TV #10 of 2023: The Shield, season 5 Easily the best run of this series since the first. Forest Whitaker is an outstanding new addition to the cast, and while it’s simple to peg him as the latest Hollywood heavy hitter to come to TV for a one-season arc — like Glenn Close the year …
Tag Archives: five stars
Book Review: Sabriel by Garth Nix
Book #34 of 2023: Sabriel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #1) A thoroughly excellent modern fantasy classic, published in 1995 but just as enjoyable now upon my umpteenth reread. (I can’t remember when I first encountered it, but I do recall thinking in amazement that it was like a written version of the Diablo …
Book Review: When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Book #198 of 2022: When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb My shorthand pitch for this debut novel would probably be something like “Good Omens meets The Golem and the Jinni“: a tale of the early twentieth century, richly steeped in #ownvoices Jewish elements, in which a friendly angel and demon who …
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Book Review: The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard
Book #187 of 2022: The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire #1) A wonderful warm hug of a novel, and probably my top read of the year. It’s rare for a 900-page fantasy tome to feel so cozy, let alone to forgo any significant romance or acts of violence throughout …
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TV Review: Andor, season 1
TV #57 of 2022: Andor, season 1 On paper, this prequel to a prequel might have sounded like a wholly unnecessary franchise extension, but in practice, Star Wars has literally never been better. Ostensibly a show about Cassian Andor five years before the movie Rogue One takes place, it has turned out to be more …
Book Review: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #178 of 2022: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #2) Earthsea is a very loose children’s fantasy series, somewhat akin to The Chronicles of Narnia: although certain characters recur across volumes, each book has a fairly distinct structure and tone, and there isn’t much of an overarching plot. This second …
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Book Review: Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack
Book #153 of 2022: Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack Another outstanding middle-grade Jewish fantasy novel from #ownvoices author Sofiya Pasternack, who had previously dazzled me with her Anya and the Dragon debut. I love this one even more, from all the subtle authentic touches of lived-in Judaism and lesser-known mythological nods to the …
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Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Book #150 of 2022: I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy A powerful and soul-baring memoir that completely earns its provocative title. I’m not familiar with Jennette McCurdy as an actress — her Nickelodeon hit iCarly launched when I was already a sophomore in college — but as a writer, she is immensely talented …
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Book Review: Babel: an Arcane History by R. F. Kuang
Book #147 of 2022: Babel: an Arcane History by R. F. Kuang An exquisitely slow-burning fuse of a novel, presenting the 1830s education of a young Chinese-born translator and eventual radical at the fictional Royal Institute of Translation at Oxford University. In the alternate fantasy universe of this setting, cognate pairs across languages have magical …
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Book Review: The Answer by K. A. Applegate
Book #142 of 2022: The Answer by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #53) (A quick note from your reviewer here. If you’ve read my past few Animorphs reviews, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been giving away more and more of the plot each time. These final volumes are just so jam-packed with major developments that it’s …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 