The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Book #40 of 2020:

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

I picked up this collection of short fiction on the strength of author Carmen Maria Machado’s heartbreaking memoir In the Dream House, and initially I thought I would love it just as much. The opening story, “The Husband Stitch,” is an insightful and searing critique of male entitlement, as explored through a retelling of that old tale about the woman who wears a green ribbon around her neck until the day she dies. It’s a truly powerful bit of writing that left me riveted, reflective, and uncomfortable throughout.

Unfortunately, this piece is soon followed by “Especially Heinous,” an interminably tedious riff on twelve seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit that aims for the slipstream weirdness of something like Welcome to Night Vale, but with little of that podcast’s narrative throughline and absolutely none of its empathetic warmth. This entry spans fully a quarter of the total length of the book, and it literally consists of the show’s first 272 episode titles, each followed by a short paragraph or so of vaguely related exposition. Maybe this would work better for an actual SVU fan, but I just didn’t get anything out of it.

The other offerings assembled here fall somewhere between those two extremes, and if that one particular item had been left out, I would feel so much more charitable towards the project as a whole. But as is, I can’t really recommend reading it straight through.

[Content warning for rape, abuse, PTSD, and diet culture.]

★★★☆☆

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Movie Review: John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019)

Movie #3 of 2020:

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019)

I always appreciate artists who are willing to experiment with genre and form, but I have to say, I didn’t like this retro children’s special nearly as much as I do John Mulaney’s stand-up routines or work writing for SNL. I definitely laughed periodically at the songs and other skits, but overall the humor was a bit too absurdist for my tastes. (I also think I just don’t find his young co-stars as charming and funny as the comedian himself seems to.) I’m glad he’s branching out and taking risks on stuff like this, but this particular trial had a mixed result for me in terms of actual viewing enjoyment.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb

Book #39 of 2020:

Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb (The Fitz and The Fool #2)

A marked improvement over the start of this trilogy, but still rather slow-paced and occasionally a bit tedious in how it retreads familiar territory from earlier in the Elderlings saga. (Of course Fitz is going to insist on doing something risky alone, only for his friends and allies to ambush him with their assistance. Of course he’s going to be repeatedly chided for not having better control over his telepathic Skill magic and corresponding mental walls. Etc., etc.)

At least the overall shape of the new plot is much clearer now, even if it still doesn’t seem like a wholly necessary continuation of the series. As ever, author Robin Hobb tends to produce her most affecting scenes when working in a confined setting like Buckkeep, where she can strike colorful personalities off one another and chart the passage of time through gradually developing character relations. The immersive fantasy worldbuilding continues to impress, and a few moments draw keenly on the long history Hobb has built up in this setting to achieve genuine catharsis. It’s also interesting to see the writer herself change in the way she writes about the potential fluidity of gender, here using different pronouns for the same person depending on how they are presenting at any given time.

Ultimately I don’t know that we particularly needed to see a FitzChivalry version of Taken, nor do I care much for the expected tie-ins to the spinoff Rain Wild Chronicles as he pursues a band of kidnappers across the map. But for the most part this novel feels like proper Hobb again, which is definitely a promising sign for the likely conclusion that will follow.

[Content warning for incest and rape.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

Book #38 of 2020:

The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White (Camelot Rising #1)

This Arthurian YA took a little while to grow on me, and there’s a major twist that’s telegraphed so openly throughout this initial volume that I wish author Kiersten White had moved it forward and spent more time dealing with the fallout instead. But I like the essential concept of a Camelot where magic is banned and an exiled Merlin has sent in his apprentice to marry King Arthur and protect him in secret, and I found the dynamic between the queen and her nephew-in-law Mordred — here playing more of a traditional Lancelot role — to be unexpectedly moving. There’s some nice minor LGBTQ representation as well. Altogether it’s a novel with a bumpy start but a fine landing, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

[Content warning for mention of sexual assault / rape.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Book #37 of 2020:

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Another book that I wanted to love more than I actually did. In theory, this 2019 fantasy novel with #ownvoices Muslim protagonists and mythology should be a bright gem amid the common eurocentric tropes of the genre. In practice, it’s a tad aimless in plot and needlessly distant from its characters. I appreciate the feminist focus on female friendships and women’s choices as well as the incorporation of Islamic prayers as a regular facet of the setting, but I never felt like the main romance involved a genuine connection and I had a hard time tracking what some of the major figures were even trying to accomplish throughout. I’d read more from debut author Nafiza Azad, but I’m sort of glad this is a standalone work that won’t make me keep all its details in mind for a sequel.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket

Book #36 of 2020:

When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket (All the Wrong Questions #2)

Technically an improvement over the first Unfortunate Events prequel, in part because this volume leans more into the clever wordplay and less into the vague allusions to larger plots (although those are definitely still present). I also realize now, as per this spinoff series title, that I’ve probably been approaching these books about the teenage Lemony Snicket with a misguided mindset. Given that the Baudelaire saga left so many issues unresolved, my assumption had been that this new quartet would aim to actually fill in the backstory of its mysterious narrator and his elusive spy organization. But halfway through, it appears instead to simply be telling a glorified side quest, with the details most pertinent to the original narrative again relegated to offhand asides.

Understanding is not the same as appreciating, though, and All the Wrong Questions has yet to properly justify its existence for me as a reader. Young Lemony is nowhere near as endearing as the orphans whose misadventures he’ll someday chronicle, and I’m finding it hard to get fully invested in his investigations. The novels are short enough and Snicket the writer talented enough that I suppose I’ll stick around to see if it all comes to anything in the end, but I feel like I’m setting myself up for the sort of disappointment that’s all too common to characters in this world.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones

Book #35 of 2020:

The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #2)

I still think the debut volume Charmed Life is the best place to start this series, but this prequel surpasses it on just about every level. We actually get to visit other worlds in the multiverse that makes this setting so distinctive, and the young Christopher Chant is so much more interesting as a protagonist than his cousin Cat from the first novel. Although both boys must deal with a nefarious relative and come to terms with their future role as the wizard bureaucrat Chrestomanci, those struggles feel more meaningful for Christopher, as though he really could go either way. (The fact that readers have already seen him as an adult in Charmed Life only slightly undercuts that tension, since he’s not a very internal figure there. And the context from that book is invaluable in helping establish the stakes for this one.)

It’s not a perfect story. The treatment of race is somewhat dated, including both a repeated anti-Romani slur and the positioning of people from other lands as ‘heathens’ and ‘noble savages.’ There’s also some character sexism that feels like it should be called out or undercut by the narrative, yet never quite is. It’s altogether a rather parochial perspective toward diversity — which is understandable given who wrote it and when, but a tad regrettable nonetheless. And a few plot details seem inorganic in motivation, like they are only here because author Diana Wynne Jones got boxed in by what she had written about Christopher’s past before.

But my nitpicking is just that, and certainly none of these issues is major enough to have troubled me when I was younger. It’s a great adventure in a great saga, and the overall effect of the piece still dazzles even on this belated reread.

★★★★★

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Book Review: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

Book #34 of 2020:

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

A valuable theoretical workbook from a white author with a career in racial sensitivity training, aimed primarily at white readers who wish to understand why we get defensive over the subject of race and how productive conversations can be once we let go of those feelings. (Robin DiAngelo justifies her provocative title and thesis as producing the discomfort that is necessary to dislodge preconceived notions, but I do worry that that approach alienates the very people who need this lesson the most.)

The book is occasionally repetitive and could stand to include a few more real-life examples from DiAngelo’s seminars, but it’s worthwhile as a primer or refresher on racial justice. The writer identifies and challenges societal assumptions of whiteness as neutral or default, and she includes the always-helpful reminder that modern racism is not an issue of someone’s intentions or morality; all white people have relative privilege that perpetuates an unjust hierarchy of race, whether you are a good person who professes a belief in equality or not (and regardless of other ways you are disadvantaged by class, sex, etc.).

Reactions may vary, but I personally found this to be somewhat less effective of a work overall than Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race, while somewhat more so than Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. Still, I’d recommend the title for anyone with an open mind to reflecting on their own racist missteps, and/or interested in examining the roadblocks they’ve faced in previous discussions of race.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

Book #33 of 2020:

Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

In the summer of 1727, a small group of men and boys from an island off the coast of Scotland were dropped off at a remote rocky outcropping for their community’s annual excursion to spend a few weeks hunting the local birds for their meat, eggs, oil, and feathers. Only that year, calamity at home meant that the return ship never came back for them, and their trip ended up stretching out to nine long months before they were finally rescued. Unfortunately, not much else is known about that ordeal; if the survivors shared any specific experiences at the time, the record has not reached us today.

On the bare bones of this historical footnote, author Geraldine McCaughrean has crafted a plausible tale of how it might have transpired from the boys’ point of view. I was initially worried that the premise was just an excuse for a Lord of the Flies retelling, but although there’s a slight degree of that sort of social anarchy, this narrative is mostly a person-versus-nature story full of ingenuity, heart, and pluck. I was surprised by how quickly I came to care and worry about these characters, and I was swept away by the writer’s sense of setting, both for the physicality of the sea stack and for the cultural perspective of the castaways. I don’t know how much of the latter is research-based and how much is invention, but it feels wholly immersive to read.

[Content / spoiler warning: early on, one of the islanders is revealed to be a girl in disguise. Or at least, that’s how the text treats it, even though the child has apparently been brought up as a boy all ‘her’ life. This figure is subsequently referred to via feminine pronouns and at several points seems in danger of sexual violence. It’s overall not the most enlightened treatment of gender, and my only real hesitation about recommending this book to all.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Book #32 of 2020:

Crier’s War by Nina Varela (Crier’s War #1)

Nina Varela’s authorial debut has enough going for it that I will happily read the sequel, but this first book has a few issues holding it back from achieving its full potential. The good: a Battlestar Galactica sort of premise in which humanoid robots have overthrown and enslaved their creators, and a believable enemies-to-lovers arc between two young women from those respective groups. The bad: hazy worldbuilding, a slow plot which doesn’t ultimately build to much, and a few would-be twists that are hindered as a result. I also think the power differential in the central relationship of a cyborg princess and her human handmaiden isn’t explored nearly as critically as I would like.

This is a novel that I was expecting to love, but found myself disengaging from as it went along (and surprised when it ended with so little resolution and no real sign of the titular war). There are individual elements and passages I really enjoy, but as a whole it’s a bit rough.

★★★☆☆

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