Book #75 of 2018: The Fireman by Joe Hill This Joe Hill novel about a widespread plague of spontaneous combustion has a promising start, but it loses steam as it goes along, especially once it becomes clear that the author is largely just retelling his father’s post-apocalyptic classic The Stand. There are major plot points …
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Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Book #74 of 2018: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman I was initially quite charmed by this novel and its titular heroine, whose difficulty with social cues and preference for a strict regular schedule would seem to place her somewhere on the autism spectrum. This diagnosis is never made explicit, however, and as …
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Book Review: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Book #73 of 2018: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This short, powerful essay is a good introduction to the weight of gender expectations and the ways that girls, boys, women, and men are all unfairly constrained by society’s conventions for them. It’s not a perfect read — the length doesn’t really …
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Book Review: Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green
Book #72 of 2018: Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green (Nightside #2) I’m rereading this urban fantasy series that I loved when I was younger, and while it isn’t quite living up to my memories, this second novel is a vast improvement over the first. The worldbuilding offers a steady stream of …
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Book Review: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Book #71 of 2018: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Starbound #1) This sci-fi love story ends a lot stronger than it begins, especially after a surprise development around the three-quarter mark. The two main characters are teens from different social classes — a young war hero and a spoiled heiress — …
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Book Review: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Book #70 of 2018: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda The most distinctive aspect of this suspense novel is its timeline, which is presented Memento-style from back to front. After a quick introduction to establish the narrator and why she’s returned to her hometown, we jump forward two weeks to find that her neighbor …
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Book Review: Squire by Tamora Pierce
Book #69 of 2018: Squire by Tamora Pierce (Protector of the Small #3) I’ve noted before that this quartet of books within Tamora Pierce’s larger Tortall series seems to be the author’s take on the classic boarding school literary genre, like Harry Potter without any looming Voldemort-style threat. Indeed, the plot is the major shortcoming …
Movie Review: Ready Player One (2018)
Movie #7 of 2018: Ready Player One (2018) As a disclaimer, I really like the novel this movie is based on, which I think gets a bad rap for some GamerGate-style gatekeeping associations that aren’t really present in the narrative itself. It’s also a story that seems really hard to adapt faithfully, and I think …
Book Review: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
Book #68 of 2018: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant This bildungsroman of a young woman growing up in the early 20th century pleasingly recalls both The Color Purple and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but it carves out a distinct space for itself with its vibrant characters and pitch-perfect depiction of Jewish-American life. Presented …
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Book Review: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King
Book #67 of 2018: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King (The Dark Tower #4.5) This book was written after the conclusion of the author’s main Dark Tower series, but it takes place squarely in the middle, just after the fourth novel Wizard and Glass. (As with the prequel novella The Little Sisters of …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 