The 7 1/2 Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle – Eight Takes On A Good Time

I seem to be reading a lot of great novels by journalists recently, and if they keep turning out as well as this one did I have no plans to stop. I don’t know if I would strictly call The 7 ½ Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton a fantasy book, but I will…

The Outside – Seeing the Forest Over the Trees

I hate missing books. Sometimes they just come out during a crowded release season, or I’m feeling too burnt out to give the book its proper due. Whatever the case, there is a satisfaction you feel when you finally get to it regardless of the book's quality. However, there are those perfect moments, when your…

The Troupe And American Elsewhere – The Bennett Backlog

I recently moved from NYC to the suburbs. In preparing to depart the city, I made an effort to request a number of more hard to find books on my TBR pile that the NYPL had, but a smaller library would not have access to. Two of these books were The Troupe and American Elsewhere…

The Interdependency – Interdependent Habitats, Planetary Dependent

Alright, I am finally ready to tackle a "review" on The Interdependency trilogy by John Scalzi. As much as I’ve wanted to review these books on their own, I feel the best approach to talking about these novels is at a series level. When I tried writing about them individually, I wanted to focus on…

Ready Player Two – Let Me Out

I just wanted a scavenger hunt. I wanted another romp through Ernest Cline’s OASIS, made so popular by his mega-hit novel Ready Player One. I wanted a book that didn’t make me question what I ever saw in its predecessor. Instead, I got a disjointed series of lazy spectacles,  paper-thin characters, a dangerous love letter…

House of Leaves – A Maze of Our Own Making

I am not equipped to write this review. Honestly, I’m not sure if anyone would be. I mean maybe if I had an English degree and an understanding of western literature beyond high school, I might be more confident, but we work with what we have. My desire to read House of Leaves started a…

The Shining – Crazy, Good, Crazy Good

How does one review a book that everyone knows about already (oops)? The Shining is so pervasive that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of it. Cultural osmosis makes that a near certainty. Tack on the fact that most readers have settled firmly on one side of the Stephen King fence.…

Dune – Boring, Interesting, Amazing, In That Order

I can see the Onion headline now: “Surprise! Book Reviewer Enjoys Widely Respected Pillar Of Science Fiction Genre.” A picture of me accompanies the article. In it, I’m sitting in my reading room, holding a hefty copy of Dune aloft and smiling like a ding-dong who doesn’t know what he signed up for. The rest…