pickI am trying to do better as far as non-fiction reads go this year and this is my first completed read. I was by turns furious and heartbroken and awed. What an amazing human being, creative soul, and woman! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick | 
pickI am trying to do better as far as non-fiction reads go this year and this is my first completed read. I was by turns furious and heartbroken and awed. What an amazing human being, creative soul, and woman! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
pickI loved this. O‘Meara takes an engaged, conversational dive not only into Milicent Patrick‘s life and work but also the history of women in film and the industry biases that make them difficult to research. I came away with a ton of stuff to think about and a fair few things I‘d like to watch in the near future.
bailedSomething about the writing style of this book made it feel like homework. Gave it 75 pages and cannot get on board. Not bad, just... not for me, it seems. Great cover though!
pickMy review of this book can be found on my Youtube Vlog at:
https://youtu.be/1AXYlOoqLVg
Enjoy!
pickI really enjoyed this—it was a fun, easy read. I will say it‘s about half about the author and her journey to discover details about Milicent Patrick‘s life and then half about MP herself. The writing is also very simplistic and there are too many superfluous footnotes. BUT it was entertaining, interesting, and made great connections between MP‘s career and how little progress the film industry has made between now and then.
bailedI like the concept of the book, and I'm interested in learning more about Millicent Patrick. However, I bailed on this book because it's a lot of rambling and explanation as to why and how O'Meara wrote the book rather than actual content. I could not stand the tone. I'm all for narrative non-fiction, but this reads like a 300 page blog. The author interjects facts that are interesting on their own to say things like, "suck it."
so-soI had some trouble with the voice this is written in (the word "badass" appears in this book many times and I...hate it) and the author makes herself out to be a barely competent researcher when she recounts how she got her information. That said: I found the actual information in the book very interesting and I still think it was a worthwhile read, just maybe not the best of its kind.
Not exactly what I was expecting to learn from this book but very interesting (I was familiar with the term but not the details)!
I really love this cover.
I imagine I'll be taking a lot of pictures at this angle in this chair over the next few weeks.
I know this feeling. So, so well.
pickPerfect for lovers of monster movies, hollywood, and badass women
Book Riot's Best Books of 2019! So many incredible books-- though of course I'm partial to my pick, The Lady From the Black Lagoon.
https://bookriot.com/2019/12/02/best-books-of-2019/
pickSo much to love here! Mallory‘s passionate storytelling & painstaking research to uncover the legacy of this brilliant artist, plus the fascinating history this pioneer had in the construction of Hearst Castle, the early animation days of Walt Disney and the founding of what is now the CA Institute of the Arts. It made me cry, cringe and cheer again and again.🙌🏻 Mallory‘s witty footnotes: priceless! Thx @rubyslippersreads for this perfect gift❤️
Check out this package of goodies I just received. Talk about #happymail. Wow! I‘m doing flips over these amazing books and the coolest #Star Trek bookmark and #DarkShadows magnet. Be still my Geek heart. 😁🖖🏻🧛🏻♂️ I can‘t thank you enough, @rubyslippersreads 🤗❤️❤️❤️
“Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to.”
https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2019/07/19/the-lady-from-the-black-lagoon-mal...
#MonthofMemoirs
Part memoir, large part biography. 💯% Awesome
pickDespite the fact that it gets a little rambly in places this was an absolutely fascinating slice of Hollywood history focusing on the life and career of Milicent Patrick, the artist who created the Creature from the Black Lagoon whose legacy was hidden by her jealous boss. The author is clearly passionate about her subject, and I enjoyed the parallels she drew between her own Hollywood career experiences and Milicent‘s.
Loved the idea of doing a #top6reads so far of 2019 since we just hit the middle of the year. So hard to choose (and probably forgetting some) but these six are definitely some of the best I've read this year. Great idea @Cinfhen !
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2: I really enjoyed this. I listened to the audio version, which is read by the author. The actual book had pictures and footnotes that I enjoyed combing through.
pickAll the monsters!!
Absolutely glorious. I loved learning about the history of Milicent Patrick and her role in creating the Creature.
My one con is that a better editor was needed. Parts were a bit repetitive and rambling. I also liked some parts when O‘Meara referenced herself, but could have done with less.
Overall I loved it! 4 Stars 🖤🖤🖤🖤
Now to actually go watch The Creature From The Black Lagoon.
We just released an episode of Unassigned Reading where we review 13 books in 19 minutes! Check it out
http://unassignedreadingpod.com/book-talk-all-books/
📚 Lady from the Black Lagoon
📚 We Set the Dark on Fire
📚 King of Scars
📚 Black Leopard, Red Wolf
📚 An Extraordinary Union
📚 And the Ocean Was Our Sky
📚 Educated
📚 Heretics Anonymous
📚 The Wedding Date
📚 Hurricane Child
📚 On the Come Up
📚 The Only Harmless Great Thing
📚 Becoming
pick4 ⭐
I love the Reading Glasses podcast - it helped me get back into reading. So I love Mallory and she feels like one of my friends. And I absolutely love how much of herself Mallory has put into this book.
It's my #newin2019 pick for #booked2019
@Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft
pickI love this book. It is the life of Millicent Patrick. How she grew up and how she eventually created the Creature from The Creature from The Black Lagoon, how Bud Westmore took credit it for it and fired her from his makeup department, because he was a jealous man child. Finally you learn what happened to her after. I teared up a couple of times. Now I want to go watch the movie. Snuggles with my Creature this morning. Can‘t reach coffee though🖤
pickA 5 star read for sure. The untold story of Milicent Patrick, the woman who designed the monster from Creature from the Black Lagoon and was almost erased from cinematic history by a jealous boss. Her fascinating story was beautifully intertwined with the author's journey to uncover her story and her own experiences as a woman in the film industry. Absolutely wonderful. And I highly recommend the audiobook, too, as the author reads it herself.
pick5/5
This is a book about a fascinating artist in Hollywood and the author's journey to uncover her legacy after it has been overlooked for decades. It's incredibly interesting, and I definitely recommend the audiobook as it's read by the author.
pickNot quite a pick, but better than so-so. It's a so-so pick. Really interesting and tragic story about a legacy buried. I knew nothing of Milicent before, aside from what Mallory has said on RG. Her life was a wild ride. The "women have it rough" got old and a bit redundant for 300 pages. I had an issue with the insistence that Italians were white. In the early 20th century, Italians weren't white. Mil was among first generations to be "white."
1. Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory Omeara and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
2. Becoming by Michelle Obama and The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
3. A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole
#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain
So excited to start this.
pickI‘m a big fan of Mallory O‘Meara and am so glad to have read this. I admire her determination to bring Milicent Patrick into the spotlight and love how she drew connections between Patrick‘s story and her own. And while I‘m thrilled to have my signed copy (which has great photos and fantastic footnotes), I also enjoyed parts of it on audio, where the author‘s passion and personality shine through.
so-soI really wished I liked this book. But it constantly repeated itself, giving recaps in the middle of the paragraph of what you just read. If it cut down on it it would be shorter and more enjoyable. But instead I was left completely frustrated.
Celebrated Int‘l Women‘s Day by seeing Mallory and Brea of the Reading Glasses podcast (definitely one of my most beloved book podcasts, and I listen to [too?] many) at my neighborhood bookstore last night! They were, as expected, totally delightful. Mallory represented her book with such passion and purpose, and she was incredibly sweet when we spoke as she signed my copy. 💜
”Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it—in the movies and in real life.” Loving this so far. I feel like I‘ve been waiting for this book to come out for years. #femalewriters #horror #biography
Turns out that I preordered A Lot of books this March. Today is wave one (with a third missing one??? Mods????????)
pickTHE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is available tomorrow!
Thanks to Hanover Square Press for an ARC to review.
My review is up on Roots & Reads: https://rootsandreads.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/review-the-lady-from-the-black-la...
"At one point I got desperate enough to consider showing up, possibly holding a boombox over my head."
I'm loving O'Meara's conversational style and humor!
So excited I received this ARC today! Thanks to Hanover Square Press and Goodreads for hosting the giveaway!
GOATS AND GANGRENE, LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUS BOOK! I am so excited for my inky sister from another mister, my authra from another Mothra, Mallory O‘Meara. I know how hard she worked on this book, and I can‘t wait for everyone else to have the chance to read it. It‘s out March 5th! 🖤💚🖤
pickThis biography of Milicent Patrick is 💯❗️Not only is it a well-researched biography that covers the life of one of the early female pioneers in Hollywood, but it is written by a current producer/horror fan and unapologetic feminist who inserts her own story and voice in the telling, making it a richer story. #netgalley Out March 5th in the US!
Bustle has an excerpt from this book up. The conversational tone and personal passion that @malloryomeara brings to her subject made this an even better read than a typical biography.
You can read the except here: https://www.bustle.com/p/the-lady-from-the-black-lagoon-tells-the-forgotten-stor...
pickMilicent Patrick designed the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but her jealous male boss ensured her contribution to film history would be attributed to him instead. Thus, many female horror fans (like O'Meara) grow up believing that horror isn't by or for women. Writer/filmmaker @malloryomeara stakes out a place for marginalized people in film by combining this forgotten history with passion and reflections on how the industry has(n't) changed.
