The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Book #136 of 2020:

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Another great horror vehicle from author Grady Hendrix, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites in that genre. He excels at finding the dark supernatural underbelly of the mundane, this time in a musical group trading in their artistic integrity for the payout of mass appeal. Such deals with the devil have been known to happen, but seldom so literally, or because the mythology of a trippy concept album has come too close to uncovering the truth about the unholy forces secretly controlling our world.

Hendrix’s premises often feel as though they could easily turn silly, but the writing stubbornly refuses to ever turn and give that wink, forcing readers to engage seriously with the emotions of his characters. The spurned rocker who refused to sign the contract traveling cross-country to confront her former bandmate makes for a fierce protagonist, her road trip an American Lord of the Rings as she dodges minions of a mostly faceless omniscient evil to the tunes of a heavy metal soundtrack. It’s a terrific thrill ride that captures the rush and power of live music exquisitely.

[Content warning for gun violence, gore, suicide, sexual assault, and drug abuse.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Star Wars: Queen’s Peril by E. K. Johnston

Book #135 of 2020:

Star Wars: Queen’s Peril by E. K. Johnston

This Star Wars novel has a few neat moments — like handmaiden Sabé’s brief female love interest — but is overall far too disjointed to be effective. It’s a prelude to the first prequel movie followed by a retelling of that film’s events from the perspective of different characters, generally but not exclusively centered around Queen Amidala and her cohort. But instead of presenting a cohesive independent storyline for readers, the narrative is full of isolated scenes that don’t connect back to anything else in the book, with e.g. a random interior monologue from Jar Jar Binks serving no clear purpose whatsoever.

This is, technically, also a spinoff of author E. K. Johnston’s earlier tie-in work Queen’s Shadow, which was set in between Episodes I and II. So that makes it the prequel to a prequel of a prequel, which may speak to its difficulty in staking out the distinctive space to situate a plot of its own. Still, The Phantom Menace is one of the weaker entries in the Skywalker saga, and it seems like this title could have offered a fresh take to help shore up its many flaws. Yet without a disciplined approach to keep the focus on one or two key protagonists, it only squanders that era of the franchise further.

[Content warning for menstruation.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

Book #134 of 2020:

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

I’m not a big fan of this style of popular nonfiction that blends a history lesson with the writer’s personal journey to learn it, but even considered against others from that genre, this 2020 book feels pretty thin. In an effort to control the chaos of her own life — presented as a whirlwind blend of self-harm, depression, suicide attempts, and other drug and alcohol abuse — debut author Lulu Miller relates how she has researched David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist of the early twentieth century who persevered in his efforts to classify and arrange the animal kingdom after numerous setbacks. That’s a heavy burden for such flimsy projection, even before Miller reveals her would-be idol as a probable murderer and an outspoken leader of the American eugenics movement that championed involuntary sterilization of those people deemed undesirable.

The rest of the text attempts to grapple with Jordan’s complicated legacy and the idea that the semantic categories he studied may have no actual relation to nature, but it’s all too tenuously connected to land with much impact. I would have greatly preferred to read a more straightforward biography of the man, especially one that didn’t make quite so many excuses for his unsavory aspects.

★★☆☆☆

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Movie Review: Coco (2017)

Movie #7 of 2020:

Coco (2017)

This Pixar feature has pretty much everything I’m looking for in an animated film: a lushly-rendered imaginative world, a heartfelt story with endearing characters and unexpected plot developments, plus even some laughs and a memorable song or two. I love how strongly the movie draws on traditional Mexican culture and folklore about the afterlife, as well as its overall message about keeping the memory of loved ones alive. Death in this scenario can be sad but never particularly scary, just a transition to another stage that we don’t get to know about yet ourselves. Although generally paced as a comedy, I can imagine it being a great conversation-starter for families with kids looking to understand a personal loss.

All that and Frida Kahlo painting herself as a giant cactus. What could be better?

★★★★★

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Book Review: Bounce by Megan Shull

Book #133 of 2020:

Bounce by Megan Shull

This middle-grade body-swap / time loop novel really doesn’t work for me, unfortunately. I don’t necessarily need to know the mechanism behind why our tween heroine keeps waking back up on Christmas morning as a different girl — it can be a Yuletide miracle, or even just a dream, whatever — but I do need some sense of what she thinks is going on. Frannie, though, evinces no panic, no curiosity, and no real urgency about her situation, which essentially reduces her to just a glorified spectator in those other lives. She sometimes worries that she won’t be able to do some specific task that’s asked of her, only to inevitably find that muscle memory kicks in to save the day. But readers are never given any indication of why she’s hiding her true identity from each new family, just as we’re never told why she doesn’t try to figure out or stop what’s happening, make contact with a confidant, etc.

The protagonist’s home life is incredibly toxic and abusive beyond her power to express, and I can almost see this book as a reverse A Christmas Carol, wherein a nice Scrooge is rewarded for her troubles with visions of tender happiness. But if that’s author Megan Shull’s intent for the narrative, it lacks the discipline to connect its arcs in any meaningful way. Instead there’s just a kid with mean parents who has a vague supernatural experience that eventually leaves her with more unearned confidence or something. It’s not a very satisfying story.

[Content warning for skin tones repeatedly described in food terms.]

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 5

TV #22 of 2020:

Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 5

Another reasonably solid season of late-twentieth-century science-fiction, delivering a handful of great episodes like “Conundrum,” “Cause and Effect,” “The Next Phase, and “The Inner Light” along with the all-time classic “Darmok” (which I’d first heard about in college linguistics classes over a decade ago). Unfortunately, as usual, these better outings are balanced by a few weaker hours, and most of the run ultimately falls somewhere in between. New arrival Ensign Ro adds a fun prickly dynamic onboard the Enterprise — although she’s absent from the action more than I’d like — but there are once again way too many child guest stars of questionable acting ability running around the ship this year. I would have hoped that aging up and writing off Wesley Crusher outside of the occasional cameo would have helped cure that plotting impulse, but ‘wacky space kids’ is apparently just one of those tropes that TNG will never fully discard.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: A Ceiling Made of Eggshells by Gail Carson Levine

Book #132 of 2020:

A Ceiling Made of Eggshells by Gail Carson Levine

I expected to enjoy this historical fiction novel more than I did, both for its focus on a family of 15th-century Spanish Jews and on the strength of other titles I’ve loved from author Gail Carson Levine over the years. Unfortunately, the setting is more interesting than the characters or the plot, which constitutes a fairly aimless bildungsroman as the heroine grows from age seven to sixteen. (I’m also not clear on the intended readership, since the book is rather long and uneventful for the simpler tone of the writing.)

The action picks up in the last third of the text with the issuing of Spain’s Alhambra Decree, a royal proclamation that required all Jewish residents on pain of death to either immediately convert to Christianity or flee the country without their money. That’s a moment in European history that doesn’t get discussed enough, and it’s neat to see it depicted even in a fictional guise. I only wish there were more of an engaging storyline here to showcase it.

[Content warning for various acts and attitudes of antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson

Book #131 of 2020:

The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson

An informative account of the famous 1950s lynching case, including a rare interview with the white woman who accused the black fourteen-year-old of whistling at her and new details from a recovered courtroom transcript of the subsequent trial of his murderers. The facts surrounding Emmett Till’s death are uncomfortable to read and depressingly familiar, from the extrajudicial killing itself to the difficulty of holding the perpetrators accountable even in the face of overwhelming evidence. As we continue to see in similar incidents today, the flimsiest of excuses are seized upon both to justify executing the victim in the first place and then to avoid punishing his killers.

I do think this would be a stronger text if (white) author Timothy B. Tyson had brought a wider scope to the discussion, emphasizing more of the historical forces of bigotry and institutional inequality that led to the crime and their continuity through our own era. Although the epilogue contains some belated gestures in that direction, the modern parallels are largely left as an exercise for the reader; for the most part this 2017 book feels uninformed by the earned insights of the Black Lives Matter movement and paternalistically positioned as a dispassionate record of distant events.

It also ends on the appealing but inaccurate claim that a tired Rosa Parks was thinking of Emmett when she refused to give up her seat and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when in actuality she was a dedicated civil rights activist who had carefully planned the organized action with her confederates. Outrage over the Till affair may have played a role in this and other cries for justice, but Tyson’s framing erases black agency and raises questions as to the veracity of his reporting throughout.

[Content warning for graphic violence / torture and racist slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Shameless, season 4

TV #21 of 2020:

Shameless, season 4

Well, it took a while to get here, but Shameless has finally grown into the sort of show I always wanted and sensed it could be. There are still a few of the characteristic over-the-top developments this season, but for the most part those more outrageous elements are kept in check by a tight focus on the character arcs and serious family drama. This is a bit of a lonely year for the Gallaghers, who all spend long stretches isolated in their own storylines by choice or by circumstances. But that relative quietude acts to strengthen their respective characterizations, and it pays off in magnificent catharsis anytime the siblings come back together again.

I like Lip’s piece of the narrative a lot, especially seeing him shoulder more responsibilities as the de facto head of the household when Frank and Fiona each prove less reliable. (I’m trying, as ever, to avoid major spoilers in this review.) Ian gets some interesting material too, although he’s also absent a lot and generally positioned like Frank as more of a figure for the others to react against than an active protagonist himself. And it’s neat that Debbie and to a lesser extent Carl are aging into young adults — even if that leads to some boneheaded immaturity — rather than the writers continuing to treat them as little kids. I suspect that this will be a series like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones that inadvertently acts as a bit of a time capsule for these child actors that we’re watching grow up before our eyes.

But the heart of this season of course belongs to Fiona herself, who goes to her highest highs and lowest lows in a way that genuinely surprises me as a longtime viewer and represents an outstanding showcase for actress Emmy Rossum. I did not think Shameless as a program would tamper as much with its traditional status quo as it has throughout this run, but I’m quite pleased with the results and — give or take some misgivings over the final scene — looking forward to seeing what happens next.

[Content warning for rape, incest, domestic violence, drug abuse, self-harm, child endangerment, racism, and slurs.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Click Here to Start by Denis Markell

Book #130 of 2020:

Click Here to Start by Denis Markell

I like how this middle-grade adventure novel manages to educate readers about America’s Japanese internment camps while maintaining its lightweight tone, but the characters make a few too many lucky guesses that happen to pan out, especially for a treasure hunt that’s supposed to be meticulously planned. There are just so many spots in this narrative where the trail could / should have gone completely cold, and not enough explanation behind certain developments that verge on science-fiction (like an online escape-the-room game that only the protagonist can access, which mirrors his own life in uncanny detail). It’s a story that’s fun in the moment but falls apart the longer you think about its mysteries, and although there’s some indication at the end that a sequel might follow to clear more of that up, I’m not sure this volume is satisfying enough to merit trusting the author for level two.

★★★☆☆

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