Book #36 of 2020: When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #2) Technically an improvement over the first Unfortunate Events prequel, in part because this volume leans more into the clever wordplay and less into the vague allusions to larger plots (although those are definitely still present). I also …
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Book #35 of 2020: The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #2) I still think the debut volume Charmed Life is the best place to start this series, but this prequel surpasses it on just about every level. We actually get to visit other worlds in the multiverse that makes this setting …
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Book #34 of 2020: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo A valuable theoretical workbook from a white author with a career in racial sensitivity training, aimed primarily at white readers who wish to understand why we get defensive over the subject of race and how …
Book #33 of 2020: Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean In the summer of 1727, a small group of men and boys from an island off the coast of Scotland were dropped off at a remote rocky outcropping for their community’s annual excursion to spend a few weeks hunting the local birds for their …
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Book #32 of 2020: Crier’s War by Nina Varela (Crier’s War #1) Nina Varela’s authorial debut has enough going for it that I will happily read the sequel, but this first book has a few issues holding it back from achieving its full potential. The good: a Battlestar Galactica sort of premise in which humanoid …
Book #31 of 2020: The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky (Low Town #1) The misogyny in this urban fantasy debut is so pervasive that it sometimes occludes the racism, ableism, and homophobia that also populate the work. (I lost track of how many times someone’s purported gayness is used as an insult — including …
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TV #2 of 2020: Better Call Saul, season 2 My original review from 2016: “The unexpected Breaking Bad spinoff continues to be a fascinating character study, and this season really embraces the aspect of a Shakespearean tragedy that comes from its audience knowing, at least in broad strokes, how the story ends. I’m not sure …
Book #30 of 2020: Throwback by Peter Lerangis (Throwback #1) I love the character interactions and the depiction of historical New York City in this middle-grade time-travel adventure, but it’s maybe a bit overstuffed with plot. (The hero is nominally trying to save his grandmother from dying on September 11th, but he spends most of …
Book #29 of 2020: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield I’m trying not to compare this 2006 novel to 2017’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which also features a famous recluse inviting someone from out of the blue to come write her official biography. But even setting aside that much superior later book, this …
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Book #28 of 2020: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez Justifiably a classic of Latin American literature, this multi-generational novel provides a sprawling look at the central family in a fictional Colombian town as it undergoes periods of settlement, growth, war, encroaching modernity, and ultimately collapse. The storytelling is recursive and elliptical, …
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