Month: June 2015

Reviewed by Aaron Larson A normal young boy stumbles into a magical world which he is expected to save. That is the premise of Harry Potter, the most popular story of our time, and countless other books and movies and shows. It is also the premise of Garth Nix’s seven-book YA series The Keys to … [Read More]

Reviewed by Aaron Larson Craig Thompson’s semi-autobiographical work Blankets is something of a contemporary classic in the realm of graphic novels; unfortunately, “the realm of graphic novels” has yet to be truly accepted into the realm of “real literature” (although progress is certainly being made). The book is a brick, weighing in at nearly six … [Read More]

Reviewed by Aaron Larson “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.” —Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus I can’t imagine a more appropriate quotation with which to begin … [Read More]

Reviewed by Aaron Larson My first encounter with the Animorphs series was as a kid in the late 90s; a carton of orange juice that my family had recently purchased offered by mail order a free copy of the recently released thirty-sixth book (The Mutation, which I now know is one of the least-accessible mid-series … [Read More]

Reviewed by Aaron Larson “The Earth is four billion, six hundred million years old, and you’re going to reach one hundred at the most! It’s not even worth the bother.” So declares Pierre Anthon, a Danish seventh-grader who realizes one day that nothing matters. He states this revelation to his classmates, departs the school, and … [Read More]