TV #49 of 2020: The Office, season 6 Although not as impressively serialized as the previous season’s arc with the Michael Scott Paper Company, this year of The Office takes a few swings at tinkering with the status quo, first with the promotion of one of the characters to co-manager and then with the corporate …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Don’t Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross
Book #268 of 2020: Don’t Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross The main problem with this standalone fantasy novel is that none of its characters seems to have a clear motivation driving their actions, resulting in a narrative with the shape of a quest but less weight than a typical tabletop roleplaying campaign. They’re just …
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Book Review: The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
Book #267 of 2020: The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby This is an interesting read on the history of racism within white American Protestantism, although I think it would benefit from deeper insight at times into why and how dominant church positions (both implicit and …
Book Review: Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
Book #266 of 2020: Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis (Not a Drop to Drink #1) I picked up this 2013 debut about a girl and her mother protecting their post-apocalyptic water source on the strength of author Mindy McGinnis’s wrenching survival tale Be Not Far from Me, but I’ve been pretty disappointed …
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Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Book #265 of 2020: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Author Susanna Clarke’s second novel is an odd beast, closer in tone to experimental mind-bending works like House of Leaves, Annihilation, or The Slow Regard of Silent Things than her Victorian fantasy classic Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. The narrator is an amnesiac in an otherworldly flooded …
Book Review: Thud! by Terry Pratchett
Book #264 of 2020: Thud! by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #34) Maybe it’s due to the inevitable comedown from the thoroughly excellent Night Watch, but I haven’t enjoyed this next City Watch novel nearly as much as I expected to. There’s a great worldbuilding revelation at the end, yet this is one of those Discworld books …
TV Review: The Good Fight, season 1
TV #48 of 2020: The Good Fight, season 1 So far this streaming spinoff sequel isn’t quite hitting the heights of its network forebear, but at least it picks the franchise back up after the dull plotting and inconsistent character work that plagued the end of The Good Wife. My biggest complaint about this first …
Book Review: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland
Book #263 of 2020: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland (A Conspiracy of Truths #1) It’s a definite testament to author Alexandra Rowland’s talent that their 2018 debut novel is so utterly engrossing despite being set almost entirely within the confines of a cramped jail cell. On trial for espionage in a strange land, …
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Book Review: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
Book #262 of 2020: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (Charlotte Holmes #1) I like how this Arthur Conan Doyle modernization isn’t a straight retelling of one of the classic stories, but instead a YA ‘next generation’ approach of the teenage descendants of Holmes and Watson teaming up at boarding school to see if …
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Book Review: Tristan Strong Destroys The World by Kwame Mbalia
Book #261 of 2020: Tristan Strong Destroys The World by Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong #2) I still love the concept of a middle-grade fantasy series populated by African gods and black folk heroes, but I’m not quite as charmed by this sequel. I feel like it retreads a lot of the same material from the …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 