The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

Book #30 of 2025:

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (Ernest Cunningham #1)

A decent murder mystery of the snowed-in-with-a-rising-body-count subgenre. Unfortunately, as that description suggests, this is not the most original storyline, and I’ve personally found its efforts to stand out a little hokey. The narrator is very meta with his explanations of how books like this often go and the twisty ways in which he presents this one, but the ultimate effect is of a work that’s not nearly as clever as it seems to think that it is. I called both of the big twists — the identity of the killer and the identity of the killer, if you catch my drift — fairly early on, in large part because I’ve seen other writers like Agatha Christie use them in a similar fashion. That’s not automatically a fault against the present volume, but it does tend to dampen my subjective appreciation.

Two elements do register as particularly distinctive here: one a brief but striking flashback to when the protagonist and his brothers were accidentally left in a parked car as children, to understandably disastrous consequence, and the other the gimmicky concept that gives the novel its title. Yes, everyone in his immediate family has indeed been in some way responsible for someone else’s death, at least arguably — or if they haven’t in the backstory, then they will be by the time the current plot finishes. That’s an interesting hook, but certain specific qualifications that get revealed are a bit of a cheat, and it winds up being one of those instances where I feel that the book gets in its own way and does more harm than good.

Anyway. It’s not bad overall, but it’s in an odd position where it’s clearly trying to be in conversation with its literary predecessors and yet probably lands better for folks who haven’t read as many of them. Do with that information what you will, but I don’t imagine I’ll be checking out the sequels in this series myself.

★★★☆☆

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Movie Review: Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special (2025)

Movie #2 of 2025:

Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special (2025)

The ongoing fiftieth season of Saturday Night Live hasn’t seemed like much of an occasion thus far, so I’m glad that this three-hour anniversary special exists to help fill that gap. It’s jam-packed with former cast members and celebrity hosts, and it takes the fun form of the usual show — live musical performances, sketch comedy, Weekend Update segment, etc. — with brand-new instances of recurring premises from across the program’s history, or at least the last couple decades. There’s Black Jeopardy (2014-2019), Drunk Uncle (2011-2022), Debbie Downer (2004-2020), a Deep Thought by Jack Handey (1991-1998), and beyond. Bringing these back with fresh material rather than simply airing or reenacting the original versions generally manages to celebrate the past without feeling stale, while the star-studded cameos add an extra frisson of entertainment to the proceedings.

This could have been a simple clip show, but instead the archives are deployed in a few breakneck montages that hit the hilarious highlights without overstaying their welcome: one for physical comedy, one for pre-filmed commercial parodies, and one for problematic sketches that in hindsight haven’t aged particularly well. Of course, SNL being SNL, it’s still making such missteps today — one of the bits revisited for this episode is Scared Straight (2008-2012), in which convicts try to deter juvenile offenders with a sequence of terrible prison rape puns. Now there’s an idea that should have stayed on the shelf!

Luckily the rest of the evening is stronger and occasionally even touching, honoring the legacy of the series and especially those actors who have since passed on. Not all of the surviving performers make an appearance, but so many do that it really does feel like a celebration of the institution as a whole and the impact it’s made on popular culture throughout its half-century on the air. Overall I’d say it’s well worth watching, for even the most casual of fans.

★★★★☆

Book Review: Amari and the Despicable Wonders by B. B. Alston

Book #29 of 2025:

Amari and the Despicable Wonders by B. B. Alston (Supernatural Investigations #3)

A significant step down for a previously-charming middle-grade fantasy series. I gave the first two novels four stars apiece for their freshness and overall fun, but this one feels like a generic and less entertaining Percy Jackson ripoff. You know you’re in trouble when your fugitive protagonist loses all sense of forward plot momentum to hang around with a ghost named Peekaboo (with a sister named Boohoo, of course). There are ways to blend such wacky worldbuilding with rising stakes — Harry Potter and Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz books each manage it alright — but the balance is considerably off here. The romance is a bore too; the canonical love interest is someone Amari occasionally exchanges mutual blushes with, while the more interesting potential dynamic she shares with the antagonist stays firmly in the subtext.

I’m sympathetic to the fact that the primary audience of this genre will have different expectations and comparative landmarks than I do, and I spent most of this title feeling like I would probably give it a mid-tier three-star rating in the end. Unfortunately, that ending turns out to be so disappointing that I’m forced to lower my impression further. Even kids who aren’t as jaded or plot-invested as me are likely to be let down by it.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want spoilers, but I have to complain about this at length. First, our tween heroine learns in this story that there’s a magical artifact that can do the thing she needs in order to defeat the villain, but at the cost of killing the person who wields it. Drama! A quandary! With no other options, she ultimately makes the heroic decision to use it anyway, only for one of her professors from the previous books who *hasn’t been around for any of this one* to come to her deathbed and die in her place, something that has never before been hinted at as remotely possible. It’s both nonsensical and unsatisfying / narratively dull, since there’s no recent relationship there to draw upon. Why should we care about his sacrifice when we barely know him anymore? Imagine the sort of reader who might not even read a series like this in order, and you can really understand the problem there.

I see on Goodreads that author B. B. Alston has also announced that the sequence is now planned to run to five volumes in total, rather than stopping as the trilogy it was originally marketed to be. But I think this is where I make my exit, with one more exasperated repeat of my standing objection to the audiobook narrator: please please please use an Irish accent for the redheaded character named Fiona who says things like “ye,” “lass,” and “aye” in every other sentence. The choice of a default American voice there is just bizarre.

★★☆☆☆

Book Review: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

Book #28 of 2025:

Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

A raunchy yet oddly sexless pirate fantasy comedy. Which is to say that the characters in this story are all obsessed with sex and talk about it incessantly in the vulgarest of terms, but nothing more graphic than makeouts or a naked arm lifted out of a bathtub is ever actually depicted on the page. It’s not the sort of tame that often characterizes the YA genre — these people are all adults firmly established in their respective senses of self, and they are absolutely getting it on between chapters — but if this were a movie, I imagine it would be rated PG-13. I saw another reviewer compare the overall tone to Deadpool meets Discworld, and that’s more or less accurate.

I am sure the piece will reach its proper audience. It is a marvel on a representation front alone, with a diverse array of queer identities, sexualities, and disabilities each presented as thoroughly normalized and undiscriminated against. It’s also funny and occasionally swashbuckling, with a particularly delightful closing sequence set at a baking competition wherein rival ship crews roam around loudly insulting one another’s cake creations.

At the same time, I personally find the protagonist rather exasperating — a proud “male slut” who gets off on domineering partners and has the temperament of a Dragonlance kender, blessed by strange fortune that has circumstances always miraculously go his way. He’s daftly childlike, which makes the ribald humor even harder to take (and him harder to accept as an object of anyone’s attraction), and he wears out my patience well before the end of this book. I think if this were a novella or a short story I would view it much more fondly, but at this length and with author Alexandra Rowland’s blunt moral messaging on restrictive religions and regimes, I’m afraid it gets only a lukewarm appreciation from me.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson

Book #27 of 2025:

An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson

The opening sequence to this horror-fantasy novel is appropriately chilling: our protagonist, standing between two mirrors in the bathroom, notices a distant figure in the receding reflections that isn’t behaving like the others. In fact, it’s slowly walking towards her, weaving through all the normal faithful copies, and as it approaches she sees that that version of herself has no eyes and is grinning ear-to-ear. When she breaks away before it can reach her, it’s to walk in on her fiancé cheating on her with a friend. Driving to a random location and thinking about how to kill herself, she’s distracted by a ringing phonebooth in an otherwise empty parking lot. She answers the call to hear that she’s been granted an interview for a school she can’t remember ever applying to.

It’s a warped and unsettling twist on a Hogwarts acceptance letter, but unfortunately, the rest of the story fails to live up to that initial promise. Once the heroine actually arrives on campus, the institution loses a lot of its mystique, turning out to be just a place to learn how to control people — or for the very powerful, reality itself — with only one’s mind and will. In other words, it’s a pretty generic and somewhat under-explained magical system, and the plot that unfolds from there isn’t terribly impressive either. A lot of it revolves around the woman’s zero-chemistry attraction with her academic advisor, and while I’m not criticizing the book for depicting that sort of forbidden romance, it’s too bland and cheesy here to be effective.

There is still a darkness inherent in the premise, and the work is at its best when it leans into that element. For long stretches it doesn’t, however, and the ultimate product is a bit of a mess. Plotlines are dropped with no resolution, the supporting characters feel rather interchangeable, and the expected ‘dark academia’ vibes never really materialize. Even the title itself isn’t especially justified, in the end. (Is Lennon more skilled at lying than the majority of the world’s population who weren’t invited to attend Drayton? Is she excelling at the coursework because she’s a better liar than her classmates? Show us!) I’m left with more questions than answers, which is rarely a satisfying reading experience.

[Content warning for torture, gore, cruelty to animals, body horror, racism, and rape.]

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: Sex Education, season 4

TV #8 of 2025:

Sex Education, season 4

This is an odd final season of a show that probably didn’t need one. It surprisingly carries through on the threat from the previous year to close down Moordale Secondary, which means that this one takes place in an entirely different school, with some of the familiar students returning but plenty of new faces as well. Many other characters have been unceremoniously dropped, and the cynic in me imagines that’s likely because actors are typically able to renegotiate contracts after three seasons on a show, and Netflix found it cheaper to just write them off instead. Ola and Lily are particularly missed, though at least teachers Colin and Emily pop up again for a quick cameo.

Sex Education has followed a similar path to its streaming predecessor Orange Is the New Black, expanding to be less about one person’s story and more of a true ensemble piece. (It’s even grown to share a predilection of starting most episodes with a rotating flashback sequence exploring someone else’s backstory in turn.) This approach has both benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side, it pulls attention away from our former main character Otis when he’s at his most insufferable. But on the negative, it makes the abandoned cast members and their storylines stand out even further, especially as none of the newcomers winds up getting developed to an equivalent degree.

In fact, while the writers are clearly aiming to showcase a wider range of diversity (and queerness in particular), it too often feels like the kids are there to justify a moral lesson on accommodation and acceptance rather than being fully-formed people with their own desires and challenges outside of their marginalized identity. Take Cal as an illustrative example: whereas last season they were introduced as a love interest for Jackson, an anxious drug user, and the frustrated target of Hope’s restrictive dress code policies, this year their portion of the plot seems reduced to a generic struggle over how to thrive as a nonbinary teen.

There’s of course still value in telling such stories, which remain rare in the mainstream media, but it comes across as Tumblr gender 101 in comparison to the meatier material given to others. It doesn’t help that Cavendish College itself is such an exaggerated stereotype of an artsy progressive institution, with slides between floors, student-driven curriculum, meditation pods, and so on. It’s an absurd setting for a show that used to be more grounded, and it makes it even harder to take seriously the inhabitants and all their frequent self-righteous speechifying.

And then there’s the Otis of it all. To the extent that he’s still the protagonist, he’s even worse here than he sometimes has been in the past. Upon learning that his new campus already has a student sex therapist, he immediately decides that a) she must have somehow stolen the idea from him, and b) one of them needs to be made to quit via a schoolwide election. It’s pretty nonsensical, and the series doesn’t do nearly enough with the colonizer subtext of a straight white guy coming into a new area and trying to force out the queer girl of color he baselessly accuses of plagiarism. Meanwhile he’s also not handling his quasi-girlfriend Maeve being in America for her writing program very well, repeatedly fighting with her, ghosting her, and expressing jealousy anytime she mentions a male friend. It’s good for a hero to have interesting flaws, but by this point Otis is way past being a relatable figure I could root for to succeed. When he grows estranged from Eric, who’s spending more time with the popular queer clique and going through his own journey of self-discovery, it’s hard not to feel like that’s maybe for the best.

Oh, and Jean’s hastily retconned mess of a sister moves in with them to help take care of the baby, and special guest stars Hannah Gadsby and Dan Levy — each presumably attracted to the show for its aforementioned queer representation — are also around but somewhat wasted. It’s overall an odd way to end the program, but at least it finally allows Maeve and Jean to meet.

[Content warning for drug abuse, death of a parent, sexual assault, child sex abuse, suicide, panic attacks, domestic abuse, stalking, racism, ableism, and homophobia.]

This season: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 1 > 3 > 2 > 4

Book Review: Tiassa by Steven Brust

Book #26 of 2025:

Tiassa by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #13)

I don’t know that I would call this volume a novel like the others in its series have been. Instead it’s more like a triptych of loosely-connected smaller stories, none of which are developed at enough length to really satisfy. Part of the issue here is likely also that the title is a crossover with author Steven Brust’s related saga The Khaavren Romances, which I admittedly have never read. So I personally don’t have the background context for those particular characters, nor do I consider the faux Alexandre Dumas vernacular in which they’re written to be as effective as Vlad’s usual colloquial tone.

As a result, the Easterner’s portion of the narrative is my favorite, although I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s among his best. This adventure is a prequel, taking place in the days when the Jhereg was still a local mob boss / assassin, and it sees him caught up in a twisty The Sting-style caper that’s entertaining but somewhat out of his normal wheelhouse. Which is to say, the protagonist is a canny operator who can both see through other people’s deceptions and deftly spin his own falsehoods around them, but it feels more like a plot that’s been grafted onto him by authorial whim than one that would organically develop in his life.

The middle section of the text jumps forward to the time when the antihero has fled the city-state with a price on his head, as his now-estranged wife investigates and foils a scheme to draw him out of hiding ahead of an expected incursion of deadly extra-dimensional beings. It’s interesting to see her in his absence, and the similar way she approaches such intrigues underscores what a good match they might be for one another, but this part could and probably should have been an entire book all by itself.

The closing segment several years later then goes full Three Musketeers, focusing on the police guards who have been present for the earlier tales as well. I must confess that I find them all dreadfully boring, and that it’s Vlad alone who truly invigorates the Dragaeran setting for me. He is thankfully back again on the periphery of this one, but even he can only liven up the proceedings so much from that supporting role. Presumably Khaavren fans will like this concluding business better, but it’s rather bounced off of me, I’m afraid.

I do appreciate it when writers take risks, and this was a gamble for sure: a wild departure from Brust’s typical approach and an attempt to do something different with the premise. Unfortunately, it’s an experiment that hasn’t worked for me as a reader, and I don’t think there’s enough cohesion across the work to ultimately justify the unusual structure.

★★☆☆☆

Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Book #25 of 2025:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I first read this fantasy novel soon after its initial 2004 publication, and have found myself drawn back to its wonders at least once a decade since. It is a dense and intricate creation: 782 pages in my hardcover edition, detailing an alternate version of English history around the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1806-1817), in which two gentlemen reignite the performance of magical spells, which had fallen out of practice some centuries prior.

The tone is a confident pastiche somewhere between Dickens and Austen, with clever asides and nearly 200 academic-style footnotes yielding a substantial body of fictional cited references to deepen the reader’s immersion. And while that may sound insufferably dry, the text is actually rather charmingly droll and suffused with a gentle irony throughout. One of my favorite excerpts, from the start of chapter 9: “It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.” And of course, there’s this priceless exchange somewhat later on: “‘Can a magician kill a man by magic?’ Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. ‘I suppose a magician might,’ he admitted, ‘but a gentleman never could.'”

As I noted the last time I read the work, it’s an astonishing feat of literary voice and worldbuilding, and an undeniable classic of contemporary British literature. We follow first Mr Norrell and then his pupil Jonathan Strange as they bring magic out of the theoretical / historical realm, employing their powers to aid the nation against the forces of Bonaparte whilst navigating Regency-era social obligations and interpersonal subplots. A dangerous fairy lord swiftly declares himself the protagonists’ enemy, but they spend most of the story in total ignorance of his attentions as he wreaks mischief and havoc upon certain of their acquaintances. Meanwhile author Susanna Clarke meticulously builds up the mystery and lore of the ancient Raven King, who ruled northern Britain for over 300 years before vanishing and promising to return someday. Such prophecies and whispers of stronger sorceries still forgotten in the modern age combine to thrill us as events come together and the plot progresses to a slow crescendo.

It’s a wonderful enchantment full of richly-drawn characters, evocative settings, and imaginative wizardry, and has been a delight to fall into once again.

[Content warning for racism, slavery, amputation, gun violence, and gore.]

★★★★★

Book Review: The Weaver of the Middle Desert by Victoria Goddard

Book #24 of 2025:

The Weaver of the Middle Desert by Victoria Goddard (The Sisters Avramapul #3)

Another delightful Arabian-tinged fairy tale involving the three young heroines, who by now are seasoned adventurers (though Sardeet and Pali have still yet to join up with the notorious Red Company that will someday spread their fame across the Nine Worlds). I can’t tell if this sub-series is intended to conclude here as a trilogy of volumes named after each sister, but whether we ever check in on them again at this stage or not, it’s a fine story that showcases the trio well, while centering on the oldest sibling Arzu. We know that she ultimately won’t be the same sort of swashbuckling outlaw folk hero as the others, and indeed, she’s already forming the ties to their home community that the younger women will eventually eschew. But in some ways that makes her a more interesting narrative focus, happily married and with a child on the way to ground her and pull her back no matter how far she travels in pursuit of the latest plot.

That exact premise doesn’t spring until midway through this novella, which begins with Arzu and Pali — newly returned from her solo experience in the last book — deciding to visit Sardeet in the far-off home of her foreign husband. The journey goes somewhat awry, however, and winds up as a kind of Jack in the Beanstalk retelling, as filtered through author Victoria Goddard’s usual cozy fantasy sensibilities. It’s a pleasant time with endearing characters, carrying just enough stakes to give it the familiar bite of the previous installments. In the end everyone gets the fate that they deserve, even if some of those are mere backstory for their greater exploits ahead.

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

Book #23 of 2025:

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (The Hurricane Wars #1)

This romantasy debut improves as it goes along, to the point that I’ll grudgingly round my rating up to a mid-grade three stars for the book at large. That beginning is pretty rough, though! I don’t mind a nice enemies-to-lovers arc, but it’s not especially believable when the characters’ first meeting — as opposing soldiers on a literal battlefield! — has them obsessing over one another’s looks, smell, and feel. There’s no escalating tension here, just two people stubbornly denying (for no convincing reason) an attraction that’s obvious to the reader from the start. As a result, the same plot beats play out again and again, like one protagonist lying about their feelings and the other one accepting them at their word and withdrawing.

The whole story also has a distinct fanfiction vibe to it, despite this being nominally an original series. For those of you who know your fandom ship names, if you mix together Darklina from the Grishaverse, Reylo from Star Wars, and Zutara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, you’re basically there, with minimal additional worldbuilding or character work to flesh the lovers out beyond those genre archetypes and tropes. Of course the light magic users and dark magic users are sworn foes but their young scions forge a bond anyway. Of course she’s both a chosen-one light wielder and the missing heir to a nearby kingdom. Of course he has a cold domineering and abusive father. Of course they get pushed into an arranged marriage and later have to share a single bed. Etc., etc., etc.

None of this is poorly executed (or at least, not after the initial few chapters), but it’s simply not very distinctive. Anyone looking for a spicy romance is liable to be disappointed, too; there is exactly one scene with content more explicit than kissing, and it takes place in the last 5% of the text. And for folks like me who are more here for the fantasy side of things anyway, it’s a disappointment of a generic setting and magical system as well.

Despite all those critiques, the project did grow on me enough that I legitimately enjoyed the heroes finally getting together in the end, so I imagine I might like the sequel somewhat better. But I won’t be putting it anywhere near the top of my reading list, that’s for sure.

★★★☆☆