Book #86 of 2022: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (Zachary Ying #1) This is a solid and charming #ownvoices middle-grade fantasy debut. I’m rounding up my rating slightly since I’m so outside the target audience, and because I appreciate the effort author Xiran Jay Zhao has gone to in conveying …
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Book #85 of 2022: I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston Author Casey McQuiston’s third novel is the first that doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. The basic premise here is that prom queen and principal’s daughter Shara Wheeler has vanished in the last month before graduation, after spontaneously kissing three people: her boyfriend, …
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TV #22 of 2022: Scandal, season 7 Credit where credit’s due: the first five episodes on this last year of Scandal are genuinely riveting. The scripts are tighter, and it really feels like the show has finally locked into who these characters are and how to tell trenchant and complex storylines involving them. Taking that …
Book #84 of 2022: A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson I’m very torn on this 2021 queer gothic horror novella, which reimagines Dracula’s brides by way of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, as decadent and melancholic immortals spending centuries tangling and untangling their codependent emotions as they ravage their way across Europe. The language …
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Book #83 of 2022: Three Blind Mice and Other Stories by Agatha Christie Some of these nine entries are better than others, but overall, they represent a strong if eclectic collection of author Agatha Christie’s mystery offerings. With four tales featuring Miss Jane Marple, three involving Hercule Poirot, and even one with her distinctly rarer …
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Book #82 of 2022: The Unexpected by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #44) Pretty much the definition of a filler adventure, and another story where the heroes’ only real victory is living through to the end of it, rather than any strategic objective they’ve been aiming to achieve. This particular mission to stop the Yeerks from …
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TV #21 of 2022: Bosch: Legacy, season 1 Note: I have very negative feelings about the last few scenes and the cliffhanger ending to this season. To avoid spoilers, I won’t get into that here. But if you’re interested in my thoughts, you can find them in a Twitter thread at the following link: https://twitter.com/lesserjoke/status/1530415054990061568 …
Book #81 of 2022: Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen An interesting, sporadically helpful, and yet deeply flawed discussion of how current expectations of working environments are poorly constructed and could be reformed. Journalists Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen are …
Book #80 of 2022: Book of Night by Holly Black This urban fantasy story is generally fine, and it closes on a stronger note than it begins (albeit in a way that seems it’s likely meant as the launch to a series, rather than the standalone work it’s been marketed as). But it all feels …
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TV #20 of 2022: Classic Doctor Who, season 2 This sophomore season is the most complete of Doctor Who’s black-and-white runs, with only two episodes still missing, available as merely audio recordings and visual reconstructions today. Watching all this through finds a mixed bag overall, but there are a few highlights I’d particularly recommend to …
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