Book Review: The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata

Book #44 of 2020:

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata

Ostensibly, this is a novel about a man whose late grandfather has a package come back as undeliverable after the funeral, and his efforts to track down its intended recipient, the son of the woman who wrote the unpublished manuscript inside. But that’s mostly just a thin framework to justify author Michael Zapata sharing the life story of seemingly every character even remotely involved with the matter. I don’t hate these vignettes on their own terms, but I also don’t really understand why they’ve all been included — nor why the main protagonist cares about what he’s doing and why I should as a reader.

That’s particularly true when the journey takes him to New Orleans in the direct aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Zapata provides a wrenching look at the devastation from the storm, but doesn’t seem to notice that he’s writing about the resources devoted to giving a complete stranger a book in a time when so many people needed actual help. I feel very detached from this narrative, and don’t think it adds up to much resolution in the end either.

[Content warning for racism.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Book #43 of 2020:

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This seems like one of those books that is guaranteed to frustrate a lot of readers, in that it obliquely hints at larger designs instead of ever giving us the full picture. The opening premise, after all, is less a novel than a collection of loosely-connected fables, one of which is about a student who finds a half-forgotten incident from his childhood described in just such a book. The ensuing adventure links dusty library research a la The Historian or S. with classic portal fantasies too numerous to exhaustively list out here.

(Narnia and Wonderland get specifically name-checked by the characters, but there’s a strong Dark Tower essence to both the metafictional aspects of the narrative and the general appearance of the mystical doors too. The secret organization dedicated to closing off those gateways also calls to mind The Ten Thousand Doors of January, although since that book’s publication predates this one by a mere two months, I’m assuming any similarity there is a happy accident of common origin rather than yet another influence itself.)

As you might guess, this a self-referential and elliptical piece of storytelling that probably raises more questions than it answers and often feels more like just an overheard conversation about storytelling in the first place. But sometimes that sort of approach works for me, and it largely does here thanks to the quality of author Erin Morgenstern’s prose and the vivid universe she’s able to imply. I wouldn’t want to read a tale like this every day, but once in a while it’s nice to swim out into something that expands your horizons about what the format can do.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

Book #42 of 2020:

The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

This YA novel is built on a neat idea for a modernization of A Christmas Carol starring a corporate version of the Ghost of Christmas Past, but I have way too many unanswered questions about both the worldbuilding logistics and that protagonist’s exact motivation. I also never really feel as though it makes sense for her organization to have selected its target / her eventual love interest as their latest Scrooge to reform, since he seems basically no worse a person than any other seventeen-year-old boy. (That’s somewhat addressed near the end of the book, but not in a way that really satisfies me as a reader.)

Also: I know this is based on a classic Christmas story, but it bothers me how weirdly Christian-normative it all is. Characters declare offhandedly that the existence of life after death must mean God exists, the company has specific rules about not monitoring inside churches, and anyone who mentions not celebrating Christmas is assumed, apparently correctly, either to be against materialism or to find family gatherings painful. Outside of the Hallmark Channel, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a fictional version of New York City rendered quite so religiously homogeneous.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote by Craig Fehrman

Book #41 of 2020:

Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote by Craig Fehrman

This is a fascinating topic — or at least one aimed squarely at the center of my particular interests — and I really commend author Craig Fehrman for compiling the material behind it. As he details in his closing remarks, presidents’ books have rarely been seen as important even for their official biographers, so quite a bit of original primary research was necessary just to gather all the facts in question. And in Fehrman’s hands, those findings have been assembled into not the rote catalog I was half-expecting, but rather an intricate narrative tracing the gradual development of American literacy, literature, publishing, notions of authorship and ghostwriting, and presidency itself.

The content could have been organized better, since following a single politician from campaign book through legacy memoir and even posthumous influence often requires then doubling back to an earlier time for the next figure Fehrman considers. I also wish he had approached the subject more exhaustively, making this not merely the first account of its type but also the definitive comprehensive one. By focusing on the texts that either best reflect changing trends or were so influential themselves, we miss out on others that could still be interesting in their own right. And finally, I’m somewhat frustrated by how often the writer acts as a critic, projecting his own subjective take on what is “enlightening or enjoyable to read today” instead of simply documenting the books themselves and how they were received by contemporary audiences.

Nevertheless, I have generally found this to be a worthwhile and educational read, full of neat contrasts between the writings that various presidents have created to either pitch their candidacy or leave behind as memoir. I’d recommend it for anyone interested in history, politics, or how those might intersect with popular nonfiction.

[Content warning for descriptions of racism and sexual assault.]

★★★★☆

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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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