Book #249 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #7) And so my Harry Potter reread comes to an end with what I consider the weakest volume of the series (not counting oddities like the Cursed Child screenplay or the flimsy textbook tie-ins). The major problem in this …
Continue reading “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling”
Book #236 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #6) I love plenty of individual moments in this penultimate Harry Potter book, but if I’m being truly objective, its flashback-heavy narrative arc is a bit of a step down for the series. As usual author J. K. Rowling …
Continue reading “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling”
Book #228 of 2018: The Man Who Killed His Brother by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Man Who #1) Author Stephen R. Donaldson is best known for his fantasy sagas like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, but his character work and intense internal struggles resonate more than the epic quests and magical worldbuilding, and …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Man Who Killed His Brother by Stephen R. Donaldson”
Book #224 of 2018: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett I loved this book back in middle school, and it’s even better now that I get more of the jokes (thanks to being both older and more familiar with British culture). The story is a terrifically funny take on the Christian apocalypse, an …
Continue reading “Book Review: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett”
Book #222 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #5) The Harry Potter books are well-known for getting darker and deeper as they go along, aging up in target audience along with their main characters, but the hero’s surly teenage angst in this novel actually bothered …
Continue reading “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling”
Book #215 of 2018: The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Gentleman Bastard #3) I have such mixed feelings about this book and what it portends for the rest of its series. In part that’s because it’s trying to do three very different things, and I think it accomplishes them with varying degrees of success. …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch”
Book 210 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #4) This middle volume marks a major shift in the Harry Potter series in a number of ways. It’s much longer than the previous novels, but it’s also significantly darker and more mature. The title wizard and his …
Continue reading “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling”
Book #196 of 2018: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade #1) A fascinating character and culture study, most reminiscent of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books. Baru Cormorant is a young woman whose homeland gets annexed by an expanding empire, after which she privately vows to rise through her conquerors’ ranks to take …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson”
Book #195 of 2018: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #3) This has always been my favorite book in the Harry Potter series, and it is no less excellent even now that I’m closer in age to the second title character than the first. Harry and his friends …
Continue reading “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling”
Book #193 of 2018: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1) I love this book, and I think my review from when I first read it in 2017 still stands: “A gorgeously-written fantasy novel about a boy raised in a library, who spends his early life chasing down obscure references to the …
Continue reading “Book Review: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more