Book #32 of 2025: Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang This standalone fantasy novel is a total delight, and also probably represents the biggest improvement I’ve ever seen an author display from their debut, which for M. L. Wang was the somewhat forgettable YA title Theonite: Planet Adyn. Her talents have grown considerably …
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TV #10 of 2025: The Bear, season 1 I’ve never worked in a restaurant kitchen before, but the first year of this FX drama* is so evocative in conveying the chaos and stress of one that I can practically feel my body tightening up with every episode. (“But you’re enjoying it?” my wife asks in …
Book #31 of 2025: Doctor Who: Timewyrm: Genesys by John Peel (Virgin New Adventures #1) When Classic Doctor Who was canceled after its 26th season in 1989 — not that it was called Classic at the time — there was no expectation that the series would ever pick back up again on-screen. Virgin Publishing, running …
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TV #9 of 2025: Classic Doctor Who, season 17 This is a strange year of Doctor Who! Less ambitious than the overarching Guardians / Key to Time stuff from the previous run, but that’s not such a bad thing given how poorly all that was executed. Unfortunately in its place we’ve got some definite clunkers …
Book #30 of 2025: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (Ernest Cunningham #1) A decent murder mystery of the snowed-in-with-a-rising-body-count subgenre. Unfortunately, as that description suggests, this is not the most original storyline, and I’ve personally found its efforts to stand out a little hokey. The narrator is very meta with …
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Movie #2 of 2025: Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special (2025) The ongoing fiftieth season of Saturday Night Live hasn’t seemed like much of an occasion thus far, so I’m glad that this three-hour anniversary special exists to help fill that gap. It’s jam-packed with former cast members and celebrity hosts, and it takes the …
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Book #29 of 2025: Amari and the Despicable Wonders by B. B. Alston (Supernatural Investigations #3) A significant step down for a previously-charming middle-grade fantasy series. I gave the first two novels four stars apiece for their freshness and overall fun, but this one feels like a generic and less entertaining Percy Jackson ripoff. You …
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Book #28 of 2025: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland A raunchy yet oddly sexless pirate fantasy comedy. Which is to say that the characters in this story are all obsessed with sex and talk about it incessantly in the vulgarest of terms, but nothing more graphic than makeouts or a naked arm …
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Book #27 of 2025: An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson The opening sequence to this horror-fantasy novel is appropriately chilling: our protagonist, standing between two mirrors in the bathroom, notices a distant figure in the receding reflections that isn’t behaving like the others. In fact, it’s slowly walking towards her, weaving through all the …
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TV #8 of 2025: Sex Education, season 4 This is an odd final season of a show that probably didn’t need one. It surprisingly carries through on the threat from the previous year to close down Moordale Secondary, which means that this one takes place in an entirely different school, with some of the familiar …
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