The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

Book #153 of 2020:

Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

I simply adore the Dominican-American family at the heart of this fantasy novel, most of whom are spirits of the dead that only twelve-year-old Lucely can see. To everyone else they appear as fireflies, as per the #ownvoices folklore that author Claribel A. Ortega is drawing upon, and I love that no one ever doubts the protagonist about the ghosts’ reality, an empowering writing choice that also avoids any tedious scenes spent convincing a skeptic. When you add in a charming spooky adventure and a great sense of the St. Augustine setting, the result is something like a middle-grade Maggie Stiefvater — or perhaps an American Diana Wynne Jones — full of fun characters, familial squabbling, and atmospheric spellcraft. I would have maybe preferred fewer of the offhand and unexplained Harry Potter references that pepper this story, but that’s a minor complaint compared to how enjoyable I’ve found the book overall.

[Content warning for anxiety attacks and threat of losing a house.]

★★★★☆

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Movie Review: Hamilton (2020)

Movie #8 of 2020:

Hamilton (2020)

A Broadway recording like this — taped back in 2016, but only released now for Disney’s streaming service — could be a tricky property to rate / review. After all, are we judging the dialogue and songs for the show itself? The performers in this particular staging of it? Or the quality of it as a filmed movie, separate from all of that? Luckily we can avoid the issue here, as Hamilton is pretty fantastic on all those fronts.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s genius vision of ‘America then told by America now’ is basically a cultural institution at this point, but watching this new film makes it all feel fresh again. That auteur creator took a dense Founding Father biography and spun it into musical gold, singlehandedly writing the music, lyrics, and book and starring in the title role. It’s a brilliant reimagining, and Miranda is joined by an original cast who’s no less talented or hilarious. They’re a joy just to hear on the soundtrack for the play, and getting to actually see them act it out adds all sorts of further dimensions in body language, set design, choreography, and more that couldn’t be present in the audio alone.

I’ve seen the show twice before in person, including once with this exact cast, and every bit of that live theater experience carries over for the movie. If anything it’s almost improved, as the close-ups and dynamic camera angles situate us even nearer to the action than an auditorium seat ever could. I love that Lin has championed this method of bringing his work to the masses, much as he raffled off a number of $10 tickets to each performance that allowed folks like me in the door.

Anyway… Hamilton is outstanding as an album, as a stage production, and now as a film, and I can’t think of a better way to usher in this year’s Independence Day than by giving it your time.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad

Book #152 of 2020:

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad

This short antiracism tract provides some handy definitions and examples, splitting the broad problem of white supremacy into more specific interconnected issues of privilege, fragility, complicit silence, and so forth that (white) readers can identify and address in our own thought processes and actions. It’s presented as a workbook with prompts for 28 days of reflective journaling, although I confess that I instead listened to the audiobook straight through — a behavior that author Layla F. Saad explicitly calls out as less helpful.

With that caveat, I do have some qualms about this overall project, which began life as a viral Instagram challenge before getting picked up for publication. The book is largely being marketed to U.S. audiences and speaks to some dynamics that are specific to this country, yet Saad is a Qatari writer who admits to never having lived in North America herself. She’s also a bit too insistent on her own program here as the only way for people to take a stand against bigotry, which comes across as self-promotional snake oil at times. And of course, the whole idea that individual choices can meaningfully alter the entrenched institutions of racism is pretty suspect — thinking about these discriminatory patterns and seeking to unlearn them is the moral approach for a private person to take, but it’s far from clear how that’s meant to trickle up and actually change the world.

I’m struggling with whether these critiques are born of the exact white defensiveness that Saad talks about in these pages, and I don’t want to dismiss her voice in the ongoing conversation on race. Take my comments with a grain of salt, but I personally haven’t found this to be the most effective example of its genre.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The Good Wife, season 3

TV #24 of 2020:

The Good Wife, season 3

The third year of this law drama is its best one yet, and not only because it finally acts upon the romantic will-they-won’t-they dimension that’s mostly lingered in the background subtext for the first two seasons. There’s also the smart writing decision to bring Eli’s crisis management business in-house at Alicia’s firm, which both displays that political operator in a new light and allows him to more fully interact with the rest of the cast. One of The Good Wife’s strengths is its constantly-growing universe of interesting figures across the Chicago legal landscape, and it’s always a joy when the program finds a way to bring two of them together for the first time, as happens repeatedly throughout this particular run.

The main storyline is also better realized, with the investigation into Will’s shady past and subsequent power struggle among the other partners deeply rooted in personalities and histories that we’ve seen develop over time. On paper the intrigue is not all that different from the somewhat bloodless Derrick Bond maneuvering of the year before, but it tends to play out more as the specific characters driving the plot, rather than the other way around. We also get to witness a realistically gradual evolution in Cary reconciling with his former colleagues, one of the rare instances when the long seasonal episode counts work in the narrative’s favor. (The slow thawing of the heroine’s relationship with her old friend Kalinda progresses similarly.) And always and forever, the series continues its exploration of the uneasy dynamics behind using personal connections for professional gain and vice versa.

There’s not always much movement to these arcs from week to week, but everything goes off like fireworks when the threads come together for episodes like “Another Ham Sandwich.” And even when individual hours carry little forward motion, they continue the show’s habit of finding new and distinctive fashions in which to present its cases, from panel review to arbitration to proving a mistrial and beyond. That alone keeps The Good Wife from ever growing stale, even aside from its other considerable charms.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Book #151 of 2020:

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

This 1848 novel is a neat early tale of women’s liberation, and one I was not expecting to have such sparklingly funny dialogue throughout. The comedy of manners doesn’t occlude the impact of the heroine leaving her abusive husband — although it makes it easy to sometimes forget that that’s the main thrust of the narrative — and overall author Anne Brontë balances the various tones of her text well. These characters can be a tad ridiculous, but the gravity of Helen’s situation is never treated as a joke.

The only real sore spot for me is when the narrator mistakes a friend’s intentions towards the titular tenant and proceeds to beat him bloody and leave him for dead on the side of the road, a fairly shocking act that is forgiven and forgotten far too quickly in my opinion. It fits with a general pattern of this protagonist leaping to all sorts of outrageous conclusions on the flimsiest evidence, and could have been a wake-up call for him to start improving on that front, but instead it’s just an odd impulse that never really gets examined.

Still, for a Victorian treatise on morality that draws back the veil on household turmoil and unequivocally takes the side of the alienated wife, it’s a pretty remarkable publication.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC: Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life by Paula C. Austin

Book #150 of 2020:

Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC: Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life by Paula C. Austin

Interesting but far too brief, with the whole first third of the text a dry academic overview of author Paula C. Austin’s archival source material. In the rest of the book, she brings the late 1930s to life and presents not merely the racist structures governing young African-Americans in the nation’s capital, but also how those youths understood and agentively constructed their own social realities. Drawing on sociological interviews of the time, Austin crafts an ethnography enlightened by the words of her (not-that-)long-ago subjects, and reminds us how a segregated underclass can still make active choices. I only wish there were more substance to the finished result.

[Content warning for discussion of rape.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

Book #149 of 2020:

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

This 2020 YA novel has so much to say about contemporary racism and sexism (and their intersection, sometimes called misogynoir), and I could see it both validating the experiences of some readers and providing others a valuable window into their lives. From school microaggressions over haircare, to the outrageously deadly peril of a ‘routine’ traffic stop, to the #BlackLivesMatter rallies imploring the nation to “Say Her Name,” this story puts the concerns of its African-American teen heroines front and center and insists that we acknowledge their pain.

It’s also a book about a girl who’s a siren and her adopted sister who thinks she might be a mermaid, and I struggle to reconcile this heightened escapist aspect of the text with its harsh realities alluded to above. There’s a subtle point here that only sirens are viewed with fear whereas other magical people are celebrated, but the idea of a world so similar to ours yet openly populated with the supernatural isn’t delivered with enough conviction for me to ever wholly buy into it. I also feel like the rules behind the setting’s mythology need to be a lot clearer, in order for certain developments to land with their intended impact.

Still, the characters are fierce and fiercely loyal, and it’s easy to root for them even while not completely understanding the stakes (which I suppose is another lesson in and of itself). If an urban fantasy spin on The Hate U Give sounds up your alley, you may well enjoy this one more than I have.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan

Book #148 of 2020:

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan (Powder Mage #1)

The plot to this 2013 fantasy debut reminds me of the second Mistborn novel, from the challenges facing a force of rebels after they successfully overthrow their tyrant ruler and must figure out how to govern amid the dying warning of a greater danger, to the threat of a secret traitor (er… double traitor? reverse traitor?) hidden in their midst. Adding to the Brandon Sanderson resemblance, there are also multiple magic systems — including one that involves swallowing gunpowder to telekinetically control bullets — and some mythic god-beings returning to humanity after centuries away.

And it all works as an homage to that style, but the parts that showcase author Brian McClellan’s originality are somewhat disappointing. I want so much more for and from the women in this story, who are generally positioned as either beauties for men to ogle, children for men to protect, or villains for men to defeat, with little evidence of interiority or depth. At best, they sometimes move from one category to another, as when a protagonist’s mute ‘savage’ companion conveys to him that she is actually nineteen and not fifteen, and his appreciation immediately blooms into attraction.

Another hero is supposed to be a military genius, without whom we are told the tenuous new peace would swiftly fall apart. This man walks into an ambush on at least three separate occasions in this text, two of which even feature a subordinate directly raising the possibility beforehand and getting patronizingly rebuffed. That’s a poor piece of characterization in and of itself, but it becomes downright comical when you consider that that’s the male standard which the female roles are largely written to support.

I’ve debated between rating this book as two stars or three, and in the end I do think it’s strong enough to merit the higher score, despite the above issues. The worldbuilding is interesting, a few personal arcs have potential, and the sorcery action delivers some unexpected thrills. I don’t feel any strong need to continue on to the sequel, but I wouldn’t absolutely rule out picking it up at some point either, in the hope that McClellan has matured as a writer in the meantime.

[Content warning for death of a dog and mention of rape and sexual slavery.]

[I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke!]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang

Book #147 of 2020:

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang

Although it’s not necessarily my typical sort of read, I’ve found this novel about a pair of Chinese-American siblings amid the California Gold Rush to be utterly captivating. It’s a deeply personal and well-realized tale that somehow avoids the performative artificiality that marks much of the Western genre, and its distinctive focus on the first-generation prospecting experience and a gender-nonconforming child would make it worthwhile even without debut author C Pam Zhang’s flair for evocative figurative language.

This is a very literary project, with a nonlinear timeline and one section narrated by a dead man, a stylistic choice that may not be to everyone’s speed. We also only ever see Sam through Lucy’s eyes, which entails an awkward avoidance of pronouns and the occasional use of words like ‘sister’ even though Sam is quite clear that he’s a boy. I’ve still really enjoyed these characters — who are prepubescent for much of the narrative — but they are put through the wringer in any number of ways, as my content warnings below should highlight.

The book is a fairly recent new release, and I’d like to see some reviews from transgender readers dissecting that aspect of the text. But for now, on the strength of its reclaiming space in the American myth and its themes of the ache of cultural loss and the generational divide from immigrant parents, it gets my highest rating.

[Content warning for racism including slurs, sexism, transphobia, rape and forced prostitution, domestic abuse, descriptions of a rotting corpse, and eating disorders.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab

Book #146 of 2020:

A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab (Shades of Magic #3)

This last volume has the most coherent plot stakes of the Shades of Magic trilogy, but it’s still a pretty rambling adventure that never seems to take full advantage of the cool multiverse setting. There’s also a lot of backstory that probably should have been introduced earlier in the series, and over a dozen viewpoint characters by the end — which is not always a narrative weakness, but does speak to the general aimlessness that I’ve found so frustrating in this novel and its predecessors. I like the interactions among the five main protagonists and the continuation of a central gay romance — and the fact that there’s finally no threats of sexual assault — yet this is ultimately one of those fantasy epics that reads like someone’s tabletop roleplaying campaign, and that’s not my favorite mode of storytelling.

This book: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Individual rankings: 3 > 1 > 2

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