The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: Better Call Saul, season 3

TV #18 of 2018:

Better Call Saul, season 3

At this point, I’m almost ready to declare Better Call Saul the superior program to its parent show Breaking Bad. (It helps that there doesn’t seem to be the same toxic fandom around it, with people mistaking a critique of harmful behaviors for a celebration or endorsement.) It’s less action-packed but no less tense, especially when it comes to original Saul characters like Nacho and Kim. I think this season in particular is the first prequel that’s really made me care about / worry for characters that I know won’t be around later on.

Three seasons in, it’s definitely time to let go of any lingering sentiment that Breaking Bad didn’t need a prequel or that there wasn’t anything left to explore in the character of Heisenberg’s attorney. Saul Goodman / Jimmy McGill has now appeared in more TV episodes than Walter White, and I’m still endlessly fascinated by his depths. When you add that to the Breaking Bad house style of music and cinematography – I could honestly spend days watching those wordless montages of Better Call Saul characters at work – this is truly a show that deserves to be up there with the original.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Doctor Who: Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones

Book #82 of 2018:

Doctor Who: Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones (Virgin New Adventures #57)

This novel was written as part of an ongoing series back when Doctor Who was off the air in 1996, and is probably best read within that context. Readers picking up the book in isolation, as I did, will still get a great story but won’t fully understand the tragedy from the previous novel that haunts the Seventh Doctor and his companion throughout their current adventure.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to draw an interested Whovian to this title in particular within the Virgin New Adventures series. Author Matthew Jones would later go on to write the TV double-feature “The Impossible Planet” / “The Satan Pit” (as well as the Torchwood episode “Dead Man Walking”), and an early exploration of similar themes can be found here. Jones also uses the opportunity of his first full-length Whoniverse story to bring back classic companion Peri Brown, whose narrative arc was never really resolved when she left the show in 1986. For any fan of the character, it’s a thrill to see her interacting with Seven, especially when she confronts him for the way his earlier selves have treated her in the past.

The story itself is also a fine one. During the so-called ‘wilderness years’ when Doctor Who was kept alive through novels like this, writers had free range to take the franchise in a more mature direction than the family television program could allow. There’s frank confrontation of racism and homophobia, adult relationships (including several healthy gay romances), and a nuanced take on grief and trauma. Wrap all that in an alien invasion with compassion for refugees, and it’s no wonder that fans stayed hooked.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Jane the Virgin, season 4

TV #17 of 2018:

Jane the Virgin, season 4

This season is so propulsive in forward momentum, and it’s fantastic to see Jane blossoming into such a capable adult. Petra, Alba, and Xiomara also get some particularly great plot arcs this season, and I love how fiercely celebratory of Latinx culture the writing has grown. (That’s always been present in this series, but I feel like they’ve been leaning into it a lot more post-2016.) I’m obsessed with that final twist and what it means for the next – potentially last – season, but as always, it’s the outstanding character work that really makes the telenovela narrative elements sing.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Book #81 of 2018:

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

The more suspense novels that I read, the less patience I have with narratives that keep readers in the dark about backstory that is clearly relevant and on the characters’ minds. This particular novel is halfway through before we find out what happened 17 years ago to its central group of school friends, despite the fact that it is clearly driving their hasty reunion now. That’s frustrating, as is the women’s eventual realization that a suicide in their past may have been a murder instead — which is predicated on no new information, just the characters apparently thinking about the timeline of events for the very first time.

The book isn’t a complete misfire — the rural English moorland lends an effectively creepy atmosphere, and I enjoy the protagonist juggling her six-month-old daughter with the thriller plot that unfolds — but in general it doesn’t land well for me. As with the author’s previous novel The Woman in Cabin 10, the twists aren’t quite as clever or as motivated as I would like, and with so much kept hidden for so long, I had a hard time really caring about the characters.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Book #80 of 2018:

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

The day I picked up this book, police in California announced that they had finally made an arrest in the cold case of serial rape and murder described within its pages. I’ve put off learning more about that suspect until finishing the book and writing this review, but I understand that the author, the late independent crime journalist Michelle McNamara, is considered to be highly instrumental in publicizing this forgotten case and uncovering new evidence that helped lead to the perpetrator’s long-overdue capture.

McNamara is central in this narrative, a manuscript that was completed from her notes following the author’s untimely death in 2016. True crime can be a difficult genre to write, but she and her editors synthesize their sprawling subject matter with skill, bringing great humanity as they situate readers right in the midst of the communities that the killer preyed upon in the 1970s and 80s. It’s shiver-inducing without ever becoming lurid, and McNamara makes plain why she found the obscure story captivating over two decades after the last known attack.

In addition to the terrifying crimes that the author documents, we also get a strong sense of her as a researcher, growing consumed by the mystery and convinced that a solution might lie in some old case file gathering dust. Just as readers can see a tantalizing shadow of the book McNamara intended to write, we can see how the identity of the criminal beckoned to her, keeping the author up at night with the conviction that he was just out of sight and some key clue away. This portrait of obsession is equal parts insightful and haunting, a poignant reminder that McNamara ultimately passed before getting to see her elusive adversary brought to justice.

The new developments in the Golden State Killer case will likely merit a new edition of this book with an updated afterword, but the present version already ends on a hopeful note that the investigation is closing in on its quarry. McNamara died believing that her quest for a killer was near its end, and her documentation of that quest would be an instant classic even if time hadn’t proven her right after all.

★★★★★

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TV Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 3

TV #16 of 2018:

Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 3

After some early stumbles, TNG has really settled into itself at this point and is clearly capable of delivering greatness. Not every episode shines – as is often the case with American TV, I think a smaller season order would have let the writers discard the chaff of their weaker ideas – but the average story zips along and there are several this season that absolutely knock it out of the park. (I’ve now seen eight full seasons of Trek plus nine of the movies, and “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is easily the best of the lot.) I’m taking a break for now to get to some of the other stuff in my queue, but I’m excited to pick back up with season 4 to see how that final cliffhanger resolves.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Book #79 of 2018:

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (Takeshi Kovacs #1)

This hardboiled science-fiction novel is rich in premise and atmosphere, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the recent Netflix adaptation has done with both. The story is a fairly straightforward noir investigation — and unfortunately comes with the oversexualization of women that often marks the genre — but the invention of cloning and uploading consciousness across bodies allows for some interesting wrinkles. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll continue with the sequels, but this is a fun what-if twist on usual detective fiction.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley

Book #78 of 2018:

Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley

In this novel by Walter Mosley, two boys of different races are initially brought up as brothers before circumstances send them off on very different paths. When they reconnect as adults, the white boy has lived a seemingly charmed life but struggles with depression, while his black brother has maintained a more optimistic outlook despite his time on the streets.

It’s a decent premise, but I don’t really care for how Mosley has developed it. Female characters regularly throw themselves at the white man (including a fifteen-year-old we are assured is very mature for her age), and the black man often feels reduced to playing a ‘magical negro’ role in his brother’s self-actualization. The plot tends to strain credulity too, and although I enjoyed the beginning of the story, in the end I just couldn’t wait for it to finally be over.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

Book #77 of 2018:

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

This novel about an 85-year-old reflecting on her life in New York City is one part a love letter to the Big Apple of the 20th century and one part a fictionalized biography of poet Margaret Fishback. The main character voice is endearing, but without any existing emotional attachment to either subject, I didn’t get much out of the story. More of a plot could have helped, as this really is just a book about a person walking around, talking to strangers, and reminiscing.

[Trigger warning for a suicide attempt and electroshock therapy, which the narrator swears cured her alcoholism and depression.]

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Santa Clarita Diet, season 2

TV #15 of 2018:

Santa Clarita Diet, season 2

Nearly as great as its debut outing, with laugh-out-loud humor and plot developments that make perfect sense in hindsight but always take me by surprise. I love all the little things about marriage that this series nails, and how healthy the central relationships are even amid the stress and murder and cartoonish zombie logic. The plot this season may be a tad uneven, but the writing more than makes up for it.

[Content warning for gore, which the series leans on more than it really needs to.]

★★★★☆

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