TV #11 of 2019: Friday Night Lights, season 4 On a macro level, my biggest criticism of FNL thus far is that every season seems radically different from the one before it — and never in a way that feels especially organic or planned-out as part of a larger design. This year the program shifts …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
Book #79 of 2019: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious #1) This novel has a great hook of an unsolved kidnapping from the 1930s and a modern teenage crime buff going off to the boarding school where it happened. Unfortunately, it all rather falls apart for me by the end. Author Maureen Johnson is …
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Book Review: Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon
Book #78 of 2019: Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon This 2009 book from Michael Chabon is an excellent memoir, focused less on the novelist’s specific life history and more on his general musings about parenting and gender roles, as filtered through his own experiences. …
Book Review: I’ll Mature When I’m Dead: Dave Barry’s Amazing Tales of Adulthood by Dave Barry
Book #76 of 2019: I’ll Mature When I’m Dead: Dave Barry’s Amazing Tales of Adulthood by Dave Barry Is Dave Barry’s new(er) material objectively less funny than what I read of his while growing up? Have my own tastes changed? Is our current cultural moment just vastly different than when this book was written in …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Human Nature by Paul Cornell
Book #77 of 2019: Doctor Who: Human Nature by Paul Cornell (Virgin New Adventures #38) This Doctor Who novel was first published in 1995, back during the wilderness years when the television show had been canceled and the franchise was only continuing through such works on paper. These days it’s more famous for having been …
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Book Review: Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow by E. K. Johnston
Book #75 of 2019: Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston Despite my hopes, this YA novel doesn’t really live up to its potential as the first canonical Star Wars story to focus on Padmé Amidala and her handmaidens. Taking place roughly halfway between the prequel movies The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, …
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Book Review: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi
Book #74 of 2019: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen #2) This is now the third book that I’ve read from author Roshani Chokshi, and I’ve had similar feelings about all of them: appreciation for the #ownvoices Hindu mythology that informs her fantasy worldbuilding, but frustration with certain plotting decisions and …
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Book Review: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Book #73 of 2019: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #1) It’s probably been half a lifetime since I’ve last read this classic sci-fi series, and I’m delighted to find that the first book is just as fantastic as I remember. The dry British absurdities coupled …
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Book Review: A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix
Book #72 of 2019: A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix This YA space opera has some fun worldbuilding, but the main character is such a blank slate that it ends up feeling more like a proof-of-concept for the setting than a proper story. (Imagine something like Ender’s Game, Harry Potter, Red Rising, or The …
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Book Review: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
Book #71 of 2019: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land This house cleaner’s personal narrative is a heartbreaking reminder of the precarious nature of life in America’s lower classes. Author Stephanie Land illustrates how a single surprise expense will send her situation spiraling, how her already-low wages …
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