Book #17 of 2020: Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow Ronan Farrow is one of the journalists who helped to finally build a public case against Harvey Weinstein’s serial predation of women in Hollywood, and I initially wasn’t sure that I needed to read his account of …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
Book #16 of 2020: Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #1) The start of a long-overdue reread to this fantasy series that I loved as a child, pre-Harry Potter. (And indeed, there are some definite similarities between Harry and this novel’s hero even beyond their distinct Britishness, from the wide-eyed entrance into a world …
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Book Review: A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
Book #15 of 2020: A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen True to its title, this post-apocalyptic novel opens after the point when many stories of its genre have finished: with humanity decimated by plague, but its societies generally through the transitional chaos and now beginning to rebuild. It’s also a time of fresh …
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Book Review: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
Book #14 of 2020: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #5) The action in this series finale is suitably epic, and the parallels to the Trojan War are cute if a little distracting. (These characters all either know a lot about Greek mythology or are the actual mythic figures themselves. …
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Book Review: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust
Book #13 of 2020: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust This standalone fantasy novel is a neat feminist retelling of Snow White, especially for how it transforms the evil stepmother / innocent child relationship into a more nuanced interpersonal dynamic. And although the romantic element of the text is fairly understated, having …
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Book Review: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Book #12 of 2020: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado It took me a little while to get on-board with this memoir’s disjointed style, but the quality of Carmen Maria Machado’s prose is well worth the effort. Although the work remains fragmentary, each successive glimpse at the author’s relationship with her abusive ex-girlfriend …
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Book Review: Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
Book #11 of 2020: Fireborne by Rosaria Munda (The Aurelian Cycle #1) Way less bloodthirsty than I would expect for a novel advertised as ‘Game of Thrones meets Red Rising.’ I also have issues with the two protagonists, each of whom is a pretty reactive character with no clear motivation. The premise of the story …
Book Review: Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
Book #10 of 2020: Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #1) This first A Series of Unfortunate Events prequel reads much like its parent series, with sly observational humor and a delightfully morose atmosphere alongside oblique hints at mysteries that will likely never be solved. That’s somewhat …
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Book Review: Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray
Book #9 of 2020: Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray The plot is a bit of a mess, but this story offers an interesting look at the teenage Obi-Wan Kenobi and his early dynamic with Master Qui-Gon Jin, eight years before their on-screen introduction in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It also includes …
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Book Review: To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Book #8 of 2020: To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers This Becky Chambers novella offers an interesting look at how earth scientists could explore the cosmos as unintrusively as possible, and it’s refreshing for a genre work to put ethical considerations front and center like that. I also appreciate that the story is …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 