Book #134 of 2017: Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow I liked Cory Doctorow’s earlier novel Little Brother, about teens using technology to nonviolently resist an overreaching surveillance state, but I couldn’t stand this one about illegal downloading and copyright violation. The characters are like those in an Ayn Rand novel, existing merely as cardboard mouthpieces …
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Book #133 of 2017: The Sellout by Paul Beatty I’m ultimately left scratching my head over this one. It’s a satire on contemporary American race relations, featuring a black man reintroducing segregation into his all-minority hometown (because just the idea of a neighboring whites-only school makes the local schoolchildren work harder, and so on). It’s …
Book #132 of 2017: Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb (Farseer #1) This fantasy novel was a staple of my high school shelves, the start of a favorite series that I would read over and over again. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t live up to my memories when I revisited it now, but …
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Book #131 of 2017: The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson I’ve never read H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, the story that so directly inspired this one, but I’ve read enough of his other works to have a sense of the racism and violent misogyny that pervade the man’s writing. Those facets …
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Movie #9 of 2017: Moana (2016) This movie was so flipping cute I am beside myself. Honestly, there are no faults here. Moana’s a great hero, the songs are fantastic, Maui in particular is hilarious, every human character is a POC, there’s no awkwardly shoehorned-in love story, it repeatedly passes the Bechdel test… This was …
Book #130 of 2017: Mister Monday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #1) This somewhat generic tween fantasy adventure is sort of like a cross between Neverwhere and So You Want to Be a Wizard, featuring a young boy who learns he’s heir to a magical power and must travel through a twisted …
Book #129 of 2017: The Dark Man by Stephen King This illustrated poem is more atmospheric than substantive, an early character sketch of the figure who would eventually grow to be Stephen King’s recurring villain Randall Flagg. King wrote the poem when he was in college – well before Flagg would first pop up in …
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Book 128 of 2017: The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (The Queen of the Tearling #2) It’s still a little uneven, but this second book in the Tearling trilogy is a definite improvement over the forgettable first volume. The magic is still over-powered and under-explained, and Kelsea’s character beats don’t always feel like …
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Book #127 of 2017: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell I liked the family drama and some other individual elements in this book, but I really couldn’t stand the main character or her love interest. She’s an introverted college freshman who kisses a guy she thinks is her roommate’s boyfriend and cries when her professor won’t accept …
Book #126 of 2017: Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham This was a cute semi-autobiographical novel from TV star Lauren Graham about a struggling actress in New York City. For the most part I was charmed by the central character, who is somewhat neurotic but definitely relatable as she tries to break into her chosen …
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