"Ships, Secrets, and Survivors" by Sarah Rodecker and Helena George

This book is like if you took one of those teenagers-having-a-big-and-slightly-deadly-competition books and abruptly turned it into a seafaring pirate adventure book partway through. And also the teenagers are all actually adults; the protagonist is like 20. And all the ships can talk.

The main character, Ravin, is a sort of ex-assassin. "Sort of" because I'm not sure if, when you've trained to be an assassin but then failed the assassin entrance exam, you count as an ex-assassin or just a never-was-an-assassin-to-begin-with.

But there's also a character, named Shade, who's constantly suspicious of him. And we know Ravin is trustworthy because he's the protagonist, but in a world where assassins are an established system of untrustworthy ne'er-do-wells, it does make quite a bit of sense to not trust the one that suddenly appeared in your midst. On a related note, Shade's change of heart and cessation of suspicion does not seem to me to make sense with how his character is up to that point.

I think this could have used maybe one more proofreading pass. There are a couple places where I think I can see what they're going for, but there are a couple of words left out.

The ending wraps everything up a tad neatly for my taste. It's just oddly convenient how everything works out.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...a soft T15+ for sexual references. Honestly I think the movie ratings do a better job with this sort of thing, because they say "parental guidance until the age of [age]", meaning that parents can decide whether or not they want younger children to read it (or, in the case of movies, watch it). But I wouldn't hand this to a 13-year-old without a few reservations (or at least without talking to their parents), so there you are.

4 stars.

(Endnote: In case you were wondering, which you almost certainly weren't, the titular "ships" are not the romance kind of ships. Except for two side characters who are married, there's no romance in this book.)

"Dragon Thief" by Blake & Raven Penn

To be clear, the titular Dragon Thief is a thief who steals dragons, not a thief who is also a dragon.

This may be the only book in which I've ever seen someone use the "reckless and flirtatious protagonist" trope and actually pull it off. I think it helps that Asher (the dragon thief in question) is funny, and he does have some character depth to work with. His various crushes do get a bit annoying at times, but it's not constantly, and he's not an annoying person overall. Plus he does prove himself able to crush on only one person at a time.

It also helps that Asher never does anything outright stupid. And whenever he does things that would seem to be outright stupid, he usually can almost make them work through sheer Asherness.

Oh, and Asher isn't an orphan! One (1) of his parents is still alive! It's his dad. And his dad isn't even the annoying kind of parent who doesn't want the kid/teen protagonist to do the plot. He's just as invested in the plot as Asher is, albeit also a bit more cautious.

Dragon Thief's setting is basically a fantasy world trying to be a Western. Sort of. It uses a lot of the Wild West tropes; no trains :<, but there's random tumbleweeds and things, and there's one character (Boone) who would absolutely be a cowboy except he's in a fantasy world.

But the setting is also full of dragons, to the point that most of the animals are replaced with dragon versions of those animals. So jackalopes exist but they're drakalopes instead, their buffalo are replaced by dragon buffalo, raccoons are replaced by draccoons, et cetera. Also people ride kirin instead of horses. And there are, y'know, actual dragons.

The magic system in this is very well thought out. And you don't need to flip back to the setting guide every time they mention something (coughHandofSteelcough), which means they did the worldbuilding naturally. And there isn't a single "as you know, Bob" to be seen!

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Ha!" The newer Mage Hunter pointed at me. "Caught you. Who ever said the Keeper's treasure was dragon eggs?"

    There was a moment of silence as I blinked back at him.

    "Um... you did," I said.

    "That's true, you did," Dad added.

    "Did I?" the Mage Hunter looked at his older companion.

    "Yes, you did. Come on Lothar," she grumbled.

    Page 77. Lothar is Dragon Thief's resident Comic Relief Villain.

(Endnote: There's a character in this whose name is Solrac. "Solrac" is "Carlos" spelled backwards. I have no idea whether or not this is intentional, but it's funny either way.)

"Starsight" by Brandon Sanderson

Y'know what, I think I like this better than the alternative. "This" being: |not all of the aliens are evil! Unfortunately, some of the aliens are evil, and they're taking over the alien government.|

We get a lot of tasty lore in this book. In particular, we learn why |the humans are stuck on this one planet|, and also more about how |the protagonist Spensa's (non-unique) ability to teleport and do pseudo-psionics| works. There are also |the delvers|.

Speaking of which. |Delvers| are |giant extradimensional beings| that |live in hyperspace [not called hyperspace but it's basically hyperspace]| and |don't like realspace people. And especially don't like it when realspace people mess around with hyperspace|. Apparently |it's painful and annoying to them, or something. So if you do too much hyperspace, they might decide to go into realspace for a bit and delete your planet|. But it's |revealed at the end of the book| that |they also don't realize the people whose planets they're deleting are sentient, and when one does realize that (via Spensa doing telepathy stuff at it during the climax), it immediately nopes back into hyperspace|.

Also, there's a plot twist in here that genuinely shocked me. That doesn't happen often.

One thing I do not like is that, because we |do a lot of interacting with aliens|, we |see bits of alien biology|. Many of these |aliens do not conform to the human "male and female and nothing else" pattern|, and while that could just be worldbuilding, it also smacks of {T-ish the whole gender ideology thing}. But it's not applied to humans, so there's that at least.

One thing I do like is how Spensa's character arc went from "|let's murder all the aliens!|" to "|let's murder all the aliens except the ones I'm friends with!|" to "|let's only fight the evil aliens and leave the rest of them alone!|". I also liked that |her disguise as an alien who totally isn't a human trust me on this| isn't |foolproof; multiple characters see through it to some degree or other. However, this doesn't lead to the inevitable "we found out you're a human, now go to jail" arc, because A) both of these characters have their own agendas which would be jeapordized by a "there are human spies everywhere" furor, and B) both of them draw somewhat wrong conclusions|.

|If you didn't highlight the spoiler tags, the fact that I said| potato soup |in this paragraph will be confusing to you. Or it might not be, if you read enough of my blog and know that I do this sort of thing on heavily redacted posts.|

My shipping was correct! It is now canon! Sort of.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...probably still T for sci-fi violence. A harder T, though, for the stuff mentioned in the paragraph with the content warning tag.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Keep them distracted."

    "Resigned sigh."

    I looped us after an enemy ship. "Did you just say the words resigned sigh?"

    Page 10. It's Spensa, talking with her robot copilot.

    Cobb folded his arms where he stood near the door. "I asked my command staff, scientists, and engineers to tackle the hyperdrive problem. How do we find a way off this planet? All the ideas I got back were wildly implausible, except one. It's only mildly implausible."

    Page 49.

(Endnote: Did I mention the |samurai fox-gerbils|?)

"Fight Write" by Carla Hoch

As the subtitle says, Fight Write is a book about how to write believable fight scenes. This often means "short and violent," because that's how real fights usually are.

I don't know much about most styles of fighting. The one exception is fencing, which I did for several years, and oddly enough this book doesn't really apply to it. Fencing matches aren't terribly short (they often go for a few minutes), they can get flashy, they have lulls in them, and they're not exactly brutal. 

(Although: modern fencing swords are extremely bated and definitely not envenomed, and we wear protective gear designed to stop anyone from actually getting hurt, so I suspect a fencing match with actual sharp swords would be a lot bloodier.)

The part of this book I found most interesting was the part about the psychology and feelings. What characters (and real people) probably feel before and during and after fights, how fights (whether won or lost) traumatize people, et cetera. That, to me, was more interesting then the mechanical "how does this physically work" bits. Not to say that those aren't good, it's just that I found the other part more interesting.

Also, did you know that this book was written by a Christian? I didn't. At least, I didn't when I started out, but I inferred it from the writing (and then confirmed it by looking it up whilst writing this review).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for graphic violence and some sexual references. Not a lot of the latter, but there are a couple.

4 stars. 

Favorite lines:

    Defenestration means throwing somebody out of a window. Yes, there's a term for throwing somebody out of a window that's not just "throw somebody out the window."

    Page 49.

(Endnote: Who's Write? I certainly don't want to fight him.) 

"Skyward" by Brandon Sanderson

Finally, actually villainous aliens! Ones that aren't a heavy-handed metaphor for colonialism! I rejoice!

The protagonist of this book somewhat reminded me of the protagonist of Apprentice, in that they're both perpetually angry teenage girls with slightly strange names. However, I liked Spensa from Skyward much better than Kerr from Apprentice, because A) Spensa is rather smarter, and B) Skyward's setting, not being a dystopia where you can get imprisoned for snapping at the wrong person, is more suited to this sort of character.

Spensa also has habit of making hilariously over-the-top threats whenever she wants to yell at someone, which I found amusing.

I really liked that this flips a lot of the standard tropes on their heads. For one thing, we have the actually villainous aliens. There are other examples, albeit ones that require major spoilers:

The |"clearing your family's name"| trope. |Spensa's dead father was branded as a coward for running away during the initial battle against the aliens, and Spensa spends much of the book trying to prove that he wasn't a coward. And she does discover evidence that he wasn't a coward, but unfortunately that comes in the form of evidence that instead of running away, he turned traitor, fired on his own allies, and had to be shot down. Later evidence proves that he did this because he was (sort of) mind-controlled by the aliens, but it's still a nice subversion.|

The |"person in authority who hates you for no reason"| trope. |There's an admiral who is seemingly dead set against letting Spensa achieve her dream of being a space fighter pilot and fighting the aliens. As it happens, this is because she's pretty sure that Spensa inherited from her dad the trait that lets you be mind-controlled by the aliens, and she really doesn't want a repeat of the "pilot goes insane and shoots down three of his comrades before being shot down himself" incident.|

Brandon Sanderson does not hesitate to |kill characters off| in this book. It pretty effectively hammers home the |"these aliens are dangerous and we're on the back foot fighting them"| aspect of the story.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for sci-fi violence. No actual swearing, though there is repeated and vehement swearing with made-up swear words (the best kind of swear words).

4 stars.

(Endnote: Now is the time for all good men (and women) to get in a spaceship and fight some aliens.)

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker

I do wish there was more horror that was also Christian fiction. I do occasionally enjoy a spot of horror fiction, and I feel like also being Christian fiction would put a damper on anything too outright scary. Which is good, because I like to sleep at night.

But! Dracula exists. It's exactly the sort of horror that I like. It's suspenseful, it's spooky, and it's not going to keep me up at night from how horrifying it is. (Horror has occasionally been known to do that to me, as proven when I first stumbled onto a small piece of SCP Foundation several years ago.)

It's honestly impressive how well the suspense is done. I hadn't read the actual book before, but I'd read the Manga Classics version, so I knew the basic plot. And yet, the sense of impending doom and "something is very wrong here" still gripped me throughout the opening arc of the book. Also I practically inhaled the last forty pages or so, which should tell you something.

The afterword in the edition I read points out that the titular vampire is basically the embodiment of everything Victorian society was afraid of (but also secretly fascinated with because humans are like that). And, yeah, he really is.

I think that the "What if we just shot him?" mentality would do wonders for a lot of other horror fiction. Granted, most of the horror fiction I read is for kids and thus doesn't make a lot of sense, but still. Having the idea to try defeating the horror monster by sheer force of arms makes your protagonists look competent, and if it doesn't end up working, if you handle it right it can make the horror monster even scarier. (If you don't handle it right, you end up just looking like "oh niuuu the bad guys are so scary how can we possibly fight them?" and killing suspension of disbelief.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence, blood (this is the archetypal vampire novel), and some suggestive themes. And also for Renfield.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I wonder how the book would have gone had Jonathan succeeded in bonking Dracula with a shovel.)

"Carry On, Jeeves" by P. G. Wodehouse

I read this instead of reading some dystopian YA fiction, because I wanted something less depressing and more fun. Carry On, Jeeves did not disappoint. It's about as far from dystopian YA as it's possible to get.

This is a collection of ten (ten? *checks* yes, ten) short stories, most of which have the basic plot of "Bertie Wooster or one of his friends gets into a scrape, and Jeeves gets them out of it." The stories are:

"Jeeves Takes Charge", which details the first meeting between Bertie Wooster and his inimitably competent gentleman's gentleman Jeeves. It wasn't the first story written, but as far as I know it's the first one chronologically.

"The Artistic Career of Corky", which features the memorable phrase |"The Adventures of Baby Blobbs"|. (Spoilered to avoid spoiling the joke, which is best experienced out of the blue for the first time.)

"Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest", "Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg", and "The Aunt and the Sluggard", three fairly normal stories of the "Bertie's-friend-is-in-the-soup-and-Jeeves-gets-him-out-of-it" type.

"The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", one of the few times it is revealed that |Jeeves did not simply spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, and in fact does have relatives|.

"Without the Option" and "Fixing it for Freddie", two instances of the "Bertie-is-in-the-soup" type of story.

"Clustering Round Young Bingo", one which features the recurring characters of Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia and her French cook Anatole. Possibly the first one with them, but also possibly not, because these weren't written in any particular order.

And finally, "Bertie Changes His Mind", the only Jeeves and Wooster story ever to be narrated by Jeeves. It is exactly like what one would expect from something starring him.

Despite my general dislike for stories about people getting into trouble, I can't help but like P. G. Wodehouse books. Perhaps because you always know, reading them, that no matter how deep in the soup anyone is, Jeeves will somehow get them out again. He will also prevail over Bertie's occasionally atrocious fashion sense.

Jonathan Cecil, who did most of the audiobooks, is forever enshrined in my head as the voice for all of these characters.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I deeply regret that I couldn't say "Roderick Spode" anywhere in this review. This is for the simple reason that he's not in the book.)

"The Beast Player" by Nahoko Uehashi (translated by Cathy Hirano)

Really my only major quibble with this book is that it could have used a bit more denouement. But then it also has like five story arcs one after another, so 80% of them ended properly, even if the last one left off somewhat abruptly.

*looks at Goodreads*

So it turns out there's a sequel. Never mind, the lack of denouement can stand.

This was originally written in Japanese, and had to be translated into English. I suspect that, in Japanese, the prose is beautiful. The translation is, well, a translation, so it can be a bit choppy at times, but one does get used to it fairly quickly. I did, at least.

The titular beasts are these giant flying things called Royal Beasts. I imagined them as birds, but they're not really birdlike; they have fur and teeth, and they don't lay eggs.

As it was originally published (in Japan), this was two separate books. That goes some way toward explaining the abundance of story arcs.

In the first of the several of those, the main character acquires a wise mentor slash surrogate father figure. He keeps bees, and he's really nice. It's entirely possible he's my favorite character in the entire book.

This author likes to put her protagonist through moral dilemmas, which is not something I see often in books. Usually the only moral choices a protagonist will face are A) the ones that are a choice between doing the right but difficult thing or the wrong but easy thing, or B) the ones where the right choice is obvious to the reader, if not the characters. This book opts for C), the ones where there's a choice between two options and both of them are, in some form, the bad option.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...a soft T15+ for mostly veiled sexual references. One of the main plot points revolves around the reason why the giant flying bird things don't reproduce in captivity, and it involves them, y'know, reproducing. It's not described in any detail, but it does happen.

4 stars.

(Endnote: This has nothing to do with the Beast Crest from Hollow Knight: Silksong.)

"How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse" by K. Eason

"Fantasy space opera political intrigue" is not a genre I knew existed. And yet, here we are.

The "fantasy" comes in from the fact that all their advanced technology is actually made of magic (or "arithmancy"). Which means you can hack it with your brain. I don't know why everyone doesn't know arithmancy if it lets you hack into things with your brain; maybe it's harder than it seems. There are also fairies, who the people in-universe didn't think existed until they invited the fairies to Rory's christening and the fairies actually showed up.

Speaking of whom! Rory Thorne, who left the structural integrity of the multiverse entirely unchanged, is a princess (of a space kingdom) who was cursed at birth by a fairy. No, this is not a Sleeping Beauty retelling; she was cursed at birth to... see through politeness. And also lies. This is one of those curses that are also sort of a blessing in disguise.

I think the book started being truly good about a third of the way through, when it decided to drop the snarky feminism and just focus on the fantasy space opera political intrigue. And I have nothing against feminism, but it's like bay leaves: it can make the thing you're making better, but if it insists on being an integral part of the finished product, it's going to mess stuff up.

And once it dropped the snarky feminism (which grated on me, just like a bay leaf), I did enjoy it. Even the fantasy space politics.

This is written in sort of the style of an in-universe history book, which gives it a unique narration voice. The framing also means that it usually just leaves you to figure out the worldbuilding from context, which it mostly does a good job of subtly explaining, aside from a couple of instances of "as you know, Bob" (which, as you know, is not generally a good way to explain lore or backstory).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...a soft T15+ for bad language and some (mostly veiled) sexual references. I had a difficult time deciding whether to give this T or T15+, and eventually decided to err on the side of "there's nothing stopping a 13-year-old from reading this, but I wouldn't give it to them, so I guess T15+." That said, it's a soft T15+.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I have a theory: Rory Thorne is actually a distant descendant of none other than Carswell Thorne, of The Lunar Chronicles fame.)

"The Schwa Was Here" by Neal Shusterman

A schwa is the upside-down "e" symbol. It's used pretty much exclusively in phonetics, and it makes a sort of "uh" sound.

Don't worry, this isn't a book about typography. It's actually about Calvin "the Schwa" Schwa, a teenager who makes you forget about him. Not on purpose, it just sort of happens. Unless he's pointed out to you, or he points himself out to you, it's really hard to remember him. He's just so eminently forgettable, so much so that people will often forget he's there in the middle of talking to him. Or talking about him. Or writing about him.

He's not the main character, though. That honor goes to

The Schwa Was Here isn't actually a book about the Schwa. Well, it is and it isn't; he's definitely prominent, but he's not the protagonist. The protagonist is Anthony "Antsy" Bonano, a normal and non-forgetfulness-inducing teenager. There's also an incredibly curmudgeonly old dude, the old dude's blind granddaughter who accidentally induces a love triangle, and various minor characters.

Speaking of the love triangle. Love triangles just fill me with a certain je ne sais quoi... I think it's called "annoyance"? This one does at least get resolved fairly quickly, unlike some I could mention (coughKeeperoftheLostCitiescough), in that it doesn't take like ten books and counting. But it still annoyed me while I was reading

This book seemed like it was going to end unsatisfactorily, and then it didn't. The ending, originally bittersweet and somewhat hollow, is made abruptly better by the final two pages.

The chapter titles are quite funny. I like them.

Did you notice that |on the cover, the author's last name is spelled with a schwa where the schwa sound is|? I didn't until |I was like a third of the way through the book|, and I think it's a neat detail. Especially how |you miss it at first, but then you notice it and it was there all along|... it just ties in so nicely with the story.

How many times have I started writing this post? Somehow I keep forgetting about

So yeah, the book was good enough and interesting enough that it inspired... *gestures vaguely at the above post* this from me. It's sort of the blogging version of performance art, I guess?

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for some crude humor and a veiled sexual reference or two.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I think I've cracked the code. The Schwa is actually Kilroy. They were both Here.)

"The Revolutionary Samuel Adams" by Stacy Schiff

This book is less a biography of Samuel Adams and more a history of all the 18th-century politics he was involved in. And there's a reason for that; perhaps because his primary occupation was rabble-rousing, Adams was an incredibly private person. He wrote under dozens of different pseudonyms, we never know quite where he was at any one time (except when he needed an alibi; we know exactly where he was during the Boston Tea Party), and he seldom signed his letters. He's like the Invisible Man: we can't see him directly, but we kind of know where he is and what he's doing by looking at the aftereffects.

As was the fashion at the time, most of Samuel Adams's subversive newspaper articles were written under pseudonyms. My favorite one was "Vindex"; the actual Vindex was a Roman general who rebelled against Nero, but I was heartily amused by how it sounds like you're saying "Windex" with a vampire accent.

The book spends about a chapter on Adams's early life and about a chapter on his later life. They're not the important part. Also his life after the Revolution is kind of sad; he was very good at rabble-rousing, but got kind of lost and fell out of favor when rabble-rousing was now counterproductive in our newly formed nation and everybody had the rights he was yelling about not having.

But the parts in the middle are not sad. They are in fact kind of funny, with how the royal governors despair of their inability to actually do anything about this one guy who they know, but cannot prove, keeps writing subversive essays and turning the town of Boston against them. And then the one time they try taking him out is foiled by Paul Revere.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+, probably, for some violence.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    If you read only the essays in the papers you might reasonably conclude that ancient Romans peopled eighteenth-century New England.

    Page 159.

(Endnote: Von, two, three bottles of Vindex. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.)

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl

This book is weird. Fun, but weird.

It's pretty famous, and a lot of people know the basic plot, but I'll recap it here anyway: Willy Wonka, candy maker extraordinaire, has put five Golden Tickets into random chocolate bars somewhere in the world. The recipients will be invited to his mysterious factory, which nobody has been inside for years. Four of the Golden Tickets go to kids who are some flavor of bad, and the fifth goes to none other than our protagonist Charlie Bucket. The bad kids meet with their comeuppances, and Charlie Bucket |inherits the factory|.

Reading it this time, I was struck by how the Oompa-Loompas are basically a Greek chorus. I mean, think about it. They're this group of people, who are in the story but not a big part of it, who follow the main characters around, and who explain the point to the audience by singing about it. Like I said, they're basically a Greek chorus.

(It also helps that their songs are well-written and actually quite funny.)

Really, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a much deeper book than people give it credit for. It's just also very silly, and not a lot of people see through that.

This review is part of my first completed quest. In fact, it's the final part of my first completed quest. I've been on this one since September 21, 2023, and finally completed it today, May 19, 2026. (Well, I wrote this review on April 24, but I published it on May 19, so that's the date I'm counting from.)

...now I have to go back and change everything that said "my ongoing quest" to say "my completed quest" instead. Agh. That's going to be a bit of a chore. I think I'll put that off for a bit.

My mom reviewed this.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, probably.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    They streaked past a black door. STOREROOM NUMBER 71, it said on it. WHIPS--ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.

    "Whips!" cried Veruca Salt. "What on earth do you use whips for?"

    "For whipping cream, of course," said Mr. Wonka. "How can you whip cream without whips? Whipped cream isn't whipped cream at all unless it's been whipped with whips. Just as a poached egg isn't a poached egg unless it's been stolen from the woods in the dead of night!"

    Page 86. This is probably one of my favorite exchanges in all of fiction.

(Endnote: It's a pity the sequel had to jump the shark so hard.)

Mini-Reviews 19: Remaining Quest Objectives

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

I can see why this is such a popular book. I mean, it kept me interested while I was sleep-deprived on an airplane, and that is no mean feat.

Treasure Island doesn't use all the pirate tropes, it started all the pirate tropes.

My mom reviewed this, and this mini-review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for reckless violence.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, adventure, classics, pirates, rated E10+

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

I didn't enjoy reading this, and I think the reason for that is twofold: A) I'm too old for it, and B) it was meant to be read aloud.

This mini-review is also part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. It's meant to be read aloud to children.

2 stars. Star ratings are a subjective measure of how much I liked a book, not a more objective measure of how good a book is, and I didn't enjoy reading this.

Tags for this one: 2-star, classics, rated E, talking animals

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

Honestly, I like this better now that I'm older. When I was younger, I found the book too tense, but I think it's just right for me now. Also it's about a mouse, so that's a definite plus in my opinion (I am, after all, the person who named his blog "Sam the Library Mouse").

I really enjoyed how the toy motorcycle works. You make it go by making motorcycle noises. It's just such a fun explanation. |And it's made even better by the toy ambulance, which shows up later in the book, being powered by making ambulance noises.|

This mini-review, too, is part of my first completed quest. Hence the title of the collection.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. Nothing objectionable.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, rated E, talking animals

(Endnote: Oddly enough, all three of these books have prominently yellow covers.)

"Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell

I first read this book for a literature class. I didn't really like it then; I didn't dislike it, but I also didn't like it.

Happily, I liked it much better this time around, now that it wasn't compulsory. Also I've read and enjoyed a few surviving-alone-in-the-wilderness books since then, which heightened my appreciation of this one. I actually rather like surviving-alone-in-the-wilderness books, for all that I don't read very many of them.

I found it darkly funny how |Karana and her younger brother are initially set up to be trapped on the island together|, only for |her brother to tragically be killed by wild dogs within like a day|. Granted, Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on a true story, and that's one of the things that happened in that true story, so it's not like the author decided to do it for no good reason. But the |abruptness of it| still mildly amuses me in a gallows-humor sort of way.

There's a |missionary| who shows up in this near the end. He's onscreen for roughly a single page, but he's a good |missionary| from what little we see of him. (Spoiler-tagged because that's sort of an ending spoiler.)

This review is part of my first completed quest.

The cover image was scanned by yours truly, because I could not for the life of me find a good image on the Internet of the version we have. Any defects are either my fault or the fault of the fact that our copy is old and slightly worn.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for violence (thanks, wild dogs).

4 stars.

(Endnote: The island of the blue dolphins can never be the same since the day the dolphins mysteriously turned beige.)

"Pippi Longstocking" by Astrid Lindgren

I read this book right after reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and boy was that a contrast.

(Actually, I just noticed that on the surface, they do have a few similarities. Namely that both books are about kids who live alone, whose mothers are dead, and whose fathers are alive -- |well, not for the whole book in Huckleberry Finn's case| -- but not here. That does not change the fact that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a serious anti-slavery novel, and Pippi Longstocking is a cheerful children's book.)

One cannot help but smile at the adventures and shenanigans of this book. It has no pretentions of seriousness, and it's just fun to read about Pippi's horse who lives on the balcony and her chest of gold pieces.

My favorite part is probably the part with the robbers trying to break into Villa Villekula. 'Tis hilarious, especially how utterly unprepared the robbers are for Pippi Longstocking being Pippi Longstocking.

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, probably.

4 stars.

    "Hurray!" said Pippi. "This must be my lucky day too! Policemen are the very best things I know. Next to rhubarb pudding."

    Page 39.

(Endnote: Despite all my knowledge of mathematics, I have yet to master pluttifikation.)

"To Hell and Back" by Audie Murphy

I'm having a hard time writing this review without coming off as flippant.

As with most historical books that are also written as a narrative, To Hell and Back is somewhat fictionalized. I do however trust that it remains reasonably accurate.

For all that it's what Audie Murphy is famous for, the book spends hardly any time on the Colmar Pocket incident. I was honestly impressed by the lack of glorification of that.

I read this book for school; it's not part of my first completed quest, unlike almost everything I've been reading lately.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: M for swearing and graphic violence. It does not shy away from depicting what the Second World War was actually like.

[EDIT, 5/5/2026: 4 stars, upon reflection.]

(Endnote: I probably could have said more if I were less serious about it, but this isn't really a book you can be unserious about.)

"Beezus and Ramona" by Beverly Cleary

At first glance, one might say that this book is similar to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. After all, they're both books about fourth-graders with annoying younger siblings.

But in asserting that, one would miss the crucial detail that Beezus and Ramona is much better.

Ramona, for instance, actually faces consequences for her misbehavior. Relatedly, the parents in this are much better than Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing's parents, hence their willingness to actually give Ramona consequences for her misbehavior.

Ramona is also not so consistently malevolent as Fudge from Tales, etc is. She acts out, but she's not as gleeful about it, possibly because (again) acting out has consequences for her.

I read both entire series with these characters (the Henry books and the Ramona books) back when I was in like fourth grade. Hence why I have occasionally wished to have grown up in the 1950s.

For anyone who hasn't read this (and if you haven't, you might want to), I should probably mention that "Beezus" is a nickname for "Beatrice".

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

(Endnote: Bingle-bongle-by!)

"Anne of Green Gables" by L. M. Montgomery

Behold, it's slice-of-life that I actually like.

Perhaps this is because it's not boring. As you may know, Bob, the main reason I don't tend to like slice-of-life is that it bores me to read about the everyday lives of these characters about whom I do not care; Anne of Green Gables manages to be interesting, and it also manages to have characters I care about. They have personalities.

I would like to live in Avonlea. It's full of people who seem like they'd be interesting to know.

During this readthrough, I realized that pretty much everyone in this book is happy. To greater or lesser degrees, sure, but they are. 

Anne talks like a book, so she will occasionally say things like "I swept her a look of withering scorn." It's implied she got most of her vocabulary from reading. As the person who once used the word "oscillates" in a paper because it legitimately did not occur to me that something like "switches" would perhaps be a better choice, I see a bit of myself in that. Anne also occasionally manages to talk for several pages at a time without a paragraph break, which... I don't think I've ever done that?

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Anne, are you killed?" shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. "Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed."

    To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, who, in spite of lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne Shirley's early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly: "No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious."

    "Where?" sobbed Carrie Sloane. "Oh, where, Anne?"

    Page 301.

    The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts firmly in his proper place!

    Page 417.

(Endnote: My mom reviewed this, twice. And this review is part of my first completed quest.)

"The Hobbit" by J. R. R. Tolkien

One does not simply review The Hobbit.

I'm serious. You read it, you nod and you're like "oh, yup, that was a really good book," and then you go on your way. Nowhere in there does "reviewing" factor into it, because honestly, what would you even say?

Apparently, this.

I liked it reasonably well, although sometimes the narration style (with occasional asides of "of course, if he had known this, he would have...") got on my nerves. But as we later learn in Lord of the Rings that this is originally told by Bilbo as a story to small children, it does kind of fit.

Smaug is the best dragon. (He agrees with me on that point.) He's arrogant and powerful and terrifying and dramatic, and most importantly, he's villainous. All fictional dragons should aspire to be Smaug.

As it turns out, one also does not simply review The Hobbit because one does not have much to say about it.

My mom reviewed this, twice (first review, second review). This review is also part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence and giant spiders.

4 stars.

(Endnote: Most of this book is actually based on a much older text by someone named Bilbo Baggins.)

"Fork" by Cave Gaming

I never expected to get so much entertainment out of staring at a fork, but Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork exceeded my wildest expectations. (The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is its subtitle, which I left out of the post title because it made it too long.)

The gameplay in Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is extremely simple. There's a fork displayed on the screen. You stare at it. I was impressed with the rather intuitive control scheme, which consists of exactly no buttons; you don't have to press any buttons to continue staring at a fork.

Probably my one quibble with this game is that there's no music. I suppose that would detract from the tranquil experience of doing nothing but staring at a fork, and I'm probably also spoiled by the music of Minecraft, Hollow Knight, and Undertale. But it's still a bit annoying for the only sound in the entire game to be the startup announcment of "Welcome to... Fork! The game of doing nothing but staring at a fork!"

Everyone should play this game. I suspect many of the world's problems could be solved if everyone just sat down and stared at a fork for a few minutes.

By the way, the fork on the cover is not the only fork you can stare at in game. There are multiple forks; it picks a random one on startup. I've shared a picture of my favorite one below, spoilered in case you want to play the game and don't want to have the reveal spoiled for you:

I think they're going to make a sequel, Spoon: The Game of Doing Nothing but Listening to a Spoon. It's expected to release in 2040, once they finish recording all the myriad and nuanced sounds of a random spoon they found at a yard sale.

There's also a brief companion short story slash explanation slash game guide, "Starring as a Fork," where the people behind the game explain how they chose what fork would be the best one for players to stare at. It's free, so if you want to read about that, you can get it at doingnothingbutstaring@a.fork (or on the blog page I didn't set up for it).

I've tried staring at a fork in real life, but it's just not quite the same. Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is a truly unique experience.

This is a videogame, and it's rated: E. Nobody could possibly object to doing nothing but staring at a fork.

Fourk stars.

(Endnote: April fool!)