Book #193 of 2018: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1) I love this book, and I think my review from when I first read it in 2017 still stands: “A gorgeously-written fantasy novel about a boy raised in a library, who spends his early life chasing down obscure references to the …
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Book #192 of 2018: Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds by Brandon Sanderson (Legion #1-3) This new book collects the three novellas in author Brandon Sanderson’s Legion series (technically unrelated to the X-Men character / FX show of the same name, although there are similarities that Sanderson maintains are coincidental). I had read the …
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Book #191 of 2018: The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir I’m not quite sure what to make of this book, in which the secretly pregnant teenage daughter of a prominent televangelist family arranges to marry a gay classmate in order to provide cover for them both. It’s technically well-written, but the characters all …
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Movie #18 of 2018: The Shining (1980) Nearly four decades on, this movie is still terrific. I do think the pacing could be a lot tighter, especially early on, and even though it’s true to the book and what gives the film its title, I don’t think the little boy’s psychic abilities really add much …
Book #190 of 2018: Theonite: Planet Adyn by M. L. Wang (Theonite #1) This YA novel has a neat hook: its thirteen-year-old protagonist has spent her whole life hiding superpowers, only to discover that her new neighbors have special abilities of their own and are here from a parallel dimension in search of a dangerous …
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Book #189 of 2018: All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #1) A fun novella in what I would have to call the robo-noir genre, with a hardboiled cyborg protagonist reluctantly working security on a planetary survey mission. Murderbot’s narrative perspective is hilarious and relatable: who among of us doesn’t also have bosses …
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TV #44 of 2018: Marvel’s Iron Fist, season 2 There are two inescapable facts about this season of Iron Fist: that it’s a huge improvement over season 1 and that the series is still one of the weakest entries in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. (I’d say it’s better than the short-lived Inhumans show, but …
Book #188 of 2018: The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler (Emily Windsnap #1) I don’t read too many middle-grade books, but I decided to give this one a try because I share the author’s last name (although we are not actually related, to the best of my knowledge). It’s the first novel in …
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Book #187 of 2018: Arcadia by Iain Pears This novel takes a little while to get going and clearly establish its plot, but it ends up as a mind-trip of the highest caliber. There are essentially three layers of reality that author Iain Pears is playing with here: 1) the twenty-third century, where a brilliant …
Book #186 of 2018: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng Having really enjoyed Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, I knew I needed to seek out this debut novel of hers as well — and I’m quite glad I did, because I think I like it even better. This is a beautifully-written Asian American …
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