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 …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: The Conspiracy by K. A. Applegate
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Conspiracy by K. A. Applegate”
TV Review: Fringe, season 3
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 Review: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron”
TV Review: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 5
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 …
Continue reading “TV Review: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 5”
Book Review: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim”
Book Review: Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
Book #358 of 2021: Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket This new novel from author Lemony Snicket is very discursive, a word which here means wandering down endless alleyways of thought instead of sticking to the nominal plot of the narrator investigating his discovery of a note warning he’s eaten poison for breakfast. As he …
Continue reading “Book Review: Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket”
Book Review: Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat
Book #357 of 2021: Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat (Dark Rise #1) I’m quite torn on how to rate this historical fantasy novel, but ultimately I think three-out-of-five stars is a fair reflection of my overall reaction to it. Although I really love the ending and the broader shape of the story that’s revealed …
Book Review: Hook, Line & Sinister: Mysteries to Reel You In edited by T. Jefferson Parker
Book #356 of 2021: Hook, Line & Sinister: Mysteries to Reel You In edited by T. Jefferson Parker This 2010 collection is… fine. The subtitle is a bit misleading — the entries are generally more like crime thrillers than mysteries per se — but as a charity anthology of original fiction involving fishing, written by …
Book Review: The Reunion by K. A. Applegate
Book #355 of 2021: The Reunion by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #30) I’m not a fan of the coincidence-heavy setup to this Animorphs volume — Marco has a nightmare involving his mom, the Controller to the Yeerk Visser One, which leads him to skip school and randomly go to the city’s business district, where she …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Reunion by K. A. Applegate”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 