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.

★★★★☆

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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.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Book #117 of 2017: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #15)

This second Discworld City Watch novel is an improvement over the first, thanks mostly to some appreciated deepening of the characters of Carrot and Sam Vimes. But it’s still not great, and the satire on affirmative action involving the appointment of fantasy creatures like trolls and dwarves to the Watch struck me as a bit of a comedic misfire.

(Some of the jokes are at people’s intolerance, and that’s fine, but the ones about the stereotypical habits of the ‘ethnics’ themselves are cruel and unnecessary. Did Sir Terry honestly not see anything problematic in making ‘fortune rats’ a dwarven delicacy?)

Not to mention werewolf guardswoman Angua, who is a great new addition, but is often reduced to her sex and subjected to leers from male characters – including, repeatedly, a stray dog. It’s all a bit uncomfortable for a light comedic fantasy novel, and it really detracts from what’s otherwise another fun romp around the Discworld. I know Pratchett can do better than this, and I’m impatient to get to the books where he does.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Book #116 of 2017:

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig (The Girl from Everywhere #1)

There were some interesting ideas in this story of a father and daughter who can navigate their pirate ship time machine to any harbor on a dated map, but ultimately none of it really hangs together. The protagonist and one of her romantic interests (in the YA-mandated love triangle) are pretty flat as characters, and the magical system is woefully underexplained and underutilized.

The author’s decision to strand the characters in 1880s Hawaii for most of the plot at least gives her a chance to flesh out that particular setting, but it means that the most interesting aspect of the story, the navigation-based time travel, barely features at all. Instead we’re left with a collection of plot holes and a half-baked heist scheme, carried out by characters without clear motivations. I feel like there’s a good novel buried somewhere in here, but it really needed another draft or two to bring it out.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Book #115 of 2017:

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (Gemma Doyle #1)

I liked this book, but I didn’t quite love it. Author Libba Bray is talented at writing realistically flawed teenagers, and the downside is that her heroine Gemma Doyle comes across as very selfish, impetuous, and otherwise immature. I also didn’t care much for the romantic interest (although for the most part it felt like Gemma didn’t either). The story itself was an interesting one of girls experimenting with dangerous forbidden magic in a Victorian finishing school, sort of like a cross between The Magicians and the Madman’s Daughter trilogy but with more of a focus on female empowerment and friendships. Unfortunately, Gemma and her friends are so maddeningly petty that their story is often hard to read.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Book #114 of 2017:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1)

A gorgeously-written fantasy novel about a boy raised in a library, who spends his early life chasing down obscure references to the faraway city whose name was removed from the world by magic. It’s a bit reminiscent of The Kingkiller Chronicle, but with a far less arrogant and thus more likable protagonist. When our hero finally gets a chance to visit the mythical city, the story blossoms into one of star-crossed lovers who can meet only in their dreams, and author Laini Taylor paints beautiful imagery in their shared dreamscape. It’s a fairy tale of gods and desert magics, and of the struggle for the generation after a war to make peace with the children of their parents’ enemies. This book is currently my top read of the year, and I highly recommend it to all lovers of fantasy.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn

Book #113 of 2017:

Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn

It turns out that “Star Wars meets Ocean’s Eleven” is a better idea in concept than in execution. Or at least, this novel about Han Solo putting together a team for a heist soon after the destruction of the first Death Star — which has since been given EU / Legends status outside of the film series canon — never quite lives up to its potential. It’s periodically thrilling, but with no real cleverness or depth to its characters. Audiobook reader Marc Thompson does an outstanding job with all the different character voices, but he’s wasted on this material.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: The Flash, season 3

TV #18 of 2017:

The Flash, season 3

The Flash is kind of in a weird place right now, where it’s trying to be both as comic-book-bonkers as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and as dark and brooding as their big brother Arrow. So as a result you have this show where there are time remnants and alternate realities and parallel universes, but also where Barry Allen only really gets to seem like he’s still having fun with any of it on the rare occasions when Supergirl crosses over. The recurring plot point of big bad speedsters is getting a little tiresome too, especially once you factor in the expected twists about their true identity and motives. Arrow was able to pull out of its own slump this season (review to come), so it’s not like that same creative team won’t be able to rescue The Flash… but it’s definitely a show in need of saving at this point.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

Book #112 of 2017:

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban for her public advocacy on female education rights, is undeniably an inspiring figure. Unfortunately, this book recounting her early life story falls somewhat flat. The author herself mentions reading Anne Frank’s diary, and the comparison is apt: each work is fascinatingly harrowing for the atrocities recounted and the reader’s knowledge of their historical context, but still ultimately the writing of a teenager. It’s interesting to hear the firsthand details of Malala’s childhood and her family’s conflict with the Taliban, but it’s not exactly great literature.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Book #111 of 2017:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Fanny Price is a somewhat passive heroine (which I gather was more of a virtue in Jane Austen’s time), but I still found myself liking Mansfield Park more than I did Pride and Prejudice. Call me a sap, but Edmund’s lifelong decency towards Fanny warms my heart far more than the prickly barbs that Darcy and Elizabeth perpetually shoot at one another in that more famous Austen work. And Fanny does grow into a more Elizabeth-like character as this novel progresses, learning to stand up for herself against great social pressure and gaslighting.

It’s not quite a Cinderella story, since Fanny’s other relatives are more frivolous than wicked – give or take a passing reference to her uncle’s participation in the slave trade – but only Edmund ever treats the poor relation in their midst as anything like an equal. Although it still takes far too long for the young man to recognize his stalwart cousin as a romantic prospect, it’s simply a delight to watch love finally blossom between them and overcome all obstacles.

★★★★☆

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