Professional book critic, amateur housewife, full-time polymath. I like a good story. My other mystery reviews can be found here: https://www.criminalelement.com/author/dvaleris/
May 17 2022
Hurray, only one more book to read and I’ll finally be done with the 2020 Hugos, glargh! So this was an interesting novel. Good, but I can see why I never hear of it outside of this nomination, even as plugged in as I generally am to publishing and particularly genre circles. The Vanished Birds …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/17/the-vanished-birds-by-simon-jimenez/
May 16 2022
As the 20th century draws to a close, Sienna is intent on having one last perfect summer with her friends, who are all her co-workers at the Game Champ video game store. Sienna is a bit of a control freak, but she gets along fine most of the time with Art, the aspiring comic book …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/16/good-game-well-played-by-rachael-smith-katherine-lobo-justin-birch/
May 12 2022
Oh gosh, I didn’t expect this to end on such a cliffhanger! I also didn’t expect this kind of visual design from a book aimed squarely at middle school kids. It’s seriously delightful, a clever mix of mid-century modern with the more expected kids’ doodles on graph paper. The illustrations throughout are entirely suited to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/12/f-a-r-t-top-secret-no-kids-allowed-by-peter-bakalian/
May 11 2022
The latest installment of this cute, kid-friendly comics series picks up soon after the events of the last book. Which, wow, came out two years ago! Time certainly flies! Interestingly, I feel that Art Baltazar’s style for this book has grown to take on a subtly more sophisticated cast in the intervening years. The art …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/11/gillbert-4-the-island-of-the-orange-turtles-by-art-baltazar/
May 10 2022
I wanted to make it a point to finally be able to cover Cathy Yardley’s adorable romance novel Love, Comment, Subscribe for Asian American Pacific Islander Month, so here we are! The first book in the Ponto Beach Reunion series focuses on two former classmates, uptight Lily Wang and goofy Tobin Bui. Back in their …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/10/love-comment-subscribe-ponto-beach-reunion-1-by-cathy-yardley/
May 05 2022
God, what a depressing book. And I don’t say that as a bad thing necessarily, tho I certainly wouldn’t recommend this for anyone in need of an emotional pick-me-up. And while this is a decidedly sad volume — what self-respecting book covering the often needless extinction of entire species wouldn’t be? — it also carries …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/05/atlas-of-extinct-animals-by-radek-maly-illustrated-by-jiri-grbavcic-pavel-dvorsky/
May 04 2022
To be perfectly honest, I’m a little peeved that The Suicide Squad wasn’t nominated this year. It was by far the best superhero movie of 2021, even before launching the excellent Peacemaker series. Given what won last year’s award tho, I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised that my tastes differ so greatly from the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/04/hugo-awards-2022-best-dramatic-presentation-long-form-nominees/
May 02 2022
One problem I’ve had with The Mythics series so far is that knowing mythology and religion and history as well as I do, I’m sometimes made distinctly uncomfortable by the way the authors play fast and loose with established identities. I’m sure readers with a more superficial reading of the old tales won’t even notice, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/02/the-mythics-vol-4-global-chaos-by-patrick-sobral-patricia-lyfoung-philippe-ogaki-jenny-dara-alice-picard-magali-paillat/
Apr 28 2022
My children all went through a stage of obsession with Bill Martin Jr’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I didn’t really understand it from reading the words flat on the page, but when they started singing it to me (particularly the Crystal Taliefero version,) I finally got it. A similar thing happened with Armadillo Antics. Tho …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/28/armadillo-antics-by-bill-martin-jr-michael-sampson-nathalie-beauvois/
Apr 27 2022
Another enchantingly educational installment in the terrific Magical History Tour series! I wonder if I can eventually get all these in a boxed set for my kids: that would be super rad. Volume 8 focuses on the legendary Vikings, taking them out of the realm of myth and placing them squarely in the known history …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/27/magical-history-tour-vol-8-vikings-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoia/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire