The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom by Louis Sachar

Book #53 of 2020:

Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom by Louis Sachar (Wayside School #4)

I’m a little torn in my reaction to this novel. On the one hand: it’s good quirky fun, with author Louis Sachar seamlessly slipping into his old rhythms a full twenty-five years after the last Wayside School book. I have fond childhood memories of the original series, and I was surprised by how much came flooding back throughout this unexpected sequel. (The therapist who hypnotizes students with a pickle on a chain! The nineteenth floor that doesn’t exist! Sachar writing himself into the story as a janitor!) I’m sure there are subtler callbacks that went over my head too, especially since I didn’t take the time to reread the first three volumes when I heard this one was coming out.

On the other hand: I don’t think this project ever really justifies why it exists, like there was any burning need for a Wayside revival so long after the fact. I also don’t feel as though the latest bunch of loosely-related vignettes is quite as entertaining as those before — although that could easily be because I’m an older fuddy-duddy now and/or viewing what I remember of last century’s trilogy with rose-colored glasses. I’m rounding my rating up a tad, under the assumption that anyone in the right age range to love the previous titles will probably enjoy this latest as well.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

Book #52 of 2020:

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

This is an engagingly written pop science book, and it’s short enough that I do recommend it for anyone interested in learning some surprising patterns behind hourly mood swings, peak performance times, and the like. It’s cleverly positioned as a ‘when-to’ self-help manual as well, with tips at the end of every chapter for recalibrating one’s own schedule to boost efficiency. Yet the data seems somewhat cherry-picked, and the topic that I know the most about — cross-linguistic differences in how grammar encodes the past and future — is way more nuanced and contentious than how author Daniel H. Pink presents it here. That makes me somewhat reluctant to take the rest of what he says at face value, let alone use it as the basis for overhauling my life.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

Book #51 of 2020:

Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young (Girls with Sharp Sticks #1)

Blown away by this series debut, which reads like a wild blend of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Stephen King’s The Institute, with shades of The Handmaid’s Tale and Westworld to boot. Its story of a finishing school that is clearly grooming teen girls for some nefarious purpose probably most resembles the creeping dystopian dread from the first book in that group, but with a far more propulsive plot as the students uncover and push against the evil of their world. I love these characters and their resilience, and am properly horrified by how they are treated as the narrative unfolds. The love interest feels a little thin, and I wish the ending carried more resolution, but I am on the edge of my seat to find out where the sequel takes things next.

[Major content warning for sexism and violation of bodily autonomy / consent, although never to the level of sexual assault or rape.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

Book #50 of 2020:

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch #2)

This second novel in the Akata Witch duology has a messier and more episodic plot than its predecessor, but it also feels more like a fully-formed fantasy vision rather than just an #ownvoices West African take on Harry Potter. (Although as with that series, the characters and tone have aged up slightly in between books, shifting the genre from Middle-Grade to Young Adult for this sequel.) The characters and their motivations seem less generic now, providing readers with a better understanding of both Sunny as a protagonist and the ways in which her identity as an American-raised albino girl marks her as an outsider in Nigerian society. The series looks to be complete for now, but on the strengths of this adventure I would definitely return for another volume.

[Content warning for racism, colorism, sexism, and use of the r-word.]

This book: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Individual rankings: 2 > 1

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Book Review: Doctor Who: At Childhood’s End by Sophie Aldred with Steve Cole and Mike Tucker

Book #49 of 2020:

Doctor Who: At Childhood’s End by Sophie Aldred with Steve Cole and Mike Tucker

As the final companion when the ‘classic’ series of Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, the character of Ace McShane casts a long shadow over the franchise. Her nuanced characterization and complicated relationship with the Doctor — which would prove a model for later figures in the revived show — have been even further developed off-screen, including an ongoing series of licensed audio dramas that her original actress Sophie Aldred has regularly performed in over the past twenty years. At this point Aldred clearly has a deep, lived-in understanding of the role, which she brings with great effect to this, her first novel.

It’s not one of those Doctor Who stories that resolves old plot holes or offers long-delayed catharsis, simply because Ace has continued to live on and hit those narrative beats for decades now. Some of her recent Big Finish appearances have even found her in the same lifestage as this book, a middle-aged philanthropist scarred by her past but still fighting the good fight against various extraterrestrial threats. Yet whether you’ve followed those other adventures or not, this one is a cracking good time and a fascinating first opportunity for Aldred — with the help of her co-writers — to flesh out the character beyond a physical/vocal performance.

It’s also just great for teaming up the older woman with Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and her current TARDIS team (set in 2020, with the exact timing unclear but sometime after the events of the “Resolution” special). In a way this encounter plays out similarly to 2006’s “School Reunion” that brought together 70s sidekick Sarah Jane Smith with the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler: the audience gets to check in on an old favorite, the Doctor is forced to reckon with someone long left behind, and the new companion(s) must process feelings of jealousy and worry about when their own tenure will come to an end.

Yet this is no carbon copy of that TV episode, any more than Ace is of Sarah or Yasmine Khan is of either. Aldred the writer has enough familiarity with science-fiction to spin out an engaging yarn with plenty of interesting wrinkles, and the character interactions sparkle as much as one could hope. (She’s pretty talented voicing the audiobook too, with only her version of Graham O’Brien not quite capturing the actor’s cadences.) I still wouldn’t call it a must-read, but for any long-time Whovian, it’s a whole lot of fun.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

Book #48 of 2020:

Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #3)

This has always been my favorite Chrestomanci book, even though it’s a bit of a spin-off, with the multiverse-hopping enchanter only showing up in the last third or so of the text (and not requiring any prior reader knowledge to understand and appreciate his appearance when he does). It’s not just that one could easily read this as a standalone — every time I pick it up, I find the narrative so immersive and engaging that I half-forget it’s connected to those other stories at all. I love this world of snippy students and illegal witchcraft, and how the friendship slowly blossoms among children who each begin the novel feeling lonely and ostracized in their own particular ways.

Given the English boarding school setting, this is also the volume that most resembles Harry Potter, whose publication it predates by a good decade and a half. These characters aren’t learning magic, but they’re still taking classes as a cohort and dealing with petty rivalries against the backdrop of a more serious plot and some truly inventive displays of sorcery. Although probably not the most logical place to start the series, it would be a great option for anyone still looking to find their next Hogwarts.

[Content warning for fatphobia, capital punishment, and self-harm.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret A. Hagerman

Book #47 of 2020:

White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret A. Hagerman

There’s an unfortunate disconnect between this 2018 book’s title / framing and its actual content, which discusses author Margaret A. Hagerman’s ethnographic study of thirty affluent white families in one midwestern community from 2011 to 2012. Although the work is interesting in its own right — especially for pushing back against the idea that children are passive recipients of socialization, rather than individual agents who actively construct ideologies about race and other matters within the cultural milieu as they grow — the researcher never really provides evidence that her findings can be extrapolated as broadly as her thesis suggests. All white kids in America have some level of privilege, but for the particular subjects that Hagerman follows, their household income level sure seems like a key element of how that advantage manifests and affects their worldview.

The conversations captured here among rich white tweens and their parents or peers are eye-opening for how members of this demographic engage with the country’s racial hierarchy, and how they come to hold opinions about race even when the adults in their lives claim to be ‘colorblind’ and opposed to racism themselves. I’m just not convinced that the text successfully makes a case for extending that process to apply to cohorts of the same race and age in other situations.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Whiskey When We’re Dry by John Larison

Book #46 of 2020:

Whiskey When We’re Dry by John Larison

I don’t read (or watch) a lot of westerns, but I’ve mostly enjoyed this tale of an orphaned rancher who restyles herself as a man to strike off across the frontier in search of her last surviving kin and ultimately falls in love with another woman. I just think the narrative loses a little focus in the back half of the novel, and I wish author John Larison wouldn’t rely so heavily on colorful bigotry — racism including slurs, sexism, homophobia, and antisemitism — as a shorthand for the setting and the villainy of certain characters. I get the argument for historical accuracy, but it’s hard to appreciate this as a piece of escapism when those harsh realities of our present keep dropping in.

[Content warning for mention of child prostitution, in addition to the above.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Book #45 of 2020:

Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

A delightful middle-grade fantasy novel that incorporates elements of traditional Navajo folklore while avoiding the paint-by-numbers plot that such modernizations often entail. (I hesitate to call the work #ownvoices, since author Rebecca Roanhorse is not Navajo herself and she makes clear in an afterword that she isn’t speaking for or from the culture. But as a fellow Native American married into that tribe, she does bring a certain authenticity to the project.) The plucky twelve-year-old protagonist is a joy to root for along her quest, and I love how the narrative rewards her for her bravery and selflessness alike. This is a standalone book for now, but I’d happily come back for a sequel.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Doctor Who, season 12

TV #3 of 2020:

Doctor Who, season 12

I’m honestly still not sure how I feel about this season on balance. The Thirteenth Doctor’s debut year was designed to be maximally approachable for new viewers, and although that could sometimes feel a bit tame, I don’t think any of us expected its successor to bolt quite so far in the opposite direction. The individual episodes are pretty fun, but the season as a whole is staggeringly heavy on returning concepts, figures, and species from across the show’s history, not to mention the wide swaths of new continuity introduced for future writers to explore.

It’s an exciting space for the franchise to be in for a diehard fan like me, but there’s no way these additions to the mythos are connecting for everyone. (It can’t be a good sign that the forums spent much of this season debating the relevance of several frames from 1976’s The Brain of Morbius — which do indeed make an appearance in the finale.) There’s also little in these developments that tells a complete story in its own right, rather than just opening up intriguing possibilities that the series may or may not ever come back to.

I want more from the character arcs too, as I still don’t feel I know the current companions all that well. Yaz gets some belated characterization in the last few episodes, but Ryan and Graham are never really challenged in a way that feels specific to them as individuals. I think that’s where showrunner Chris Chibnall is struggling the most for me as compared to his New Who predecessors, who for all their own faults could generally render distinct and fully humanized roles with ease. So while I appreciate what this season does for Doctor Who on a macro level, I guess I’m less satisfied on the micro.

★★★☆☆

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