Book #371 of 2021: All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told by Douglas Wolk This is a rollicking nonfiction attempt to grapple with the wide range of Marvel Comics titles, written by a lifelong fan after he went back to read literally all of them — the …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
TV Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch, season 1
TV #90 of 2021: Star Wars: The Bad Batch, season 1 My expectations weren’t high going into this recent Clone Wars spinoff, as I generally found that parent show to be of variable quality and didn’t think these particular ‘defective clone’ figures made much of an impression beyond a gimmick during their brief appearance there. …
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Book Review: Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields, MSAE
Book #370 of 2021: Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields, MSAE Like many self-help books, this 2019 title feels as though it probably could have been stripped of repetitive examples and published at magazine-article length, if not for the fact …
Book Review: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood
Book #369 of 2021: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood The publisher is pitching this novel as an “Ethiopian-inspired… fantasy retelling of Jane Eyre,” which doesn’t quite seem to hit the mark, as the two books really only share a wealthy man named Mr. Rochester whose manor holds dark secrets (and a few isolated …
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Book Review: The Reversal by Michael Connelly
Book #368 of 2021: The Reversal by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller #3) I enjoy both Mickey Haller and his half-brother Harry Bosch as protagonists, and a team-up is always fun for combining their respective lawyer and detective perspectives. This particular exercise feels as though it needs some further twist to really elevate the material, however, …
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TV Review: Hawkeye, season 1
TV #89 of 2021: Hawkeye, season 1 The latest Marvel show on Disney+ is a flawed but fun action-comedy, taking full advantage of the Christmas setting for a festive buddy romp as Clint Barton reluctantly accepts an eager new junior partner. He’s trying to shut down a mob investigation into the Ronin, his blood-soaked alter …
Book Review: The Separation by K. A. Applegate
Book #367 of 2021: The Separation by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #32) I realize suspension of disbelief is an odd criterion for a series about middle-schoolers changing into animals to fight aliens, but I find this book with the two Rachels particularly hard to swallow. I actually dig the initial premise: the protagonist is injured …
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Book Review: The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White
Book #366 of 2021: The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White (Camelot Rising #3) The beginning of this YA fantasy trilogy held a frisson of excitement in the way it reinterpreted the familiar Arthurian mythos that its sequels have unfortunately never matched. This final volume furthermore takes a few odd detours, like keeping its protagonist a …
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Book Review: Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
Book #365 of 2021: Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang A fairly poignant account of a brief but formative period in author Qian Julie Wang’s life, spanning from 1994 when she left China for America with her family at age seven through when they moved again to Canada five years later. This sort of childhood …
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Book Review: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Book #364 of 2021: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (Monk and Robot #1) As with most titles from author Becky Chambers, this novella reads like a warm hug of hopepunk goodness. Although I wouldn’t say it’s quite on the level of her Wayfarers series, it shares with that space opera of the …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 