#Think “The Wild Robot” or “The Boy The Mole The Fox and The Horse.”

[one-in-a-million-fishsticks]

I drew my children!!!

[isfjmel-phleg]

Fortnight of Books 2024: Day 1

Overall - best books read in 2024?

Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

Final Word by Janet Sumner Johnson

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (less of a full-length story, more of a short and very sweet graphic novel)

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (this is not a general recommendation--it haunts me personally, but it's a pretty dark book and I have a feeling that a lot of you wouldn't care for it)

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Best series you discovered in 2024?

I don't really want to name it here because I'd rather not summon a fandom and I don't think it would be something most of you would be into anyway (it's pretty off-brand for me), but it was a surprisingly excellent series with characters that I came to love and I enjoyed it a lot.

Best reread of the year?

I've had a really fun time revisiting the Murderbot series and taking things slowly enough to wrap my head around The Jargon better.

[oswlld]

Sooooo im sure there’s other/better things to do but instead, I have composed this Watchlist that I am sure will never be finished, under the cut. Pls feel free to also send recs for movies/shows for me to check out!

[REVISED 01/02/25]

all listed media are subject to change, depending on my mood honestly —

SHOWS - in no particular order

1899 (2024, MULTI) Dark (GER) Life’s a Glitch: with Julien Bam (2024, GER) See You in My 19th Life (KOR) Marry My Husband (KOR) All the Love You Wish For (KOR, TBA) Triage (THAI) House of Ninjas (JPN) First Love: Kieta Hatsukoi (JPN) Choona (HINDI) The Greatest Robbery of Brazil’s Central Bank (BRZ) Nobody’s Looking (BRZ) Black Sails (ENG) Our Universe (ENG) Life in Color (ENG) Abbott Elementary (ENG)** **= upon bestie’s request

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MOVIES - in no particular order

Robot Dreams (ENG, PLEX) Where the Wild Things Are (ENG, PLEX) O Brother, Where Art Thou? (ENG) The Parades (JPN) Sorry to Bother You (ENG) Clue (2PLEX) My Big Fat Greek Wedding Rewatch (ENG, PLEX)** Cities of Last Things (TAIW) Falling In Love Like in Movies (INDO) Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (HINDI) Sesham Mike-Il Fathima (MALAYALAM) Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-man of Paris (FRA) The Persian Version (IST) Beyond the Universe (BRZ) The Tragedy of Macbeth (ENG, PLEX) The Creator (ENG) Suzume (JPN) **= upon bestie’s request

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Completed: LIZIQI Luca Behind the Try Gunpowder Milkshake Disney Insider Cosmos Possible Worlds The Mitchells vs the Machines Fantastic Mr Fox Muppet Haunted Mansion Star Wars: Visions What If…? Behind the Attractions Encanto Hawkeye Space Sweepers Chef’s Table Bad Buddy Wolfwalkers Make Happy Eternals Lupin Song Exploder Ali Wong Special Semantic Error Maya and the Three Tick, Tick… Boom! Turning Red Flee Street Food Latin America Among the Stars Twenty Five Twenty One Driving Home 2 U Killing Eve La Casa de Papel (DNF) Breaking Boundaries Doctor Who Special The Artist Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner Cutie Pie (DNF) To My Star Making Fun Now You See Me HUMAN The World Within Moon Knight Blueming Sound of Magic Reset Bullsh*t Sucker Punch MARVEL Assembled Series Star Wars: Forces of Destiny BLACKPINK Kieta Hatsukoi Sketchbook Midnight in Paris Obi-Wan Color Rush Plus and Minus Badhaai Do To My Star 2 First Kill KinnPorsche Ms Marvel Newsies: the Musical Old Fashion Cupcake Mirai Lightyear Sense8 Rewatch Sandman Extraordinary Attorney Woo WWDitS s4 Hannah Gadsby: Douglas Everything Everywhere All at Once Lord of the Rings Rewatch Vice Versa Parent Trap Rewatch She/Hulk Alice in Borderland Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor Glitch Sleep with Me Werewolf by Night Cherry Magic Cherry Magic: The Movie Bad Buddy Rewatch Andor Disenchanted Knives Out: Glass Onion Midnight at the Pera Palace Roman Holiday Doom at Your Service The Guardian Pinocchio Klaus Vice Versa Rewatch Heartstopper Our Great National Parks Fire of Love RRR A Trip to Infinity My Year of Dicks Le Pupille Puss in Boots: Last Wish National Treasure: Edge of History Gap the Series Wakanda Forever The 1619 Project My School President The Martha Mitchell Effect Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Run for the Money Night Ride The Sea Beast The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse Tár An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It Summer of Soul Stranger at the Gate Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Ice Merchants Haulout The Flying Sailor Elephant Whisperer Somebody Feed Phil Vincenzo Midnight Museum Paper Girls Mandalorian s3 The Wandering Earth Art & Tech Bird in Hand All Those Sensations in My Belly How My Grandmother Became a Chair Udahnut Zivot Bombay Rose Latin History for Morons The Day of Becoming You Wet Hidari Mao’s Mango Cut King of the Sea Star Wars: Visions (s2) Our Skyy 2 (VV + MSP + BB) Across the Spiderverse Mr Pete & The Iron Horse BJ’s Mobile Gift Shop Kukeri Keys to the City My Tooth, Your Love Voices Rising: Music of Wakanda Forever Show Me Love The Half of It The Eighth Sense Kabe Koji Secret Invasion (DNF) Glove Chicken Stories Goodnight Henry La Plongeuse The Tobos Dial Tone Salvation Has No Name Hysteresis Soft Animals Cat and Moth The Little Mermaid Our Beloved Summer Drifting Home I Told Sunset About You Ball People Well Wishes My Love, Your Love Meow or Never Stranding Stay Mountain Myrna the Monster Under the Skin I Lost My Body Barbie Lupin, p3 Wendell & Wild Haunted Mansion Secrets in the Hot Spring Over the Garden Wall A Time Called You (DNF,) Once Upon a Crime The Oskars Fantasy ONI Black Holes Doctor Who Specials The Holiday Interview with the Vampire, s1 Schitt’s Creek The Good Place Rewatch Flavorful Origins Chevalier Last Twilight Moving (KOR) BlacKKKlansman (ENG) High on the Hog (ENG) African Folktales (MULTI) Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang (MULTI) Over the Moon (CMN, DNF) The Barber of Little Rock (ENG) Your Name Engraved Herein (TAIW) Pachyderme (FRA) The Last Repair Shop (ENG) Perfect Days (JPN) Invincible (FCAN) Bobi Wine: The People’s President (Multi) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (ENG) Nimona (ENG) Ninety-Five Senses (ENG) Rustin (ENG) Ridder Lykke (DAN) 20 Days in Mariupol (ENG) Elemental (ENG) El Conde (MULTI) Poor Things (ENG) The Holdovers (ENG) Era’s Tour Movie (ENG) American Symphony (ENG) Four Daughters (ARAB) Society of the Snow (SPA) Oppenheimer (ENG) Yellow Door: ’90’s Lo-Fi Film Club (KOR) Always a Witch (SPA, DNF) Pedro (SPA) 23.5 Degrees (DNF) Murderville (ENG) Polite Society (ENG) Devil’s Plan (KOR) Doctor Who (ENG) Cinderella, Brandy (ENG) KB Somebody Feed Phil, s7 (ENG) The Boy and the Heron (2024, JPN) OSCAR Attack on Titan (JPN, DNF) Three Body (CMN, DNF) Moana 2 (ENG) Wicked (AND the Singalong, ENG)

Pls see tags for more info - thank you!

[isfjmel-phleg]

December 2024 Books

The Wild Robot Protects by Peter Brown

This entire series is very charming and poignant. I enjoyed this one about as much as I did the previous ones.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (annual reread)

Someday I'll have an original insight into this book, but not this year.

Go to the Room of the Eyes by Betty K. Erwin

A family moves into an unusual house (that actually exists in the real world!) in 1960s Seattle and have slice-of-life adventures and get involved in solving a mystery left behind previous inhabitants. An enjoyable example of this type of story. Unfortunately very out of print and hard to find, though!

The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett

Ostensibly this is the story of a girl and her family as they deal with processing that an impending comet is about to obliterate the earth, but--I won't spoil it--there's much more to it. I loved the family relationships, and the poignant examination of grief. It does deal with some heavy topics, including a racially-motivated hate crime, but I thought it was tastefully handled for a middle-grade audience. There were some worldview things that I personally would differ with, and this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but on the whole, this was a real page-turner for me.

The Thursday Kidnapping by Antonia Forest

This entire problem could have been avoided if the adults in this story would have been responsible enough to look after their own children and not expect literal children to do it for them. I had a hard time warming up to the characters in this one.

Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 Years of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman edited by Kristen L. Geaman

The essays are of varying quality, but the better ones had some interesting analysis, and the interviews with writers were insightful.

Fault Lines by Janet Sumner Johnson

Not as effective for me as the previous book (Final Word). It stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit (that's a lot of faked deaths), and it was a bit hard to keep all the family straight, especially when most of the cousins are fairly underdeveloped. But it was an entertaining mystery, and I would read a third book if it happens.

Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight by Travis Langley

Varying degrees of interesting. Words cannot express how few darns I give about Batman's rogues gallery, but the explorations of Bruce's psychology, upbringing, and mental health and of the Robins in a familial context were fascinating. Apparently there's an updated edition, so I think I'll track that down.

I would love to see more books in a similar vein for other DC heroes. There's so much that could be explored.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Very sweet and nearly made me cry a few times. Don't go in expecting a narrative; this is a series of illustrations and vignettes involving the four eponymous characters--funny, sad, or inspirational by turns.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Lovely polished writing. I think I will need to read this again to figure out what exactly is being said; this is a very Literary piece (not a criticism, I just read this on a tired brain).

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery (reread)

I had a hankering.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Enjoyable. I liked the epistolary format.

The Chinese Egg by Catherine Storr

I don't know why it is, but Storr tends to lose me whenever she wanders out of the middle-grade level. This was YA, and I didn't really get anything out of it.

The Woods by R. L. Toalson

I picked this up in a bookstore local to my family's city while on adventures with my sister in October. Never heard of it before, but I liked the cover and premise. And I did enjoy the book! Stories about children coming to stay in mysterious gothic houses full of family secrets are almost always my thing. But there were a few historical nitpicks that drew me out of the story a little, and in the end, I'm not sure that the story was fully cohesive. Historical fiction involving a real-life tragedy in 1940s Texas is great, and so is gothic fantasy about dangerous creatures in the foreboding woods. But this book had both, and it was hard for me to reconcile them in the same story (especially the fantasy elements supposed to be set in East Texas). This might have done better as two separate books, or perhaps if the fantastical elements and the family's background had been adjusted to suit the intended setting.

Solomon Snow and the Stolen Jewel by Kaye Umansky

...I hardly remember this one.

Victoria by Barbara Brooks Wallace

I am still processing this one. Not sure what to make of it.

Network Effect by Martha Wells (reread)

A lot going on in this one. Definitely had more of an impact on this reread.

Comics

Infinite Crisis

Rip my heart out, why don't you. This is the event in which Grant gets his face destroyed, Bart comes back aged up (before going on to star in an absolutely terrible miniseries that would mischaracterize him and others and then kill him off), and Kon dies. Do I love this story? No. But I am not over Kon dying with tears in his eyes while characteristically framing the situation as something positive.

Damage (most of it)

A very 90s book that didn't get to live up to its potential before getting canceled, but its characterization of Grant has never quite been replicated by later writers. I would love to interview Tom Joyner (the writer/co-creator, who wrote this while in college!) about his work on this book.

The "Return of the Hero!" arc from various titles, Justice League Task Force (#15-16, 0, 17-37), and Triumph

This guy. He's the worst. Compels me though. More analysis forthcoming.