TV #39 of 2018: Sharp Objects This miniseries adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel is subtle and understated, to the point where I wonder if I would have been lost without having read the book first. But I do think the show tells its story more effectively than the source material, with beautiful cinematography and …
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TV Review: Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 2
TV #38 of 2018: Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 2 I think this season is about on par with the last one, which I similarly liked but didn’t love. The plot is at least more cohesive this time around, but the message is a little muddled and there are still some elements that kind of go …
Book Review: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
Book #169 of 2018: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay This memoir from Roxane Gay is a powerful and emotional read about what it’s like for the author to go through the world and take up space as a medically-obese black woman. She is uncompromising and unflinching about her own trauma: from …
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Book Review: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
Book #168 of 2018: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) This fantasy novel goes far on the strength of its worldbuilding, which depicts a gorgeous Middle Eastern setting inspired by Islamic folklore that’s markedly different from the Eurocentric genre norm. While I sometimes had trouble keeping track of all the …
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Book Review: Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story That Changed the Course of World War II by Ben Macintyre
Book #167 of 2018: Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story That Changed the Course of World War II by Ben Macintyre As made famous in the fictionalized movie The Man Who Never Was, the Allied intelligence mission Operation Mincemeat was an audacious undertaking: the secret planting of a corpse dressed as a British officer and …
Book Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Book #166 of 2018: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (The Folk of the Air #1) Although I like the protagonist and some of the other female characters, I’m pretty lukewarm on this book as a whole. The plot has long periods of inaction and a few moments that seem to come out of nowhere, …
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Book Review: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn
Book 165 of 2018: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn I think this would be a great book for a certain type of reader, but I unfortunately can’t count myself in that class. Part family memoir and part literary analysis, the story broadly tracks the relationship of a classics …
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Book Review: 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
Book #164 of 2018: 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill Joe Hill’s novels have been hit-or-miss for me, and it turns out that his short stories are much the same. There are some great pieces in this collection: the opening “Best New Horror” manages to be heartfelt, creepy, and darkly comic all at once, and …
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Book Review: The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Book #163 of 2018: The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (Hawthorne #1) A solid whodunnit mystery, but not quite as imaginative as author Anthony Horowitz’s earlier novel Magpie Murders (to which this story is unrelated, despite the similar title). The hook this time around is that Horowitz is writing as a fictionalized version of …
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Book Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
Book #162 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #1) It’s a little hard for me to be objectively critical about the Harry Potter books, which, although not my first introduction to children’s fantasy literature, were nevertheless a formative and beloved part of my childhood. Still, I’ve always …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 