I hope it goes without saying that, if you haven’t read these books, beware the spoilers that follow. I’ve tried to not give away major plot points for each book, but if you’re on book three, you may not want to read the following reviews. Harry Potter was one of those foundational stories, for me. It laid the groundwork for what I deem good in this world. To some degree, everything I’ve read since has been weighed against the mark left on my soul by […]
Rick Riordan does his thing.
I guess I don’t really have much to say about this book, except that it was exactly what I was expecting it to be, and that ended up being an okay thing. I have come to accept that Riordan is now a one-trick pony. He just happens to be very good at that one trick. You pretty much know all the beats of this story ahead of time if you’ve read his other demigod books, but that doesn’t stop you from enjoying yourself anyway, and […]
That is the tale; the rest is detail.
I’ve been looking forward to re-reading “American Gods” since the moment I finished it the first time around. And this first re-read is definitely not going to be the last. For me, this book is a joy and a delight. It’s imaginative. It’s forward-thinking. It’s honest about how we relate to one another and see-but-can’t-see each other. It works literally as well as as metaphor. It takes itself seriously enough to be perfectly constructed and pure in tone and style, but doesn’t take itself seriously at […]
Let’s Do The Time Warp
Who among us has not thought about what we would tell our younger self if we could go back in time? If we’re honest, we acknowledge that our younger self, after getting over disbelief and the resulting freak out, would not listen to a damned thing we had to say. That’s the challenge for Cal Leandros in Nevermore, the tenth installment in Rob Thurman’s urban fantasy series, and it goes about as well as you might expect.
I can’t wait to see what Bryan Fuller does with this source material
Shadow is serving time in prison, patiently keeping his head down and counting the days until his release. He longs to get home to Laura, his travel agent wife and passes the time learning coin tricks and dreaming of what they will do together once he’s out of jail. Only a few days before he’s due to be released, Shadow is told that Laura was killed in a car accident, along with Shadow’s best friend Robbie, whom Laura was apparently having an affair with. As […]
Kazuo Ishiguro wades into the fantasy genre, but it’s not the fantasy that’s the problem.
Well. This was a book. No, just kidding. Sort of. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Honestly, I subtracted almost a whole star just because Axl kept calling his wife “princess” every other sentence. (That’s not an exaggeration. Every other sentence. Sometimes EVERY sentence.) For context, you should know that I’ve read three previous Ishiguro novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and We Were Orphans. I disliked We Were Orphans pretty strongly, and liked Never Let Me Go (probably not as […]