Unapologetic Reviews

I read The Devil She Knows by Alexandria Bellefleur for prompt #40 of the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge, “A book outside your comfort zone”. Romance is very much outside my usual reading preferences, so this was a good opportunity to try something different. The premise immediately caught my attention. It is essentially a queer twist on Bedazzled . Chef Samantha "Sam" Cooper meets the demon Daphne after the two become trapped in an elevator together. Daphne offers Sam six wishes, which she plans to use to win back her ex-girlfriend. It is a fun setup, and I was looking forward to seeing how the wishes would spiral out of control. Unfortunately, my biggest issue with the novel was the pacing. The story takes almost the first fifth of the book just to get to the actual deal. Sam and Daphne spend a long time chatting in the elevator, Sam slowly discovers that Daphne is a demon, refuses to believe it, asks questions, and only then do they finally reach the part the premise pro...

I wanted to watch a cute, funny and romantic drama, and that is just what I got. I do remember watching the previous version of Itazura na Kiss , but I don't remember much of it. It didn't seem to have much of an impact, and that version was only 9 episodes, while this one is 16. The story is a love triangle, sort of. From the start we know that Kotoko is in love with Irie-kun. It's also not hard to deduct that Kin-chan is in love with Kotoko. Irie-kun doesn't even seem to know that Kotoko exists, until she presents him with a love letter that of course, no surprise, he turns down. What happens after that is years and years of Kotoko being hopelessly devoted. Yes, this drama takes place over 3-4 years. Kotoko is in class F at the beginning, and Irie is in A. Fs, people who are perhaps not that book smart, and As, who are seem to be a world apart. Can two people so different find each other? Can it work? At one point Irie confesses that he had no troubles until...

Papa Wa Idol or Papadoru is a funny family drama. It's about an idol , Nishikido Ryo , a member of Kanjani8 , who falls in love with a woman, and marries her. Now, as a European person, this whole idol thing is a bit strange for me. I understand that people think these guys shouldn't get married, because that destroys the illusion of their availability, but in reality, they really aren't available for the average Jane. In fact, ironically, this could be about the realisation of a fan. After all, all fans dream of marrying their idol. If we go by this drama, marrying an idol is the easy part. The life after is the hard part. The story doesn't show much of the romance, it focuses on the start of the marriage itself. Haruka , the new wife, already has three children from her previous marriage. The drama mainly centers around Nishikido being an idol, and how he tries to become a husband and a father while hiding the whole thing from the public. This provides lots o...

Leap Year is a rather good romantic comedy, for one of its overly cliched genre. It does follow the classic script: the characters not liking each other at first, but having to cope for some reason. Then as they get to know one another, they gradually fall in love. No  surprises  there.  Why I would recommend this movie though is partly because Amy Adams just does a great job again. Her  classically  beautiful face looks something that is straight out of the 50s. She makes the snotty character of Anna look believable and as a woman you have to give her extra points for running around in those really high heels.  The leading man ( Matthew Goode ) is nice looking, pulls off the scruffy Irish lad really well.  The comedy situations are  genuinely  funny and you are amused by them, even though you can see some of them coming. The romance is a bit in the background next to the comedy and the journey that they take together and you...