Ada Nicolle author page

I was supposed to read "Romeo and Juliet" in high school. I quarreled about reading it, yes I did, sir! I have a lot of Shakespeare-adoring friends, and when they go off on the comedy of errors that is my high school education, I say they're making much ado about nothing.

Nothing is right when it comes to my knowledge of Shakespeare. Among many other things.

BIG shIFt from DO YOU QUARREL, SIR to BIG IF TRUE, true that. Thankfully sites like Know Your Memes exist for those of us who are big ifs when it comes to modern slang. Sad but true that these three regular words mystified me when connected.

Such a hot clue in [It's a mouthful, frankly]! If anyone tells this to my daughter, who loves HOT DOG BUNs (but considers hot dogs ATROCIOUS) and repeats jokes six thousand times, I will be DISGUSTED.

I appreciated the novelty of the grid design. So many themelesses these days are variants on the ol' four triple-stacks in four corners, or stair-stacked middles, that Ada brings freshness. Neat to get so many interconnecting marquee entries, GET RICH QUICK to ON STEROIDS (with a safe clue) to SEMORDNILAPS to CHEAP DATE forming a solid spine.

Enjoyable "something for everyone" approach. Although two of the headline entries baffled me, entries like the funny NOISE MUSIC and the dreamy DREAM TEAM entertained me.

So many sparkly debut entries! The only thing better than an INFINITY POOL would be a Mobius Strip Pool.

LIFE LESSONS / SORRY I ASKED / WE'RE DONE HERE basically sums up parenting — thankfully SILLY STRING fights keep things fun.

And a fantastic entry that we didn't already have on our XWord Info Word List! Who woulda thunk that there would be enough space + cowboy mashups to justify an entire SPACE WESTERN genre? I've tried both the animated and live-action "Cowboy Bebop" with meh results (much to my John Cho fanboy chagrin), and "The Mandalorian" dragged like a grog-laden Jabba. Maybe I'll finally give in to all the "Firefly" zealots out there and give it a shot.

I debated long and hard over WOKEST, back when I added it to the list a few years ago. It still feels like odd usage, "most woke" perhaps better, but it's a tough call. There are plenty of news outlets who've used the word, anyway.

I enjoyed much of the cluing — [Stand for something] is a devilishly Saturday-level clue for a literal stand, an EASEL. [Icy detachment] also innocuously misdirected away from an (ice)BERG. It'd have been great to get more of these, along with the sassiness in the clue for HOME GYM, as a place where people use their Peloton as a clothes rack.

Curious to see if Peloton rides off into the space cowboy sunset after the pandemic …

Six fantastic marquee entries, that's REALLY SOMETHING! I paused when I finally uncovered that one, wondering if it felt arbitrary or I liked it. Didn't take long to decide that I loved it.

With only four more long entries in the entire puzzle, you have to take full advantage of them, and Brooke and Ada did a reasonable job with that. I enjoyed both FIBONACCI and STEEL DRUM, especially with that curious "instrument played by a pannist" clue. That's a great way to generate an a-ha moment, turning a "how the #$@!? should I know what a pannist is?" feeling into a delightful head-slap. DIVING INTO, though ... add-preposition phrases are tough to make stand out.

I finished with an error, putting in CHIMA as the rapper with NIME as the daughter of Styx. I guessed CHIMA ... as in chime? Because she's a singer? Get it?

Fine, I didn't either.

I would have had a much more positive first impression of CHIKA if the NIKE clue had been eased up, allowing me to achieve a victorious solve. I'm big into Greek myths, my kids having listened to D'Aulaires book on audio roughly eight thousand times in the car, but NIKE's lineage escaped me, and NIME sounded familiar. It's a shame, because "Can't Explain It" is catchy!

INNU treated me much better. I didn't know the word — neither did XWI's resident Canuck, Jim Horne — but with unambiguous crossings, each one given a softball clue, I had a much friendlier first contact experience.

Entertaining to get a throwback LINsanity clue. He had his five minutes, played overseas, and is now trying to make another NBA run with the Warriors' G-League affiliate.

A peppering of great clues, with [Puts on the line, say] a standout — clever repurposing of a common phrase. I could have used more of these, though, since there wasn't as much juice in the grid's long entries as there typically is with themelesses featuring 14-16 long entries.

Beautiful set of six marquees. Next time, I'd love to see what Brooke can do with long marquees laid out with her trademark diagonal symmetry. Editors tend to adhere to their old ways, and I'd love to see them experiment more, allowing all sorts of different themeless layouts for variety's sake.

Debut! And in a theme area with huge potential; relatively untapped. DROVE inside LAND ROVER, READ inside PENNY DREADFULS — how appropriate! Themes featuring short words embedded inside long phrases is commonplace. But when there's a meaningful connection between the short and the long in which it sits, that's something special.

Four interesting, clever finds. (I wasn't as hot on the SENT / REPRESENTATIVE connection since that felt looser than the others.)

There was also the issue of having to clue things oddly / without consistency. For instance, DROVE a LAND ROVER requires the "a" while RAN ERRANDS does not, and RAN ERRANDS is a fine phrase in itself while DROVE a LAND ROVER would never be a valid crossword entry. But the four finds were strong enough that I looked the other way.

Off-the-charts gridwork for a debut. So smooth. The themer set isn't difficult to work with, but getting to a finished product that only needs some OTRA SYNE stuff while incorporating assets like RATED G, TEAM USA, EMERALDS, EYE LEVEL, HORATIO, etc.?

Color me impressed!

Ada did all the right things: spacing out themers appropriately, separating them with smartly-placed black squares, being careful about the themer order so that the down answers crossing three themers exhibit friendly letter combinations, etc. These are factors that many experienced constructors still don't get right.

[Something most people lie about?] made no sense at first. Wait … wait … wait for it. Lie about. As in lie? Like lie down? On a BED?

*cue the enjoyable collective groan*

Loved the PHD clue, too. Brian May has a PHD in astrophysics? No wonder he's such a star.

*rimshot*

Speaking of stars, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Ada's work. I'm sensing huge potential.