Book #66 of 2025: Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister Two-out-of-five stars might seem a bit harsh for this novel, which is mostly more like a three-star read up until the end. Unfortunately, that closing section is saddled with a sequence of twists that are so inane, they wind up tanking the whole enterprise for …
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Book #65 of 2025: Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler All I really knew about this memoir before picking it up was that its author Anna Marie Tendler was the comedian John Mulaney‘s ex-wife. That caught my attention less in hopes of learning salacious details about their separation and more for the …
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Book #64 of 2025: Doctor Who: Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell (Virgin New Adventures #4) The year is 1991, and the newly-canceled Doctor Who — what we now call “Classic” Who, to distinguish it from the post-2005 version — has been limping on in the form of these licensed novels continuing the story of the …
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Book #63 of 2025: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood Romance is not my typical genre, and this particular example has too many issues for me to wholly enjoy, but it’s captured my attention enough that I’ll probably read more from author Ali Hazelwood someday. The good, to start with: her characterization of the people-pleasing heroine …
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Book #62 of 2025: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games #1) [Previous review here, from 2011.] Fun to revisit this first Hunger Games novel, well after the blockbuster movie franchise that turned it into a household name. Even setting all that aside to consider the 2008 title fresh, it’s clear that it’s …
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Book #61 of 2025: Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three: The Sailor by Robin Furth, Peter David, Juanan Ramírez, and Jesus Aburtov The five issues in this bound volume unfortunately represent the end of the Marvel comic book adaptations of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series — or at least, there haven’t …
Book #60 of 2025: Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown Overall a substandard academic thriller. The timeline unfolds across three different periods, but it’s only really interesting in the last one, in which a woman investigates the recent death of her sister. In alternating chapters, the other sections detail the dead girl’s activities as …
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Book #59 of 2025: Tsalmoth by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #16) We’ve gone back to near the beginning of the protagonist’s timeline again, in the days when he was still a low-level Jhereg crime boss. It’s a productive visit, however — not so much for the immediate plot, which is a very typical Taltos affair, …
Book #58 of 2025: The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir The main problem with this horror novel is that it’s simply far too short. The heroine’s escalating situation is relatively gripping, but the root cause is still pretty unexplained at the end and the conclusion is hugely underwhelming. While I’m sure there’s some cultural variation …
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Book #57 of 2025: Féonie and the Islander Regalia by Victoria Goddard A lovely little companion story to author Victoria Goddard’s cozy fantasy novel The Hands of the Emperor. Near the end of that longer work, the protagonist Cliopher Mdang is honored with a ceremony requiring he dress in his finest clothing, and the servant …
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