The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Book #27 of 2021:

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

A dark and violent YA tale, predicated on the idea that although a vampire’s first bite infects the victim with an all-consuming thirst for blood, they don’t turn fully undead until they finally give in and feed on another human in turn. There’s some interesting worldbuilding around that premise, especially in the titular ghetto that keeps the infected walled away from everyone else, but I feel like the addiction element is not handled consistently throughout, and I don’t care much for the characters either. (I am largely over the trope of a teen girl being the one true love of a handsomely brooding immortal ten times her age, and this protagonist in particular doesn’t always seem to be acting from a place of legible motivation as she drives the plot.) It’s a competent enough story that I don’t want to rate it less than three-out-of-five stars, and I’m sure there are readers who will find it more to their taste, but it’s left me a little chilly myself.

[Content warning for parental death, transphobia, and erotic bloodplay.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 6

TV #9 of 2021:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 6

Production on this penultimate batch of episodes was cut short by Disney’s 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm, with the truncated season eventually being released straight to Netflix in 2014. So it wasn’t created to be an intentional ending for the series, and it doesn’t read much like one either, although it would effectively stand that way until a proper conclusion came out six years later on Disney+. On the other hand, the writers have so strenuously avoided an overarching plot all along that this latest anthology doesn’t feel any less complete on its own than any of the individual runs preceding it.

As for the actual content, it’s the same mixed bag as usual. I enjoy Tup’s conspiracy thriller arc for its character-driven stakes, even if I think a secret biological implant is an unnecessary explanation for why the clones faithfully execute Order 66 in the movie Revenge of the Sith. But Yoda’s mystical quest to find out how to be a Force ghost bores me to tears, and the Jar-Jar Binks / Mace Windu team-up is one of those laughably bad moments presumably aimed at younger audiences. It’s also disappointing that this program’s breakout figure Ahsoka Tano only appears as a brief vision, given how her story leaves off before and how she’s generally one of the most effective protagonists on Clone Wars. (I understand she goes on to play a role in the sequel cartoon Rebels, but it seems a waste to keep her off-stage immediately following her dramatic choice to leave the Jedi order in the previous finale.)

From the start, this show has been motivated by the idea that there are compelling tales to be told in the space between the second and third prequel films — which were of course themselves constructed to fill in the blank areas hinted at by the original trilogy. That mission hasn’t always worked for me as a viewer, but perhaps it’s fitting that the initial conception of the series terminates here with more left for some future project under new creative control to pick up and shade in. There’s a certain beauty in a franchise that can recede fractally into its narrative like that, perpetually beckoning viewers to explore the last gaps while simultaneously carving out new ones for tomorrow.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Book #26 of 2021:

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas #1)

A fun #ownvoices fantasy built on indigenous Latinx mythology, rather like Percy Jackson in aiming for the younger side of the YA market. The plot is a classic careful-what-you-wish-for scenario, in which a teenager frightened by her family’s magic tries to lose her own emerging powers, only for the spell to rebound and send her relatives off into the mystical land of the dead instead. She then must chase after them on a quest to undo her mistake, come to terms with her heritage, and maybe defeat a lurking evil or two.

My biggest complaint about the novel is how unlikeable I find the initial romantic interest, but that may have been a conscious choice by author Zoraida Córdova, who eventually replaces him in that role with the heroine’s best friend, a girl who is much sweeter and kinder to her. Still, love triangles are not my favorite aspect of this genre, and his red flags like calling the protagonist a nickname she’s repeatedly told him she hates are neither cute nor endearing. I’m hoping he either improves or is made scarce in the sequels.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Teenage Bounty Hunters, season 1

TV #8 of 2021:

Teenage Bounty Hunters, season 1

I like the characters in this Netflix series, but I feel far more interested in their family drama and high school social lives than in the wacky side gig that makes up the other part of the title. Each of the twin protagonists exhibits meaningful growth over the course of these ten episodes, and one’s realization of her sexuality and ensuing queer love story is particularly well-wrought. Plotwise, though, I’m more lukewarm, and the lack of resolution on that front after a twisty finale would be frustrating even if the show had been picked up for a second season. As a one-and-done, it’s mostly just a curiosity and a valuable addition to the cast members’ future audition reels.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Eternal Life by Dara Horn

Book #25 of 2021:

Eternal Life by Dara Horn

I love a good story about angsty immortals, but it’s possible I read this one too soon after last year’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which explores a similar thematic territory far more movingly. In this 2018 novel, the protagonist is a woman who doesn’t physically age past her apparent 70s, and can restore her body to that of a teenager by setting herself on fire — which she’s done for millennia now, starting over with a new identity every time her current family and friends start to get suspicious. Her old lover has the same condition, stemming from an oath they swore back in biblical Jerusalem, and she can’t seem to ever quit his company entirely despite her best intentions.

That’s an interesting premise with some natural built-in tension points, but the result in execution is somewhat plodding. I also don’t find the heroine’s present children and grandchildren particularly engaging as characters, so it’s hard to accept that she’s so attached to them as to break her self-imposed rule and delay her next restart. Similarly unconvincing is the codependent relationship with her fellow traveler, an attraction which I understand in theory but never really feel as a reader.

As with author Dara Horn’s earlier A Guide for the Perplexed, I appreciate the #ownvoices Jewishness in this book, but I think I prefer the sections that are pure historical fiction about the Second Temple era over the fantastical developments later on.

[Content warning for depression and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin

Book #24 of 2021:

Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #1)

First published in 1966, Ursula K. Le Guin’s debut novel already shows her promise, spinning a genre-bending tale that sets off her loose Hainish Cycle of related books and gifting future writers with the name and concept of the ansible, a device for instantaneous communication across the universe. The story is science-fiction, but it mostly takes place on a low-tech planet where the indigenous lifeforms seem more like the elves, dwarves, and vampires of legend than traditional aliens. And although not as cerebral as some of the author’s later works, it features her usual anthropological focus on the interactions and misunderstandings between different cultures; the scenes exploring how a person from a pre-industrial society might conceptualize relativistic spaceflight, cryogenic freezing, and the like are a particular delight. I wouldn’t exactly call this title a classic or a must-read, but it’s a strong start to a dazzling career.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Kim’s Convenience, season 4

TV #7 of 2021:

Kim’s Convenience, season 4

There’s a little plot momentum this year when Jung finally gets together with his long-term love interest, but for the most part, this is the same steady program it’s been all along: reliably funny yet rarely all that exciting, and structurally still far too separated into its different social universes of the store, the rental agency, and Janet’s art school. Granted, a few further story developments are teased in the finale, but I’m not getting my hopes up, as I’ve been burned by this series before and fully expect another prompt return to the status quo. I may have to wait to find out, though, since the next season has only just started airing on Canadian TV, and I’m not sure when it’ll hit Netflix in the US.

If this stretch of Kim’s Convenience is any changed from the preceding ones, that may be less in the new romance and more in the degree to which the main characters seem to be falling into meanspiritedness. Everyone except perhaps Kimchee feels a bit harsher towards one another lately, and while that’s sometimes an important driver of episode conflict, it’s seldom called out or redressed on-screen. I know that’s an avenue many sitcoms end up taking as the cast grows Flanderized over time, but it’s not exactly my favorite thing to watch.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry

Book #23 of 2021:

Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry

Humorist Dave Barry seems more hit-or-miss for me the older we each get, and this 2016 title has some definite issues with Baby Boomer sexism, transphobic implications, lazy jokes about Native American place names, and so on. But the book is also laugh-out-loud funny in other passages as the author alternately roasts and speaks up for the weird and wild state of Florida. I was born and raised there myself, and it’s a rush of nostalgic fun to see this travelogue of some of its greatest hits and distinctive oddities, all presented with the Pulitzer Prize winner’s flair for comedic phrasing and pointed observation. I suspect isolated quotes may work better than the overall text, however, especially for those of us tired with humor that punches down at the expense of the marginalized.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff

Book #22 of 2021:

Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff (The Red Abbey Chronicles #1)

Interesting fantasy worldbuilding, but the characters can seem a bit simplistic at times and the plot doesn’t really kick in until midway through, when a raiding ship attacks the island refuge where the heroine lives as an abbey novice. It gets pretty dark for the otherwise middle-grade feel too — content warning for domestic abuse, rape, and sexual slavery, including of children — although perhaps my surprise there stems from a cultural difference between reading this in translation and author Maria Turtschaninoff’s Finnish original. I don’t quite mind the slower pace, especially for how short of a novel this is, and I do appreciate the focus on female friendships and empowerment. Still, I haven’t decided yet whether I like the overall story enough to seek out its prequel or sequel.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Book #21 of 2021:

The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #1)

I always think that I like this prequel more than I actually do, because in my memory, only the strong parts stand out. The devious uncle, the rings that take you to the Wood Between the Worlds from which you can travel on to anywhere, the dead realm of Charn, the waking of Queen Jadis and her escape to our plane — these are all deeply cool elements that are strikingly distinctive even by the loose standards of this series. Unfortunately, however, they represent the first half of the novel alone.

Once the child protagonists arrive in Narnia proper, the action slows down into a generic fetch quest and a tiresome Genesis allegory. Author C. S. Lewis is too focused on explaining minutiae like the lamppost that really need no justification at all, and his efforts at setting up the later volumes are curiously full of contradictions and details that just spark further questions which will never be answered. It’s supremely unsatisfying, and a particular letdown after that terrific beginning establishing and exploring the wider multiverse of the setting.

Fans continue to debate what order to best read these books; on my current approach, I’ve opted to go by original publication date rather than internal chronology. That has the benefit of reaching this title and picking up its references to the wardrobe and Archenland and so on immediately, but it also tends to highlight the weakness of the inconsistencies. I’m not sure there’s an ideal solution here.

★★★☆☆

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