The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Threat by K. A. Applegate

Book #283 of 2021:

The Threat by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #21)

So it turns out, most of what I’d remembered from this story arc about the new kid David joining the Animorphs actually takes place in the next / final book of that unofficial trilogy. Luckily, this middle volume is a lot stronger than the first, with clearer pacing to its twin rising threats: the challenge of infiltrating the nearby political summit to stop the Yeerks from infesting world leaders (and maybe even reveal the truth of the alien invasion to them) and the growing signs of instability in the latest team member. We’d seen red flags in David’s behavior already, but they become steadily more flagrant here until finally reaching a crisis point in the form of a violent break from the rest of the group.

The chilling thing about this character is his unpredictability, coupled with an apparent lack of conventional morality. When he wonders aloud if his lion morph could best Jake’s tiger in a fight, there’s a real frisson of tension from the sense that that’s not idle speculation or banter. When he seems receptive to Visser Three’s offer to betray his allies, only to switch sides again when the tide of battle shifts, it’s nearly impossible to believe his claims that it was all a ruse. That slim margin of plausible deniability is key, however — it maintains an edge of uncertainty throughout, and stops the others from leaping to respond to the danger as they ordinarily would. David has an instinct for the tactics of an abuser, which contributes to the uneasy dynamic around him well before he reveals his nature for certain.

I like the occasional glimpse of what he might see as his provocations, too. I’m in no way defending the guy or suggesting that anyone else bears responsibility for his actions, but author K. A. Applegate is smart to include scenes where his fellow Animorphs make tough choices that unfortunately hurt him in passing. In my last review I mentioned how their initial carelessness has led to his current untenable situation, with his parents taken as Controllers and his name and face known to the enemy, and that characterization is strengthened here by their earnestness contributing to his unhappiness as well. Mostly, everyone is simply including him in the same sacrifices they’ve all had time to accept for themselves, yet it’s clear this chafes against him as somehow unjust. While a whole novel from that sort of perspective probably wouldn’t work, our understanding of it helps deepen him as an emerging antagonist for our familiar heroes.

(Applegate fudges a bit here too, making the teens particularly sanctimonious as they lecture David not to steal or use his morphing powers frivolously. They espouse previously-unmentioned rules that they’ve all broken in the past and that would be ludicrous for members of a small band of resistance fighters to adhere to, presumably just to further the brewing conflict. It’s effective but a little cheap on the writer’s part, much like a certain death we learn about in the cliffhanger that’s later walked back in the sequel.)

Ultimately I think this David sequence feels closer to a single adventure split into somewhat-artificial sections than a typical serialized narrative, and I wonder if it would have been better combined into one of the special longer side releases like Megamorphs or Visser. Placing it in the main series is an interesting experiment that pays off fine as it goes along, but it’s not quite the slam-dunk classic that it could have been.

[Content warning for body horror, claustrophobia, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

Book #282 of 2021:

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #24)

This mystery novel has a few solid twists to it, mostly via the inclusion of false testimony from a guilty party or two. Author Agatha Christie, several decades into her writing career by this point, has grown rather adept at that trick, keeping readers scouring the evidence for weak links that often nevertheless pass us by. On the other hand, she’s still too reliant on bizarre psychoanalysis and gender stereotypes, here resulting in her detective Hercule Poirot concluding that a strangled murder victim must have been killed by a man (because a woman would have used poison) who knew her (because the expression on her face would have been different if seeing a stranger). That sort of hogwash hasn’t stood the test of time nearly so well, and it cuts against the overall effectiveness of the plotting.

[Content warning for racism and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Ugly Cry by Danielle Henderson

Book #281 of 2021:

The Ugly Cry by Danielle Henderson

This is a memoir about author Danielle Henderson and the grandmother who pretty much raised her, although the exact shape and point of the text isn’t especially clear until near the end. It’s not a tale for the faint of heart, as it contains plenty of domestic violence, sexual assault, child endangerment, and other forms of abuse — only some of which the writer seems to understand as such. That makes for a bit of a disquieting read, with casual anecdotes turning horrifying without any particular warning or acknowledgement. One could stretch to say that that helps put readers in the shoes of a victim, never knowing when the next blow is going to land, but I’m not sure it’s actually an intentional narrative choice. While the childhood described in these pages is certifiably awful, in my opinion the book could use a little more structure and introspection throughout.

[Content warning for depression, suicide, and racism including slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Book #280 of 2021:

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller #1)

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Harry Bosch‘s estranged half-brother, but I’m delighted to find that he’s a lawyer in the Jimmy McGill style, barely scraping by as he represents various miscreants — literally operating an office out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car with a former client as his discount chauffeur — and using underhanded tactics to stay right inside the thin line dividing criminal from defense attorney. This first novel capably introduces our new protagonist, then swiftly launches him into a twisty courtroom thriller, wherein he realizes that his latest defendant may be guilty of the crime he unsuccessfully represented someone else for years ago… and is blackmailing and framing the hero to make certain he follows professional ethics to keep quiet and give a full and vigorous effort in court against the current charges.

It’s a fun spin around a different side of law and order than author Michael Connelly usually depicts as the wily operator scrambles to win the trial and his own freedom, and while there’s no sign of everyone’s favorite L.A. homicide detective for now, I can’t wait for the sparks to fly when these series inevitably cross over.

[Content warning for rape, gun violence, domestic abuse, incest, and child endangerment.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America by Carrie Gibson

Book #279 of 2021:

El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America by Carrie Gibson

A staggeringly comprehensive history of Spanish speakers in North America — primarily Mexico and the mainland United States, but also Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other islands nearby — from the first conquistadors all the way up to the middle of Donald Trump’s presidency when this was published. In reading this book, I’ve been astonished again and again by how much is new to me: excluded by the curriculum of various classes and generally unremarked upon by our broader popular culture. Traditional accounts of America’s past may cite the circumstances of states like Texas or Florida joining our nation, but rarely look in-depth at life in these regions before they entered the union. Author Carrie Gibson has done a tremendous job compiling this text to fill that gap, detailing as indigenous lands were conquered by Spain, traded among its rival colonial powers, and later formed into an independent Mexican country, which subsequently went through political shifts of its own, both until and after ceding certain territories up north.

All of that is prelude to where tellings of the American story often begin, but necessary for a fuller picture of the historical dynamics at play, which in many ways continue to inform our shared present. This title is important in that sense and as a history of Mexico alone, but the writer goes further to track major developments for Hispanic and/or Latinx peoples in the U.S. as well. This represents a conscious pushing back against the forces that try to sell an ahistoric view of Anglo Protestant uniformity here, not to mention a racial system that can sometimes seem built to sort everyone as either black or white without room for additional nuance. The intersection of such identities with Jim Crow discrimination, the differences across communities of varying national origin, the surprisingly recent cultural conversation about immigration and border control: these are complicated topics, yet always traced out with great precision and care. I have learned a lot, as I think most readers would.

[Content warning for rape, genocide, gore, and racism including slurs.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: To Jerusalem and Back by Saul Bellow

Book #278 of 2021:

To Jerusalem and Back by Saul Bellow

This is an odd and somewhat disjointed little title, as much a travelogue of Jewish-American author Saul Bellow’s 1975 visit to Israel as a literature review of what other thinkers have had to say about that nation and the global status of contemporary Judaism. Together with his own observations and reflections, the writer also includes excerpts of his conversations with prominent Jews like Yitzhak Rabin, Amos Oz, and Henry Kissinger. Forty-five years on, the resulting text is a definite time capsule of sorts, although there are sections that remain fairly insightful and relevant alongside those that have proven hopelessly naïve in the decades since. Overall I can’t say that it’s aged great or represents any required reading on the region, but I suppose it’s interesting enough as a historical document at this point.

[Content warning for self-harm, gore, ableism, and racism including slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Discovery by K. A. Applegate

Book #277 of 2021:

The Discovery by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #20)

Well, I’ve been wanting the Animorphs series to grow more serialized, and it’s hard to beat the introduction of a new member, for the first time since Ax’s arrival in #4 The Message. (That would ordinarily be a bit of a spoiler, as David doesn’t officially join the team until pretty late in this novel, but given how it’s mentioned right there on the cover, I think it’s fair game to discuss in a review.)

On the other hand, there’s a difference between contributing to a larger ongoing story and neglecting to tell a wholly compelling immediate plot, and that’s where this volume falters for me. It has plenty of great elements, like the idea of a classmate finding the Andalite device that bestows morphing powers or the red flags which begin to foreshadow that he might not be as worthy of the accompanying responsibility as our original heroes. But it’s also an adventure that cuts off on a sudden cliffhanger, with no resolution to any of its episodic concerns. We don’t even get to learn what battle morph David picked out at the Gardens! Although the immature recruit arc probably benefits from playing out over the space of several titles, the mission to infiltrate and protect a nearby political summit doesn’t feel nearly as important, especially when all that happens for now is Visser Three acquiring the DNA of someone who might be the president. (Insert the same complaint I’ve made before, that the narrators taking pains to avoid mentioning the name of their hometown is absurd if they’re going to be so upfront about major events occurring there.) Overall this seems like the sort of outing normally knocked out in a few chapters, not stretched across multiple releases.

But back to New-boy, as Marco unaffectionately calls him. This is a character we’ll get to know a lot better later on, but there’s already something plainly off about the kid, which really drives home how risky it is for the Animorphs to trust him with their secrets and their shapeshifting ability. Once they do, and he starts pushing back against the best practices they’ve developed to keep themselves safe from the Yeerks, there’s a lurching feeling of guardrails dropping away from the premise. David is unpredictable as a would-be ally, and that’s a specific danger that’s altogether new for the franchise.

It’s a little frustrating too, though I assume intentional on author K. A. Applegate’s part, how the group doesn’t take the situation with the cube’s discovery particularly seriously at first. They realize it’s a threat and a potential aid for their enemies in the hands of a civilian, but they’re repeatedly careless with how they attempt to retrieve it, to rather disastrous effect for David and his family. We’ve previously seen these teenagers act a lot smarter than this, and while I understand it makes narrative sense to give the newest morpher a grievance to eventually resent them for, I don’t enjoy watching those blunders happen in real-time and I wish the issue could be raised here instead of being left to fester in the subtext until the sequel.

Ultimately, then, this is a flawed opener to a storyline that will go to some truly unpleasant places, functioning primarily as setup for the twists ahead. It’s ambitious and worthwhile for what/who it introduces, but as an individual book, it’s regrettably thin.

[Content warning for body horror and gun violence.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book #276 of 2021:

The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Gap Cycle #5)

I still don’t altogether love this 90s space opera, which has a lot of scenes of people just standing around talking, even in this climactic finale. Don’t get me wrong: the dialogue here is taut and often legitimately surprising in a detective fiction sort of way, where interpersonal tensions are high and a character might reason their way through an extended chain of inferences to uncover someone’s hidden motive. The subplot of political intrigue between the nominal governing body and the corporate-owned de facto police is at its most engaging ever. Yet the ratio of all that to the action is a bit off for my tastes. If you open the last novel in a series with an alien warship chasing the ragtag protagonists out of deep space to humanity’s doorstep, I’m going to be somewhat antsy when the ensuing standoff then takes half the book to boil over.

Ultimately, though, the payoff is worth it, and on balance this title delivers a satisfying enough conclusion to various arcs that I’d call it a winner. Conceptualized as a retelling of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, this story has long kept its ‘mortal’ sphere separate from the mighty powers claiming the right to control everyone’s destiny, and it’s downright thrilling to finally see those domains crash together, especially when certain figures pay a price for their hubris. There’s a thread of poetic justice winding throughout this text, and it’s hard to think of a single person who doesn’t get a measure of what they deserve in the end. Even the problematic Angus Thermopyle, originally introduced as a vile rapist and torturer, has sacrificed so much by this point — both under his own volition and not — that the idea of his redemption isn’t totally abhorrent.

I also appreciate how abuse of that nature is no longer an active element in the narrative, although it of course continues to inform the stakes as backstory. Author Stephen R. Donaldson can go to some pretty dark places, and for a project that involves cyborg slaves, mutagenic viruses, and suicide bombers, this particular volume is oddly on the lighter side of his writing. That may be a poor fit for how the tale begins back in The Real Story, but it’s a welcome relief and a good grace note to depart on, too.

This volume: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Volumes ranked: 2 > 4 > 5 > 3 > 1

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Book Review: Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Book #275 of 2021:

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

“Delightful” may not be the best word for this story of a depressed hypochondriac suffering from panic attacks, but it’s nevertheless a wicked sharp character study that swiftly draws a reader in. There’s so much wrong with the protagonist that she doesn’t know how to begin addressing any of it, and this isn’t really a book about her getting better (or worse for that matter, although she does pass through a few crises along the way). She’s an unreliable narrator in terms of not understanding why other people seem to like her, yet brutally honest as she describes for us the tower of unwashed dishes in her bedroom or her unhealthy fixations on things like a neighbor’s poster for their missing cat.

The main plot here is that she’s mistakenly offered a secretary position at a local Catholic church — despite being a lesbian atheist only there in response to a flyer advertising free counseling — and starts replying to emails addressed to the now-deceased person who last held the job. That’s admittedly thin, but it’s all told in such a refreshingly frank voice that I’ve quite enjoyed the ensuing tale. I’m reminded of the flawed women in works like Fleabag or My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and while I understand how that sort of antihero(ine) can be exasperating, my reaction to this one is again primarily just delight at how well she’s been constructed. Kudos to debut author Emily Austin on crafting this darkly humorous gem.

[Content warning for homophobia, assisted suicide, car accident, police mistreatment of mental health, alcohol abuse including drunk driving, death of a pet, and disordered eating.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

Book #274 of 2021:

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

This 2011 title should really have been called “A Gay and Lesbian History of the United States,” due to how little it addresses the remainder of the LGBT+ acronym. The treatment of transgender people is particularly egregious, presenting just a few isolated examples of individuals living as genders not assigned to them at birth and ignoring their known preference of names and pronouns when it does. Yes, this is somehow a queer studies text that deadnames and misgenders its subjects — which is all the more frustrating given how author Michael Bronski repeatedly cautions us not to project modern labels onto residents of the past, like calling Daniel Webster gay when he wouldn’t have necessarily understood himself in that fashion, despite writing to a dear companion that he longed to hold him again in their small shared bed. I can understand the argument, but that (along with sheer human decency) should likewise guide us to accept the stated identity of someone like the Publick Universal Friend.

Narrowing our scope to simply an account of same-sex attraction in this nation, this is an informative overview. It highlights how there have always been Americans who had relations in that arena even before it was conceptualized as a particular orientation or community, and discusses how evolving media and cultural norms gradually produced the social configuration of queerness as it exists today (or as it did in the 1990s, since the book covers only through the AIDS crisis). Bronski is an older gay man himself, and he’s good at explaining topics like how widespread availability of the birth control pill for straight couples inadvertently helped other sexualities gain acceptance, by unlinking sex from procreation in the public mind. I’ve also enjoyed his descriptions of how instances of coded homosexuality in mid-century movies and literature were recognized as points of similarity by folks who defied gender preconceptions themselves, well ahead of the mainstream catching on.

Overall this is a limited and flawed work, but I’d say it’s still generally worthwhile if approached with the proper expectations. It explores a subject totally left out of traditional textbooks, and that’s valuable no matter the clumsy handling of specific items outside the writer’s area of expertise.

[Content warning for homophobia and racism including lynching.]

★★★☆☆

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