Book #253 of 2021: The Underground by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #17) On the one hand, raids on the Yeerk pool already seem like the most generic and frequent Animorphs plots by this point in the series. On the other hand, this is the novel that gives us a specific variety of oatmeal as a …
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Book #252 of 2021: Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Expanding on a viral New Yorker article, this short book from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares her experience with mourning her father, who passed away in June 2020. (He didn’t die of the coronavirus, but travel restrictions aimed at containing the pandemic kept her …
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Book #251 of 2021: The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker (The Golem and the Jinni #2) This long-awaited sequel to 2013’s The Golem and the Jinni is another lovely piece of historical fantasy, following those two beings from Jewish and Arabian folklore as they navigate the next stages of their life in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York …
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Book #250 of 2021: The Narrows by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #10) This is one of the more serialized Harry Bosch adventures, at least of what I’ve read so far. Terry McCaleb, protagonist of Blood Work and the detective’s reluctant partner in A Darkness More Than Night, is dead. His widow suspects foul play, and …
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Book #249 of 2021: The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Gap Cycle #3) After a curious series debut and a more promising immediate sequel, this third Gap volume lands somewhere in between, delivering a decent yet slightly perfunctory follow-up. As is often the case for the …
Book #248 of 2021: Ariadne by Jennifer Saint The latest Greek myth to be retold as an extended novel, in the way that Madeline Miller famously did for Circe in 2018. This effort doesn’t soar quite as much as that one in either the quality of its prose or its basic character and plot work, …
Book #247 of 2021: The Warning by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #16) The internet stuff in this novel is fairly dated, with AOL-style chat rooms and explanations of screen names and browser cookies, but only because the technology has moved on in the decades since 1998, never in a way that seems like author K. …
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TV #70 of 2021: Star Wars Rebels, season 4 There are two resonant character farewells in this last year of Star Wars Rebels: first in the episode “Jedi Night” and then in the overall finale. We also get the surprise return of Ahsoka Tano following her apparent death two seasons back, which may have worked …
Book #246 of 2021: The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & The Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins A fascinating, informative, and utterly depressing chapter in twentieth-century world history, of the sort that’s generally either omitted altogether or heavily abridged in American textbooks and popular culture, obscuring our country’s shameful activities …
Movie #6 of 2021: Black Widow (2021) While I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general, this particular title wasn’t high on my priority list, given its status as a standalone prequel for a character whose plot arc had already reached a frustrating conclusion in the main series. But I’m pleasantly surprised by it, especially …
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