Book #100 of 2022: The Resistance by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #47) Although the Animorphs books are short, they tend to be rich in heavy and complicated thematic material, which is why my reviews discussing them often wind up quite extensive. But there’s honestly not much to say about this one. The plot is half …
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Movie #11 of 2022: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) This is generally another fun Marvel movie, but it’s one that feels frustratingly both overstuffed and understaffed. True to its title, there is a lot of universe-hopping, yet only to realities we’ve never seen before (after Spider-Man: No Way Home, for all its …
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Book #99 of 2022: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub This novel is pretty good, but it’s a little short and takes too much of its limited space to actually get to the point. It’s a time travel story about a forty-year-old woman who discovers a way to revisit her sixteenth birthday, but she doesn’t …
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TV #28 of 2022: Obi-Wan Kenobi, season 1 In terms of the other live-action Star Wars shows, this new release is somewhat better than The Book of Boba Fett yet substantially worse than The Mandalorian. I’m glad that the miniseries doesn’t solely revolve around the title figure and a 10-year-old Luke Skywalker on Tatooine as …
Book #98 of 2022: Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change by Danica Roem Danica Roem makes it all look easy. As the first openly transgender person to be elected to a U.S. state legislature, the Virginia delegate has faced considerable transphobia (and misplaced homophobia) lobbed against her, …
TV #27 of 2022: Killing Eve, season 4 I gave the first year of this show four-out-of-five stars, even while worrying how the writing “seems to revel in ambiguity, throwing out potential explanations and character motivations at times but seldom following through to confirm or reject exactly why anything is happening. As a result, much …
TV #26 of 2022: The Time Traveler’s Wife, season 1 I remember enjoying the original novel that this miniseries is based on, but I read it way back in early 2016, so I can’t comment on specific adaptation choices in much depth. (I never saw the old movie with Rachel McAdams, either.) But six TV …
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Book #97 of 2022: Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin There’s a great sci-fi premise to this novel — what if a company could erase unwanted memories so confidentially you wouldn’t even remember hiring them, and what if a lawsuit then forced them to contact their clients anyway and offer to reverse the process …
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Book #96 of 2022: The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes This YA novel occasionally slips into didactic exposition, but it is overall a sweet and heartfelt story of a sixteen-year-old gay Mexican-American girl navigating her first year at the predominantly-white Catholic school where she’s closeted but developing major feelings for a friend. …
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Book #95 of 2022: They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie This novel can’t decide whether it wants to be a spy thriller or a farce, two impulses which develop at cross purposes in my opinion. It’s very coincidence-heavy and full of frustrating implausibilities, beginning with the plucky heroine who falls in love with a …
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