Book #39 of 2020: Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb (The Fitz and The Fool #2) A marked improvement over the start of this trilogy, but still rather slow-paced and occasionally a bit tedious in how it retreads familiar territory from earlier in the Elderlings saga. (Of course Fitz is going to insist on doing something …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White
Book #38 of 2020: The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White (Camelot Rising #1) This Arthurian YA took a little while to grow on me, and there’s a major twist that’s telegraphed so openly throughout this initial volume that I wish author Kiersten White had moved it forward and spent more time dealing with the fallout …
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Book Review: The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad
Book #37 of 2020: The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad Another book that I wanted to love more than I actually did. In theory, this 2019 fantasy novel with #ownvoices Muslim protagonists and mythology should be a bright gem amid the common eurocentric tropes of the genre. In practice, it’s a tad aimless …
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Book Review: When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket
Book #36 of 2020: When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #2) Technically an improvement over the first Unfortunate Events prequel, in part because this volume leans more into the clever wordplay and less into the vague allusions to larger plots (although those are definitely still present). I also …
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Book Review: The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones
Book #35 of 2020: The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #2) I still think the debut volume Charmed Life is the best place to start this series, but this prequel surpasses it on just about every level. We actually get to visit other worlds in the multiverse that makes this setting …
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Book Review: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Book #34 of 2020: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo A valuable theoretical workbook from a white author with a career in racial sensitivity training, aimed primarily at white readers who wish to understand why we get defensive over the subject of race and how …
Book Review: Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean
Book #33 of 2020: Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean In the summer of 1727, a small group of men and boys from an island off the coast of Scotland were dropped off at a remote rocky outcropping for their community’s annual excursion to spend a few weeks hunting the local birds for their …
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Book Review: Crier’s War by Nina Varela
Book #32 of 2020: Crier’s War by Nina Varela (Crier’s War #1) Nina Varela’s authorial debut has enough going for it that I will happily read the sequel, but this first book has a few issues holding it back from achieving its full potential. The good: a Battlestar Galactica sort of premise in which humanoid …
Book Review: The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky
Book #31 of 2020: The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky (Low Town #1) The misogyny in this urban fantasy debut is so pervasive that it sometimes occludes the racism, ableism, and homophobia that also populate the work. (I lost track of how many times someone’s purported gayness is used as an insult — including …
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TV Review: Better Call Saul, season 2
TV #2 of 2020: Better Call Saul, season 2 My original review from 2016: “The unexpected Breaking Bad spinoff continues to be a fascinating character study, and this season really embraces the aspect of a Shakespearean tragedy that comes from its audience knowing, at least in broad strokes, how the story ends. I’m not sure …
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