Book #121 of 2022: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (Rats of NIMH #1) I’m happy to revisit this beloved childhood classic today and discover that yes, it’s still an outstanding (though quick) story. The characters make an indelible impression, and the structure is fun, with a relatively lengthy nested …
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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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Book #103 of 2022: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami First published in 1999 (or 2003, for the English translation), this controversial thriller posits a dystopian Japan where school classes of fifteen-year-olds, selected by random lottery, are forced to fight one another to the death each year. The children are kidnapped, locked into metal collars lined …
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Book #79 of 2022: Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones This 1984 sci-fi / fantasy novel, which I read and reread countless times as a child and is apparently one of Neil Gaiman’s favorites as well, opens with an irresistible premise: a hulking enforcer camps out in the thirteen-year-old hero’s kitchen, saying his mysterious employer …
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Book #52 of 2022: Back to Before by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Megamorphs #4) The fourth and final Megamorphs volume opens in media res, with the bloody aftermath of a recent Animorph skirmish against the Yeerks. By this point in the wider franchise, we don’t need any specifics about that particular mission; we can simply …
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TV #14 of 2022: The Shield, season 1 This is not an easy program to watch, even by the standards of other crime dramas. (Take a glance at the content warnings I’ve listed below, and realize that many of these behaviors are present in the ostensible good guys of the series.) It’s fantastically written, directed, …
Book #30 of 2022: Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (Tess of the Road #1) My original review from when I read an Advance Reader’s Copy of this book in 2018: Practically from the start, I’ve been reeling over the emotional journey that the heroine makes in this intensely personal fantasy novel. Largely eschewing …
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Book #16 of 2022: Visser by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Chronicles #3) The Chronicles have been a consistently strong corner of the Animorphs franchise — perhaps surprisingly so, given how little they feature of our familiar teenage animal-morphing freedom fighters. In this third volume, for example, the spotlight lands on Visser One, the Yeerk commander …
Book #14 of 2022: The Actual Star by Monica Byrne There’s so much to love about this novel that I hardly know where to start. It’s speculative fiction, yet thoroughly researched, with a thoughtful and detailed note at the beginning reviewing the care with which author Monica Byrne has approached this project as well as …
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Movie #5 of 2022: Encanto (2021) Disney’s 60th animated feature is a real breath of fresh air, breaking from the studio’s usual patterns in a few startlingly welcome ways. The heroine doesn’t just have two living parents: she has a whole household full of siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins too, a rowdy ensemble …
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