I haven’t read any of Stephen King’s new stuff, that people either seem to love or hate, but his older stuff is kind of comforting, in a weird way. You know at least the general outline of what you’re going to get: a mess of characters to remember, something menacing, a small town in Maine, and bad things happening to all those characters you just got sorted out (especially to kids). ‘Salem’s Lot follows the pattern, and does it well. Writer Ben Mears comes to […]

The sequel to Miss Pettigrew’s Home for Peculiar Children picks up right where the first one left off, and continues the adventure of the peculiar children as they rush around between frozen time loops and the real world, looking for allies, a safe place, and a way to turn their teacher Miss Peregrine back into her human form. If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one too (I did), and if you didn’t, there’s not enough different about this second chapter to see […]

Imagine you’re a seventh grader. Your favorite class is Creative Writing, even though you’re getting a C, and you have a huge crush on your Civics teacher, who gives impassioned speeches about the dangers of technology and people’s right to privacy and makes you want to grow up to be a revolutionary. Now fast forward a few years, and you’re a freshman in college, assigned to write a story about technology or something. This book might be what you’d come up with. The writing thinks it’s […]

I sought out this book because I liked the short-lived show, and wanted to see if the book would tell me what happened after the show got canceled. Unfortunately, the only thing the book and the TV show had in common was a main character named Jane. Brief (or as brief as I get) synopsis before I spoil the hell out of the plot so I can tell you everything Jane did wrong: Jane is a beautiful young orphan who ran away from her overbearing […]