Better

Friday was the first day at work that I felt in control of things and like I actually knew what I was doing. Yay! I know not every day will be like that and that I just have to give this transition time, but I finally feel like I'm moving in the right direction. I know there will be frustrating moments/events/people, but that's life, right?

This weekend I watched the movie Convicted starring Connie Nielsen, Aidan Quinn, Kelly Preston, and Tim Daly.

The movie is about Charlotte Cory (Nielsen), a convicted murderer/kidnapper on death row in Oklahoma. Frank (Quinn) is a disbarred, criminal defense attorney who has taken the habit of writing various death row inmates, befriending them, and selling their letters to newspapers upon their deaths. Frank and Charlotte have been writing one another (Frank posing as an old friend of her father's and not telling her the real reason behind his writing), and Frank ends up going to Oklahoma to visit Charlotte the week of her execution. While there, Frank (along with her defense attorney played by Preston) realizes things are not as they seem, and an innocent woman might have been convicted.

The movie is fantastic. It's not one of those death row-political agenda movies. It's just a simple 'did she or didn't she' kind of movie. The twists are extremely interesting and numerous, and the movie's never dull. I give it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

I also finished reading Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton this weekend. I'd heard of the book but didn't know much about it (okay - I didn't know anything about it) when I picked up on a whim at the library last week.

This is one book I would LOVE to see made into a movie. The characters and storylines are just that good. The book is about a young woman (Willie) searching for herself in her hometown after a disastrous affair with her college professor. Willie arrives home at the same time that a 'monster' is found dead in the town's lake. While the scientific community tries to sort out what the 'monster' is, Willie searches through her own family's past to discover who her biological father is after her mother reveals that her real father is a current resident of the town. The book goes back and forth between the current day with Willie and chapters told from the perspective of Willie's ancestors, giving us insight into what research Willie actually finds. It's a very original book full of scandal and endearing characters. I suggest you pick it up for a weekend read.