The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Book #124 of 2017:

Feed by Mira Grant (Newsflesh #1)

Once you set aside this book’s ludicrous premise – not the zombie uprising, but the idea that independent teen bloggers represent a trusted news source – it ends up being a lot of fun. The story is set several decades after the undead outbreak, and American society has remained similar enough that there are still presidential elections, albeit with fewer in-person campaign events and ubiquitous blood tests at every building entrance to check for signs of infection. The heroes are a brother-sister blogging team following one of the candidates across the country, only to stumble across a conspiracy reaching the highest levels of government. Amid the zombie action there’s heartbreak and smart political commentary on increased security at the cost of personal freedom, not to mention a heroine whose disability (extreme light sensitivity due to a weaker strain of the zombie virus) informs but never undercuts her characterization. I admit to rolling my eyes at the early chapters of this novel, but I really liked it once it got going and I’ll definitely be checking out the sequels.

★★★★☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Book #123 of 2017:

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (Bill Hodges Trilogy #1)

This novel lost steam for me as it went along (especially once I realized that a promising new character was just Stephen King’s version of Lisbeth Salander), but for the most part King has delivered an exciting crime thriller about a retired cop exchanging taunting messages with the serial killer he never caught. The plot mechanics that keep Bill Hodges from telling his former police colleagues what he’s doing are a bit hard to believe, and I would have personally preferred more of a detective story where the readers get to put together the clues alongside Hodges, but these are ultimately minor quibbles. Mr. Mercedes is that rare Stephen King novel without even a hint of the supernatural, and it’s generally just a well-told thriller from a master of his craft.

★★★☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Book #122 of 2017:

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Idiot — which might more fairly be called The Naïf — follows a wide-eyed innocent as he leaves his Swiss sanitarium for Russian high society and generally finds himself unprepared for its corruption and amorality. Some of these events are droll, but I felt there were too many tangents and too many instances of characters sounding like mouthpieces for the author’s philosophizing rather than distinct and realistic personalities. Ultimately I didn’t get much out of this read.

★★☆☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Book #121 of 2017:

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (Finishing School #1)

A lightweight little YA steampunk fantasy novel about a finishing school for teen girl spies. A good summer read, it was fun but not particularly deep. I believe it’s also in the same setting as some of author Gail Carriger’s other works, but I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything by reading this one first.

★★★☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

TV Review: Arrow, season 5

TV #20 of 2017:

Arrow, season 5

Arrow honestly had an amazing season this year. It’s kind of hard to believe after how weak the past two had been, especially when you consider that the main novelty this season was adding a new batch of lower-tier comics characters like Wild Dog for the Green Arrow to mentor. But this really was a comeback season for Arrow, telling smart, pointed stories that reflected on the early show and Oliver’s growth since then in a nuanced way. And the flashbacks were better too, not just by finally delivering the long-hinted-at Bratva arc, but by bringing the past timeline up to the point where the present show started and utilizing the flashbacks to again emphasize just how much Oliver has changed over these five years we’ve been with him. Honestly, if you liked the first two seasons of Arrow but had given up the show sometime after that, season 5 is definitely worth skipping ahead to watch. I’m really excited to see where the show goes from here.

★★★★☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

TV Review: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 4

TV #19 of 2017:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 4

B99 is getting a little long in the tooth, but it’s still regularly delivering a funny character-driven story with a diverse cast and a definite focus on inclusive feminist storytelling (with regular callouts of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and more). The major end-of-season plot twists generally don’t end up mattering too much, so it’s disappointing that the show went back to that well again, but this is still a sitcom that I really enjoy watching.

★★★☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Movie Review: Doctor Strange (2016)

Movie #7 of 2017:

Doctor Strange (2016)

I’m still happy with my decision to wait until Doctor Strange was on Netflix to watch it (so as to hurt box office returns in protest of the casting). But having now finally seen the thing, I will freely admit that it was a pretty good movie in and of itself. They did a good job making Strange’s initial downfall be entirely his own fault, and let him grow some as a character as he went on. Cool effects, a decent ending, and plenty of levity throughout. This was an overall solid Marvel movie, and it definitely shows that the equally-problematic casting for Marvel’s Iron Fist wasn’t the only thing that wrecked that show.

★★★★☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Book #120 of 2017:

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Mixed feelings on this one. I appreciate the overall message that economic principles can be applied to subjects far afield from the traditional bounds of the discipline, but the examples included in this book are riddled with bad data, problematic study design, and ideological blindspots. (The authors’ tone can be a bit condescending, too.) It’s a good work for provoking discussion and further study about what social factors might unexpectedly be related, but I would consider all the actual conclusions presented to be highly suspect.

★★☆☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Book #119 of 2017:

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

A sobering and deeply moving account from death row lawyer Bryan Stevenson on the injustices that pervade our justice system, particularly those concerning southern black defendants. This is not a book like The New Jim Crow that constructs elaborate academic arguments on racial discrimination in the legal system, but rather a series of deep personal details of the innocent lives that have been ruined by small-town racism, corruption, and unconcern. It is far too easy for Stevenson’s clients to end up wrongfully convicted on the flimsiest of evidence, and far too difficult to win back their freedom at the appeals stage when the author steps in. Just Mercy is not a direct argument against capital punishment, but the miscarriages of justice it reveals should give pause to anyone.

★★★★☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

Book #118 of 2017:

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

A dry but interesting book from Yale professor James C. Scott, about how centralized power tends to simplify on-the-ground complexity, imposing cookie-cutter paradigms to ensure legibility by the state. These simplifications are often motivated by the best intentions, and Scott does not hesitate to mention the great social good that some such projects have achieved. However, his main purpose is to detail particular failures, and to explore for each case how a simplifying vision from the center erased essential diversity (in life, social practices, or cultural knowledge) that weakened the overall system, as in the case of a forest reduced to only the most lumber-producing species of tree later falling victim to a parasite that a biodiverse natural ecosystem could have weathered. From planned cities to Soviet megafarms, Scott offers a whirlwind tour of examples from around the world of state improvement plans that backfired when planners relied too heavily on imposed ideals ill-suited to particularized conditions over contrary local knowledge.

I first came across this title on a list of books for (American) liberals to read in order to better understand the conservative mindset, and I have to admit, a certain skepticism of large government projects makes far more sense in the light of Scott’s examples. Although it was not a major focus of his book, I was also struck by an early passage in which he notes that it was an innocently-intentioned Dutch census project listing the location of every Jew in Amsterdam that later allowed Nazi occupiers to so easily round them up. I know liberals like myself tend to roll our eyes at what we see as the strawman of government confiscation of firearms through a national gun registry, but the example from the Netherlands is a chilling reminder that state legibility can bring about unforeseen consequences. All in all, this was a pretty dense book to get through, but it’s definitely made me think about certain matters in a way I never have before.

★★★☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter