Sunday, December 31, 2023

2023 review

 (Kinda funny that I've posted more on this one day than like all year. But that's how end of year stuff is.)

ANyway. Here's the final 1 second everyday video of the year. And this time, instead of just being December... it's all of 2023. (Granted, if you've seen the other 11 months videos already, this will be old news, but.... who am I kidding? Nobody's looking at this.)


2023 1 second every day


(Apparently the video is too large to upload to Blogger. So. You got a link instead.)

And since I broke down all the others, here is the breakdown (sort of) for that video:

January

February -

March -

April -

May -

June -

July -

August -

September -

October -

November -

December - 

1 - Me at work on a Friday.

2 - We put up the tree and other decorations.

3- Holiday movie night - "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"

4- Started working on a holiday puzzle.

5- The odometer was ABOUT to flip to 88000.

6- Gingerbread house construction. (Sadly, these did not turn out, so we do not have any gingerbread houses to smash tomorrow.)

7- Went out for an afternoon walk with Ori.

8- Me. At work. On a Friday.

9- Homemade bird feeding ornaments being hung on the tree.

10- Holiday movie night - "Muppets Christmas Carol"

11- these people have WAY too many inflatables.

12- Donuts!

13- the holiday puzzle was completed on the 12th, but I didn't film it until the 13th.

14- Glittering Lights.

15- This was the dog of the day during the noon newscast. I forget his name. Max, maybe?

16- playing Santa Cookie Elf Candy Snowman

17- driving around looking at lights.

18- holiday snack taste test

19- Grabbing a soda from the Sev.

20- Universal Yums came in.

21- Solstice candlelight dinner.

22- Odometer flipped to 88888

23- holiday shopping at Target

24- making fudge

25- Opening xmas presents

26- I got a new (to me) phone!

27- Ori got a new jacket. Here she is in it on a walk.

28- Grocery shopping.

29- Me. At work. On. a. Friday.

30- Out and about on Saturday.

31- the spare change found from 2023. (Which was discussed here )


Well, we'll see what 2024 has to bring us... Have a good one!

2023's spare change

 Dang! 2023 was a good year for finding money on the ground. (Highest total to date. I've been keeping track of these since 2015.)

$8.18


(108 pennies, 13 nickels, 17 dimes, 15 quarters, 1 dollar bill, and 1 Chuck E. Cheese token)

Movies seen in 2023

 And the movies seen in the past year:


Movies seen in 2023




1. Threads - feel good movie of the year! Holy lord, people. Nuclear war SUUUUUUCKS. This British film from the 80s follows the lives (and for most of them, deaths) of several average citizens from Sheffield, England, before (and after) a nuclear exchange occurs nearby. If this movie has had ANY role to play in having made sure that we’ve managed to avoid nuclear confrontations so far, then it’s done its job.


2. Benedetta - super religious young woman joins a convent, possibly sees visions of Jesus, has a lesbian affair with another nun.


3. Adaptation. - clever.


4. Glass Onion - this was a lot of fun, just like the first Knives Out movie. Very funny, and I liked how it was like an onion itself, always peeling back another layer to the characters and their motivations.


5. American History X - hmmm. Performances all around were great, but the story itself has aged poorly, I think. Like, the views of racism were just sort of…simplistic? I’m not explaining myself very well. It felt very Oscar bait-y. Like it wanted to be a Serious Movie with Things To Say about racism, but mostly…didn’t.


6. Terrifier 2 - more slasher gore, more hints at lore. We sort of get an origin story for Art the Clown, but, not really. We know he’s got supernatural elements to him (we could sort of imply that from his difficult-to-kill aspects from part 1, but this movie definitely confirms it) and we know he can be defeated (sigh, temporarily, at least) with a magical sword. Aside from that, we get 2 hours and 20 minutes (!!!!) of slasher-flick shenanigans. It was fine for what it was, but, ay ay ay I am glad to have read that part 3 won’t be that long. (Although apparently because it’s going to have so much stuff in it, it’s probably going to be split into 3 and 4. SMH)


7. An American Werewolf in London - still one of the best werewolf transformation scenes in existence. Upon the rewatch, I was struck by how many of the deaths …aren’t really shown. I mean, sure, we see the aftermath (and I remember thinking originally and this time, that if  David had lived longer, he’d have a TON of ghosts bothering him. heh.) but most of the werewolf attacks are largely implied, rather than shown.


8. Bartleby - I could talk about this adaptation of the Herman Melville short story with Crispin Glover in the titular role…but I’d prefer not to. (It was actually decent. Nothing super great, but …decent. If you liked the short story (I did) then you’ll probably enjoy this. If you didn’t like the story, I can’t see this winning you over. If you haven’t read it…I don’t know *what* you’ll make of this, lol.)


9. ¡Three Amigos! - holds up pretty well! Not the laugh riot I remember experiencing when I watched it as a kid, but still pretty funny.


10. Halloween Ends - Well. It was better than Halloween Kills (which isn’t a hard bar to clear), but not by much. I felt like this movie had some okay concepts at its core, but that the execution wasn’t superb. Like, I get that it was trying to be a “serious” horror movie, and wanted to explore how trauma and evil affects the next generation, but it just didn’t work. Mostly because of how quickly the relationship between Michael Myers 2.0 (I forget his character’s name… Billy? No. It was Corey (i had to go look it up)) and Laurie’s granddaughter, Allison. It was FAR too rushed and unbelievable, and it felt like several pages of character/relationship development were missing. And Laurie herself felt wildly inconsistent. And, of course, the town. I think the town is probably far more fucked up than Michael ever was. Like… what the hell is going on in that town? But, whatev. It’s “over”, and we won’t have to see Michael Myers (or his protege) killing randos anymore. (Until like 6 years from now, when they reboot the franchise.)


11. Big Trouble in Little China - Egg Chen is the best. Wang is the best. Jack Burton is the best. I wish Gracie Law and Miao Yin had more to do than just be damsels in distress. Fun and weird 80s action flick.


12. Beneath the Planet of the Apes - I’d seen this before, of course, but it had been a while. It’s such a bonkers ending, I love it. (Also, kinda crazy that they made 3 more sequels after, you know, blowing up the planet.)


13. Blazing Saddles
- ehhh. I didn’t find it offensive, I just didn’t find it FUNNY, either. There’s tons of jokes, but way too many of them just fell flat. The breaking of the fourth wall bit near the end was probably the most amusing part of the whole thing.


14. Don’t Worry Darling - I mean, 1950s suburbia is ALWAYS creepy and bizarre, so, you know if that’s the setting that things are amiss. And, yeah, there’s something going on with the Victory Project where all the husbands work while their wives stay home in the perfect 50s community. This wasn’t perfect, but it was entertaining enough. I did feel like the 3rd act kinda went off the rails somewhat.


15. Angel Heart - I’d seen this when I was much younger, and didn’t recall much about it. That’s because it’s largely pretty boring, and the “twists” are predictable as hell. Harry Angel is a private detective in 1955. He gets hired by Louis Cyphere (sigh) to track down a man named Johnny Favorite that may or may not be dead. Seems Favorite signed a contract with Lou and then tried to renege on it, which doesn’t sit well with him. So, Harry is paid to track him down, which leads him to a lot of various places, including the world of voodoo magic in New Orleans.


16. Blue Ruin - a revenge tale. Dwight’s parents were murdered years ago. After it happened, he abandoned his sister and became homeless. When Wade, the man who was arrested for the murders is set free, Dwight decides to exact revenge by killing him. (Dwight is not good at planning murders, though.) Wade’s death causes *his* family to want to get revenge on Dwight. Revenge is just an escalating never-ending cycle of pain.


17. The Bling Ring - tells the true story of a group of LA teens who, using the internet as their guide, commit the victimless crime of breaking and entering into several celebrities’ unlocked and largely unguarded mansions to steal 3 million dollars worth of clothing, jewelry, materials and money. Eventually, because all criminals are stupid and don’t know when to quit, their greed and longing to have social status (ie, their bragging about it to everyone along with posting on social media) catches up with them. They’re caught and do some time. In the end, none of them (save maybe Marc) seem to show any remorse or have learned any sort of lessons from the experience.


18. Next Exit - low budget sci-fi drama about the discovery that the afterlife does exist - or at least, that some people do stick around as ghosts. A research facility in California has evidence that some individuals can remain around after they’ve died in their physical bodies. Rose and Teddy are two 20-somethings who feel they’ve both got nothing left to lose, and volunteer to become part of the study. Road trip wherein life lessons are learned ensues. Neat enough premise, and the acting was decent, but around the halfway point I started feeling a little bored with it all. Might have made for a better novel than a film, honestly.


19. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - look, Marvel, not EVERY movie needs to be nearly three hours long, ya know? This was… a Marvel flick. I just found myself losing interest in the clash of overpowered civilizations. As its own thing it was… okay. As a follow up to Black Panther, it was woefully less impactful.


20. The Death of Dick Long - Zeke, Earl, and Dick are three redneck buddies in Alabama who spend their time playing classic rock in their band and smoking weed and drinking. One night the trio end up with Dick suffering severe injuries. Zeke and Earl drop him off at the hospital, but without his ID. Unfortunately, Dick dies, leaving Earl and Zeke attempting to cover things up from their families and the cops. Not a bad little flick. Had a few twists that were completely unexpected, and while this was a dark comedy, it also largely played things serious, which I appreciated. The relationships between Zeke and his wife and daughter were all very believable, even if some of the events weren’t, if that makes sense.


21. Black Dynamite - parody/loving homage to Blacksploitation films of the 70s. I’d seen this before, and found it hilarious. Rewatched it, and, not AS funny (which is why I rarely rewatch comedies) but still had some great moments, and was pretty solid overall. Can ya dig it?


22. M3gan - absolutely no surprises in this, but still very fun and enjoyable. Pretty much Child’s Play, just updated to be an AI female-presenting doll instead of a male toy with the soul of serial killer inside it. I wouldn’t really want this to become a franchise or anything, but it was fine for a one-shot deal.


23. Missing - a sequel(ish) of Searching which somehow came out 4 years ago? Anyway, same gimmick, different characters/story. This time it’s an 18 year old young woman named June who is looking for her missing mother after she goes on a vacation with a sketchy guy she’s been dating. The whole movie is told thru June’s screens. Just put your disbelief on hold and enjoy the ride, it’s an enjoyable enough trip, even if a few of the “twists” are pretty easy to figure out.


24. The Super Mario Bros. Movie - the critics seemed to HATE this, which is baffling to me. It was absolutely enjoyable enough, and I’d even say worth the money we paid to go see it in the theater. It’s an animated movie directed toward kids, based on the Super Mario games. Tons of easter eggs, tons of Mario themed music mixed into the soundtrack, a few decent jokes… what more do you want? I had some nitpicks - I don’t think that Donkey Kong should have been included in the movie at all, just because the Donkey Kong series is (mostly) a separate thing from the Mario games, and I felt like the inclusion of the 80s songs in the montages was…strange, somehow, but overall, this was just an enjoyable family film.


25. Scream VI - This was fine. Definitely helps to have seen the ‘22 Scream (or Scream 5, as it’s unofficially known), but ..yeah. Just a slasher flick that checked all the boxes it needed to. (Do stick around til the VERY end, though. 🙂)


26. Bee Movie - how unfunny can it be? All. All the unfunny.


27. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - easily the worst ant-man movie so far. I mean, it was… okay. But the spark was gone. I know I’ve been saying something along the lines about each Marvel movie since after Endgame, but… yeah. I plan on watching Guardians 3, and then I’m just done with Marvel flicks for a bit.


28. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie - Working on watching the entire Breaking Bad universe; just finished the main series, so had to rewatch Jesse’s coda. Next, onto Better Call Saul, which is all new to me.


29. Bound - Violet is the girlfriend of a mobster named Cesar. When the opportunity to steal 2 million dollars from the mob arises, she and Corky - a woman doing maintenance work in the next door apartment - compose a plan to steal it. I saw this awesome heist flick back in the 90s, and wanted to rewatch it after being reminded of it from the Chucky series (Jennifer Tilly is a treasure.) This holds up quite well.


30. 65 - Not good. Adam Driver is a pilot from an alien civilization. He’s flying a crew of cryogenically frozen people somewhere, when the ship gets knocked off course and ends up crashing on what turns out to be Earth - sixty five million years ago. Him and a young girl are the only survivors, they have to traverse the terrain, avoiding “dinosaurs” along the way, to get to a rescue ship. Decent enough concept; horrible execution. (There were two (unintentionally?) funny moments, though - when they rescued a baby dinosaur from a tar pit, and it then instantly gets killed by a group of other predators. And when the T-rex tried to eat Adam Driver’s holographic daughter.)


31. Boulevard - Kinda average drama about a 60 year old named Nolan (played by Robin Williams in his last performance) who is married, but is a closeted gay man. His father is in a nursing home and near death, which leads him to thinking about his life, and how he needs to stop lying to himself and his wife and friends. He picks up a prostitute, and their relationship becomes the driving force of him trying to balance his true self from the life that he’s built. It was okay, with pretty decent performances, but this wasn’t really anything amazing or that we haven’t really seen before.


32. Beau is Afraid - Ari Aster directed Hereditary (which was freaking awesome and mind-blowing) and Midsommer (which was pretty awesome and had some real WTF moments). And this. Which … just no. It didn’t work for me. Like at all. It was 3 hours long, and it was just pure …fever dream surreality. Which can work. For a bit. But it was TOO much of it, and not enough… I don’t know. Normalcy? To balance it out. I allowed the entire movie to play, but it wasn’t easy to get through. It was very similar to mother! In that it was (probably) a lot of metaphor or analogy or symbolism or whatever, and maybe I just wasn’t getting it… but this movie was just flat out a bad misstep, in my opinion. I have no doubt I’ll still check out Aster’s future works, because he’s clearly very talented, but I sincerely hope he’ll not continue in this vein.


33. Emma. - Steph seemed to enjoy this adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. I …tried to stay awake throughout but did nod off a couple times. Period pieces are just NOT my jam.


34. Bubba Ho-Tep - On paper, the idea of Bruce Campbell playing a decrepit old Elvis Presley and Ossie Davis as JFK (who was dyed to look like a Black man by Them) fighting an ancient evil mummy is something wacky enough that it should work. And maybe I’m just broken inside, but, this was boring AF and didn’t produce any joy for me.


35. The Super Mario Bros. Movie - rewatched this since it’s streaming now, and Irina hadn’t seen it in the theaters with us. Still cute, but I don’t know that I’ll ever need to watch this AGAIN.


36. Better Off Dead - speaking of rewatching things. “I want my two dollars!” is of course, the thing that EVERYONE remembers from this 80s comedy. Mostly this was not nearly as funny as I remember it (ah, to be young and easily amused again), but there were a few things that brought a smile to my face: The mom’s cooking, the students in the math class all being rapt with attention, and “Gee, Ricky, I’m sorry your mom blew up.”


37. Triangle - quite good! Probably best to go into this as blind as possible. Just know that it’s a bit of a mashup of horror, scifi, and thriller. It’s a little bit low-budget, and the acting (especially at first) was a little iffy (as are some of the effects) but this was one trippy movie that I really enjoyed. Quick overview, without spoiling anything - Jess is a mother of an autistic child. She gets invited to go on a yacht by a guy who is interested in her. Also on board are a handful of his friends. While out sailing, a storm approaches out of nowhere, leaving their boat capsized. A cruise ship soon arrives to help rescue them, but getting on that boat is NOT a good decision…


38. Renfield - Extremely bloody and also very funny horror comedy about Dracula’s familiar, Renfield, set in the modern day. Dracula is played by Nic Cage, who hams it up as you’d expect him to. After witnessing a cop (played by Awkwafina) stand up to a local drug/mob boss, Renfield decides he’s had enough of Drac’s humiliation and wants out of his toxic relationship. This was dumb, but entertainingly so.


39. Blood Punch - this was VERY difficult to get into, but if you stick with it for the first 45 minutes or so, it FINALLY kicks into gear and …while not exactly ENJOYABLE, it’s ..tolerable for the rest of the ride. It’s a low budget horror “comedy” (there were a couple of smile-inducing moments but nothing laugh out loud funny) about a trio of despicable characters caught in a time loop out in a isolated cabin in the woods. Lots of deaths, lots of swearing, lots of betrayal. I think there’s a true gem of a movie in this, but it’s buried pretty freaking deep to get to it.


40. The Blackening - horror comedy that was about a group of Black friends who go to a cabin in the woods only to be terrorized by a serial killer. Very meta and very funny. Even had a few moments of real dread! It was very much in the vein of Bodies Bodies Bodies in that it was a group of Gen Zers dealing with a killer, but I liked (most of) the characters more in this, and I think the jokes were better. Overall, a pretty good flick.


41. City Lights - A silent movie starring Charlie Chaplin. This was great! I laughed a few times, and I was entertained throughout. I didn’t cry at the end, but I got awfully close. So glad that I checked this out. Chaplin stars as a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower girl, and befriends a drunk, eccentric millionaire. Hijinks ensue. 🙂


42. Clash of the Titans - cheesy stop motion goodness! I’d seen this dozens of times as a kid, of course, but decided it was time for a rewatch. Holds up surprisingly well. I mean, it is, as I said, cheesy as hell, but it was never down-right AWFUL. (The Bebo Owl character was far more eye-roll-y than when I was a kid, though. Heh. Can’t stop the progression of Cranky Old Man.)


43. Clash of the Titans - decided to check out the 2010 remake. I went in with super low expectations, and as a result, enjoyed it slightly more than I thought I would! It had that 2010 feel and look to it (hard to explain, but if you know it, you know it) but for what it was, it wasn’t all bad. I think getting Liam Nesson to play Zeus helped elevate this a bit. And the CGI while suffering from the ‘video game’ syndrome that so many action movies suffer from, was actually pretty decent, and the action sequences were mostly interesting enough to keep me paying attention throughout.


44. Five Nights at Freddy’s - movie adaptation of the popular video game series. I’ve never played the games, but Silas, of course, has, and he enjoyed this quite a bit. Being only moderately familiar with the source material, I found it… okay? It wasn’t scary as a horror movie, and it felt like a lot of the “character development” bits were …generic and kinda dull, but I’ve ABSOLUTELY seen worse movies. Would I recommend this? Eh… not really unless you’re a FNAF fan - in which case you were probably going to see it already.


45. Contact - rewatch. It’s maybe a little long, and bits of it haven’t aged super well, but a lot of this holds up quite well. The first Machine launch was intense, and Ellie’s journey - all of it - is just a great climax to this movie.


46. Cobweb - Peter is a young boy with parents who seem loving, but… appearances can be deceiving. (The first clue should have been that his father is freaking Homelander, lol. - actually, Antony Starr is a great actor who has a lot of charisma, although playing ANOTHER psychopath hiding behind a veneer of niceness may lead him to being typecast) Anyway, Peter’s parents are EXTERMELY abusive and cruel - I know “trigger warnings” are sometimes thrown around as punchlines nowadays, but, eesh. If you have any sort of past trauma with regard to child abuse, just be careful with this one. The crazy thing about this movie is that there’s layers of evil. There’s the bullies at Peter’s school, and there’s his parents, and there’s …something else in the house. This movie was by no means a GREAT one, but it DID keep me enthralled and tense for 90 minutes, so job well done in that regard.


47. Shazam: Fury of the Gods - Well, this was a sequel. There were some entertaining nuggets through it, but not really enough to make it an *enjoyable* movie. (And it seriously didn’t need to be as long as it was. Good lord.)


48. Con Air  - It's a  90s Nic Cage action comedy. You're either on board with that sort of thing or you're not.


49. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- “Down the hall and to the left.”


50. Dead Alive - Bloody hell! (heh.) This is a bonkers zombie movie that leans HEAVY on the gore. I suspect that wahtever this film’s budge was, 90% of it went to fake blood and makeup. None of it is really *funny*, but there were moments that were slightly amusing. (The baby in the park scene was mostly pretty predictable/eye rolly, but did make me chuckle nonetheless).


51. The Muppets Christmas Carol - I fell asleep during this, because I’m old and tired. But the parts that I was awake for were enjoyable, of course.


52. John Wick Chapter 4 - I’d honestly be REALLY happy with this ending the series. The law of diminishing returns is hitting hard, yo, and it would be nice to just put a bow on it and call it a day.


53. Dark Places - despite some decent acting from Christina Hendricks, Charlize Theron, and Chloe Grace Moretz, this was a very average and forgettable thriller about a young girl whose mom and two sisters were murdered back in the 80s. Her older brother took the blame, and 25 years later, she begins to realize there may have been more to that night than she knew. It’s based on a book by Gillian Flynn, so it’s probably a better read than a movie. I mean, it wasn’t BAD, just nothing that made it stand out.


54. Dead End - Ray Wise is the only good thing in this low budget horror movie about an obnoxious family on the way to Christmas dinner who take a short cut into a supernaturally weird section of woods. And even he isn’t really enough to make it worth the time. Not recommended.


55. The Flash - not sure if I should actually count this, as I fell asleep during large sections of it, but whatever. The cameos would have probably made me like this more, if I hadn’t been spoiled for them. I think this truly and finally and once and for all has put a nail in the coffin of superhero movies for me. I just don’t care about them anymore. Or, rather, I’m not able to get enjoyment from them anymore. It’s going to have to be something TRULY unique to get me to pay attention to any hero movies moving forward.


56. Plane - more like Plain, amiright?

57. The Day After - essentially, this was the American-remake of Threads. This movie follows average citizens in and around Kansas City after a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia results in several bombs being detonated. This one had Jason Robards, Steve Guttenberg, and John Lithgow in it! But, pretty much the same beats as Threads had - bombs go off, people who die instantly are the lucky ones. The survivors have to deal with a shit-sack world of radiation poisoning, starvation, violence and disease. Good times!!

Books read in 2023.

 Well, we somehow got to the end of another year, which means time to post the books and movies that I consumed this year. First up, the books, and as always, the final sentence of the book will be in parenthesis at the end, with all but the final word blanked out:




Books read in 2023


1. Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley - Quite an eye-opener. This book made me angry, made me sad, made me look at my life and the society we live in in a whole new way. This was basically outlining how, in American culture at least, so much of the emotional labor of day to day living falls on women to take care of. Keeping track of where everything goes in the house, who has birthdays coming up, what to buy for these birthdays… The list and the work is endless, invisible, and largely taken for granted. And, Hartley makes an argument that it’s societal. That this is all learned behavior that can therefore be changed. Doing so is not easy - since reading this, I know that I’ve struggled to be better at noticing the emotional labor I’m throwing Steph’s way, and just trying to be better at doing my share of it. It’s a difficult change to make, but it’s one I’m working on. (We will draw a line in history: the generational divide starts here.)


2. Curse of the Reaper by Brian McAuley - Howard Browning played “The Reaper” throughout the 80s in all of the Reaper movies. Those were your typical slasher horror movies that take a good deal of inspiration from the NIghtmare on ELm Street series. (Although the Reaper films got INCREDIBLY heavy with the one liners in the later films. Like, holy cow, bad.) He’s been retired from acting since the last film - VIII: Moon Reaper - was put out 15 years ago. He still hits horror conventions, but, his better days are behind him. Then, the studio that owns the rights decides they’re going to reboot the franchise. Except, they want to recast the Reaper with Trevor Mane - a 20-something former child actor, who has been in and out of rehab a few times. Howard is conflicted with this bit of news - he’s somewhat relieved to hang up the Reaper’s chains - but then…he begins to hear the Reaper (the actual character) talking to him, telling him he needs to take the role… Is Howard suffering from dementia, or is something supernatural afoot?

This was …decent. It was a bit of a slow burn until the last 100 pages or so, and then it just accelerated til the end. It felt a lot like a novelization of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (where the character of Freddy Krueger has a life of its own, affecting the actors in real life) and the ending was pretty much visible a mile away, but it wasn’t bad. (The rusty chain began to clank… clank… CLANK.)


3.What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe - the author of the awesome webcomic xkcd also has a blog wherein he answers ridiculous scenarios (what if Japan just left the planet, what if all the rain turned into lemondrops and gumdrops, how long would it take to read every law) in a manner that takes the question seriously, and yet is also pretty humorous. (Hasn’t there been enough destruction!?)


4. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder - All the emotional labor, complexity, frustration, joy, annoyance, boredom, love, rage, and power of motherhood causes an unnamed young artist turned stay-at-home mom to transform into a dog. This was surreal and avant garde and compelling. It’s also somewhat interesting that this would come into my awareness so soon after reading the book on emotional labor. Large sections of this novel seemed like they were lifted almost verbatim from that book. This is not a complaint. If anything, it made the realization of what the mother was going through more understandable and impactful. As a man, there is no way that I can truly understand what motherhood is like, of course, but this maybe gave me a glimpse into getting a bit of that insight, perhaps.(Here was a woman who now knew that life unfolded through mystery and metaphor, without explanation, who looked upon her perfect son in front of her, a person she had made with her strongest magic, standing right there in a blinding spotlight as if he weren’t a miracle, as if he weren’t the most impossible thing in the world.)


5. The Quiet Boy by Ben H. Winters - I’ve read a few other things by Ben Winters that I’ve really enjoyed, and so when I saw that this book had come out recently, I gave it a shot. It was also quite good! It focused on a lawyer, Jay Shenk, who specializes in malpractice suits (he has a rather shady operation set up where he gets tips from people working at hospitals to give him the heads up on possible clients). Jay is a great character, who comes across equal parts sleazeball, and honest-to-goodness caring dude. He takes on the Keener family, after their teenage son. Wes, suffers a head injury, is operated on, and winds up in a vegetable-like state that is baffling the medical community. That took place in 2009. The novel flips back and forth between then and 2019, when Wes’s father has been arrested for murdering one of the witnesses that testified at the trial. This was a great novel that had a lot of enjoyable and very real feeling characters. (Thank you.)


6. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin - a YA book that felt like it COULD have been interesting and well done, but sadly fell very short of that potential. Liz is 15 when she gets struck by a taxi in a hit and run, and dies. The afterlife is what makes up the majority of the novel, and those, honestly, were the parts I wanted to know more about. Liz herself is largely unlikable, and most of the characters she interacts with - her grandmother, Betty; a dead celebrity from her favorite band, Curtis; the first person she meets in the afterlife, Thandi; her eventual (SIGH) love interest, Owen - are all rather blah as well. In Elsewhere, it turns out you age backwards, until you become a newborn again, at which point you return to live out life on earth all over again (as someone new, obviously). Neat idea, although the math of this feels like it’s extremely unlikely. Liz spends the majority of the novel bitching about having missed out on what the rest of her life would have been like, and not enjoying her ‘death’. Personally, I wanted to know MORE about the rules of this afterlife. How did people figure this out? Why are there buildings and cars and roads? What are they made out of? How does the Observation Deck (that allows people in Elsewhere to view people back on earth for five minutes at a time… for the cost of a coin called Eternium…) work? Why is there a whole currency system in the afterlife? Since you can’t die in Elsewhere… but there are ‘laws’ - what happens if some psychopath starts (attempting) to murder people? Do they have jails and they just keep the person there until they’ve de-aged to go back? The people of Elsewhere have to eat, but why? And is all the food vegetarian? (In the Thanksgiving scene in the book, none of the food mentioned was meat based) Diving deeper into ANY of these questions would have made for a far more interesting book than what we got. Instead, we got a whiny 15 year old obsessed with her breast size who spies on her family and is a shitty friend. Blah. (And in response, this baby, who is Liz and not Liz at the same time, laughs.)


7. Emily Eternal by M.G. Wheaton - Well that was fun! A rollercoaster of a speculative/ scifi/ action/ road trip/ romance romp. Emily is an AC (Artificial Consciousness, which is different than an AI. Sort of.) who has been designed by a team of engineers and software geeks to basically be a therapist to assist with trauma. By having a computer chip attached to your body, Emily is able to interact with your thoughts and help you well.. Be better. You know, like a therapist. But… just a computer program instead of a flesh and blood human being. This ALONE would be enough to constitute an interesting novel, but there’s more going on, because, it turns out that the sun is going to expand its size large enough to end all life on earth - something we’ve known for a while. But, well, the timetable we had was off by a few million years, and instead, the world is going to end in several months instead. Fortunately, the government has some ideas on how Emily’s abilities may be able to offer a solution to humanity’s problem. UNfortunately, not everyone thinks this plan is the best way forward, and those people are willing to use violence to get their point across. This kept me engaged with the world building, the ideas, the plot twists, the action and humor, and Emily as a character through …well, most of it. The final …thirty-ish pages or so felt a bit rushed. But overall this was absolutely a blast. This is apparently this guy’s first book, if he writes anything else in the future, I’ll check it out. (Be well.)


8. Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong - Reed is a 3rd generation Korean-American millennial who, like his parents before him, is heavily into activism and fighting for progressive ideals. There’s not much plot to this novel, it’s much more a character study of Reed and his family and friends, as he argues philosophical ideas and political motivations with EVERYONE he interacts with. It’s quite exhausting, actually, even if I agree with most of his points of view. I got to the point very early on when I was like, “dude. Not EVERYTHING needs to be a Rage Against the Man.” His parents try to get this through his head, with limited success. As he eventually learns this lesson, it seems like there may be hope for him yet. The world may not have been changed by his actions, but perhaps HE was. (My son.)


9. Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show - A collection of essays that were all written shortly after Buffy wrapped up its 7 season run…jesus, 20 years ago? Anyway, while I absolutely LOVED Buffy back in the day, it …hasn’t aged as well as it possibly could have. Normally with a collection like this, I would discuss each essay, but I don’t even have the muster to do that. Most of these were meh or downright awful, and even the few that were somewhat intriguing were…you know, about a 20 year old tv show. And, of course, the Joss-worship was rather thick still, since these were written when the show was still on/wrapping up, and his true nature wasn’t widely known, so, that certainly doesn’t help any. I mean, the dedication is to Joss, for his “kindness, dedication and seven seasons of Buffy”. So, yeah, sour note right off the bat. Anyway, I think this should officially close the book on my love affair with that show. It was great when it was great, but its time is over. Oh, and okay, final sentence - and it’s a long one - from the final essay: (I posit that the finale Joss Whedon provided does unleash a surge of positive energy that empowers the forces of good, at the same time concluding the final arc of the show, thus providing a sense of closure to that dynamic thread; and additionally circling backward -- or perhaps spiraling upward-- to promises of the journey laid out in the premiere, seven seasons previous exploiting the mythic structure of the Hero’s Journey to create an extremely satisfying, balanced end.)

10. Zer0es by Chuck Wendig - I had enjoyed Chuck’s novel “Wanderers” that I read last year, and saw he had another action/sci-fi book he’d written that sounded interesting. Zer0es was about a group of hackers from various walks of life who are all arrested by the government and brought to a secret location to put their hacking skills to work for Uncle Sam. The 5 heroes of course bristle with one another (as well as several of the other hackers already at The Lodge, as well as the guards) but eventually uncover a world-threatening conspiracy called Typhoon that they must band together to overcome. I WANTED to like this, but it took far too long getting to the actual meat and potatoes of the story. And once it was revealed, it was …a bit ridiculous. Typhoon was a very sci-fi enemy, and if it had even a fraction of the ability that it was described to have had, it would have truly been unstoppable. Plus, I …kinda didn’t care about any of the Zer0es. Chance - the presumed hero of the bunch - was just a punching bag (the amount of beatings the kid took were astronomical). Wade was the “old guy” who might have been interesting if he wasn’t so Qanon-adjacent (this was written long before Qanon existed, but the seeds were certainly present in Wade’s character). Aleena was the Muslim anti-hero and love interest for Chance (sigh). Reagan was the “troll” with - of course- an actual heart of gold. And DeAndre was the “black guy” that was maybe just barely better than a racist caricature of African Americans. Anyway, these 5 all have their various quibbles and quirks and sadsack stories, but i didn’t feel anything toward any of them. There’s a sequel apparently, and I glanced at goodreads to see if it sounded decent enough to check out (it doesn’t, really). Apparently it doesn’t even focus on any of the Zer0es, so I guess Chuck didn’t feel anything for the characters either… (And he wonders: What next?)


11. Children of the New World by Alexander Wienstein - collection of short stories, most of which were set in the near future, or in a slightly-alternate world to ours, and focused on societies that had changed (or were changing) because of the blurring of reality-reality and virtual reality. Some of these were pretty good - all of them were easily readable, but the majority of them felt very… 2005? I don’t know a better way to explain it. Just sort of like… a bit naive in how the future will really roll out, maybe? Eh. Whatever. They were mostly fine, and it was all a pretty quick read, so I'm not mad I read it, but I don’t know that I’ll keep this writer in mind and seek out anything else he’s written. Stories:
Saying Goodbye to Yang - This is the story that lead to that movie I watched last year with Colin Firth… It’s about an android that gets broken, and the family can’t really afford to fix it, and how they have to deal with losing a “family member”. (“Wow, that’s amazing,” Kyra says, and I stand next to her, looking at the flowers George sent, acknowledging how little I truly know about this world.)


The Cartographers - Heh. I’m writing these descriptions about a week after I read the book, and I have NO IDEA what this one was about. I have a feeling that will be the case with most of them… I’m going to peruse Goodreads to read reviews to help spur my memory. Okay, this was about a group of people who make fake memories for people, which is a pretty intriguing idea, and I bet a TV series done now might go some places with that. (*quietly sweeps Dollhouse under the rug of the past*). But, obviously, the story itself didn’t resonate with me, if I had to go look it up. Ah well.(I tell her I can still remember her skin against mine as we slept, the light in her eyes when I’d open my apartment door for her, and the sound of her voice, telling me, over and over, just how much she loved me.)


Heartland - Set in a time/place where pretty much everyone has no job and or no money. A father is in a dissolving marriage, and drinks to escape it all. While at the bar with his bros, one of them casually mentions that child porn (or, child porn-related, in this instance just photos of his young kids without their shirts on) could earn him some very easy money. He is outraged at the idea and rejects it. The idea is there, though, tempting him. (In this story, when the father goes into his son’s room to make sure he’s sleeping, he kisses the small boy on his forehead and tucks the blankets up beneath his son’s chin, never considering, not even for a moment, tolling the blankets down past the boy’s small chest, which rises and falls with every breath, where deep inside there’s a heart that loves his father and trust he will protect him against the monsters of this world.)


Excerpts from The New World Authorized Dictionary - Meh. This was a gimmicky story that …wasn’t really a story. Felt more like a bunch of tweets of fake dictionary definitions to help world build a society. (Despite the rising toll of WMDMA-related deaths, Bausch & Cartz Pharmaceuticals believes the increase of amphetamine-based drugs reveals a vital need for stronger FDA-approved ADHD medication for preteens and young adults.)


Moksha - Enlightenment is obtainable through a combination of technology and spiritualism. It is quickly outlawed in the US. White guy travels to …India, I think? …to track it down, and quickly becomes addicted to it. (The water, it turned out, was freezing.)


Children of the New World - An older couple become addicted to living virtual lives. While there, they have lots of online cyber sex which results in them creating virtual children. This is all well and good until there are viruses and their system needs to be rebooted, which will result in the loss of their kids. (There’s nothing electronic about the gesture, no hum to the body, only the warmth of their breathing and the beating of their hearts.)


Fall Line - In this world, people are able to live vicariously thru VR recordings of others. A professional skier got into a career-ending accident, and is trying to carry on with his life at a ski-resort. I liked this one quite a bit. (Then I lower my goggles, letting my skis slide into unbroken snow, and lean into the fall line opening beneath me.)


A Brief History of the Failed Revolution
- another gimmicky story, where the plot was told through scientific mumbo jumbo. No thanks. (Ideas, hypotheses, and arguments are the only assurance the individual still has of buying power in the marketplace of consciousness.)


Migration - A couple’s teenage son is rebelling against having to be inside and online all the time. He just wants to be physically active outside. This was another good one. (So, instead, I put my arm around him, and we stand together in the falling snow, watching the deer return to their migration.)


The Pyramid and the Ass - Not sure if this was a parody or just read like one. Reincarnation is real in this world, and as a result a lot of the world has lulled into a sense of static. The president, for example, is “George Bush 9th incarnation”. (See what I mean about 2005?) Anyway, while the majority of the world is obsessed with asses, there appears to be some sort of rebellion network going on, and the protagonist is (unknowingly) part of it. This was weird, but also felt like it was the lead up to a much longer (and possibly better?) story. (In the darkness of his logged-off mind, she whispered, “I’m just glad you’re home.”)


Rocket Night - Take Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and make it all about the most picked on child in an elementary class. This was dark, but, really only because, you know. “The Lottery” is dark. (I imagined them drifting alone up there, speaking into their microphones, reporting to themselves about the depths of the unknown.)


Openness - Would being able to know EXACTLY what someone else is thinking be a good thing for your relationships? Turns out, no. No it is not.(And I’d thought I was.)


Ice Age - Snow and ice have covered most of suburbia. One neighbor has hired a bunch of people to help him burn the glaciers away to get back to all the STUFF that is still down there. This does not please the rest of the neighborhood, and a coup is planned. An okay idea, that didn’t quite feel fleshed out enough. (And there will be no blood tonight, no bodies, and no murder among us - just this sled full of pawned goods, and drunken men, spoiling what was once our community.)


12. The Vanishing by Wendy Webb - Julia’s husband had a Ponzi scheme going on. Once discovered, he killed himself, leaving Julia on the hook legally, as well as facing the anger of all the victims. Then, Adrian shows up at her door and offers her a job of going to his mansion (Havenwood) to help care for his elderly mother. She takes him up on this - fucking ridiculous offer and moves into Havenwood, only to discover that there is lots of secrets and possibly supernatural events there. This book sucked ass. It was poorly written, and filled with characters who didn’t act or speak like real humans would in the situations they were in. It was supposed to have been a Gothic novel, but was just…dumb. I’m irritated that I read the whole thing. (And that was all I really needed to know.)


13. One By One by Ruth Ware - A music app called “Snoop” - which allows you to listen along with whomever you’re following - was created by a group of Millennials. Their company goes to a ski resort but an avalanche causes them to be cut off from civilization. Unfortunately, the company was going to be bought out, causing some of the employees to have motive for murder. This was an okay thriller that was rather forgettable, but I didn’t fully hate it. Steph read some other book by this author that she despised, but I felt like this was decent. (Followers: 1)


14. Two Dead by Van Jensen - This graphic novel about a soldier shortly after WWII who becomes a cop in New Orleans investigating a corrupt police chief had all the elements of being amazing - the artwork, the story, the characters - but… somehow it just didn’t all gel for me. Like, it had a lot to say about PTSD and grief and violence and race, and the characters were all well developed and felt real, but it still took me weeks to get through and now that I’m done with it, I don’t feel like any of it really impacted me, sadly. (There’s a fourth path.)


15. Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents -- and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge - Love me some generation stuff. The author looked at MOUNTAINS of data from the past 60 years or so to lay out generational differences. Her theory is that cultural changes over the years are due in large part to the technology that is introduced when people are coming of age. This explains why Millennials, Gen Zers and the next generation (she dubs them Polars, which I like a lot better than “Generation Alpha”, which is the other term I’ve heard banded about. I hope Polars catches on, but knowing media …it most likely won’t.) Anyway, smartphones and social media are a big part of why the younger gens are …the way they are. Anxious, depressed, needing ‘safe spaces’ and big on cancel culture. Just as the advent of the internet played a key role in developing how Gen Xers and Millennials are: more individualistic and open to other viewpoints than the Boomers and Silents were. Technology shapes the culture, making us adopt a “slow life” way of life - children are coddled, waiting longer to move out or get married. Gah. I’m not explaining it very well at all, but it was interesting to read about this idea of how each generation is impacted by technology. And she had tons of graphs and data to back up her theories, so, it seems pretty reasonable to me. It was 500 pages, but it flew by. Very readable, and certainly gave me a different outlook on how and why society is how it currently is. One thing I noticed she did NOT mention in the book at all was the onset of AI. Guess we’ll see how that shakes things up in the coming years, and maybe she’ll write another book in a handful of years that revisits the upcoming Polars once they’ve started to enter the narrative a bit more. Either way, I recommend this book, if you’re interested in the social sciences at all. Good stuff. (The more we understand the perspective of different generations, the easier it is to see we’re all in this together.)


16. Wayward by Chuck Wendig - Sequel to Wanderers. People call things “post-apocalyptic” all the time, but usually the stories are pre- or during-apocalyptic. THIS was ACTUALLY set AFTER the apocalypse, showing how the survivors… survived. It was 800-ish pages, but even so, for most of the story, I didn’t want it to end. The ending did seem… somewhat rushed, though. I mean, I guess it all had to wrap up SOMEHOW, and the way things concluded was satisfactory enough. I think I was expecting that this might be a middle book, and that there would be a trilogy coming, and there still may be, but I think that the series is probably finished. Either way, it was a great ride. (It casts no shadow upon them.)


17. Paradise-1 by David Wellington - I like David Wellington’s stuff (except for the Chimera books, never could get into those) and figured a space-horror epic like this might be worth checking out.

Basic plot: Alexandra Petrov is a member of Firewatch (ie space cops). She defies an order, and gets sent out to Paradise-1, which is a colony that her mother (the former head of Firewatch) has retired to. Also on the ship going to Paradise-1 are:

the pilot, Sam - whom Alexandra has a romantic history with.

the doctor, Zhang (who has a medically attached bracelet that helps keep him stable, since he would otherwise have severe PTSD from his time on another colony that saw an outbreak of a mysterious disease)

the ship’s AI, Acteaon.

And the ship’s robot servant, Rapscallion.

Unfortunately, there’s a conspiracy in Firewatch that is hiding the truth about Paradise-1. Every ship that has gone there has become infected with …something. And as soon as our protagonists emerge from hyperspace, the ship is attacked and Acteaon begins malfunctioning to the point of uselessness. Things get worse.

This was 677 pages long and it SO did not need to be. It flew by for the first 3 or 4 hundred pages, and …then it kinda started getting repetitive. And just a heads up - this is the first in an intended SERIES, so there is no real conclusion to the story. So ultimately we’ve got almost 700 pages of SET-UP. Ay ay ay. Still, there were definitely unique elements to it - I liked the fact that Rapscallion could print his body into different forms and spread his consciousness out amongst them. And Dr. Zhang was a very interesting character, once we learned his backstory. Alexandra …not so much. She’s kinda bland, unfortunately. I think if this had been tightened up and shed a couple hundred pages, it would have made it a LOT more easy to swallow, and I’d be more excited about the prospect of a follow up book. As it is…I’ll read the sequel, at some point, I’m sure. (The tone of his voice was changing, changing from a question to a scream.)


18. Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt - YA novel about the four Tillerman children - Dicey (13), James (12, I think), Maybeth (9) and Sammy (6) traveling the countryside after their mother abandons them in the mall parking lot. Dicey (and all of the kids, really) is an amazing kid, and one of my favorite characters I’ve discovered recently. This is a series - there’s about five other books that follow the Tillermans, apparently - and I will more than likely dig into it at some point in the future… Although maybe not. It was kinda nice being able to leave them where they ended up, with a semi-uncertain, but relatively happy ending. And, I mean, as long as they are together, they can get through anything. What a great family those kids are. I don’t have a whole lot else to say about it, I just enjoyed the time I got to spend with them. (“Ready,” she said.)


19. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell - nonfiction book about going to various museums and sight seeing locations dedicated to the assassinations of U.S. Presidents. Vowell’s writing is funny, and the facts she lays out are interesting and wild. Of course, writing about this weeks after having read it is a mistake, as i’ve forgotten…pretty much all of it. But I liked the book while I was reading it. Just wish I retained more of it. (They shot him too.)


20. The Drift by C.J. Tudor - Started strong, lost interest about ½ way thru, though. And when I lost interest, I lost interest HARD. The first part was intriguing; but once a certain twist that I had suspected was revealed to be the case (not that hard to figure out, really - basically that the three narratives aren’t all happening at the same time) it just became …not as interesting? Anyway, plot - a pandemic has hit the world, and the virus does kill you, but it can also leave you as a ranting raving lunatic suffering in pain. These are known as Whistlers (due to the way it makes your breathing whistle) and they’re essentially zombies - even though they’re, you know, just people suffering from a really crappy cold. There’s a retreat that supposedly is looking for a cure and people can volunteer to go there to be studied. Two groups on their way there - one of them in a ski lift, one of them in a bus - are sorta the same sort of tale: In the ski lift, the passengers all awaken after having been drugged, and they don’t know HOW they got on the ski lift. On the bus, the passengers all knew they were on the way to the retreat, but the bus had just recently crashed, leaving them with injuries and dead passengers to contend with. And the third POV is from the folks in the retreat, who are suffering from various degrees of cabin fever, and a security system that is threatening to break down. I don’t know that this is recommendable, because in the end I didn't really care much about …really ANY of the characters, or their fates. I still enjoyed the first bit enough that if I see anything in the future from this writer, I’ll POSSIBLY check it out, but it will have to be a truly compelling idea for me to commit. (She was a survivor.)


21. Post-Apocalypto by Tenacious D - Super dumb and juvenile (so many dick jokes (and drawings)) but …sorta charming, in its own way. Tenacious D, the band that consists of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, made a graphic novel about the world ending in nuclear holocaust, and their adventures after that. It includes women cults, Terminators from the future with female genitalia, three headed dogs and Donald Trump Jr, among other things. It’s all immensely stupid, but I did laugh out loud a couple times, so gotta give ‘em props for that. Apparently there’s an animated movie (on Youtube, supposedly, but i haven’t gone looking) so you can listen/watch along with the songs that are peppered throughout. Doing that probably enhances the experience somewhat, but I was fine with the 30 minutes or so it took me to read through this. (So long as the D still has a recording contract with Sony Records, the world will survive.)


22. Everything is Fine Volume 1 by Mike Birchall - Creepy graphic novel about a community where everyone is forced to suppress …something from the past. They live in a community that is highly surveilled, and extremely paranoid and artificial. Also, all of the characters have giant cute cat heads, which causes a bit of cognitive dissonance. This didn’t *solve* any of the mysteries that it introduced, but I *am* intrigued enough that I’ll keep checking this out. (We need to talk.)


23. The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay - A “memoir” (novel) with a sprinkling of supernatural events throughout. Art Barbara (not his real name) starts off his memoir recounting his final year of high school, where, to beef up his college resume, he decides he needs some extracurricular activities. Since he’s got severe scoliosis (and leans more toward the ‘nerd’ crowd than the ‘jock’ side anyway) he creates the “Pallbearers Club” - he (and a few other classmates) volunteer to perform pallbearer duties at funerals of people who didn’t have enough friends or loved ones to fill those themselves. It’s through the club that he meets Mercy Brown, who is super cool and extremely punk. She takes photos of the corpses with her Polaroid camera (looking for “proof”) ,and introduces Art to Husker Du, and might possibly be a centuries-old vampire.

Mercy has obtained a copy of Art’s memoir (novel), and throughout the writing, has left her notes and commentary. She often contradicts Art’s telling of things, which casts him as an unreliable narrator, which is always fun.
The second half of the novel is set 20 years after Art had graduated, and he’s now in his early 40s, and life hasn’t been exactly great for him. He and Mercy grew apart, but he still thinks of her often. He’s been in multiple bands, but none have ever really lasted long or given him success or happiness. He’s become addicted to alcohol and pain medication (for his back). When he finally re-crosses paths with Mercy, he begins to suspect that she really IS a vampire, and his focus becomes on proving that.

Art was sometimes a bit difficult to tolerate - he’s verbose and has a tendency to be kinda mopey and over philosophical. Mercy’s ‘notes’ throughout were often a highlight, although I could see how they might irk people, too. Interestingly, I felt like the book should have ended with Art’s final section instead of how it did, with a final commentary from Mercy. But, I think overall it was still an interesting read, and a unique take on both the fictional memoir AND on vampire stories. (Salut.)


24. Holly by Stephen King - Latest Stephen King mystery novel. I zipped through it in two and a half days, because, you know, Stephen King is immensely read-able. This was that. Probably mostly forgettable, overall, but engrossing for the weekend that I was in it. Oh, yeah, this was set (at least partially) in 2021, so it was VERY Covid related. The online world, of course, has reacted predictably to that. (How can I help?)


25. Docile by K.M. Szpara - A scifi(ish) novel set in a world where basically indentured servitude was legalized. Millionaires can (and do) buy human servants referred to as Dociles. Most Dociles prefer to choose to have the experience of being a slave numbed by using a drug called Dociline that causes the user to be put into a state of forgetfulness and happy compliance. Elisha is a 21 year old who lives in the country, and whose mother was previously a Docile. The effects of her time on Dociline never wore off, however. He opts to become a Docile, but refuses the drug. Unfortunately, his Patron is Alex Bishop the Third. The Bishops are the family that created Dociline.

This novel had a lot of intricate world building that was probably the strongest thing it had going for it. It also had a handful of gay sex scenes that didn’t do much for me, but were fine for those who want that sort of thing, I suppose. I think the novel probably could have been better if it had been a hundred pages shorter. By around page 300 or so, I was starting to lose interest in the world and wanting things to be wrapped up, by the time I got to the happy(ish) ending at page 492, I was just ready to move on completely. Like I said, the world building was what kept me going, the characters were …okay, but some of the actions of certain characters seemed… odd? Without going into spoilers, I’ll just say that the way some members of Elisha’s family acted during his first visit home were …confusing. Or, I guess, extreme is probably a better word choice. But, whatever. It was a decent novel, definitely outside of my typical wheelhouse. (Together)


26. Babyteeth: Year One by Donny Coates - Graphic novel about 16 year old Sadie, who has just given birth to …the Anti-Christ. A religious group tracks these sorts of things, and sends assassins to eliminate the threat. ANOTHER group wants to ensure that the child survives to fulfill his destiny. Violence, racoon-demons, and hijinks ensue. The artwork is mostly meh, but the storyline - while not doing anything groundbreaking or new - is compelling enough to keep me interested. For now. (You can do this.)


27. Babyteeth: Year Two: Cradle and Grave by Donny Coates - While book one was (somewhat) grounded in reality, book two just went full in on the ridiculous fantasy aspect. The majority of it was set in a hell dimension (or maybe on earth that was post apocalyptic? It’s not clear, really) and there was a LOT of exposition. The artwork got WORSE as the book progressed, and it felt like whatever drive for the project may have existed in the beginning definitely fizzled out. I will give them props for actually wrapping it up instead of dragging the series on for years and years like so many graphic novels seem to do. Just… a pity that it wasn’t more of an exciting final product.(That…seems like such a long time ago.)


28. The Last of Us: American Dreams by Neil Druckmann - graphic novel tie-in to the video game (which I’ve never played; but I dug the HBO tv show ALSO based on the video game). I think having seen the HBO show helped me like this more, if I had been unfamiliar with that, I don’t know that this would have resonated with me at all. As it was, this was a bit like seeing some of the show in graphic novel form. And in that vein, it worked perfectly fine. This was short, and didn’t REALLY expand the world much, but I liked the cartoony type artwork, and it was nice to spend some time with Ellie (and Riley and the Fireflies) even if the world they reside in is a crapsack one. (I’ll see you tomorrow.)


29. The Book of M by Peng Shepherd - people all over the world begin to lose their shadows. Once you lose your shadow, eventually you begin to lose your memories as well. And once you lose your memories of how something is, you can misremember it…and that then becomes reality for everyone else. This magic ability to reshape reality is terrifying to the entire world, and especially for those who still have their shadows. Ory and Max are a couple who were attending a wedding for their friends, Paul and Immanuel, when pretty much the entire city they were in loses their shadow at the same time. All of the guests at the wedding at first stay hunkered in the hotel while the world dissolves into chaos and anarchy around them. Eventually, people begin to leave, until it’s just Max and Ory remaining at the Elk Ridge. The book actually begins with the two of them living in the hotel, scavenging, occasionally making their way into town to get supplies, when Max loses her shadow. Terrified that she will lose her memory of Ory - and reshape him in the process - Max decides to leave and hopes that Ory won’t try to follow her. Of course, he does attempt to find her. But making your way through this new magic-infested America is not nearly as simple as it was. For either shadowed or shadowless. This was an epic post-apocalyptic romance sci-fi fantasy story that was great, and surprisingly emotional. Some of the magic bits were hard to follow/understand at times, but overall, I really enjoyed this. (Fifty-two.)


30. Batman ‘89 by Sam Hamm - Kinda cool to see, in graphic novel form, what probably SHOULD have been the third Michael Keaton Batman movie. Focuses on Two-Face and the emergence of Robin, while also continuing to delve into the relationship between Batman and Catwoman. Pretty good stuff, all around. (KJINNNG)


31. Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin - This creepy and well written novel imagines a world where devices known as kentuckis infiltrate everyday life. A kentucki is essentially a Furby that has a camera and a remote control. You buy one, and hook it up, and wait for some random stranger in the world to become a “dweller” who is then connected to your kentucki, allowing them to, essentially, have a mobile camera inside your home. That’s …essentially the entire plot of the story - there was no real overarching storyline or plot. There were a handful of characters that we would check in on - occasionally having one-off chapters that were essentially just very short stories set in this world.

The idea is a very creepy - and yet intriguing one. Something about the idea of voyeurism and chance encounters with random strangers is somehow super compelling. Unfortunately, it was hard to keep everything straight in my mind, and since there wasn’t really any main plot of what it was all leading to, it effectively felt…kind of empty at the end? Like… it was cool to ponder about how things would play out if such a technology existed - and she did a great job coming up with the various freaky and intriguing ways that people would end up interacting with kentuckis - but …there didn’t seem to be a REASON for it all, if that makes sense. I don’t know. It was a decent novel, and it kept drawing me back, I just felt like I wanted something …MORE out if it overall. (She was so rigid she let her body creak, and for the first time she wondered, with a fear taht threatened to break her, whether she was standing on a world that it was ever possible to escape.)


32. The End and Other Beginnings: Stories From the Future by Veronica Roth - Collection of six short stories. Each of these were sci-fi-y to various degrees. Evidently the final two were set in a universe from one of her other books (series?), which explains (partially) why I found them lacking. Anyway. Stories:
Inertia - set in a world where the ability to kind of mind-meld with a person (who is near death) and interact with your memories and theirs exists. Claire has a friend, Matt, who she has grown apart from. WHen Matt is in a car accident, and won’t survive, Claire has the opportunity to revisit their relationship to see where it went wrong - from both their points of view. Strong start to the book. This was mostly character-driven and I really enjoyed this story. (Quiet, no need for words, we listened to “Inertia” on repeat.)

The Spinners - Two estranged sisters - one a bounty hunter who tracks down (and kills) alien parasites, and one who has been at a military academy - reunite after their mother dies. This was …okay, but the world building felt a little muddy. (Eon was smiling, too, as he looked back to the shore, which was disappearing, flattening to just a dark line on the horizon.)

Hearken - Certain people have the ability to be “hearkens” which allows them to “see” the life song (or the death song) that people create. It’s explained as being a connection to the universe and essentially the Hearkens are able to truly understand a persons life. (I’m not explaining it very well.) Anyway, Darya is a Hearken. She has to choose whether she wants to hear life songs or death songs, as her mother is about to die. Again, I’m not really explaining this very well, but I did like this story once I got into it. (She had been wrong to say that death was the mystery, not life.)

Vim and Vigor - bit of a character study about a group of three teenage friends who have had their friendship affected by the death of the fourth member of their group. A device that allows a person to see two different possible outcomes of future events is also used. (“I love this song.”)

Armored Ones - essentially two short novellas squished together. The first part of this focused on a woman who was being trained to be an assassin. And the second part focused on …maybe the member of the family that the woman was going to kill? I don’t know. The names and backstories in this were difficult to keep track of and I wasn’t a huge fan of this. BITS of it were good and compelling, but overall, not my cup of tea. (He was ready.)

The Transformationist - Another one that I wanted to like more than I did. Otho is a teenager in juvie for committing a crime that was essentially an accident. He could be freed from his sentence, but he just has to admit to the authorities what happened. His shame won’t allow him to do that, though. (Otho let his uncle’s smile, and the music that floated away from the dadsh, and the memory of Jove huddled against him, fill him and keep him warm.)

Misery - Soul Asylum

Today is December 31st, 2023. The song of the day is "Misery" by Soul Asylum.

Saturday, December 30, 2023

The View - Modest Mouse

Today is December 30th, 2023. The song of the day is "The View" by Modest Mouse.

Friday, December 29, 2023

Mess Around - Cage The Elephant

Today is December 29th, 2023. The song of the day is "Mess Around" by Cage the Elephant.

Thursday, December 28, 2023

I Like Birds - eels

Today is December 28th, 2023. The song of the day is "I Like Birds" by eels.

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Hammering In My Head - Garbage

Today is December 27th, 2023. The song of the day is "Hammering in My Head" by Garbage.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

We Both Go Down Together - The Decemberists

Today is December 26th, 2023. The song of the day is "We Both Go Down Together" by The Decemberists.

Monday, December 25, 2023

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead or Alive

Today is December 25th, 2023. The song of the day is "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" by Dead or Alive.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Great Escape - Brick + Mortar

Today is December 24th, 2023. The song of the day is "Great Escape" by Brick + Mortar.

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Effect and Cause - The White Stripes

And the bonus song of the day is "Effect and Cause" by The White Stripes.

Primadonna - Marina and the Diamonds

Today is December 23rd, 2023. The song of the day is "Primadonna" by Marina and the Diamonds.

Friday, December 22, 2023

Gone Away - The Offspring

Today is December 22nd, 2023. The song of the day is "Gone Away" by The Offspring.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Take The Long Way Home - Supertramp

Today is December 21st, 2023. The song of the day is "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp.

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Wild Thing - Tone Loc

Today is December 20th, 2023. The song of the day is "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Roll To Me - Del Amitri

Today is December 19th, 2023. The song of the day is "Roll To Me" by Del Amitri.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Back In The U.S.S.R. - The Beatles

Today is December 18th, 2023. The song of the day is "Back in the U.S.S.R." by The Beatles. (Go get a soda!)

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Uh, Zoom Zip - Soul Coughing

Today is December 17th, 2023. The song of the day is "Uh, Zoom Zip" by Soul Coughing.

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Heartache Tonight - Eagles

Today is December 16th, 2023. The song of the day is "Heartache Tonight" by the Eagles.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Can You Picture That? - Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

Today is December 15th, 2023. The song of the day is "Can You Picture That?" by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Eternal Flame - The Bangles

Today is December 14th, 2023. The song of the day is "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Push It - Salt-N-Pepa

Today is December 13th, 2023. The song of the day is "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Bud - Ruby

Today is December 12th, 2023. The song of the day is "Bud" by Ruby.

Monday, December 11, 2023

The Guitar - They Might Be Giants

Today is December 11th, 2023. The song of the day is "The Guitar" by They Might Be Giants.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Another Day In Paradise - Phil Collins

Today is December 10th, 2023. The song of the day is "Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins.

Saturday, December 09, 2023

And She Was - Talking Heads

Today is December 9th, 2023. The song of the day is "And She Was" by the Talking Heads.

Friday, December 08, 2023

Funny Business -Alice Merton

Today is December 8th, 2023. The song of the day is "Funny Business" by Alice Merton.

Thursday, December 07, 2023

Jumper - Third Eye Blind

Today is December 7th, 2023. The song of the day is "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind.

Wednesday, December 06, 2023

Shut Up and Let Me Go - The Ting Tings

Today is December 6th,  2023. The song of the day is "Shut Up and Let Me Go" by The Ting Tings.

Tuesday, December 05, 2023

Perfect Day - Lou Reed

Today is December 5th, 2023. The song of the day is "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed.

Monday, December 04, 2023

Baddabing Baddaboom - Earl

Today is December 4th, 2023. The song of the day is "Baddabing Baddaboom" by Earl.

Sunday, December 03, 2023

How Do You Talk To An Angel - The Heights

Today is December 3rd, 2023. The song of the day is "How Do You Talk to an Angel" by The Heights.

Saturday, December 02, 2023

Don't Change - INXS

Today is December 2nd, 2023. The song of the day is "Don't Change" by INXS.

Friday, December 01, 2023

Jesus Was Way Cool - King Missile

Today is December 1st, 2023. The song of the day is "Jesus Was Way Cool" by King Missile.