Book Review - I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships by Michael S. Sorensen

It's always nice to find someone who knows what they are talking about and can educate me on a subject I'm not as familiar with as I'd like to be.,

I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships by Michael S. Sorensen is a non-fiction book of advice on how to improve relationships thru listening and validation. It is available as an eBook, Audiobook, and those paper things your grandparents used to read.

The Good

Advice. This book offers great advice about how to validate others and truly listen instead of jumping to solutions or judgement, something we naturally want to do. The author provides many examples to help illustrate the point and teach the lesson.

Length. The author wisely chose to make this a short book and avoid padding it with unnecessary filler to make it look bigger and more authoritative.

The Bad

Narration. The author narrates this book himself. He does a good job, but could put a little more enthusiasm in his voice so it wasn't so flat.

What I Would Like to Have Seen

A few more examples in other situations. He tended to stick to very similar situations.

Overall

I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships by Michael S. Sorensen is a quick read that offers excellent advice on how to listen to others and make them feel important. It provides great explanations and examples both what to do and what not to do and why. I highly recommend this book and give it 4.5 out of 5 eReaders.

    

 

Book Review - Young Mozart by William Augel

I'm a big fan of independent comics, music, and clever jokes. So to find all three in one book was a HUGE find!

Young Mozart by William Augel is a graphic novel featuring daily and Sunday comics about a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is available as an eBook and those paper things your grandparents used to read.

The Good

Jokes. The jokes are pretty funny. While they are specific to Young Mozart and his challenges in a previous century, they are relatable to a modern audience, even a non-musical one.

Artwork. The artwork is really fun and cartoony. It's got a great rhythm.

Design. Being a designer myself, I always notice the design of a book, and this one is so well thought out and clever with musical staffs covered in whatever trouble Mozart is dealing with and full page illustrations with a clever concept.

The Bad

...

What I Would Like to Have Seen

I'd have liked some of the sequences to go on a little longer.

Overall

Young Mozart by William Augel is a fun, well-drawn graphic novel containing both daily comics and Sunday comics featuring a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The jokes are pretty funny. While they are specific to Young Mozart and his challenges in a previous century, they are relatable to a modern audience, even a non-musical one. The design of this book is so well thought out and clever with musical staffs covered in whatever trouble Mozart is dealing with and full page illustrations with a clever concept. I highly recommend this book and give it 4.5 out of 5 eReaders.

   

 

Movie Review - Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery

I've been a Scooby-Doo fan for as long as I can remember. I haven't been a fan of all his incarnations, but they have been fun to see different ways he and his gang can be reinterpreted.

Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery is a 2014 direct-to-video action comedy film featuring Scooby-Doo and the gang. If it were rated, it would be rated G and is appropriate for all ages.

The Good

Visuals. This movie has really nice character designs and background designs. It has the right balance of cartoony and realism to make the WWE wrestlers look like real people but still like they fit in Scooby-Doo's world.

Story. The story is one of the strongest for a Scooby-Doo tale with some real thought to motivation and twists. It's still not going to win any awards.

Action/Animation. The animation is really well done with the wrestling looking smooth.

The Bad

Opening Titles. The song wasn't great and there was no logic or reason to show the villains from the first season. They don't make an appearance here. It looked more like an anniversary title sequence than WWE.

What I Would Like to Have Seen

A little more wrestling.

Overall

Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery is a fun direct-to-video movie appropriate for all ages--safe for the youngsters and entertaining for the older crowd. The animation is very smooth and fluid, the character designs are both cartoony enough to be Scooby-Doo and realistic enough to make the WWE wrestlers look like actual people, and the story is much stronger than most direct-to-video cartoons with actual thought put into motivation and twists. While nothing groundbreaking, it is a lot of fun with the usual troupes one expects from this kind of movie. I give this film 4 out of 5 Boxes of Popcorn.