The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

Book #245 of 2019:

The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

Claire North’s latest supernatural thriller imagines a late-Victorian protagonist doomed to speak the truth in people’s hearts while the ghost of a boy he saw killed moves inexorably towards him. The closer the spirit gets, the less William Abbey can resist his compulsion, and if the two ever meet, William’s closest loved ones will die. And if you think that’s a complicated premise, I haven’t even mentioned the framing device with a different narrator, the spy games, the other characters with the same condition, the multiple kidnappings, and the tentative allegiances that shift over the course of the novel.

I don’t mind a twisty narrative, and I generally trust this author to deliver a fine story no matter how difficult it proves to summarize. But I do have issues with the fact that this book’s hero is a white Englishman and his pursuer a Zulu teen lynched for a relationship with a white neighbor. (Dr. Abbey stood by and did nothing, prompting the victim’s mother to curse him.) North is a white Brit herself, and there are moments here that feel like she’s confronting racial privilege and the role of empire in her national heritage. But there are also scenes when Abbey’s uncanny ability is treated more like a cool superpower, and the overall concept tends to play into the unfortunate ‘magical negro’ trope wherein black figures are reduced in agency and verisimilitude to service a white person’s self-actualization.

So although I went into this read with high hopes and I admire much of its craft, I think that aspect of the text kept me at a distance and held me from enjoying it as much as I have some of the writer’s other works.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky by Mackenzi Lee

Book #244 of 2019:

The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky by Mackenzi Lee (Montague Siblings #1.5)

This midquel novella takes place soon after the first Montague Siblings book, and I don’t want to give too much away about the ending to that one for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. But it’s another fun outing for those eighteenth-century rascals, during the rare quiet moment in their lives when there’s no big adventurous plot in motion. The conflict is all small-scale and character-driven, as two lovestruck teenage boys navigate their respective anxieties about finally consummating a relationship. It’s very much in the nature of a deleted scene, in that you could skip over it on your way to the second novel and never notice the gap.

But for any reader who adores the pairing — and really, how could you not? — this is a wonderfully tender interlude with healthy discussions of consent and lots of the unsexy interruptions that inevitably accompany physical romance in the real world. It does get a bit racy at times, but still within the general bounds of PG-13 or so. I love this series for its warm humor and ferocious dedication to underrepresented people in historical fiction, and I love how the Young Adult literary market continues to grow to accommodate that.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Full Throttle by Joe Hill

Book #243 of 2019:

Full Throttle by Joe Hill

I don’t really know what to do with this latest Joe Hill collection. My average rating over its thirteen short stories is a 3-out-of-5 stars, but the most common score that I’d give to the individual entries would be a 2. Overall, I guess it’s a book that’s worth picking up for the highlights, but maybe skimming or skipping much of the rest.

My favorite of the bunch is probably “Faun,” a twisted look at big game hunters treating a Narnian-style fantasy world as their private reserve, but I also like the poignant humanism on display in “Late Returns” — in which a librarian delivers books from the future to people who will die before they’re written — and “You Are Released” — in which a jetliner’s passengers and crew bear witness to a dawning nuclear war. That last title I had already read in the anthology Flight or Fright, but it’s no less affecting on a reencounter here.

As for everything else, there’s a lot of repetition of the basic slasher-movie plot structure, wherein a protagonist does something of dubious morality and then is punished by an apparently just universe in some horrific way. There are also plenty of homages to the author’s father (including two works co-written with him, “Throttle” and “In the Tall Grass”), which successfully channel the Stephen King style but generally don’t take it anywhere unexpected.

When Hill is on, he’s outstanding, and he’s easily produced enough quality fiction at this point in his career that it could be curated into something remarkable. But too much of his regular output is still landing inertly from my perspective.

[Content warning for miscarriage, slurs, and gruesome scenes including cannibalism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

Book #242 of 2019:

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi (Legacy of Orïsha #2)

Plotwise, this novel is a big step forward from last year’s Children of Blood and Bone, which had the same interesting Yoruba-inspired mythos but told a fairly standard rendition of the hero’s journey monomyth within that setting. (Destroyed home, pursuit by agents of evil, etc., etc.) I’ve found it a lot harder to predict where this sequel was going, which is a more exciting space to be in as a reader. And I like that a conflicted antihero from book one is a more straightforward protagonist now, with much of the drama coming from having heroes in two warring communities desperately trying to find a way towards peace. It’s very Laini Taylor, in the best way.

I’m still not totally invested in the character relationships for this series — romantic, familial, or otherwise — and I’m confused by the ending of this volume, which feels like it wraps up all the major threads before throwing in a sudden cliffhanger at the last possible moment. But author Tomi Adeyemi has shown such improvement from her debut that I am happy to press on and see where she takes the story next.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Book #241 of 2019:

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater (The Dreamer Trilogy #1)

Author Maggie Stiefvater’s excellent Raven Cycle left plenty of open ends for potential further exploration, and this first volume in its sequel series capably picks up one of the more compelling ones: the ability of certain characters to bring forth objects and even living beings from out of their dreams. This novel follows a few dreamers, a few dreamed people, and a few related bystanders, and the whole thing is full of the sublime supernatural majesty and prickly interpersonal dynamics that made the previous books so gripping. I also love that a major gay relationship is now allowed to simply exist in cute scenes with minimal drama, given how long it took to establish before.

If I have one major complaint about the new plot, it’s that a particular viewpoint antagonist doesn’t especially interest me, even with the conflicted feelings that telegraph a likely redemption arc. Villains have never been Stiefvater’s strong suit, and I don’t know that this one needs to take up quite so much of the narrative space here. I also think it’s weird that the setting is placed firmly as 2019 Washington, D.C., and yet no one ever discusses our current political moment — even the person working as a congressional staffer! Are we supposed to understand that this is an alternate timeline from our own? Maybe it’s because I happened to read this title on the day that Donald Trump got impeached, but I find it baffling that the young adults in the story seem so thoroughly oblivious to what’s happening right on their doorstep.

Such issues aside, Call Down the Hawk is a worthy follow-up to the earlier quartet, with some fun call-backs but a necessary distancing from those original concerns. It’s a bit of a spinoff, yet it launches the next stage of this saga with quiet aplomb.

★★★★☆

[EDIT: I might be mistaken about the year this is set — I listened to the audiobook, and interpreted an almost-nineteen-year-old’s birthday as “1/1/01” when it was apparently supposed to be read as 11/01. I can’t remember if there was anything else in the book that suggested the year to me.]

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Book Review: Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow

Book #240 of 2019:

Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow

This is an informative history of the creation of Disneyland, with a few significant caveats. First is the scope: author Richard Snow mentions that his subject was intended by Walt Disney to be a continual work in progress, and indeed, it has continued to undergo modifications and expansions through today — yet the book arbitrarily stops after the first five years of operation. Snow also includes several seemingly valid criticisms people have made about Disney (as a person, as a company, and as a theme park), only to peremptorily dismiss them as baseless. And there’s one interminable section of the text that is essentially just a play-by-play of the opening day TV special, a recording of which can be easily found and more quickly viewed online. So although the topic is interesting, the delivery leaves a lot to be desired.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Book #239 of 2019:

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Gentlemen of the Road (working title, per the author’s afterword: Jews with Swords) is an exciting, swashbuckling adventure through 10th-century eastern Europe, and definitely one of the rare novellas that doesn’t feel at all abbreviated. Michael Chabon excels at bringing this historical period to life, and his pair of mercenary protagonists are the perfect blend of clever, cocksure, and begrudgingly heroic. They’re also Jewish, as are most of the supporting characters — which is era-appropriate for the setting, but a rarity in this sort of story. The action is a little bloody, although nowhere as cruel as the excesses of something like Game of Thrones, and the plot delivers itself well without overstaying its welcome.

[Content warning for rape, incest, depression, and suicide.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Gwendy’s Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar

Book #238 of 2019:

Gwendy’s Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar (The Button Box #2)

The first novella in this series was a collaboration between authors Richard Chizmar and Stephen King, and although the execution was a little uneven, I mostly liked the concept. But I just don’t get this follow-up solo venture from Chizmar, set two decades after the original. There’s no real struggle or goal for the returning protagonist, just a few things that happen and a bare-bones mystery plot. The box that can work miracles at a terrible cost returns for no clear reason, and it doesn’t even seem to tempt Gwendy this time around. I don’t understand the motivation behind telling this story, let alone as a sequel to the other one.

★★☆☆☆

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Movie Review: Veronica Mars (2014)

Movie #13 of 2019:

Veronica Mars (2014)

I still haven’t seen the new Hulu revival of Veronica Mars, but my rewatch has finally reached this equally-unexpected reunion movie that came out in 2014, seven years after the original show went off the air. I think I’m a little more charitable towards the project than I was when it first came out — the film does a pretty good job of hiding its shoestring Kickstarter budget, the script taps into audience nostalgia for the characters and their typical storylines, and the cast members are clearly thrilled to be brought back for even the smallest roles. Some of the plot threads do feel a bit truncated, but at least we avoid the major missteps around sexual assault that weakened the writing in seasons two and three.

Mostly, though, I appreciate that this sequel tries to do something new with its titular heroine, casting her attraction to her hometown, her ex, and her old P.I. lifestyle in the language of addiction. Veronica has been clean all this time, but now she’s relapsing, and it’s clearly a rush for her to fall back into those familiar patterns, no matter how unhealthy. It’s not always easy to root for a protagonist like that, but it makes her interesting to watch and raises an unsettling meta-question of what we want from this sort of TV reboot in the first place. I’m looking forward to seeing what season 4 adds to that conversation.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse

Book #237 of 2019:

Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse

Although I’ll need to see the upcoming movie The Rise of Skywalker to be certain, it sure doesn’t feel like anything in this official prequel novel is particularly essential as setup. Its biggest contribution to smoothing the leap from The Last Jedi is probably in working through protagonist Poe Dameron’s regret and redemption after his failed mutiny attempt in that previous film. There’s also a new timidity to Rey’s characterization that may prefigure a shift in her own cinematic role. But plotwise, not very much of galactic importance happens in this book — which unfortunately makes sense, as Disney can’t expect that most audience members will read it.

Yet perhaps more than any other media tie-in I’ve encountered, the story doesn’t feel aimed at traditional fans anyway. Instead, it’s a celebration of the off-camera side of this fictional universe itself, drawing in characters from various comic books, video games, and other novels in Disney’s new canon to help the Resistance in its darkest hour. For the right sort of consumer, the effect will resemble that of a tentpole Marvel feature, an exciting crossover event bringing together certain popular figures who have only ever shared a continuity by implication before.

The downside, of course, is that if you don’t already have a familiarity with all those properties, your reaction to their inclusion will likely be more subdued. This is definitely not a good entrypoint into the franchise literature, and I myself greeted many of the returning names with a shrug. And because no narrative has room for everything, there are certainly many other heroes who could have made an appearance and disappointingly never do. (Sorry, Baby Yoda lovers. No sign of Mandalorians here.)

It’s understandably hard to evaluate a text like this that can work in different ways for different readers. But it’s a solid adventure with some fun callbacks, even if it’s ultimately inconsequential for the blockbuster it’s intended to support.

★★★☆☆

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