Movie #3 of 2017:
Suicide Squad (2016)
A complete mess, squandering some pretty good actors who make the most of the bad material they’re given. I’m not particularly invested in the DC Extended Universe in the first place, but this movie gave me absolutely no reason to rethink that decision.
★☆☆☆☆
Book #77 of 2017:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #1)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is basically about an X-Men sort of school populated by the children from creepy vintage trick photography, all of whom have real superpowers. (The actual photos that inspired particular characters or moments are apparently included throughout the book, although I missed them by listening to the audio.)
Oddly enough, though, the story this most reminded me of was the first Twilight book. Consider the parallels: the main character is a teenager first stumbling across the supernatural, who immediately develops a problematic romance with a decades-older, functionally immortal love interest (problematic for this reader at least, although completely unexamined by the text). There’s also the fact that both novels feature far more exposition than action, with a plot suddenly developing very near the end. Nevertheless, I like this world that author Ransom Riggs has built up, and this was a solid enough first outing for it. I’ll probably read on to see where the story goes from here.
★★★☆☆
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Book #76 of 2017:
Mark of the Thief by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Mark of the Thief #1)
I loved Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Ascendance trilogy, but this book (the start of a new series) felt really under-baked to me. The main character mostly just reacts to the decisions of others, his relationships nearly all seem plot-driven rather than character-based, and his mouthy attitude felt very unrealistic in someone who’s been a slave for the past five years. These problems are evident right from the start, and though I kept reading on the strength of Nielsen’s other books, I was still pretty underwhelmed by the end.
★★☆☆☆
Book #75 of 2017:
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Completely deserving of its status as classic literature, with an appropriately timeless archetype at its center. I’m really glad I finally got around to reading this; the familiar story is so much deeper and weirder in its original form than I’d ever imagined. There’s a ruthless alien quality to Peter Pan that’s both off-putting and alluring, and the novel perfectly captures the enormous gap between child and adult perceptions of the world. Over a century later, it’s still a triumph.
★★★★☆
Book #74 of 2017:
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (The Crossover #1)
I’m generally not big on either novels in verse or stories that center around sports, but Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover won me over despite being both. It helps that this is a shorter book for middle-grade readers, but also the author’s characters feel very real and the poetic language really brings the basketball games to life. It’s well-deserving of its Newbery and other awards.
★★★☆☆
Book #73 of 2017:
Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke (Inkworld #3)
This was an okay adventure story, but it dragged a lot in the middle, and the returning characters felt nothing like the people they were in the first two books. This trilogy has really offered diminishing returns as it went along, so as much as I liked the first book, I’m pretty happy to set the series aside at this point.
★★☆☆☆
Book #72 of 2017: The End by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13)
The A Series of Unfortunate Events books have always made clear that the Baudelaires are only a small part of a much larger story that is playing out mostly beyond our view. That expansiveness isn’t a problem per se, but it’s very frustrating for this final volume to use it as an excuse to leave so much unresolved. Author Lemony Snicket tries to paint all the unanswered questions as a philosophical reflection on the nature of storytelling, but it really comes off more like a writer who didn’t know where the story was going when he began and didn’t manage to come up with anything before his publisher’s deadline. This final adventure of the Baudelaire orphans is fine as an overall episode, but it’s pretty awful as an ending to the series.
★★☆☆☆
Book #71 of 2017:
The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx with Ian Gittins
A series of diary entries from Mötley Crüe musician Nikki Sixx, annotated 20 years later by Sixx, his bandmates, and other colleagues. The diary was written during a time of intense drug abuse by its author, and he’s brutally honest about the toll that took on his health, his music, and his relationships. That being said, Sixx comes off as exceedingly cruel and entitled, and the actual diary entries are fairly repetitive. I honestly don’t think I would have bothered reading through to the end if it hadn’t been a book club selection. Of course, as someone who has never done drugs and can’t name a single Mötley Crüe song, it’s possible that I just am not the target audience for this one.
★★☆☆☆
TV #13 of 2017:
New Girl, season 6
I might be mistaken about this, but my understanding is that Fox has not yet made a decision as to whether to renew New Girl or not, so season 6 may be the last season that we get. And honestly, I’d be perfectly happy if that turns out to be the case, because it’s hard to picture a more perfect ending to this show than this season finale. The season as a whole had some iffy moments – the characters of Robby and Regan both often struggled to seem like more than temporary OTP roadblocks – so I don’t know if I can say that the show would be going out on top of its game. But man. That final episode was just about one of the best half-hours they’ve ever done, and it’s all based on the immense character work of the past six years, this season included. New Girl season 6 may not have been its best, but it was funny and heartwarming as only this show can be.
★★★☆☆
TV #12 of 2017:
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, season 2
This show is still goofy as hell, but this season is a big improvement over the first one. Mostly that’s because it finally leans into the wacky fun of the premise, offering up loads of the ridiculous comic book stuff that its more serious sister shows in the Arrowverse setting (even The Flash) have largely avoided. It’s still not great television, but the writers and the cast definitely seem like they’ve figured out what does and doesn’t work for them.
★★★☆☆
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