The stories have a tinge of sentimentality that sometimes shades into something more cloying, but Mr. Evers knows his characters well.
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The more cloying scenes of the pair's guitar playing and dancing could easily have fit into the Miramax back catalog of the 1990s.
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There's a good reason why nearly all classic Christmas tales rely on an element of fantasy, for, literarily at least, Christmas is a time of miracles. Grisham sticks to the mundane, however, and his story lacks magic for that . . . The misanthropy in this short novel makes a good antidote to the more cloying Christmas tales, and the book is fun to read. To compare it to Dickens, however, is...humbug.
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Jenkins, 1986, pp. 140–41. The volva is up to in height (measured from the base of the bulb), and is about 2 mm thick midway between the top and the base attachment. The mushroom's odor has been described as "pleasant to somewhat nauseous", becoming more cloying as the fruit body ages. The cap flesh turns yellow when a solution of potassium hydroxide (KOH, 5–10%) is applied (a common chemical test used in mushroom identification).
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Valentín garnered mostly mixed reviews from film critics. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall 61% "Fresh" approval rating based on 66 reviews, with a rating average of 6.1 out of 10. The site's consensus is: "A coming-of-age tale that's more cloying than affecting." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 52 based on 29 reviews, classified as a mixed or average reviewed film.
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Reviewers also praised the link with the Toys for Tots Foundation, which Tse considered "one more reason why you should grab a copy." While Tse described Talbot's voice as "sweet" and "beautiful", and Takiff called her "a freak of nature, with a grown-up singing voice in the body of a (just-turned) 9-year-old", other reviewers were more critical. Jon Bream, of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, called the album "more cloying than cute", and David Yonke, writing for The Blade, described Talbot's performance as "little more than a novelty act because of the overly sappy backdrop". Yonke did praise Talbot for her "impressive vocal skills", but considered her "earnestness [as] wasted on arrangements that sound as if they were ripped from a 1930s Shirley Temple songbook".
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On the Metacritic website, which aggregates reviews from critics and assigns a normalised rating out of 100, We Come from the Same Place received a score of 75, based on 3 mixed and 9 positive reviews. Helen Clarke of musicOMH called the album the band's best release to date, describing it as a "polished" mixture of the previous two albums, with "a healthy dose of upbeat, indie disco tracks...alongside the more introspective, woozy songs that dominated Europe". Music critic Jamieson Cox of Pitchfork found the strengths of the album in Morris' songwriting and storytelling, and the band's no-nonsense arrangements, pointing to the song "Angela" as one of the highlights of the album. However, Cox criticised the album when it "slips away from real emotional impact into more cloying and saccharine territory", such as in the songs "Bright Eyes" and "Heartbeat".
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