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Endless

Endless-Reader@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year ago

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I married a librarian and want to make a profile she'd be proud of. I love children's, YA, Fantasy, Linguistics, Philosophy, and History of Science. I study narrative as a mental technology.

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reviewed Wizard for hire by Obert Skye

Wizard for hire (2018) 3 stars

After fourteen-year-old Ozzy's scientist parents are kidnapped, Ozzy's only help may be a classified ad …

Fun and a little more substantive than the usual YA fantasy

3 stars

By Obert Skye and the audio read by our fan-favorite Kirby Heyborne. A quick critique on the audio: at several points in the book the reader gets excited and shouts, and the audio mastering is such that it is loud and jarring -- we quickly had to turn it off in the presence of sleeping children, and I finished it with headphones later.

A fun little jaunt, and resonating with a wider experience base than most YA fantasy novels (eg divorce, abandonment, estranged family), as well as typical inclusions like "doesn't fit in." A fun quick read that was recommended by my 11-year old daughter.

When Marnie Was There (Collins Modern Classics) (2002, Collins) 5 stars

Anna, a young orphan, has always been a loner until she is sent to stay …

For the Ghibli Movie: utterly fantastic

5 stars

Beautiful, toughing, and a masterpiece of depicting a troubled teenager without trivializing the story and a strong emotional pull right through to the end. The movie was Ghibli at its best, and I need to read the book to see if it shines as well. I expect them to be different, as Howl's Moving Castle was almost completely different from its literary parent.

Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons (Paperback, 2020, Apress) 1 star

Rely on this practical, end-to-end guide on cyber safety and privacy written expressly for a …

Made me unreasonably angry

1 star

His points of concern are on the mark -- passwords bad, watch out for phishing and snooping, digital literacy good. But his recommendations drove me up the wall; it seems like a big ad targeting the "for dummies" crowd and taking advantage of their fear. There was little mention of the counter-arguments against any of the software he is pushing. This is not a balanced rebuttal of poor security practices, and struck me as exploitative.

Superman: Up in the Sky (2021, DC Comics) 5 stars

Everything we love about Superman, boldly explored

5 stars

Superman: Up in the Sky is very different than other Superman stories that I've ranked highly lately, such as the Earth One series that are performing a modified re-telling of Superman. Up in the Sky is noteworthy to me precisely because it is so classic: even the artwork seems like the quintessential superman. He flies, he champions, he never gives up -- like All Star Superman¹, he represents the best of Superman's uncompromising standards and pathos. The Up in the Sky volume so unapologetically takes up the Superman that has been beloved for decades and bald-facedly takes on the questions that have been asked in the meta-culture: if Superman raced Flash, who would win? Why is Batman great? What if Superman were stuck in an administrative help line for hours and hours? What scares Superman? What if Superman is forced to compromise his standards in order to save a child? …

Luthor (GraphicNovel) 5 stars

Superman has been called many things, from the defender of truth, justice and the American …

Well written and beautifully illustrated

5 stars

I wasn't sure if this was an alternate-world story or not when it began, but it took a narratively ambitious goal of diving in to the mind of Luthor and the full reasons he hates Superman, making them understandable and almost relatable -- until the end, which is a conclusion true and tragic. True to the integrity of Lex Luthor as he fits into the Superman (and DC) world.

The Raven King (2016, Scholastic Press) 3 stars

Epic

3 stars

My wife mentioned losing the thread, as she does when a story's world building becomes too elaborate. You might not expect the world-building to be so severe in the paranormal genre where the basis of the world is our own, and our own time, but Maggie definitely reached major levels of complexity on this one. She did a pretty good job of tying the not and ending the threads she had opened, but certain elements of the ending still felt a bit less quality than much of the story had been thus far.