Why did you read this book? Toast editor Nicole Cliffe tweeted that the kindle edition was on sale, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of essays on The Hairpin before.

Has Jeremy read it? No.

42-word review: Meandery, memoirish essays about travel that are mainly about not-entirely-positive experiences, but they still made me wish I’d backpacked more. My favourites were by Chiara Atik and Nicole Cliffe about being alone in Paris and a Let’s Go editor in London, respectively.

Overall rating: 3 train tickets (out of 5)

Why did you read this book? We were looking for good read-aloud books for a road trip and this sounded like something fun in the vein of the Enola Holmes books, which are great.

Has Jeremy read it? Yes. He reviewed it here.

42-word review: Plucky 11-year-old is the only one who can see and remove curses from objects in her parents’ museum. Adults are all either malevolent, oblivious or unwilling to help her. Witty and fun, but not remotely plausible, bonus points for excellent character names.

Overall rating: 3 amulets (out of 5)

Why did you read this book? We bought this book back in the US, ages ago. Cannot remember why, except that it was one of those books that we bought on quasi-impulse while wandering around Barnes & Noble. (A question we regularly speculate about is whether the Evanston Barnes & Noble will still be there when we get back to the US.)

The reason I picked it from various other unread books on the iPad is that it’s about cricket, which has been a recent micro-obsession of mine.

Has Beckie read it? Yes, but awhile ago, before we started doing 42 word reviews.

42-word review: The cricket got me through, and curiosity of reading novel about Sri Lanka. Has deliberately rambling structure–even though many of the ramblings are entertaining or cricket-informative, wore me down after awhile. So too long, but skimmable and satisfying ending.

Overall rating: 3 wickets (out of 5)

Why did you read this book? This was another book chosen from the car for our New Zealand trip. My recollection is that we were looking for a young adult crime book, inspired maybe by our joint fondness for the Enola Holmes series. Due to timing and technological experimentation, some of this book was read aloud to me by Beckie while I was driving, read aloud using Audible.com, and simply read on the Kindle.

Has Beckie read it? I’m not sure she’s finished it.

42 word review11-year old girl is Indiana Jones in story that takes place in 1906 London and Egypt. Her sidekick is a street urchin named Sticky Will. It’s fun! (Remaining 15 words unnecessary, but I’ll write a sentence of appropriate length for consistency’s sake.)

Overall rating: 4 cursed kittens (out of 5)

Why did you read this book? We bought it for Beckie to read aloud while I drove us around New Zealand. We had such success on the last car trip with The Basic Eight. I think this came up on Amazon as recommended for people who liked that book. (But, the whole thing with the Basic Eight is that it was often funny. While the protagonist Vera Dietz is witty, the tone of the book is more melancholic throughout.

Has Beckie read it? Yes. Maybe I should be skipping this question for Beckie-Read-Alouds.

42 word review: High-school girl (literally) haunted by guy who was best friend, turned mean, then died. Best parts: protagonist’s voice, relationship with ex-alcoholic-now-workaholic father. Plot sometimes relies on characters’ actions that make little sense; doesn’t quite come together at end.

Overall rating: 3 zippo-lighters (out of 5)

Why did you read it? It was late. I was bored in a hotel room and we had just finished the first novel. And the first novel included the first chapter of this second book at the end. This chapter was reasonably well-done—remarkably, the novel basically abandons it entirely and goes in a completely different direction, with just a token tie-back at the end.

Has Beckie read it? She has more pride than that. Plus by this point I have recounted the preposterousness of the plot in some detail.

42 word review: Presumably written more quickly than this review, if not dictated. Mostly takes place in completely ludicrous super-prison that knocks off Zimbardo experiment. Anybody who did like first book of trilogy could skip this entirely with minimal continuity loss. Silly, stupid, incoherent.

Overall rating: 1 bad decision (out of 5)