TV #39 of 2024: Seinfeld, season 9 And so this 90s sitcom goes out like it came in, as a reliably funny but seldom spectacular viewing experience. (I’m not trying to damn the show with faint praise here, but you can see why it became such a mainstay of network television syndication, where audiences could …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Blackcurrant Fool by Victoria Goddard
Book #135 of 2024: Blackcurrant Fool by Victoria Goddard (Greenwing & Dart #4) I keep thinking that the Greenwing & Dart sequence is finally going to make the leap from good to great for me — in line with the other entries I’ve read in author Victoria Goddard’s sprawling Nine Worlds fantasy setting — only …
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Book Review: Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
Book #134 of 2024: Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano (Finlay Donovan #1) A fun suburban crime thriller that feels sort of like northern Virginia’s answer to the ‘zany Florida’ books of writers like Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, and Tim Dorsey. The premise here is just as wild: an author talking to her …
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Book Review: The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
Book #133 of 2024: The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young This novel is largely fine, but I want so much more from it. The premise is convoluted in a River Song / The Time Traveler’s Wife sort of way, and it takes so long to get fully established that it seems like the …
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TV Review: Babylon 5, season 1
TV #38 of 2024: Babylon 5, season 1 Although an improvement over the pilot movie The Gathering, this first full season of Babylon 5 still isn’t at a consistent quality level for me to raise it higher than my personal 3-star rating tier. I thought I might, during a few episodes! The comparison to its …
Book Review: The January 6th Report by The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
Book #132 of 2024: The January 6th Report by The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol An incredibly damning account of the January 2021 riot and then-President Donald Trump’s role in fomenting it, as meticulously assembled by the members of a bipartisan congressional committee and their staff who …
Book Review: Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
Book #131 of 2024: Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson Novelizations are an interesting business. There’s a long history of them in the Doctor Who franchise, and back in the days before home video recording and on-demand streaming, they originally served the purpose of making TV stories more accessible to anyone …
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Book Review: Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World’s Most Beloved Musical by Barbara Isenberg
Book #130 of 2024: Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World’s Most Beloved Musical by Barbara Isenberg The stage musical Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway in September 1964, so with its sixty-year anniversary coming up, I thought I would check out this title, written to …
Book Review: The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams
Book #129 of 2024: The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams (The Babysitters Coven #1) Given the title, I was expecting this 2019 series debut to be a smart and loving homage to The Babysitters Club, with some nice new witchy twist thrown in on top. Instead, it’s unfortunately more of a half-baked Buffy-meets-Labyrinth affair, with …
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Book Review: Aftershock by Chris Archer
Book #128 of 2024: Aftershock by Chris Archer (Mindwarp #6) Another excellent and propulsive installment of this 90s middle-grade alien conspiracy series. We’ve got time travel now! The latest protagonist to turn thirteen and unlock special powers from her extraterrestrial heritage is one of the popular kids in school — not quite a mean girl, …
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