Book #366 of 2021: The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White (Camelot Rising #3) The beginning of this YA fantasy trilogy held a frisson of excitement in the way it reinterpreted the familiar Arthurian mythos that its sequels have unfortunately never matched. This final volume furthermore takes a few odd detours, like keeping its protagonist a …
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Book #365 of 2021: Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang A fairly poignant account of a brief but formative period in author Qian Julie Wang’s life, spanning from 1994 when she left China for America with her family at age seven through when they moved again to Canada five years later. This sort of childhood …
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Book #364 of 2021: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (Monk and Robot #1) As with most titles from author Becky Chambers, this novella reads like a warm hug of hopepunk goodness. Although I wouldn’t say it’s quite on the level of her Wayfarers series, it shares with that space opera of the …
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Book #363 of 2021: Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie (Colonel Race #4) This 1945 novel, also published under the name Remembered Death, is the fourth and final appearance of Colonel Race, after a previous book where he stands alone like this and two that he shares with his friend Hercule Poirot. As a character he’s …
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Book #362 of 2021: Matrix by Lauren Groff This title is an interesting exploration of a woman fiercely marshaling what power she can as a nun in 12th-century England, at a cost of forgoing any real hope at emotional intimacy with anyone around her. It’s a fictionalized treatment of the life of the anonymous poet …
Book #361 of 2021: The Conspiracy by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #31) Kudos to Laura Battyanyi-Wiess, our first repeat ghostwriter: this Animorphs novel is possibly Jake’s strongest outing as narrator yet, and I love that it springs from such a simple premise. The hero’s great-grandfather has died, and his dad is insisting the family take …
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TV #88 of 2021: Fringe, season 3 This is my favorite era of Fringe, and I am so tempted to give it a full five stars. Picking up on the cliffhanger escape from the parallel world, this run starts with our Olivia Dunham trapped over there, being brainwashed to believe she’s her doppelgänger, while that …
Book #360 of 2021: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron (This Poison Heart #1) This YA fantasy novel is a breath of fresh air, especially after I wasn’t entirely sold on author Kalynn Bayron’s previous offering Cinderella Is Dead. The plot is a little slow, but in that hopepunk, Maggie Stiefvater way that focuses on …
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TV #87 of 2021: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 5 Another strong year of life aboard this space station, where an ongoing plot provides important background context for the episodic concerns, where the characters and their relationships change over long-term arcs, and where the local geopolitics likewise continues to develop with a history and …
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Book #359 of 2021: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes #1) This is an #ownvoices East Asian retelling of the Wild Swans fairy tale, wherein a princess’s brothers are transformed into birds by their wicked stepmother while the girl herself is cursed to be unrecognizable and warned that each new word from …
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