about

Hi. I'm Evan Ashcroft. I live in a small apartment with too many bookshelves and a board game closet that my partner has diplomatically stopped commenting on. This site is one HTML file I keep copying into more HTML files. It works.

things I do

• Read fiction. Mostly sci-fi and literary. I go through phases.
• Play board games. Mostly cooperative and heavy strategy.
• Write these reviews once a month, sometimes less. Life gets busy.
• Work a normal day job that is not related to any of this.

things I don't do

• Score things out of ten. There is a number on each review because search engines expect one, but the text does the actual work.
• Reviews on release day. I do not get paid for this and I am not fast.
• Sponsored posts. Nobody has offered, and if they did the answer is no.
• Twitter. I am on Mastodon and I check it maybe twice a week.

how I pick what to review

I only write about things I have finished. For books that means cover to cover. For board games that means at least three real plays, usually more. If I bounce off something, I usually just do not write about it. There is enough angry writing on the internet already.

why the site looks like this

I like serif fonts and dark backgrounds. I do not like cookie banners, newsletter popups, or "we value your privacy" dialogs. So the site has none of those.

It is under 100kb per page. It loads before you can blink. It should work fine on a phone from 2014, on a laptop under a tree, and on the reader view of any browser.

contact

If you want to argue with me (please do, it is the best part), you can email hi [at] ashcroftreview [dot] com. I read everything. I reply eventually.

colophon

• font: Fraunces for headings, Inter for body.
• palette: a warm paperback. Cocoa background, cream text, terracotta accent.
• build: hand-written HTML and one CSS file. No framework.
• host: whatever is cheapest this year.
• analytics: none. I do not want to know.