Green beautifully tackles mental illness in ‘Turtles All the Way Down’ (2017, 2024)
Book and movie reviews: The author manages to make modern troubled teens not annoying. Just don’t come here for the mystery.
Teen Drama
Green beautifully tackles mental illness in ‘Turtles All the Way Down’ (2017, 2024)
‘Cobra Kai’ eventually gets its kicks back in Season 6, Part 1
TV review: The storytelling and characters are at black-belt level, but the fight choreography and camera work have fallen off.
Clowes’ ‘Ghost World’ (1997) a Nineties ‘Catcher in the Rye’
Throwback Thursday (Comic book review): Before it was streamlined into a gem of a film, the graphic novel captured the confusion of teenage life.
Idiosyncratic ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (2004) is still flippin’ sweet
Throwback Thursday (Movie review): Jared and Jerusha Hess find laughs via presentation in this postmodern high school outsider comedy classic.
‘Ghost World’ (2001) gets more substantial on repeat viewings
Throwback Thursday (Movie review): The best movie of the first year of the millennium works on additional levels as time goes by.
Rowling’s stark ‘Casual Vacancy’ (2012) bridges Potter and Strike
Throwback Thursday (Book review): The “Harry Potter” scribe doesn’t have answers for folks in a non-magical world, but she does show observant compassion.
So what I did was, I re-read ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (1951)
Throwback Thursday (Book review): I wish you could’ve been there when I read it, but I’ll analyze this Salinger classic like a madman.
Coming-of-age story exhilarates in tasty ‘Snack Shack’
Movie review: Director Adam Rehmeier’s personal connection to 1991 Nebraska City shines through in one of 2024’s best films so far.
Green and his prankish teens seek meaning in ‘Looking for Alaska’ (2005)
Throwback Thursday (Book review): Green’s debut novel pulls off the neat trick of making its title character both ephemeral and believable.
‘Trust Exercise’ (2019) a masterful triptych about broken adult-child trust
Book club book report: Via traumatized, reflective victims, Choi pens a sharp back-door analysis of how abusers maintain industry power.