alone –

Abandoned; isolated.