Movie #12 of 2022: Knives Out (2019) A decent murder mystery, albeit one I feel I might have liked better absent the years of people hyping it up so much. The colorful ensemble of plausible suspects is certainly fun, as is the steady puncturing of their bigotry towards the dead patriarch’s nurse and her immigrant …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: The Jewish Book of Horror edited by Josh Schlossberg
Book #114 of 2022: The Jewish Book of Horror edited by Josh Schlossberg As usual for a genre anthology, some of these stories strike me as stronger than others, but they are collectively rather great, presenting a uniquely Jewish chorus of voices interpreting and exploring horror in that particular context. Here we find beings of …
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Book Review: The Late Show by Michael Connelly
Book #113 of 2022: The Late Show by Michael Connelly (Renée Ballard #1) [Warning: discussion of sexual assault and transphobic violence ahead in this review. Additional content warnings for the book listed below.] Theoretically, author Michael Connelly’s 30th novel should be a reasonable introduction to new character Renée Ballard, the latest protagonist to join the …
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Book Review: The Return by K. A. Applegate
Book #112 of 2022: The Return by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #48) At this point in the Animorphs series, the overarching plot of the Yeerk invasion and teenage guerilla resistance war is entering its endgame. The companion books are all finished, and each of the six core protagonists has one more adventure to relate to …
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Book Review: Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
Book #111 of 2022: Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones A strange little horror novella that’s not as unsettling as I feel like it’s aiming to be, yet not funny/campy enough to constitute a good parody. The high school protagonist makes a lot of bizarre intuitive leaps, and while I think the intent …
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Book Review: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Book #110 of 2022: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher An exquisite dark fairy tale, about a woman seeking the services of a necromancer to save her sister from the abusive husband who’s likely to murder her as soon as she produces a male heir. There are impossible tasks met with fierce determination, hard-won and …
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TV Review: Ms. Marvel, season 1
TV #33 of 2022: Ms. Marvel, season 1 The back half of this season stumbles a bit, both in setting up / dealing with its various villains and in the messy narrative transition from Jersey to Karachi to an episode-long Partition flashback and back, at which point a few dropped plot threads have to be …
Book Review: A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft
Book #109 of 2022: A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft I was initially drawn to this YA novel by its #ownvoices Jewish element, having heard that although it’s a fantasy story set in a different world, the heroine’s religion is a recognizable stand-in for my own. In fact, the situation is even more clear-cut …
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Book Review: Defunctland: Guide to the Magic Kingdom by Kevin Perjurer
Book #108 of 2022: Defunctland: Guide to the Magic Kingdom by Kevin Perjurer This first written spinoff of the eponymous Defunctland YouTube channel presents the same focus on change within theme parks and attractions that are no longer operational, but in the specific context of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom as it exists in the present. …
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Book Review: The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie
Book #107 of 2022: The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #31) Hercule Poirot remains a character I can find either entertaining or frustrating on occasion, and I regret to report that in this collection, he leans decidedly towards the latter. He makes more guesses than strict deductions, and when his …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 