Movie #20 of 2018: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) This musical biopic of Queen singer Freddie Mercury is much better than I expected it to be. I’m not super well-informed about the actual history of the band, but it seems like the movie sticks pretty close to the facts. I’m especially surprised – quite pleasantly so! – …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Strange Weather by Joe Hill
Book #233 of 2018: Strange Weather by Joe Hill These four novellas from author Joe Hill are of mixed quality, but the collection as a whole is well worth the price of admittance. SNAPSHOT: A thirteen-year-old boy learns that his neighbor’s dementia has been caused by a sinister man whose magic camera is stealing her …
Book Review: How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn
Book #232 of 2018: How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn I think this self-help book would probably be most beneficial for parents who have already found their relationship growing more toxic, but it was certainly eye-opening to read five months before the due date of my first child. I feel …
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Book Review: The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White
Book #231 of 2018: The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White After a little bit of a bumpy start, this Frankenstein retelling quickly settles into itself and by the end proves nearly as remarkable as the Mary Shelley classic. Author Kiersten White’s primary inspiration is to present the familiar horror narrative from the …
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TV Review: Friday Night Lights, season 1
TV #49 of 2018: Friday Night Lights, season 1 It’s a real testament to the quality of the storytelling on this show that I’ve become so invested in the fates of its characters despite not caring at all about sports – let alone the high school football that this narrative is built around. But this …
Book Review: The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander
Book #230 of 2018: The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #3) This third novel in author Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy version of mythical Wales is a bit of a step down from the first two volumes, reducing the sole female hero from a fellow adventurer to a passive macguffin for the …
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Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Book #229 of 2018: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Another classic that I’m only now reading, this novel has a great use of language (in 1930s black vernacular) and well-drawn characters, but a rather aimless plot. I would have liked a little bit more narrative structure to this tale of a …
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Book Review: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Book #227 of 2018: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett This is a very well-written family drama that unfortunately doesn’t have a single character that I like. It doesn’t help that the story is told in snapshots that dart back and forth in time over the course of a half-century, or that in the end a lot …
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Book Review: The Man Who Killed His Brother by Stephen R. Donaldson
Book #228 of 2018: The Man Who Killed His Brother by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Man Who #1) Author Stephen R. Donaldson is best known for his fantasy sagas like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, but his character work and intense internal struggles resonate more than the epic quests and magical worldbuilding, and …
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Book Review: War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations by Greg Keyes
Book #226 of 2018: War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations by Greg Keyes There’s a major off-screen status quo shift in the Planet of the Apes film series between the end of Dawn (2014) and the start of War (2017), and although this tie-in novel is intended to bridge that gap, it never …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 