Movie #6 of 2020: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend (2020) This new interactive Kimmy Schmidt sequel is a whole lot of fun! It’s not remotely necessary for providing further closure or anything after last year’s series finale, but it also doesn’t seem like it walks back that conclusion at all either. It’s mostly …
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Book #107 of 2020: The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America by Daniel Okrent A clear and powerful account of the American eugenics and anti-immigration movements of the early twentieth century, and how the two were inextricably linked. Author Daniel …
Book #106 of 2020: The Traitor’s Game by Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Traitor’s Game #1) There’s not enough worldbuilding in this YA novel to distinguish the setting from any generic fantasy realm, which makes it harder to track or care about all the opposing factions. Character loyalties also seem pretty easily swayed, which further impedes …
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Book #105 of 2020: If It Bleeds by Stephen King The latest Stephen King release is a collection of four unrelated novellas, probably not the best introduction to his style but definitely worthwhile for existing fans. My individual mini-reviews below: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone. This story about a boy’s elderly neighbor getting his first smartphone is …
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Book #104 of 2020: This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada (This Mortal Coil #1) I think I could have loved a different story set in this world of biohacking and — so timely in 2020 — a global pandemic shutdown. Unfortunately, this one puts too much attention on the bland YA love triangle over other …
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Book #103 of 2020: I Want You to Know We’re Still Here by Esther Safran Foer There are many personal accounts of the Holocaust out there, but I think this new memoir may be the first I’ve read from the child of survivors, exploring what it’s like to grow up with that sort of household …
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Book #102 of 2020: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune I appreciate how this fantasy novel’s protagonist is a heavyset, middle-aged, gay social worker, any single element of which would be rare enough for the genre (and liable to be used as a punchline, rather than treated with empathy and respect as …
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TV #13 of 2020: Saturday Night Live, season 45 Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang are fun new additions to this long-running sketch show, and I have to credit the whole team both on and off-screen for bouncing back so strongly after the COVID-19 coronavirus curtailed the original plans for the season. (The three pre-recorded “SNL …
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Book #101 of 2020: Peril at End House by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #8) Although this book contains one of those Agatha Christie solutions that I deduced well before her stalwart investigator, I don’t consider that a weakness of the text or a detriment to my enjoyment of its puzzle. (Indeed, my top complaint about …
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Book #100 of 2020: A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab (Shades of Magic #2) An unfortunate continuation of the thin plot and character motivation issues that are keeping me at a distance from this fantasy series. The biggest event in this second volume is a magical tournament that isn’t even mentioned until a …
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