TV #57 of 2021: Loki, season 1 This latest Marvel series has been a blast to watch and to speculate about, even if in my opinion the ultimate answers aren’t as clever or as daring as certain fan theories out there. (I wonder how it will be received differently for audiences who come at it …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Book #196 of 2021: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston Utterly charmed by this YA romance between the son of America’s first female president and an English prince, although I’ll admit to being occasionally distracted trying to figure out how/when its timeline diverged from our own reality — as near as I can …
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Book Review: The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright
Book #195 of 2021: The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright I’m sure there will be many works written in the time ahead that chronicle the ins and outs of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak and analyze the responses taken by various government leaders. This one, specifically focusing on the U.S. …
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TV Review: Dawson’s Creek, season 5
TV #56 of 2021: Dawson’s Creek, season 5 It was perhaps inevitable that this teen drama would have growing pains in the transition from high school to college, which is a tricky maneuver for any show to pull off. The sets, the supporting cast, the typical episode beats: all of these are necessarily different, and …
Book Review: Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
Book #194 of 2021: Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #16) A weaker effort, published in the U.S. as Poirot Loses a Client. The mystery is not altogether bad, featuring a friendly dog and a posthumously-delivered letter begging the detective for help, but its solution hinges on wild leaps of deduction from the little …
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TV Review: Bosch, season 7
TV #55 of 2021: Bosch, season 7 This final stretch of Bosch doesn’t immediately feel like a farewell tour, and I was initially underwhelmed by the seemingly low stakes of the central apartment building arson. But there’s an interesting subplot here of Billets struggling to pierce career protection and oust two bigot incels from among …
Book Review: The Alien by K. A. Applegate
Book #193 of 2021: The Alien by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #8) The first Animorphs book narrated by Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is a roaring success. (Strictly speaking, his viewpoint was introduced in the previous volume, Megamorphs #1, but it feels richer here where it doesn’t have to share space with any others.) We get new terminology for …
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TV Review: Broadchurch, season 2
TV #54 of 2021: Broadchurch, season 2 There are two major plots in the second run of this British crime drama, each building reasonably off the first year, which ended with a surprise arrest for the murder of little Danny Latimer. These intersect to a certain degree simply because some of the same people are …
Book Review: Fable of the Swan by Jenna Katerin Moran
Book #192 of 2021: Fable of the Swan by Jenna Katerin Moran This is without a doubt one of the strangest books I’ve ever encountered. It’s weird fiction in every sense of the term, the sort of story that has to teach you how to interpret its slipstream oddities as you go along, and even …
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Book Review: The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes
Book #191 of 2021: The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes (The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone #3) Another strong fantasy adventure, following the returning heroes — by this point fairly scattered across the realm — as they navigate civil war, political intrigue, and unjust imprisonment amid the prophesied apocalypse still unfolding all around them. It’s …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 