The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: White Sand, Volume 2 by Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, and Julius Gopez

Book #223 of 2018:

White Sand, Volume 2 by Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, and Julius Gopez (White Sand #2)

As with the first volume, this continuing comic adaptation of an unpublished Brandon Sanderson manuscript utterly fails to bring his usual vivid imagination to life. There are glimmers of an interesting story here, but character motivations and plot points are presented in such an abbreviated format that without any outside knowledge of what’s going on, the whole thing comes across as rather inscrutable. The artwork also adds little to the equation, and the sudden shift in the last chapter to a different illustrator with a very different style makes me wonder about creative struggles behind the scenes.

These are quick reads, but I hope that the forthcoming conclusion is a substantial improvement, because so far this cosmere outing is a real bust.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

Book #222 of 2018:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #5)

The Harry Potter books are well-known for getting darker and deeper as they go along, aging up in target audience along with their main characters, but the hero’s surly teenage angst in this novel actually bothered me more when I first read it as a fifteen-year-old myself than it does today. Perhaps I’ve grown more able to recognize and appreciate his shift in attitude as a matter of author J. K. Rowling’s craft, or perhaps it’s overall just one small facet of this story that I now see shouldn’t ruin it. Either way, I remember being somewhat disappointed with this book upon its release — and loving the eventual movie adaptation, which keeps the major plot points but frees us from Harry’s limited angry perspective — and I’m happy to discover how much better I like it as an adult reader. Even the teen wizard’s fumbling first foray into romance is more satisfying to read in my thirties than when I was stuck in that awkward phase as well.

So maybe the novel works better for grown-ups, but it was still an important and formative part of my adolescence. There is just so much to love in this portion of the Potter saga, so much rich thematic material and relatable character frustrations. Harry has always butted heads with individual teachers at his school, but in this book he’s up against a whole corrupt system of fascistic authority figures, willfully blind bystanders, and a coordinated disinformation campaign. Feeling powerless in the face of unfair rules and beloved adults who don’t seem to take you seriously, then finding ways to assert your agency and ultimately save the day: this is a powerful coming-of-age story for Harry Potter and his friends, even if my actual teenage self didn’t necessarily see it that way.

It’s also a narrative that feels more urgent than ever in our current political moment, and even though the allegory is inherently simplistic, I can understand why so many people in my generation have drawn parallels between the fictional Death Eaters and the unfortunately real resurgence of white nationalists and other hate groups. We came to maturity watching our childhood heroes organize resistance groups against the extremism in their midst — is it any wonder that that struggle continues to resonate?

Every Harry Potter book since the third has ended with a radical transformation of the series topography, a raising of stakes and a promise that the next sequel will be nothing like what’s come before. It’s a model that couldn’t sustain itself forever, but here as ever it’s a triumph. Harry is growing up, the world is getting dark, and we are firmly in the final stage of this series. As his final days at Hogwarts approach, it’s time for the boy wizard to truly step up and show us how to be a hero.

★★★★★

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Book Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Book #221 of 2018:

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #1)

The plot to this mid-century crime thriller is admittedly thin, but it’s an outstanding character study of the insecure and sociopathic Tom Ripley. His author Patricia Highsmith paints Ripley as almost pedestrian in his casual amorality and petty jealousies, and while many writers could tell the beats of this story with Ripley as the villain, it takes a true artist to cast him as the lead and force an audience to identify with his self-centered nihilism. Not since Stephen King’s novella Apt Pupil have I read a story that made me feel so dirtily complicit in a character’s crimes.

[Content warning for some problematic queer-coding that implies a connection between Ripley’s ethical deviance and his “sissiness” / potential sexual orientation. Not uncommon for 1955 when the novel was written – and it’s worth observing that Highsmith was an outspoken lesbian herself – but modern readers may wish to be aware.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Love & War by Melissa de la Cruz

Book #220 of 2018:

Love & War by Melissa de la Cruz (Alex & Eliza #2)

This novel, which spans from Alexander Hamilton’s wedding through his time as a lawyer after the Revolutionary War, has taken fewer liberties with the historical record than its predecessor — other than delaying the births of the Hamilton children by several years and giving Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton some suspiciously modern progressive attitudes — but it’s also a lot less eventful. I also found the cutesy allusions to the famous Broadway musical a little more grating this time around, although that may be down to personal reader taste rather than any problem in the text. Overall the lives of Alex and Eliza are translating well into Young Adult historical fiction under author Melissa de la Cruz’s hands, but the charm of her characters can’t quite hide the fact that very little happens in this part of their story.

Postscript: this is a really misleading cover. There’s no real drama between A & E in this book other than her feeling a little lonely during his long hours at his law practice. Certainly no estrangement or heartbreak like that cover image seems to imply.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan

Book #219 of 2018:

Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan (Takeshi Kovacs #3)

There’s great potential in the idea of downloading human consciousness into different bodies, but none of the books in this loose trilogy have really lived up to it. This last novel feels especially disappointing, with its vengeance-obsessed protagonist coming across more like a petulant adolescent than the centuries-old super-soldier we’ve seen before. It doesn’t help that the character’s exact motivations are kept from readers for a large part of the story, nor that even after we’re clued in, Kovacs still just primarily reacts to other people’s actions and reflects on the various women he’s slept with in the past. Some interesting new ramifications to the technology driving the series keeps this from being a complete waste, but it comes pretty close at times.

This book: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★☆☆☆

Book ranking: 1 > 2 > 3

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Book Review: It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Book #218 of 2018:

It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Welcome to Night Vale #2)

Even more so than the first Welcome to Night Vale novel, I can’t imagine this book appealing much to any readers who are not already fans of the original podcast. The plot is brand-new, but it relies heavily on returning concepts like the desert otherworld and the house that doesn’t exist, which are confusing enough even for a familiar audience.

So I don’t recommend this as an introduction to the slipstream absurdism of the Night Vale franchise, but it’s a strong entry within that series nonetheless. At its heart this is a story about lonely people figuring out how to find more meaning from life, and amid all the surreal weirdness, there are some thoughtful meditations on how religion as praxis and community can conflict with church leadership and articles of faith. It’s a respectful handling of a sensitive subject, interspersed with government surveillance helicopters and reminders that mountains aren’t real. But that’s Night Vale for you.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Book #217 of 2018:

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke (The Balloonmakers #1)

I have a hard time investing in this novel’s central romance, which consists of two frequently blushing and stammering teens who basically fall for one another at first sight. I also sometimes want more from the prose, which doesn’t quite sing in the elevated magical way I would expect for a story about star-crossed lovers and time-traveling balloons. (Although it’s possible that these disappointments reflect more on me as a reader than on this particular book, or that as I enter my 30s I’m finally starting to outgrow the Young Adult genre.)

Nevertheless: the story itself means a lot to me, as a YA novel with a Jewish heroine who is unabashedly proud of her heritage and in connection with her family’s past. Author Katherine Locke is Jewish herself, and she captures so many subtle details that I have rarely seen in fiction and never before in this genre. Both Ellie’s unexpected time travel back to 1980s East Berlin and the flashbacks to her grandfather’s experiences during the Holocaust are deeply informed by the characters’ Judaism. Representation in fiction can often come across as simply checking a box, but when Locke’s characters say the Kaddish over a fallen friend or find themselves clinging to ritual in moments of despair, it all feels intensely Jewish in a way that immediately speaks to my soul.

In the end there are obvious weaknesses to this novel, and I don’t know if readers from different backgrounds will be as affected by it as I’ve been. But I’m really really glad that the book exists and that people like me will be able to see ourselves in it.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Book #216 of 2018:

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (Dread Nation #1)

This novel offers a great character voice and an intriguing world: a version of Reconstruction-era America in which the Civil War has ended prematurely due to a sudden zombie uprising. Unfortunately, the plot is fairly uneven, and the tone is all over the place. There’s no dramatic weight to any of the undead action or its high body count — which is a completely valid approach to the genre, but that sort of romp doesn’t sit well with the realistically cruel racism aimed at the black heroine throughout the story. I like enough about this book that I will probably read the forthcoming sequel, but I hope that one does a better job of reconciling its various aspects.

[Content warning for historical racism and corporal punishment.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Book #215 of 2018:

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Gentleman Bastard #3)

I have such mixed feelings about this book and what it portends for the rest of its series. In part that’s because it’s trying to do three very different things, and I think it accomplishes them with varying degrees of success.

First, this novel aims to fill in the backstory of Sabetha Belacoros, a key figure who has been mentioned but never seen in the first two Gentleman Bastard books. She’s long been the missing member of the central gang, and she finally takes the stage as a young girl and teenager interacting with our returning heroes. These scenes are fantastic, easily slotting into the gaps that author Scott Lynch has left in the backstory and paying dividends for the disjointed flashback structure he’s employed from the beginning. Sabetha herself clarifies the group dynamic a lot, and the story unfolding in the past is poignant and fun. I wish Lynch had included the sole female Bastard well before this, but he does a lot in these pages to make her feel like a real character and not just a requisite love interest for his male lead.

The second goal of the book is to tell the latest adventure of the Gentlemen Bastards gang in the present, including their reconnection with an adult Sabetha. This part of the story just about works on a character level, but there are simply no stakes to the actual plot. The conmen protagonists are forced into rigging an election for a puppet government, but since it literally doesn’t matter whether they succeed or not, it’s hard for me as a reader to really care or even believe that the characters do.

And finally, there are moments in this novel that are presumably intended to set up further adventures in the series (although five years later, there is still no word of when the next book can be expected). These parts work the least for me, and I find pretty much everything to do with the Bondsmagi and Locke Lamora’s mysterious background frustratingly clunky and trope-filled in a way that Lynch has previously managed to avoid.

On balance, I’m not sure how to weight these different elements against one another or judge this title as a whole. I love most everything to do with the added character history, but I worry that the series is rapidly losing its way with the story being told here and now.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Marvel’s Daredevil, season 3

TV #48 of 2018:

Marvel’s Daredevil, season 3

I have some issues with how all-knowing Kingpin becomes in the back half of this season, and I’m not sure Matt’s no-killing policy really holds up under scrutiny, but overall this is a triumphant return to form for Daredevil. Clear and compelling character arcs, complex villains, great fight choreography, and an interesting season plot throughout. This is exactly what I’m looking for in this sort of show and one of the better seasons that Marvel’s Netflix run has produced.

★★★★☆

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