Hoang-Kim Vu author page

★ WHO DOES THAT? Definitely Rafa and Kim, packing their grid with oodles of colorful, joyful fill. ENGAGEMENT PARTY is the star of the show, not only for its inherent vivacity, but for that beautiful clue. What a sparkling way to misdirect, using "new rock band" to point away from a diamond ring.

I'm not sure which corner I love the most. The SW and NE are front-runners — not a surprise, since the other two corners are much bigger and tougher to jam-pack with pizzazz. PRO GAMER / TELEPORT / SAD TO SAY speaks to my dork side, while EGO BOOST / NO WONDER / the GREAT ONE plus SENSEI makes me bow with respect.

Given that ON CAMERA and IN AREA aren't fantastic, I'd lean toward the lower left as the star of the show. This former trombonist has some baggage with being forced to play way too much SOUSA during parades, though …

It's great to see PAD and TAMPON in a NYT crossword. I'm sure there will be some haters out there who turn up their noses, but it's refreshing to see some of the fusty taboos broken.

So much to love, so little to nit-pick. My favorite Friday themelesses are those that leave me with a high, and this elated me.

I GOTTA SAY that there were some excellent debuts: PRAYER MAT, APOLOGY ACCEPTED, DON'T GET UP, and even T-Swizzle TAY-TAY (fine, I admit that I can't shake off Shake It Off).

Although SUPERNOVA has been in the NYT crossword since 1966, there's been no more impressive clue than [Huge pop star?]. On a Friday, I appreciated that telltale question mark, tipping me off that if Tayla Swiff couldn't be involved, at least I'd get some stellar (sorry) wordplay.

POP UP SHOP is a fresher entry, though wow, what a Saturday clue. [Store for a short time] — without a question mark — pushes so strongly toward storage rental units. It's absolutely fair and Saturday-worthy clever, but I didn't get the same elation as I did with SUPERNOVA and its clue.

Brooke's latest New Yorker puzzle garnered some "hardest puzzle of the year" chatter, so I tried it. And failed. Miserably. Today's was thankfully much more in my realm of possibility, though there were a lot of toughies:

• LOOFA as a [Natural rubber]? If there had been a question mark, I'd buy "rubber" as a "thing that rubs."
• [Root] has eight major categories of definitions in Merriam-Webster—and that's only in nouns. It took ages get to the BOTTOM of the clue …
• [Stand for a shot] ... I gave up golf decades ago because this hack couldn't hack it, but calling an opening drive a "shot" (not a TEE shot) deserves a question mark.
• [It's right on a map] obfuscated things as much as today's politicians. I get that RED STATEs lean right. Again though, no question mark?
• Ōdī et amō.

Neat gridwork — did you notice the diagonal symmetry along the SW to NE axis? — and I might have loved this solving experience on a Saturday.

This puzzle is a lot like parenting — no ME time. Trying to remember the trick was frustrating (also like parenting), but I resolved to find each and every one of them (warning: Dad Joke alert), even if it killed ME.

Perfect puzzle for haters of the ME generation; ME removed from regular entries to form equally valid entries. Twelve times! I like symmetry, especially for thematic entries, but that's near impossible when you're trying to pack in such an immense quantity.

ME is a common bigram, and there are a ton of possibilities (try our Replacement Finder). Crosswords should genreally feature long theme entries, but there isn't much to choose from that's both long and surprising. Something like ARE YOU KIDDING ME to ARE YOU KIDDING … I'm sure many solvers would ask, are you kidding me?!

Because the base phrase isn't clued, it can be confusing to use a multi-word entry. I love CON GAMES to CONGAS and COME HERE to COHERE because of the space changes, but I can see how some solvers would stare at the unclued CONGAMES and never understand how the wool got pulled over their eyes.

Splitting up a revealer is a reasonable choice, especially when it can be perfectly halved. I don't mind LEAVE ME and OUT OF IT not residing in symmetrical spots, especially since they're at the bottom of the puzzle, delaying the revealing moment. Putting the second half first is so inelegant, though. I'm sure it worked out best this way due to the fortuitous intersection of OUT OF IT and IM HOME, but there are better presentations available.

Although the overall solving experience came across as somewhat haphazard, there are a lot of interesting finds, like MENORAH to NORAH and IM HOME to IMHO.

I sadly don't have time these days to play contract bridge, but I spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about it. And then thinking some more. So I was elated today, seeing that the world had rolled back a century to the Golden Era of contract bridge when everyone would know that the revealer was JUMP RAISE!

Not only did I misguess the revealer, but a bridge jump raise goes up at least two levels, not just one.

As my old bridge partner often says, I should have passed.

Super clean puzzle, the co-constructors showing more finesse than me. The only place I bid out of tempo was at K-TURN. I've only known this as a "three-point turn," but seeing the Wikipedia illustration, I can imagine it as a K ... with some squinting.

Given the grid's silky-smoothness, I'd like to see if some color could be injected for minor costs. It is difficult to grid around themers that shift levels, but I'm sure there are some 76-word layouts that would allow for more bonuses. This is especially important for the non-card-playing solvers out there.

Although there's not much snazziness in the phrases — typically, themes need to carry more zing than only PIE CHARTS — it's a solid concept that works as a literal interpretation of JUMPSUITS.

You're breaking my heart! Literally, HEART in the middle of THE ART OF WAR, separating by one square at a time. I appreciate the extra layer, helping to elevate this from the standard "hidden words" pack.

Great theme phrases, too. HEAD FOR THE HILLS almost felt related, referring to the eternal struggle between the HEAD and HEART. It's been a minute since I've heard IN THE AIR TONIGHT, but the tune snapped right back.

I'm hoping that the earworm will head for the hills soon.

Like Kim mentioned, I would have loved for the final themer to have the HEART broken further to the right, completing a progression from NW to SE. I was surprised to find that there are few possibilities for that last one. Couldn't find anything that was 15 letters, but WEATHER CHART or THE DEPARTED would work with a matching length.

I love the notion of the shaded squares looking like a heart (when turned sideways)! You can always "flip" a grid along the NW-SE diagonal, making Across answers Down and vice versa, so that would have accomplished it.

Will Shortz doesn't often take puzzles with the same letters in sets of circles or shades, because it becomes too obvious. Once you realize the HEART letters will fill the second set, you can plunk them into the rest. I wondered, was there a way to avoid this? I doubt it, since without the shaded squares, it'd be impossible to figure out.

Five themers, with three spanning the grid, is no easy feat. Well done to incorporate CHEF'S HAT, a delightful entry. Even more impressive when considering it strings through three theme answers. There aren't many possibilities. Our word lists have only that one entry for the C??F?H?? pattern.

With a theme set like this, the problems usually occur when you get to the perimeter, having to work through two themers. Take the bottom right, for instance. The K in LIKES makes it even tougher, and few constructors would aim to end with LOEIL in their grid.

Not the smoothest ride today, but full of ups, what with all the pizzazz in the themers and bonuses. Appropriate for a puzzle about love and heartbreak.

NYT Debut! Hoang-Kim CHECKs ALL / THE BOXES with a standard rebus, C-H-E-C-K boxed four times. Great way to kick off the theme, CHECKS AND BALANCES / MIC CHECK such jazzy entries. CHECKPOINT CHARLIE, BLANK CHECK and COAT CHECK rounded things out well.

Long across bonuses are unusual in a rebus, because the rebus boxes tend to take up huge swaths of real estate, making it difficult to work in much else. FULL OF IT and EYE TO EYE elevated my solve, although I did wonder for a minute if they were thematic.

Will often stresses that in rebuses, the rebus squares should be inside the puzzle's longest entries. It's not only more elegant and interesting that way, but solvers won't wonder how something like FULL OF IT relates to CHECKs.

I hesitated on the revealer. CHECK THE BOXES might have worked better (no ALL), at least for non-anal-irritatingly-literal crossword dissectors. Doesn't ALL the boxes imply that every square in the grid should have a check?

Bad, Jeff, bad! Turn off that coroner's brain for once and enjoy.

A couple of blips in the gridwork, ETUI notable. There are certain Maleskan triggers that get solvers rolling their eyes, and this is one. I can understand how it happened — not easy to fill that SE corner, given the overlap of CHECKPOINT CHARLIE and COAT CHECK. I'd likely have tried to make that corner smaller by shifting black squares around.

It is a Thursday, so experienced solvers will have seen ETUI before. I'd like to see it moved to Will's list of "puzzle-killers," though.

An entertaining debut, although I would have liked a more straightforward, non-interlocking set of themers, punctuated by a more accurate CHECK THE BOXES. That would have allowed for one or two more snazzy long themers, like REALITY CHECK, BOUNCED A CHECK, CHECKERED FLAG, CHUBBY CHECKER, etc.