Book #24 of 2017: 1984 by George Orwell 1984’s vision of a dystopian future has only grown more eerily prescient since I first read it back in high school, foretelling a rise in the surveillance state and government efforts to repress reality through propaganda. The storyline and the characters are honestly not so great, but …
Tag Archives: reread
Book Review: The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip
Book #11 of 2017: The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip (Riddle-Master #1) Like the best of fantasy, The Riddle-Master of Hed reads like a beautiful dream. And the reluctant warrior at its center, fated to be a powerful figure of prophecy despite all his wishes for a quiet life back home, makes for …
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Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens by Brandon Sanderson
Book #1 of 2017: Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #4) Like Harry Potter, this series gets darker and more mature as the books progress. Even though the protagonist in this case is still a thirteen-year-old boy, he’s grown up a lot just by going through the events of these novels. Author …
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Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia by Brandon Sanderson
Book #123 of 2016: Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #3) Another fun entry in Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz series, again harnessing his love of creative magical systems into something more whimsical than his typical fantasy novels for older readers. In this third book in the series, the politics get murkier and …
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Book Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry
Book #116 of 2016: The Giver by Lois Lowry (The Giver #1) I remember really liking The Giver when I was growing up, but I was still a teenager at the oldest the last time I read it, so I only really had fuzzy memories of its specifics. Of course, it more than lived up …
Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener’s Bones by Brandon Sanderson
Book #113 of 2016: Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener’s Bones by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #2) Another fun YA novel from Brandon Sanderson, who blends his usual high fantasy style with something closer to Harry Potter and then adds a snarky narrator offering meta-commentary on the nature of stories throughout. Book 2 in this series fleshes out …
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Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
Book #95 of 2016: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #1) Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz series starts out with a bang, combining one of his trademark creative magic systems with a narrator as snarky as Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing in this fun novel for junior readers. We only get the first …
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Book Review: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Book #68 of 2016: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Time Quintet) This is a book I’ve always felt weird for not liking more, since so many people seem to love it. But I do believe in second chances, so I read it again today for the first time in probably 20 years… and …
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Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Book #44 of 2016: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke This is at least the third time that I’ve read this book, but the last time was more than five years ago (which is why I wanted to do another reread before I watched the recent BBC miniseries adaptation). It remains an astonishing …
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Book Review: The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Book #9 of 2016: The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks (Shannara #2) I originally read the first dozen or so Shannara books back in middle and high school, before finally getting tired of the series. I don’t remember any of them particularly well, but I did have this vague memory that Elfstones (the second …
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