TV #11 of 2021: Dawson’s Creek, season 1 I think I was too young when this show first aired to watch it then or hold any nostalgic attachment now, and I’m old enough at this point that I still don’t have an easy identification with the teenage protagonists. Both in the age of the cast …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
Book #30 of 2021: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #2) Not quite as powerfully moving as the previous novella, but still well above much of the fantasy genre. In this story, returning protagonist Cleric Chih is waylaid on their travels by a pack of hungry tigresses, …
Continue reading “Book Review: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo”
Book Review: The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny
Book #29 of 2021: The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #5) These Amber sequels have never really lived up to the promise of their series debut, and since this fifth book brings the initial story arc to a close, I think it’s a good moment to cut my losses and …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny”
Book Review: Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott
Book #28 of 2021: Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott This pseudonymous Agatha Christie novel is reportedly quite autobiographical, but I’ve personally found it to be a fairly aimless bildungsroman, tracing its protagonist’s life from childhood to early marriage without much of an overarching plot. It’s also full of the writer’s less endearing quirks, like people …
Continue reading “Book Review: Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott”
TV Review: I Am Not Okay With This, season 1
TV #10 of 2021: I Am Not Okay With This, season 1 Another 2020 Netflix original that was unfortunately cancelled after just one season due to COVID-19 impacts on studio production. As with Teenage Bounty Hunters, there are plenty of dangling threads here suggesting that the writers were instead expecting the show to be renewed, …
Continue reading “TV Review: I Am Not Okay With This, season 1”
Book Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Book #27 of 2021: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black A dark and violent YA tale, predicated on the idea that although a vampire’s first bite infects the victim with an all-consuming thirst for blood, they don’t turn fully undead until they finally give in and feed on another human in turn. There’s …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black”
TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 6
TV #9 of 2021: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 6 Production on this penultimate batch of episodes was cut short by Disney’s 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm, with the truncated season eventually being released straight to Netflix in 2014. So it wasn’t created to be an intentional ending for the series, and it doesn’t read …
Continue reading “TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 6”
Book Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
Book #26 of 2021: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas #1) A fun #ownvoices fantasy built on indigenous Latinx mythology, rather like Percy Jackson in aiming for the younger side of the YA market. The plot is a classic careful-what-you-wish-for scenario, in which a teenager frightened by her family’s magic tries to lose her …
Continue reading “Book Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova”
TV Review: Teenage Bounty Hunters, season 1
TV #8 of 2021: Teenage Bounty Hunters, season 1 I like the characters in this Netflix series, but I feel far more interested in their family drama and high school social lives than in the wacky side gig that makes up the other part of the title. Each of the twin protagonists exhibits meaningful growth …
Continue reading “TV Review: Teenage Bounty Hunters, season 1”
Book Review: Eternal Life by Dara Horn
Book #25 of 2021: Eternal Life by Dara Horn I love a good story about angsty immortals, but it’s possible I read this one too soon after last year’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which explores a similar thematic territory far more movingly. In this 2018 novel, the protagonist is a woman who doesn’t …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 