The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Movie Review: Hidden Figures (2016)

Movie #4 of 2018:

Hidden Figures (2016)

Great cast and soundtrack, in service of the little-known true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA during the 1960s space race. There are some plot elements that strike me as a bit oversimplified, especially having read the book that the script was based on, and some of the dialogue really doesn’t sound like anything a real human being would say. Overall, though, this is an excellent movie. I’m really glad that stories like this are finally being told and being told well.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

Book #61 of 2018:

Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

Batman’s origin story has been told and retold countless times, and this latest version struggles to justify its existence against that long history. The premise of an 18-year-old Bruce Wayne playing Silence of the Lambs with a femme fatale in Arkham Asylum is decent / original enough, but the execution is sloppy and I don’t feel like we really learn anything new about the character by seeing him in these circumstances. I had high hopes after Leigh Bardugo’s great Wonder Woman adventure in the same line of new DC superhero novels, but this one can be safely missed.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Book #60 of 2018:

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

A powerful story of a teenager struggling to go on in the aftermath of his boyfriend’s suicide. As in the similarly exemplary A Monster Calls, it’s possible to read the heightened elements of the novel — in this case, the aliens who abduct our narrator and give him the sole power to avert the end of the world — as either an actual development or just the product of a troubled mind working through its issues. (Although I think the narrative here strongly hints at the latter, whereas A Monster Calls manages to balance both possibilities more fairly.) Either way, Henry’s pain and uncertainty feel real and immediate, as do the complex character relationships and even the distinct Florida setting. It’s a tough but ultimately affirmative read that engages honestly with its themes without ever glamorizing them.

[Trigger warning for depression, suicidal ideation, and sexual assault.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Book #59 of 2018:

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I fell in love with this satirical novel back in high school, and I wish I could say it holds up just as well today. And on some levels, it absolutely does: it remains a brilliant skewering of military doublespeak and the absurdity of war, and author Joseph Heller deploys the book’s signature circular reasoning and jumbled chronology with great skill. It really is like no other story out there, and there are moments of comedy and pathos alike that get under your skin and never really leave you. It’s quite rightfully considered a modern classic.

But a half-century past its original publication, it’s hard not to wince at how Heller treats his female characters. Every single woman in the text is reduced to a sexual object and/or punchline, denied the rich inner lives that Heller gifts to even the most obstinate of his male commanding officers. There are rape threats played for laughs, sexual assaults framed as harmless pranks, and a universal fixation on women’s body parts by the novel’s men. It may be tempting to dismiss such sexism as merely a product of Heller’s time, but the issue is pervasive enough to critique and to highlight for new prospective readers. It sullies what I was expecting to be a five-star reading experience after returning to the novel with fresh eyes after so long away.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Mad Ship by Robin Hobb

Book #58 of 2018:

Mad Ship by Robin Hobb (Liveship Traders #2)

Overall, I would say that this sequel is an improvement over the first Liveship Traders book. The plot moves a little more quickly, and there’s great character work turning the most insufferable figure from the previous story into a compelling protagonist. These features build nicely on the swashbuckling pirate action and intricate fantasy worldbuilding that author Robin Hobb has previously established and create solid momentum going into the concluding volume.

With that being said, the sexual politics of the trilogy still leave much to be desired. One viewpoint character in this novel is raped repeatedly over the course of a long sea voyage; another escapes a similar attempt only by brutally fighting off her assailant. (Neither of these is even the rape scene I had remembered before this reread, which I guess must take place in the third book.) There’s also the continuing romance of an adult man courting a young teenage girl, which is never framed as particularly problematic even when characters are directly calling her an immature child. None of this seems at all essential for the story that Hobb is telling, and it may not be what some readers are looking for in their escapist fiction.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

Book #57 of 2018:

Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

This true-life illegal immigration story is initially quite powerful, but it loses a lot of focus once its subject has successfully crossed the southern border into the United States. Before that, it’s a heartbreaking journalistic investigation into the desperate circumstances that drive so many Central Americans to attempt such a journey, as well as the terrible risks of rape, murder, and dismemberment they face along the way. But there’s little of that kind of insight in the latter part of the book, which provides rather surface-level coverage of undocumented life. (Also on a pure mechanical level, the writing seems far below what one might expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner.) I appreciate this book, but I would have preferred it to end substantially earlier than it does.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Book #56 of 2018:

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles #1)

A sci-fi retelling of Snow White / Cinderella is a great story idea, but I’m a little underwhelmed at how author Marissa Meyer has exectued it here. The villains are pretty one-note, the love interest is whiny and entitled, and there are some fairly severe worldbuilding and character issues that are never properly addressed. Why are cyborgs like Cinder — who are essentially just humans that have received lifesaving medical implants — treated as second-class citizens? Does the prince share this prejudice, and if not, how does he reconcile his nation’s policies? (Or if so, how does Cinder reconcile her feelings for him?) These are the sort of basic details that should undergird the plot, and by not developing them with clarity, Meyer is never able to get me to fully invest in her story.

This is the first book of a four-part series, but I see no reason to read any further on the basis of this one.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: The Mindy Project, season 5

TV #13 of 2018:

The Mindy Project, season 5

My previous criticisms of this show – namely its inconsistent characterization and plotting, heavy reliance on slapstick, revolving cast door, and frustrating politics – unfortunately apply to this penultimate season as well. (What better way to resolve a love triangle cliffhanger that ended the previous season than to have your protagonist reject both options and immediately start dating a new character who’s never really fleshed out beyond nerdy and judgmental?) I like that season 5 was a smidgen more experimental, especially that Groundhog Day episode that never gets walked back as a dream or anything so I guess really happened. But in the end, this is largely the same old show doing the same old tired routines.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch

Book #55 of 2018:

Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch

The opening of this story about a boy working for a Victorian-era animal trader lulls a reader with Dickensian charm, but it all turns absolutely brutal by the end. After a pleasant start our urchin hero sails out of London in search of a Komodo dragon, only to find himself shipwrecked and slowly starving to death in a lifeboat with an ever-dwindling crew. It’s all very well-written, but in agonizingly feverish detail that is a sharp turn from the early chapters and definitely not for the faint of heart. An excellent, uncomfortable read.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

Book #54 of 2018:

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #3)

I think I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve read a book of more than a thousand pages and thought that it should have been longer. Author Brandon Sanderson has always been juggling a lot of plots, characters, and worldbuilding details in The Stormlight Archive — especially as more hints of his wider Cosmere setting have begun leaking in — but it all comes close to collapsing in this third novel. When the writer maintains a tight focus on his characters, as in Shallan’s struggles with her fracturing identity or the flashbacks that finally explore Dalinar’s past, the narrative soars to usual levels of Sanderson excellence. But there’s an awful lot of checking in on various developing situations once every few hundred pages or so, and it’s pretty hard to invest in those matters when they aren’t given more space in the plot. The result feels more scattered than the first two books in the series, like there was really too much material here to do it all justice even in so many pages.

★★★☆☆

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