TV #15 of 2018: Santa Clarita Diet, season 2 Nearly as great as its debut outing, with laugh-out-loud humor and plot developments that make perfect sense in hindsight but always take me by surprise. I love all the little things about marriage that this series nails, and how healthy the central relationships are even amid …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
TV Review: Westworld, season 1
TV #14 of 2018: Westworld, season 1 Given its talented cast, big-budget scenery, and overall concept, Westworld is a series that’s really rich in potential, but this first season comes off as a bit muddled thanks to its J.J. Abrams mystery box storytelling. Too many secrets are kept from the audience for too long, and …
Book Review: So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Book #76 of 2018: So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo This 2018 book presents an outstanding clear-eyed discussion of racism in contemporary America, aimed at providing readers with the tools to have more constructive dialogues of their own. It explores concepts like privilege, microaggressions, and structural injustice, addressing some of the …
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Book Review: The Fireman by Joe Hill
Book #75 of 2018: The Fireman by Joe Hill This Joe Hill novel about a widespread plague of spontaneous combustion has a promising start, but it loses steam as it goes along, especially once it becomes clear that the author is largely just retelling his father’s post-apocalyptic classic The Stand. There are major plot points …
Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Book #74 of 2018: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman I was initially quite charmed by this novel and its titular heroine, whose difficulty with social cues and preference for a strict regular schedule would seem to place her somewhere on the autism spectrum. This diagnosis is never made explicit, however, and as …
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Book Review: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Book #73 of 2018: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This short, powerful essay is a good introduction to the weight of gender expectations and the ways that girls, boys, women, and men are all unfairly constrained by society’s conventions for them. It’s not a perfect read — the length doesn’t really …
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Book Review: Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green
Book #72 of 2018: Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green (Nightside #2) I’m rereading this urban fantasy series that I loved when I was younger, and while it isn’t quite living up to my memories, this second novel is a vast improvement over the first. The worldbuilding offers a steady stream of …
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Book Review: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Book #71 of 2018: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Starbound #1) This sci-fi love story ends a lot stronger than it begins, especially after a surprise development around the three-quarter mark. The two main characters are teens from different social classes — a young war hero and a spoiled heiress — …
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Book Review: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Book #70 of 2018: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda The most distinctive aspect of this suspense novel is its timeline, which is presented Memento-style from back to front. After a quick introduction to establish the narrator and why she’s returned to her hometown, we jump forward two weeks to find that her neighbor …
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Book Review: Squire by Tamora Pierce
Book #69 of 2018: Squire by Tamora Pierce (Protector of the Small #3) I’ve noted before that this quartet of books within Tamora Pierce’s larger Tortall series seems to be the author’s take on the classic boarding school literary genre, like Harry Potter without any looming Voldemort-style threat. Indeed, the plot is the major shortcoming …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 