Book #113 of 2022: The Late Show by Michael Connelly (Renée Ballard #1) [Warning: discussion of sexual assault and transphobic violence ahead in this review. Additional content warnings for the book listed below.] Theoretically, author Michael Connelly’s 30th novel should be a reasonable introduction to new character Renée Ballard, the latest protagonist to join the …
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Book #112 of 2022: The Return by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #48) At this point in the Animorphs series, the overarching plot of the Yeerk invasion and teenage guerilla resistance war is entering its endgame. The companion books are all finished, and each of the six core protagonists has one more adventure to relate to …
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Book #111 of 2022: Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones A strange little horror novella that’s not as unsettling as I feel like it’s aiming to be, yet not funny/campy enough to constitute a good parody. The high school protagonist makes a lot of bizarre intuitive leaps, and while I think the intent …
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Book #110 of 2022: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher An exquisite dark fairy tale, about a woman seeking the services of a necromancer to save her sister from the abusive husband who’s likely to murder her as soon as she produces a male heir. There are impossible tasks met with fierce determination, hard-won and …
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TV #33 of 2022: Ms. Marvel, season 1 The back half of this season stumbles a bit, both in setting up / dealing with its various villains and in the messy narrative transition from Jersey to Karachi to an episode-long Partition flashback and back, at which point a few dropped plot threads have to be …
Book #109 of 2022: A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft I was initially drawn to this YA novel by its #ownvoices Jewish element, having heard that although it’s a fantasy story set in a different world, the heroine’s religion is a recognizable stand-in for my own. In fact, the situation is even more clear-cut …
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Book #108 of 2022: Defunctland: Guide to the Magic Kingdom by Kevin Perjurer This first written spinoff of the eponymous Defunctland YouTube channel presents the same focus on change within theme parks and attractions that are no longer operational, but in the specific context of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom as it exists in the present. …
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Book #107 of 2022: The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #31) Hercule Poirot remains a character I can find either entertaining or frustrating on occasion, and I regret to report that in this collection, he leans decidedly towards the latter. He makes more guesses than strict deductions, and when his …
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Book #106 of 2022: The Ellimist Chronicles by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Chronicles #4) This final Animorphs companion novel is a risky departure even by the standards of the Chronicles sub-series, which has previously left the teenage morphers behind solely to flesh out backstory periods of galactic history whose species and major events are already …
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Book #105 of 2022: The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are by David M. Henkin This nonfiction title explores an interesting and new-to-me topic, which is the obvious yet rarely-considered point that the seven-day cycle we know as a week is entirely cultural, having no relation to observable …
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