ENTERTAINMENT: OFF THE SHELF Mom and Autistic Daughter

by Mary Olson

Author: Joshilyn Jackson

Rating (out of 5 possible):

If you are a fan of suspense novels with strong female protagonists, Joshilyn Jackson is an author you simply must read. Her latest book, “With My Little Eye,” delivers chills and thrills along with a thought-provoking premise.

Meribel Mills is a single mother and small-screen actress who decides to relocate from California to Atlanta for a new role. More importantly, she is moving to escape a relentless stalker.

She calls him “Marker Man” because of the childlike yet disturbingly violent marker drawings he leaves for her to find. Worse, he has slept in her bed and gone through her drawers when Mills is not home.

Mills must protect her preteen daughter Honor, who is on the autism spectrum. This means leaving her lover, Cam, behind in California and taking Honor back to her home state of Georgia and, hopefully, to safety.

It is not long before Marker Man’s letters begin to arrive at Mills’ new apartment. The postmarks indicate he is making his way toward Atlanta.

Honor is a unique and compelling character. To write someone with autism accurately and compassionately can be difficult for an author, but Jackson does it very well, detailing Honor’s thought processes, quirks and habits as both delightful and challenging.

As the story goes on, Honor and two unlikely new friends take a starring role in the action as only teenagers can. There are misunderstandings and half-plotted plans, along with unquestionable bravery as they square off against sinister adults.

Cam, back home, and her new neighbor, Cooper, are Mills’ only support system, but she begins to doubt if either can be trusted completely. She can feel when eyes are watching her, and, in Atlanta, she feels it constantly.

Steadily ratcheting tension, red herrings and a whiplashworthy plot twist bring this novel to a stunning conclusion.

The hallmarks of Jackson’s books are complex protagonists who show courage in the face of danger; timely and relevant social issues; and clever plotting.

by Amy Barnes

Movie: “Hypnotic”

Seen: Movie Theater

Rating (out of 5 possible):

This may be one of the quietest movies out there in terms of being promoted or advertised. I do not even recall seeing any trailers for it, but there it was in theaters.

The disjointed story, poor directing and slap-together feel of the movie make it obvious it is a COVID leftover that they threw only half-baked into theaters in order to not completely lose the funds used to produce it.

According to the Boston Globe, it was delayed in its shooting by a year because of the pandemic, and when it did begin filming in 2021, it lost its distributing studio and did not find another until two months before its US theater release this month.

“Hypnotic” stars Ben Affleck as Danny Rourke, a police officer who goes to a park with his beloved daughter who disappears.

There is a kidnapping suspect, but he claims to not remember any part of the incident or what he did with the child, Minnie.

While Rourke keeps trying to find his daughter, he also is caught up in solving a series of bank robberies where the goal seems only to be to grab the contents of one safety deposit box at each bank.

That will be the last clear moment you will experience in this movie.

This movie has several rabbit holes, some more believable than others.

Everything in the movie hinges on the idea that there is a group of people with special powers of hypnosis. Called hypnotics, they are gathered for scientific research to determine their use to the military.

Hypnotics can cause people to commit acts completely contradictory to the way they normally are, can make them see things that do not exist, and basically bend all of reality.

Like so many times when Hollywood tries to make something bigger or more sinister than the reality, there is much common sense and common knowledge that would have to be suspended to follow the story.

In some stories, that is absolutely possible. This one demands too much suspension of fact to really be believable, workable or even sensible.

Most of the ending I liked. However, the final scene after the credits have started running is simply director Robert Rodriquez showing off that the audience does not know what it thinks it does and he has no intention of leaving anyone feeling comfortable. Too bad the final scene makes little sense and does not match with information from previous scenes.

Mary Olson is the readers’ advisory librarian at the Medina County District Library. To learn more about her, go to https:// bit.ly/3gZ1mg1

Maybe someday there will be a cult following for the group of movies that were filmed and produced during the COVID shutdown, but right now those movies are failing to help the movie theaters that need audiences.

MIRTH AND JOY by Jerry

King

Answer Key for Last Month’s Search FOR THE HOMELESS

“Give Jim a minute. His fun, online personality is still downloading.”

“ is just really passivism.”loud

“Everything that is pleasurable is neutral (to me), so I don’t understand ‘guilty pleasure.’”