#booklr
I’ve concluded that my favorite books right now are the ones where the characters hate themselves or their life.
I’m so depressed, I need it in my characters too.
Don’t give me escape, give me death.
Or like relatability.
We maybe take a bit longer getting ready for the day when we’ve got an enjoyable audiobook playing. Apologies for the tardiness! Blame–and download!–Libby.
It’s the award-winning reading app that makes sure you always have something to read. It’s like having your entire library right in your pocket. Download the app today and get instant access to thousands of ebooks and audiobooks for free thanks to your public library and OverDrive: https://secure.adnxs.com/clktrb?id=714991
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“There is this kind, lovable, awareness to Gmorning, Gnight!. It knows what it is and how it works, what it can do and what it cannot.”
Why we love LMM’s book of tweets: http://bit.ly/2QKRCnp
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Whether you’re trying to stave off the bah-humbugs or maximize your charitable contributions before the end of the fiscal year, here are some ideas for giving back: http://bit.ly/2R9UmuK
It’s our book date, Stephanie Garber’s LEGENDARY (with its older sibling CARAVAL)! Here’s what it’s about:
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and the time to repay the debt has come.
What are you reading?
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It’s our book date, Stephanie Garber’s LEGENDARY (with its older sibling CARAVAL)! Here’s what it’s about:
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and the time to repay the debt has come.
What are you reading?
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Are you ready for Aquaman? The next DCEU movie is swimming our way like a sailfish (the fastest animal in the ocean, obviously), and will flood U.S. theaters on December 21st, 2018. Though the King of the Seven Seas’ last outing, 2017’s Justice League, might have floundered a bit, fans are hoping this movie will make more of a splash.
We’ve got your who’s who of the characters here: http://bit.ly/2PwQebd
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Christmas break is coming! With that comes shopping, family dinners, holiday celebrations, quality family time, people you only see once a year. Ahem, maybe you need a little happily ever after to get you through. I have just the list for you. Make a cup of tea, put on your favorite pajama pants, and find your coziest blanket. With these Christmas romance novels you’ll be hoping to get snowed in: http://bit.ly/2Ps1N3E
It’s a dreaded day many readers have and it’s something we all come across: you have to go through and organize your TBR and consider what books you will read and what books you won’t.
But how do you start a process like that? Like this: http://bit.ly/2QImNj4
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It’s our book date, Stephanie Garber’s LEGENDARY (with its older sibling CARAVAL)! Here’s what it’s about:
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and the time to repay the debt has come.
What are you reading?
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Whether it’s the focus of the story, or just there to add (ahahaha) flavour, food is an important part of children’s stories. We’ve all imagined eating Honeydukes sweets or chowing down on a Wonka bar, but here’s a menu of the best children’s books about food that dish up some tasty treats: http://bit.ly/2PqtXMo
There are so many great microhistories, ranging from subjects like butter and cotton to champagne and the color indigo. Check out this list: http://bit.ly/2PoSVeV
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Winter is coming—and I don’t mean in a terrifying Game of Thronesway, but in a grab-your-hot-chocolate-and-let’s-cozy-up-in-front-of-the-fire-and-get-to-reading kind of way. Because I don’t know about you, but winter is one of my favorite seasons for reading. I don’t know if it’s the shorter days or the fact that cold weather makes me even more of a blanket-burrito hermit than usual, but either way, there’s nothing better on a cold winter’s day than a good book. And there are so many great books coming out in the next few months: http://bit.ly/2QFmp4M
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I love a good book cover, don’t you? You know what’s even better than seeing their spines on your bookshelves? Seeing them on Instagram, face out, from accounts helmed by wonderful people in the creative industry. These curators hunt down cover designers for each post, giving the artists their well-deserved praise. Please do yourself a favor and fill your feed with these Instagram accounts that celebrate book cover design: http://bit.ly/2PobXC5
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I propose the term ‘Book drop’ for the times when you’ve just come off an exceptionally excellent book, and you can’t get into any other books yet.
Book Drop
Noun
- The feeling of disinterest in all other literature due to the emotional or intellectual high of a previous book. The lack of enthusiasm for any reading material because of the exceptional quality of a preceding read.
Books I got as gifts for myself for my birthday. I’ve already read three of them but wanted a physical copy for myself.
Gallantby V.E. Schwab
Book #59 of 2022:
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
This 1949 standalone novel is one of the more excellent Agatha Christie mysteries, with a tight plot, a plethora of solid suspects, and a fiendishly distinctive — though totally fair — ultimate solution to its puzzle. I think it helps that the protagonist is not one of the author’s usual investigators, or even a detective at all. He’s a soldier fresh from the second world war who’s arrived at the titular manor intending to propose to his friend who lives there, only to find her distraught at the recent poisoning of her grandfather and unwilling to marry until the murderer has been discovered and the fog of suspicion over the rest of the family lifted. Motives, conflicting wills, and red herrings abound, and the sudden conclusion seems guaranteed to linger in purposefully unresolved tension regardless of whether a reader sees the twist coming or not. I would rank this book alongside The Murder of Roger Ackroyd among the writer’s best, and definitely recommend it as one to pick up outside of her main Poirot and Marple series.
Fun bonus: Christie later named it as one of her favorites, too!
★★★★☆
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Book #58 of 2022:
The Next Passage by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Alternamorphs #2)
Here is the nicest thing I can say about this second Animorphs choose-your-own-adventure title: it is better than the first one. (It’s not a sequel, though: the “you” before was another kid who was wandering through the abandoned construction site of Animorphs #1 The Invasion at the same time as the regular group and also given morphing powers by Elfangor. The “you” here is a David analogue, experiencing the attack on his house from book #20 The Discovery.) Whereas the previous volume had only six actual decision points, each of which led to either immediate death or the tale’s intended continuation, this followup has nine, including a genuine fork with each branch continuing through additional nodes to a separate possible conclusion. As an activity, the structure / gameplay is thus notably more complex.
The plot is busier, too. The First Journey covered parts of Animorphs #1 and #11 The Forgotten, jumping over the events in-between, but The Next Passage handles #20, #26 The Attack, and Megamorphs #2 In the Time of Dinosaurs, under the premise that the Ellimist appears once you’ve joined the team to send you off on one of those last two paths. That’s not great writing — especially since the options are presented as simply “button A” and “button B” on an unlabeled remote control — but at least it feels like more thought went into the idea than anything in the lazy cash-grab of Alternamorphs #1. Maybe that’s why the first ghostwriter remains unknown, while this one has been openly identified as Emily Costello, who would return a few months later for #42 The Journey in the main series.
As for the weaknesses…. It’s really not a very well-developed story, nor does it seem all that fun or compelling to play. The angst, wartime trauma, and nuanced coming-of-age themes of the franchise are in short supply, and the heroes regularly act out-of-character, as when they trap you as a fly nothlit in one ending, doomed to die within two weeks because you didn’t agree to stay out of their way during future fights. Good luck trying to determine where this alternate universe diverges from the real canon, too — the Animorphs mention having fought the Howlers on Iskoort already, but they give no indication that the morphing cube’s discovery or their prehistoric excursion has likewise happened, even though those adventures came earlier in the proper continuity. There’s no internal consistency or apparent point to the Ellimist’s challenge either, which altogether adds up for a frustrating and weightless read.
I would imagine the intended appeal of a project like this is to immerse the readers in a beloved media property, letting us literally see ourselves joining the action alongside the familiar characters. But even with a less simple narrative shape in place, that attempt can’t possibly succeed in a work that’s so hollow and patronizing about what we supposedly like in these books. A publisher’s impression of Animorphs may sound wacky, with its garish covers of teens turning into animals, but the novels are generally deadly earnest in a way these spinoffs have never managed. I just can’t suspend my disbelief far enough.
[Content warning for body horror, gun violence, and gore.]
This volume: ★★☆☆☆
Overall series: ★☆☆☆☆
Volumes ranked: 2 > 1
Like this review?
–Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
–Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
–Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
–Or click here to browse through all my previous// reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
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