The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Book #66 of 2019:

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (Montague Siblings #2)

Another rip-roaring historical comedy about young people who don’t fit neatly into 18th-century European society’s expectations for them. This book is less overtly romantic than the previous novel that centers on bisexual teenager Henry Montague — which fits, as his sister Felicity is written as largely asexual — but the heroine’s struggle to have her career aspirations taken seriously and the adventures that ensue are every bit as compelling. I love the female friendships that take center stage in this volume, and how caringly author Mackenzi Lee has explored these women’s growing acceptance of their different experiences with / feelings about their gender.

Much like the first Montague Siblings story, there’s a fantasy element in the back half of this narrative that I find unnecessary, and I confess to wanting to see more of the boys, who steal every scene with how adorable they are. I also think the plot is a little too heavy on coincidences, especially regarding how certain people are connected with one another. But overall this is a great follow-up, filled with the same character-driven stakes and a warm embrace of diversity in every form.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

Book #65 of 2019:

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

There’s a little bit too much telling over showing in the beginning of this novel about a futuristic time-traveler who creates a new life for himself after getting stranded in 1996. Luckily the plot picks up once the protagonist is belatedly extracted back to the 22nd century, and his efforts to remain in secret contact with the family his agency has forced him to abandon are both clever and sweet. Debut author Mike Chen has written a fun sci-fi adventure with some amusing Doctor Who references, and although it never feels especially original, the story zips along quickly enough that I can’t complain.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Evermore by Sara Holland

Book #64 of 2019:

Evermore by Sara Holland (Everless #2)

Another YA fantasy duology with a promising first volume followed by a more conventional and generic sequel. The best thing about the opening Everless novel was its system of time as currency, in which the rich magically extend their existence by literally taxing the life out of the poor, but there’s little sign of that here. Instead, we get just a convoluted quest narrative and a heavy reliance on sudden memories from a past life. None of the heroine’s motivations or relationships feel particularly well-grounded, and the storyline essentially fizzles out rather than reaching any sort of dramatic climax. It’s quite the disappointment after such an intriguing setup in the book before.

This book: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Book ranking: 1 > 2

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Book Review: King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

Book #63 of 2019:

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo (Nikolai Duology #1)

After five novels — and some short stories that I haven’t yet read — author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse setting feels wonderfully lived-in. This latest volume is the start of a new duology in that Russian-flavored fantasy world, but it essentially reads as the next book of her original Shadow and Bone trilogy, returning to several of its heroes and picking up the plot of political intrigue and nations on the brink of war.

That’s a bit of a letdown for readers like myself who prefer the heist hijinks of the spinoff Six of Crows duology, but it appears for now that Bardugo’s interest is with the fate of the central country Ravka and not the mad ambitions of gentleman thief Kaz Brekker off on the edges of the map. Although this new storyline is technically a sequel to both of the earlier sub-series, it leans mostly on the first, with little that would confuse or majorly spoil anyone who skipped the Six of Crows books (beyond the sheer presence of Kaz’s former lieutenant Nina).

Still, this is a fun adventure strengthened further by the author’s typically excellent grasp on character. There are some slow-burning moments of tenderness that might blossom into true romance in the sequel, and some intriguing developments of our understanding of the Grisha magic. My biggest criticism is probably that the two main narrative threads barely intersect at all for now — and if we’re just following unrelated things in the Grishaverse, I’d really like to see what Dirtyhands and the rest of his crew are up to as well.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Book #62 of 2019:

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

If not a Great American Novel, this winner of the 1954 National Book Award for Fiction at least feels like an attempt at a Great American Picaresque, following a charming young Jewish ruffian around Depression-era Chicago and his subsequent wanderings away from responsibility. There’s very little overarching plot even for this sort of bildungsroman, and the protagonist’s habit of cheerfully falling in with other people’s plans makes it hard to get a read on what he wants either in the moment or in his life at large. I also would have personally preferred fewer detours through the man’s libido. Still, author Saul Bellow’s characters are pretty delightful, and as a portrait of the time period, the book is a neat piece of Americana.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey

Book #61 of 2019:

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey

I like the parts of this book that are actually about cartographic history or the titular case of map theft, but author Miles Harvey spends far too much time philosophically musing, wildly extrapolating about the culprit, and drawing tenuous parallels between a variety of dissimilar subjects. (The thief is like Christopher Columbus, except when he’s like El Dorado, except when he’s like the dark side of Harvey’s own id. And so on.) These sections are endlessly rambling and self-important, even while the author freely admits that he’s projecting and speculating without evidence. It drags down an interesting topic into a story about how it’s been uncovered — to the extent that it even has.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: The High King by Lloyd Alexander

Book #60 of 2019:

The High King by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #5)

This children’s fantasy series hasn’t always had the most even storytelling, but the last volume is a proper finale that escalates the conflict, delivers some stirring emotional resolutions, and brings back many familiar characters along the way — including the ostensible romantic interest, largely missing from the previous two books.

Much like The Last Battle or The Return of the King (to which its conclusion owes a clear debt), there’s an apocalyptic atmosphere to this novel that promises an end to everything we’ve grown to love about the setting, whether through victory or defeat for its heroes. It’s a thrilling send-off to what’s been a fun take on traditional Welsh mythology.

This book: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Book ranking: 2 > 5 > 1 > 4 > 3

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Book Review: Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future by Peter Buttigieg

Book #59 of 2019:

Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future by Peter Buttigieg

This book is interesting as a memoir of a young mayor, but I don’t think it particularly makes the case for the author’s long-shot presidential bid. Pete Buttigieg’s political successes in both campaigning and governing have been strictly on the local level of his Indiana hometown, and it’s not clear from how he presents them here that his approaches would scale up to a larger electorate he can’t know face-to-face. I’m also not convinced that he’s actually running to win the White House, rather than just to raise his profile and bring national attention to the issues facing South Bend (a Rust Belt town that resembles my own former home of Buffalo, NY right down to the large Polish population and their annual celebration of Dyngus Day).

However, if you set aside the issue of any D.C. aspirations — which are not even mentioned in this text, despite the fact that its publication postdates his exploratory committee — Buttigieg comes across as a charismatic and intelligent leader with an impressive life story. A veteran and a Rhodes Scholar, Mayor Pete would be the first openly gay president, as well as the youngest person to ever take that office. He is humble and enthusiastic about the ability of government to improve everyday lives, and although I can’t see myself voting for him in the upcoming primary election, he’s definitely established himself for me as a rising star in the Democratic Party.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

Book #58 of 2019:

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

This tale of two Jewish girls discovering their magical heritage in early 20th-century Moldova is a messy debut novel, and I wish it had better integration of its various parts. It’s both a retelling of the Christina Rossetti poem “Goblin Market” (far more closely than Seanan McGuire’s novella In an Absent Dream, published soon after) and a fictionalized account of the pogroms that swept the Slavic region of that time in a fever of blood libel, the false belief that Jews were ritually murdering Christian children. It also incorporates traditional folklore from the area about humans who can turn into bears, with nods to classical myths like Leda and the Swan as well.

That’s a lot of different demands that author Rena Rossner has placed on the narrative, and although I enjoy most of these threads individually, I’m not sure they weave together quite as neatly as they could. The story is most outstanding for its #ownvoices elements that draw on Rossner’s family history in the setting, and if you can handle a book that’s perhaps trying to do a bit too much at once, this is another worthy addition to the burgeoning genre of Judaic fantasy.

Side note: Other reviews mention that for some reason, one heroine’s chapters are all presented in the form of free verse lines of about eight words each. In the audiobook, these are read as typical sentences, with no indication of that formatting choice, so if you find it difficult on the page, I encourage you to listen to the novel instead. Although I do wish the audio narrator had given the girls regional accents like every other voiced character, rather than making the bizarre choice of reading them in British RP.

[Content warning for antisemitism and Jewish hostility towards converts (both called out by the text), discussion of rape, negative body image / internalized fat-shaming, and female characters ending up unexpectedly naked in front of men.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth

Book #57 of 2019:

The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth

Another postmodern portal fantasy focused less on magical adventuring and more on what happens after a return home from fairyland. It’s most similar to Seanan McGuire’s excellent Wayward Children series in that respect, although there are also shades of Neil Gaiman’s short story “The Problem of Susan” and even Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. And since its secondary world is essentially just a Narnian pastiche — right down to the siblings escaping the London Bombing — there’s a clear debt to C.S. Lewis here as well.

Those are all big shoes to fill, but overall debut author Laura E. Weymouth acquits herself admirably. The first half of the novel follows the Lucy figure in flashbacks to her time as a heroine of the Woodlands and in the present aching to return there, after which the narrative turns to her sister, who has seemingly readjusted to their old reality more easily. Both sections are poignant considerations of the scars of early trauma, and, like the Gaiman story, thoughtful critiques of Narnia’s treatment of the children who outgrow it.

The worst thing about this book is that it’s so much in conversation with Lewis that it really doesn’t stand well on its own; the Woodlands are shown in such sparse detail that it could be hard for readers to understand the appeal without bringing our own memories of Narnia to bear. I don’t mind that the novel covers such similar thematic ground to McGuire, but I can’t see anyone who hasn’t read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe enjoying this off-brand sequel nearly as well. For the rest of us, however, it’s well worth exploring.

[Content warning for self-harm, depression, and discussion of suicide. I’d still call this a Young Adult novel, but the target audience is definitely older than Lewis’s.]

★★★★☆

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