Book #142 of 2018: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy The dry British humor in this book is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, but the characters can be a tad frustrating and the story is pretty slow. There are individual moments that I adore even beyond author Thomas Hardy’s classic Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but …
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TV #32 of 2018: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, season 2 This season has all of the same strengths of the first one, and I continue to be impressed with how the series is adapting some of the weaker aspects of the source novels. Clues and flat-out reveals about VFD are delivered so …
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Book #141 of 2018: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae This essay collection is funny, but pretty short and a little disjointed. I’m not familiar with author Issa Rae’s other creative projects, but the book feels kind of like she’s thrown in everything that crossed her mind. While I would have appreciated …
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Book #140 of 2018: The Power by Naomi Alderman This globe-spanning novel about young women developing deadly electrical powers that ultimately rattle the established world order asks some sharp questions about gender, culture, and violence. It’s one part apocalyptic thriller a la Stephen King’s The Stand, and one part semi-satirical critique of our own patriarchal …
Book #139 of 2018: Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao This debut novel about girlhood friends in India who still draw strength from their dreams of one another is a beautiful, evocative story of the cruelty of men and the resilience of women. It reminds me a lot of The Color Purple, especially in its …
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Movie #15 of 2018: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) This movie is fun, although it’s definitely one where the longer you think about it and how it relates to the larger Star Wars canon, the more issues come to mind. I think it’s best when it’s aiming just to be a prequel and not …
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Book #138 of 2018: Star Wars: Catalyst by James Luceno This Star Wars novel is neat for fleshing out the backstory between Galen Erso and Orson Krennic (and to a lesser extent Grand Moff Tarkin), but it gets bogged down in a few too many viewpoint characters and far too heavy a focus on Erso’s …
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Book #137 of 2018: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne A fun and imaginative classic of Victorian science-fiction. Author Jules Verne can sometimes get a bit didactic — and I wish he would distinguish more between established scientific fact and his own rampant speculations, many of which are now hilariously dated and …
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Book #136 of 2018: Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd A heartbreaking little novel about a troubled girl who runs away from her foster home, donning a wig and creating a brave new identity for herself as she attempts to travel across England and find her mother in Ireland. With her past trauma gradually …
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Book #135 of 2018: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan (Takeshi Kovacs #2) This sequel to Altered Carbon is very different from that first book: the genre is more military sci-fi than neo-noir, it’s set on a completely different planet, and the only returning character has been downloaded into a brand-new body. (I really wonder …
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