TV #37 of 2019: Veronica Mars, season 3 Aging a television setting up from high school to college is a tricky prospect, with inevitable cast turnover, different plot beats to work out, and more mature storytelling possibilities. And for the most part, Veronica Mars manages that transition well. The heroine herself is recognizable yet played …
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Book Review: Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger
Book #227 of 2019: Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger This incredible anime-inspired fantasy novel is a breath of fresh air for the genre and a pure delight from page one, with a Sandersonian magic system that features metalbending alongside giant daemons that can be summoned to fight like Pokémon. The characters are clever and …
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Book Review: Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić
Book #226 of 2019: Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić This is one of the strangest books I’ve ever encountered, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it — or if I would have reached the end if it hadn’t been selected for me to read and review by one of …
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Book Review: Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza
Book #225 of 2019: Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza (Empress of a Thousand Skies #1) This YA space opera unfortunately doesn’t work for me. The setting feels nowhere near as expansive as that great title implies, and the character relations aren’t built up enough for any of the plot twists to land …
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Book Review: Supernova by Marissa Meyer
Book #224 of 2019: Supernova by Marissa Meyer (Renegades #3) This is overall a competent conclusion to a decent YA trilogy, but I’m still pretty flummoxed that author Marissa Meyer never delves deeper into the issue of what makes someone a hero or a villain. If anything, a late reveal cements the villainous side as …
Book Review: Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron
Book #223 of 2019: Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron (Kingdom of Souls #1) The fantasy worldbuilding in this YA debut gets a bit off the rails in the end, but as a cliffhanger setup for the next book in the trilogy, it just about works. And the whole novel beforehand is definitely strong enough …
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Book Review: It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman
Book #222 of 2019: It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman This 2019 YA volume presents over a dozen brand-new short stories from Jewish writers about contemporary Jewish teens. The characters vary in their specific denominations and levels of religiosity, with some of the plots …
Book Review: Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
Book #221 of 2019: Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly This is a really lovely middle-grade novel about a twelve-year-old deaf girl trying to help a lonely whale — ostracized for singing at an unusual frequency — and I think a younger audience would enjoy it even more than I have. Author Lynne Kelly’s …
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Book Review: The Whisper Man by Alex North
Book #220 of 2019: The Whisper Man by Alex North There’s a definite Stephen King / Joe Hill vibe to this 2019 British thriller about a serial child murderer and a boy who talks to people that others can’t see. It’s creepy verging on terrifying throughout, even though the expected abduction doesn’t happen until fairly …
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Book Review: House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig
Book #219 of 2019: House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig I was initially on board for this Poe-inflected retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but the middle is a bit of a generic YA slog and the ending really goes off the rails with unearned revelations about the setting’s mythology. (It’s fine …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 