Book Review: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” by John Tiffany, Jack Thorne, & J.K. Rowling

Hello!

In my post last Wednesday, I mentioned I had finished TWO series this summer. The first was the original Harry Potter books and The Road of Valhalla by Melanie Karsak. I was very proud of myself, but I knew I wasn’t exactly done, done with Harry Potter unless I read “The Cursed Child” playscript. So, I waited two days to allow myself to digest everything that went on in “The Deathly Hallows” and finally wrote out my review in my other journal (I also put my reviews of “Order of the Phoenix” and “Half-Blood Prince” in there!) and began reading the eBook that night.

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The official playscript of the original West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

The playscript for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was originally released as a ‘special rehearsal edition’ alongside the opening of Jack Thorne’s play in London’s West End in summer 2016. Based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, the play opened to rapturous reviews from theatregoers and critics alike, while the official playscript became an immediate global bestseller.

This definitive and final playscript updates the ‘special rehearsal edition’ with the conclusive and final dialogue from the play, which has subtly changed since its rehearsals, as well as a conversation piece between director John Tiffany and writer Jack Thorne, who share stories and insights about reading playscripts. This edition also includes useful background information including the Potter family tree and a timeline of events from the Wizarding World prior to the beginning of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

taken from Goodreads.

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I’ve seen a lot of mix criticism; it was mainly over the fact that this story isn’t written in the normal format. Technically, it wasn’t even J.K. writing the actual book! it was mainly John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. Honestly, I understand why the hardcore lovers of the series would be worried over the different style. it didn’t have some of the things we are so used to seeing with these characters, but it also made sense to create it in the way that actors, producers, etc see it for the play.

One of the main things I said in the beginning of reading this story was I was absolutely thrilled I read M.I. Rio’s “If We Were Villains” because the dialogue sections was written in the same way, and it was very easy to read and visualize what was going on at the same time. I also had another thought as you continue to read the various scenes, they released some inner thoughts from Harry and Albus but not as many as you would in the regular way, but instead of missing it, I actually preferred it this way, which threw me for a loop because I usually love the narrator and their thoughts, so the fact that it was there but in small quantities, did not bother me one bit!

Only time will tell, ladies and gentlemen, only time will tell.

Now, let’s discuss the characters and the overall plot.

Honestly, as I was finishing “Death Hallows,” I was curious on how much information we get of the last scenes where Harry and his friends are grown up with families, because I was really wondering about what happened and where Harry, Ron and Hermione do after the Wizarding Wars. I was thrilled that we got a bigger view into their lives. We follow their children’s life in a matter of three years, and it was so cool to see Albus and Scoripus (who is the son of Draco Malfoy) become best friends, as they go off on this adventure together.

Despite the fact that James, Albus, and Lily Potter knowing the story of how their parents, Aunt Hermione, and Uncle Ron survived the wars and the demise of Lord Voldemort, they have to continue on their journey to Hogwarts, and are placed in their respected houses. However, when Albus turns 13 years old, his dad has a visitor come to their house, Amos Diggory and his niece Delphi. Amos is an old man, but he still feels the loss of his son after the Triwizard Tournament, and he comes to discuss it with Harry, after the Ministry searches for any surviving time-travel necklaces, and ultimately destroy them from changing the past and ensuring the return of Voldemort.

The story itself is actually sweet, but there are some dark moments, especially towards the end of the book. I only cried a few times but for the most part I did okay getting through it in one piece. It was funny though; I saw a few lines that were featured in the other books. Every mention of Sirius Black, Dumbledore, and Snape pretty much released the floodgates, as I’m sure everyone would get teary-eyed during the second time jump too! Again, I wasn’t even expecting that to happen, and it hurt the most!

For anyone who hasn’t checked this book out, I highly suggest reading “If We Were Villains” first so you can get familiar with how to read plays and scripts. I will admit, I wasn’t much of a fan of that book, but apparently it was a blessing in a disguise in the end.

Have you read “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One & Two” yet? If you have, what were your thoughts about it? Let me know in the comments below!

Vloggers That I Love #5

Howdy!

I think I am going to try to do one Vloggers That I Love post a month, because I have quite a bit still on my list. Every time I feel like I’m finally done putting new ones on it, I literally add two more, but mostly to include a third onto every post. Anyways, this week I is either going to make you very happy or depressed you’re not rich; we’ll see what happens at the end of the post?

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RemiLife | luxury fashion, beauty + weight loss

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I first discovered Remi’s vlogging channel last Christmas, I was looking for new Vlogmases to watch and I happened to find hers throughout the long list of channels. My first impression of Remi was that I loved her personality; she’s a fast talker, lovable woman. I knew I would be back day after day just to see what kind of craziness she’ll get into it!

Remi talks mostly about luxury fashion and beauty products, which is the reason why I said in the first paragraph that you might be a little sad while reading this post! Honestly, I love her hauls and gifted videos the most, because she gets so excited for everything! I’ve noticed that a lot of others that post similar videos, they’re not as thrilled on camera. I especially love it when her doggy Daisy gets in the middle of unboxing and wants to play at that exact moment. Poor girl!

Another thing I love about her is that she is real about her weight loss journey. Apparently that’s why she created her channel in the first place, which I thought was interesting because I figured that would be something that I would be afraid to share online, knowing all of the horrible comments a person can get on just about everything! She likes to talk about food, what she eats on a regular basis and even on her cheat days too! I actually love whenever she takes trips to Whole Foods because she’ll show you what she likes the most and goes for both healthy and junk food! She’s just me and she’ll find something and go “ooh!” for things she hasn’t seen in a while! She makes food shopping so fun!

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AlishaMarie | luxury fashion, beauty, podcastor

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Remi has a best friend that is featured quite a bit in her vlogs, and that is Alisha! She talks about the same things but her style is way different!

Alisha lives with her sister Ashlee, who also owns a YouTube channel! She has a puppy named Chloe, and her personality is similar to Remi’s but less bubbly. I honestly don’t watch her as much but whenever I do, I actually like to binge watch a few in one day! I love watching her makeup tutorials, I’ve been craving these videos lately and not only do I wear makeup, I don’t even own anything either. I just love watching the different ways to put it on I guess!

I left this last part to the end because it goes with both girls, they are pocastors of their own channel called Pretty Basic where they talk about everything in their lives like past relationships, insecurities, hottest trends, it’s a mixed bag and whenever my Spotify does work, it is fun to listen to their sometimes wild stories.

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Inthefrow | luxury fashion & beauty

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When I first found Victoria, I only knew about her blog (and her beautiful lilac hair!) but I didn’t really like her until I saw that she had a YouTube channel and I started to really get interested into her tastes! For a while, she was my only luxury blogger/vlogger, and while I was scrolling to see who follows and my original list of three turned into like eight or nine in a very short time span!

I think the main reason why I love watching her videos is that she has a gentle voice, her British accent is a little thick but I have been learning a lot about some of their terms over the years, so I’m becoming a bit of a pro now! She is into a lot of luxury items, and gets invited to a lot of events and sometimes they lead her away from London to various countries, like Paris, New York City and Tokyo. One of my favorite things is that she tries to take us along with a vlog or two of her adventures! It does nothing for my wanderlust but I am getting through it pretty well I think.

Unfortunately, I haven’t really kept up with her stuff and it sucks because she was one of the first few vloggers I started watching when I discovered the mother load of other blogs and YouTube channels in 2014. Maybe after this post is up I will get back into watching hers again? Has she gotten married yet? I would love to read that blog post or watch the vlog if it’s published already.

So, we are done with this list, but I do have like two more luxury vloggers that I tend to watch every once in a while, but I am going to keep them back for my next theme so you will have to wait for that! do you have any guesses as to the others are?

do you enjoy watching YouTubers that talk about luxury things like fashion, cars, and/or trips? Who do you love that you think I would like too?

Album Review: “LM5” by Little Mix

I am a BIG Little Mix fan! I’ve reviewed two out of the four albums, and now I get to listen and chat about their new album that came out in November. I’m always late to the party, but time and space on my blog gets away from me and it is best to wait it out. It gets me going in the right direction for the new year too!

I think Little Mix is unique because even though there are four girls in the group: Jesy, Leigh-Anne, Jade, and Perrie – they sound like one person, especially when it comes to their ballads. This album consists of 14 songs, with an addition of four more songs in the deluxe edition. I will not be talking about those tracks unfortunately, because the regular amount is a lot for me anyways. So, how about we get started, huh?

The first track of the album is “The National Manthem” and I tried my best to come up with what the title could mean before listening to the actual song, but I came back empty. I ended figuring it was actual an introduction of the whole thing, so that made me feel a bit better about that. You only hear the girls sing in harmony without any music in the background. It was different but I liked it for some odd reason. So, that means “Woman Like Me” is actually the first real song of the album. It features Nicki Minaj and I really enjoyed the tropical and hip hop mixture of the beat. It’s fierce and fun at the same time. Third is “Think About Us” and it has a prominent pop-y sound that I could get behind, towards the choruses the beat grows and considering the theme and lyrics, I was half expecting the song to have a softer sound, but I was okay with this though. I liked the fact that I could not stop dancing to it while it played on, so that’s a good sign!

The fourth track is “Strip” it features Sharaya J., who is a rapper and former choreographer. I thought that was interesting! Anyways, this song is very seductive but I loved it. I liked it for the minimal music on the track. The popping sound gives it all it really needed because the girls’ personalities and voices made it better than anything that I’ve heard in a while, like no joke! I also liked it for the body positive message of the lyrics. Next we have “Monster In Me” and I was really hoping for a banger so imagine my face when it become a slower track. I cannot win. However, as it went on, I did like the calmer vibe it brought and since it was gloomy as hell outside on the day I wrote out this review, it matched my mood for that moment. I really love it! “Joan Of Arc” is next and I was really curious about this track. I always love when artists and bands talk about historical figures, even if the lyrics don’t go well with the person. I just like the different ways they can use the figure in their message, and this was no different. This is definitely a song about independent women, feminism theme. I’m not about feminism message, but I liked this though!

Seventh track is “Love A Girl Right,” the song has a real pop-rock sound. It kind of reminded me of a recent song; the beat, especially the usage of a guitar sounded like DJ Khaled’s “Wild Thoughts” and at first, I wasn’t really feeling it but it started to kind of grow on me. I don’t know what I really think about it. We move on to “American Boy” and even though it’s about the love of American boys, it has a real tropical sound to it. I kind of thought that was a bit weird, to me this wouldn’t be the first beat I’d choose for these lyrics, but okeydokey! I was hoping “Told You So” was better than the last two, and I am happy to say we finally have our first acoustic song off the album. I figured this one would be a ballad, but I didn’t think I’d like it this much. This is a beautiful about supporting your best friend through a breakup or cheating scandal.

The next song is, “Wasabi” and I would be lying if I didn’t tell you, how confused I was about this one. When it finally started those thoughts went away quickly. If you liked the monotone speaking of the fourth track, you get a second slightly different version of it. I like the quirkiness of it. And of course, the little rock-y elements in it too. It gave it a whole different edge and I loved it! Next is, “More Than Words” it features an artist by the name of Kamille. She is a notable songwriter and has worked with Little Mix throughout their career, so I thought was a cool thing to finally be featured as a guest singer on a track she helped write for them. The song is a good medium between a ballad and having an upbeat sound. I really liked this one too!

We’re starting to get to the end of the line, “Motivate” gave me a some party vibes. I did this post on NYE, so I was dancing and enjoying myself a little too early, but it’s not like I would stay awake until midnight anyways! I didn’t! The song has a sexy sound to it, but I didn’t care about that at this point. Next, we have “Notice” and this had a mysterious introduction and the seductive tone continues through the entire thing, but I think I liked this one compared the last song. The girls’ voices are so powerful in this song, so really this is right up my alley! And finally, our last song is “The Cure” and thankfully it is a ballad. I felt there wasn’t enough of these types of songs, which made me kind of sad but I liked the ones we were given though. You still hear the girls and their emotions in each song, and this was no different. It was so good!

The album itself was pretty good, it had a lot of different genres and topics mentioned so I definitely appreciated that a lot, but I think my favorite part was how mature their music is becoming with each album. They’re no longer young girls that won The X-Factor, and the fact they’re no longer signed to Simon Crowell’s recording company, I think of that as a good thing. They can grow as women and don’t have to worry about having to hide themselves in their music.

Have you listened to Little Mix’s new album yet? If you have, what were your favorite song(s) in it? What other thoughts did you have about it? Let me know!

5 Favorite Shows About Nature & Culture

Howdy!

I’ve always had a difficult time watching nature documentary series on Animal Planet, mostly because I never really liked when the hunters went after their prey, most of the time they were capturing young and giving it to THEIR babies! When I started watching some nature shows on Netflix over the summer, I kind of hoped I was over that but then I realized that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can never really be over that aspect of life in the animal kingdom! Truth be told, I’ve been watching nature shows for a long time on PBS, but it’s only now that I’ve kind of deluge a fairly large amount at one time. In my defense, prior to this happening I was binge watching both Arrow and The Flash, so I felt this would be a nice break away from the superheroes, I just didn’t think I would keep watching one right after the other like I did, but it’s been sort of helpful when it comes watching episodes of Jeopardy!

I am more drawn to the series that were made by a British or Australian company, but only because there are in two these areas on Netflix than any other country! I also like when there are people narrating each episode to the viewer, like the visual version of Audible! Thanks to this, I have become a bit of a fan of Sir David Attenborough. I’m embarrassed to say that I have watched close to three different ones where’s either in it or narrating what you’re seeing on the screen!

Galapagos (2006)

This was the first show I watched in July that basically started it all and it was narrated by the lovely Tilda Swinton. I think I watched this because I remembered that Jeopardy were running a contest for fans of the show to win tickets to go there with Alex Trebek last year. I figured that meant they would have several categories about it and I should get some knowledge about the Islands of The Tortoises.

I really loved this program! I found the fact that various birds, turtles, and seals all on this very unstable, volcanic place where hardly anything grows. The first episode basically opens up with what really surprised me, was that iguanas also live close to the edge of the cliffs. They actually live on a side where there’s an active volcano so the surface doesn’t really have anything for these creatures to eat, so they have developed a taste of algae at the bottom of the ocean. So, these spike-y little devils literally crawl to the ledge where the water is being brushed up the sides of the island by the currents and either jump or slide right down and they can SWIM! Now the really cool, and sort of adorable thing I loved about them is that when they finally come back to shore, since swallowing salt water is bad for them, they sneeze out the water out of the nose! I was really dumbfounded by this adaption.

South Pacific (2009)

This was a six episode series, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. Now, I have to say, I watch funny moments on the Graham Norton show on YouTube a lot, and there was a clip of Benedict discussing with Graham about how he says the word “penguin” and it was funny as crap, if you want to check it out here you click here. Anyways, it was about a year or so, since I watched that clip and I finally watched the show and realized that he definitely can’t say that word right at all, even in a British accent, it still sounds bad!

“South Pacific” was about all of the islands in their different shapes and what kind of life they support around the Pacific Ocean. One of my favorite things about these types of shows is that it gives you an insight of life on these islands, not only for the animals, but humans too! You see tribes of people, living off the land and they’re so out there away from other people. We did visit the Galapagos Islands again throughout the series, but you were transported to other smaller islands, I really enjoyed learning about the different plants, when editors use the fast-moving on how fast the landscape changes! I actually fell in love with the Birds of Paradise species, and they are usually located on New Guinea and Hawaii, but they are decorated in different colors and shapes with really unique ways of attracting a mate and fighting to be with that female as well. It can get a little weird, but their dances make it all worthwhile trust me!

National Curiosities (2013)

This show was the longest out of the whole list! It had probably 12 episodes in the three seasons it was on BBC, but what I truly liked was that they are about an hour-long, but they’re comparing origin stories of two different species so you kind of need that amount of time to explain what makes these animals so complex.

When I would watch this, I always felt like I was becoming more of a naturalist, like David Attenborough. He has this caring personality and it shows whenever he has an animal next to him or sitting on his lap, you can feel that affection aerate on the screen and it makes you want to change your mind on some of the creepy species and help support them later on, although it didn’t work on spiders or snakes! One thing that he does on this is that he’ll talk about how they discovered, and the evolution of theories they had for each one, my favorite was when they thought Platypus were a hoax in the 1800’s!

Monkey Planet (2014)

Monkey Planet was my most recent to watch and I really enjoyed myself! It was hosted by Dr. George McGavin and even though this was only three episodes, I have realized that it doesn’t take much for me to giggle as these mischievous monkeys were really my downfall when it came to watching this late at night!

I’ve always loved monkeys, but while I was watching this I realized that I don’t give them enough credit when it comes to their intelligence. I mean, they are our distant relatives. At first, I was purely watching it because I wanted to learn more about the different types, but instead of having an episode devoted to a certain type, they were squished together but after a while I was okay with it. The colors of their fur and cute facial expressions were too much and once I found out how they all get their food by banging rocks up against tough shells or grabbing a stick of some sort and poking it through small holes in a branch about killed me in the best way possible!

Baby Animals In The Wild (2015)

I really have a problem with baby animals, thankfully no babies were harmed in creating this series, thank god! This was hosted by Luisa Prosser, and consisted of 10 episodes ranging of animals located in deserts, forest, jungles, and mountains. There were times in the program where they would share snapshots of babies in captivity so you got to see them after they were just born or a few weeks old, and told about their characteristics in the wild.

I think the two places that made me wonder why these animals would still want to live in these areas where the arctic mountains and desert. However, once I saw how they were able to live, I had a change of heart pretty quickly and the one species that really grabbed me was the Ibex. The mothers give birth on top of their dry cliffs and after a few days and the babies figure out their footing, the mothers need to get around food and water so they go down these steep cliffs and their kids just follow them down, some of them being overzealous and sprint down that made me very queasy but they have these pads on their hoofs that help grip the rocks underneath to keep them stable, but good gosh! It made me really nervous, but nobody lost their balance so that made me feel better!

I have to say, it was extremely hard to pick out five shows for this post, because I have watched little over 12 of them in the several months, but they’re surprisingly fun to watch. You’re seeing these animals having a blast on top of having to continue searching for food and water, and they all have information stored up in their minds from previous generations. The fact that some of them are still able to live in their natural environment like in a dry savanna of West Africa or lush woods in the middle of France was so cool, but I’m not going to lie when I say seeing the monkeys steal fruits and vegetables off of market stands in India cracks me up! It was just so fascinating to me!

How are you when it comes to nature and cultural shows? Was there one that really made you go, “wow”? And just for good measure, what is your favorite animal(s)?

Album Review: “R.O.S.E.” by Jessie J

I originally had another review for you today, but I decided to scrap that idea and move on to this album instead. British singer Jessie J has a new album since releasing “Sweet Talker” in 2014. “R.O.S.E.” came out on the 25th of May, in basically four different sections on Spotify, each with a different theme spelling out the title of the record. The R represents Realisations, O is for Obsessions, S for Sex, and finally E means Empowerment.

Once I figured it all out, I started to get really curious because I felt as though she was going in a direction that Swedish artist Tove Lo took her debut album, Queen Of The Clouds in 2014, I don’t know if it is going to sound the same, but nobody ever creates sections and list a number of songs that represent that certain word or meaning for no reason at all. So to say I was intrigued was an understatement! I do want to say that I didn’t listen to any of the songs before starting this review, so this is a straight up first impressions discussion and I have to say I am a little more excited to hear the songs in both “Realisations” and “Empowerment” than the other two, but we’ll see at the end which part I liked the most!

So like I said, we start with the first letter R and the first song to begin the album itself is “Oh Lord” and from the moment it starts it has this sad sound brought out by emotions playing out in her beautiful deep voice and that bluesy sound. It’s a bittersweet introduction and gets you into the mood of the album as a whole. Second is “Think About That” and you instantly have this R&B vibe going on, which is sort of her genre and she has a wonderful voice for it too, so everything is kind of perfect. You definitely hear the pain and the sass in her voice, but the beat is somewhat upbeat too. It’s really good.

Next there’s “Dopamine” and I really liked this song. I really enjoyed the beat, it had a classic soulful sound, but I actually liked the lyrics to this one as you can easily understand what she’s talking about, and it’s definitely a song that everybody needs to listen to, so even though the beat makes me want to dance, I really made myself listen to the words too. The ending was kind of adorable, because you hear a little girl singing her ABC’s in the background, it kind of brightened the mood a bit. And then we move on to “Easy On Me” and I liked the idyllic sound, the jazz-y piano section at the last was so pretty but the lyrics were definitely dark, but it wasn’t bad. The only thing that popped into my mind while I listened to it was “nothing is what it seems” and I think that’s the perfect way to explain this song.

The next section is O and so we explore the songs in the Obsessions slot. Instantly the mood swifts with the fifth track “Real Deal” and the beat and lyrics are both positive and I was actually happy to hear something so fun after the first four tracks and how they sounded, despite the fact that I do enjoy hearing Jessie’s full capacity in her voice in those dark and slower songs, so it was nice! Next was “Petty” and with that kind of title, I knew this would have a sharp beat and somewhat sassy tone in her voice. So, in other words, I really liked it.

“Not My Ex” was after that, I tried to keep an open mind after I saw the title of it. Those words together can many means and I’m glad I decided to switch it because it wasn’t in the same badass-y sound like with the previous track, instead it was very lighthearted and soft. It was a different kind of love song, definitely not what people would expect at first. Lastly there’s “Four Letter Word” and it’s very love-y dovey but not in a bad way, because if you know me well enough, I’m not into love songs so sometimes I’m liable to just write it off, but I actually liked it. Very sweet!

Now we are on the letter S and that means we probably move onto sexually based songs, since it is literally titled Sex. We start with a song called “Queen” and it has that sultry flare I was expecting to hear in this section. It actually has a beauty positive kind of vibe going on with the lyrics, and that does change the expectations and how Jessie is going about these songs. So moving on to “One Night Lover” and it does have sexy tone to it, but the storytelling is what I liked about it the most. Almost every women out there has had been in the same situations so right there, it’s relatable to people and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

“Dangerous” is the eleventh song and from the moment it started, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. For one, the beginning was very boring, nothing was there to grab my attention and even when the beat actually came on, it wasn’t enough to keep me there. We have the song “Play” next and I was really hoping for a banger with this one and that’s exactly what I got and what kind of made me feel strange was that the beat felt so old school and Jessie made her voice sound fun and playful that I became to remember my crushes in grade school, so that alone was interesting enough for me!

We are finally on the last section of songs, E is made up of songs representing the word Empowerment in some way and the first one you hear is “Glory” and it has a strong almost 80’s R&B flare, between the horn section and the way of words is actually really good! It does build you up mentally and musically, so that was nice! “Rose Challenge” is next and from the moment I saw this, I wondered if this would kind of explain each letter and word meaning, because I was really curious about why she wanted to go this route with the album. The song itself is actually a longer introduction to the next song, which I thought was good because we really hadn’t had in the last three words, it leads into “Someone’s Lady” and if I was standing up, I’d probably collapse because it just sounds so gorgeous, with just her angelic voice and piano behind her. It’s so soft but it still has this affirmative outlook lyrically, it’s really good. And finally the last song is “I Believe In Love” and it has this really sweet and classic outlook, it reminds me of my papaw in a way.

I’m really impressed with this album. As curious as I felt in the beginning, I was also a little bit nervous too because I’m not used to reviewing R&B music, even though there are some artists I listen to on a daily basis that dabble in it every once in a while, so it’s not like I don’t hear it anymore because I do, I just don’t discuss it out loud like I probably should. Now I know you’re probably curious about what part was my favorite and honestly I liked all of them! The four sections were interesting, you got to hear different stories representing something that was possibly based on what has happened to Jessie at some point in her life. It had it had both good and bad moments–lyric wise and the fact that I only disliked one song out of the whole thing is pretty impressive!

Have you listened to Jessie J’s new album “R.O.S.E” yet? If you have, what were your thoughts? Which section was your favorite and why?