Skulduggery Pleasant follows a girl named Stephanie who meets a (totally normal) flame-throwing skeleton detective man (Skulduggery Pleasant), accompanies him as they solve the “mystery” of her uncle’s death, and discovers a world of magic along the way.
I had so much fun with this, and I genuinely wish I had read it as a kid, because it could’ve been a potential favorite. I would 100% recommend Skulduggery to younger readers; it might scratch a similar itch to books like Artemis Fowl. I enjoyed this more than some other middle grade I've read recently (i.e. Inkheart), but writing-quality-wise I don't think Skulduggery is quite on the same level. Of course, it's been a few years since I was in elementary/middle school, so take the rec with a single grain of salt or more if ya want.
There’s a lot of telling over showing, and the book is not too descriptive about characters/settings at all, which took me out of it a bit. Skulduggery is the one explaining who the bad guys are, and we just have to take his word for it that they are bad. The plot was fun enough, and the fight scenes were a bit blurry to me, but the banter between characters is where this book shines. Stephanie is so cool, and her dynamic with Skulduggery makes me happy.
Read: April 17, 2026
Rating: ★★★½ / 5
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Good relevant-to-me quotes from Skulduggery Pleasant (the book, not the guy):
"To be honest with you, it's not even my head... It's not. They ran away with my skull. I won this one in a poker game."
"There's a crossword in the paper my dad gets every single day. He starts it, makes up nonsensical words to fill in the blanks of the ones he doesn't know, and abandons the puzzle."
"Being a detective isn't all about torture and murder and monsters. Sometimes it gets truly unpleasant... The fate of the world may depend on whether or not you can bring yourself to visit your relatives."
Above clip is proof that audiobook sound effects are not so bad if I don't hate the book. Very skelly, thank you. Also, embedding that was a pain, and I'll probably never do it again.
I read this book because of some Reddit post asking for recommendations for books with main characters that are skellies. I don't think Skulduggery was what they were looking for, but it sure was what I was thinking about. It was first on my radar a long time ago because of Rick's Reading Recommendations (good page for middle grade/YA recommendations, though they're all from like ~15 years ago). Rick Riordan's website was a favorite place on the internet for a few years there. Can you tell I'm a Percy Jackson fan yet?
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Griffin Gluck as Dunkers is the best part, though I don’t think I
could be friends with him. Give me a million scenes with Dunk in it; it
doesn’t even matter what he’s babbling about as long as babble happens.
It’s
wild to see Sabrina Carpenter here post-Girl-Meets-World, but
pre-big-famous-Sabrina (before Espresso started entering my nightmares).
Movie
premise is so silly. I hope it makes somebody feel seen, but it’s not
good. Tall Guy Stig’s arc felt like it came out of nowhere too.
I
want to give this 2 stars so bad, but I must be honest. I think 3/10 is
fair, but I have to rethink all my other low ratings. My Oxford Year (1
star) is so criminally bad, and Tall Girl simply does not deserve to
be Oxford-Year-adjacent.
Rewatched on: April 17, 2026
Rating: ★½ / 5
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There's not much more to say about Tall Girl. I honestly enjoyed it! The movie was mainly a vehicle for having a silly night with some friends, and it served its function perfectly.
No hate to Sabrina Carpenter, but the TikTok sound bites of her songs have been driving me nuts for years, I think. My fault for using social media, I know.
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So the system data on my iPhone hit 94 GB, and I had to factory reset it. Advice from Pratima: don't wait 'til it gets to 94 GB to do something. The Apple Store guy recommended to not do a full iCloud restore. My photos/messages/contacts were all transferred, but I had to re-download all the apps. I have more advice from Pratima if you are considering doing this:
1. If you use WhatApp, make sure the chats are backed up to iCloud.
2. If you're a nerd that uses Signal, set up the 64-character code to recover a backup.
3. Libby, specifically if you use tags or have a lot of library cards: back up your data with a recovery passkey. I didn't do this, and it's definitely the most upsetting thing I lost (uhh as far as I know). Not the end of the world, but nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world.
I am not tech person despite my job title, but I'll update this list for my own benefit.
iOS 26 is ugly @Tim Cook.
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