The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Book #39 of 2016:

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

A heartbreakingly visceral story about a poor black family in rural Mississippi in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. This whole novel feels like one long in-drawn breath, as things keep getting worse for the main character and her family while you, the reader, know just how devastating the storm is going to be when it finally arrives. There’s a lot to be said for historical fiction that’s presented this way; there’s no real foreshadowing in the text itself, because the protagonist’s story is all told in the present tense, but you still can’t help but feel the power of the hurricane looming over the book. A lot of this is due to Ward’s prose, which is simply beautiful. I don’t know if I would ever want to read this book again, but I’m so glad that I read it now and I know it will stick with me for quite some time.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 3

TV #26 of 2016:

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 3

This was another solid season on S.H.I.E.L.D., but in hindsight it also seems like something of a palate-cleanser. Original cast member Brett Dalton appears to be leaving the show, as are fan-favorites-in-search-of-a-spinoff Bobbi and Hunter. Plus it seems like the HYDRA plot that had been present ever since halfway through season one is finally going away as well. There are still Inhumans out there, but with both Afterlife and Hive out of the picture, they’re not necessarily going to be the focus of the show anymore. And the final minutes of this season definitely foreshadow some major changes to the status quo. It’ll be interesting to see how the series moves on from here, especially given the rumors that season 4 might be its last.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Deadwood, season 2

TV #25 of 2016:

Deadwood, season 2

This season is a big improvement over the first, which was already a solid prestige western. More supporting characters get fleshed out this year, and there’s an interesting overarching serialized plot over most of the season. This is probably never gonna be my favorite show — although I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing a lot of the nuance by not giving it my full concentration, since it’s so much denser than most programs I multi-task on — but it’s well worth the time for that exquisite flowery dialogue alone. I’m excited for the final season, and I hope that that movie they keep talking about finally gets made to give the series a proper conclusion.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Book #38 of 2016:

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth #1)

I like the setup for this novel, which takes place in what used to be America, several generations after a zombie apocalypse has wiped out most of humanity and our civilizations. The main character lives in a fenced-in village in the middle of a forest, with hordes of the undead just outside its borders. It’s rare in my experience for a zombie story to take place so long after the uprising, when everyone has gotten used to the new reality and much of our former cultural knowledge has been lost. So that was a refreshing change of pace.

With that being said, I did not care for the protagonist at all, and I didn’t feel that any of the other characters were particularly well-developed, so finishing this book became something of a chore. (But I did enjoy another book by this author, and I’ve heard that the sequel to this one features a largely different cast, so I might still check that out at some point.)

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Book #37 of 2016:

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

I like that this book spans decades while focusing closely on only two characters, so that you get a strong sense of how their lives change over time. And the central gimmick is neat: the first half of the novel shows the marriage of these two characters from the husband’s point of view, and then the second half switches to the wife’s perspective. There’s a strong potential there to demonstrate how two people can share a life and so many common experiences yet still view things very differently from one another.

That being said, the actual execution of this novel left me cold. If both spouses were keeping things from one another, or if both had only mildly important but still incorrect ideas about the other, it would have been okay. Instead, the book reaches almost Gone Girl levels of a wife keeping her true self a secret from her husband, while he is essentially unfailingly honest in all of his dealings with her. I also didn’t care for the sense I got while reading that the author intended this story to be a commentary on the institution of marriage in general, or some sort of argument that you can never truly know another person. I would be open to that kind of story, but not with a character or a marriage like this one. When two people get married five weeks after meeting and one of them keeps everything about herself a secret from her new husband, it is hardly emblematic of the way most relationships function!

★★☆☆☆

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Movie Review: Ghostbusters (1984)

Movie #10 of 2016:

Ghostbusters (1984)

My wife had never seen Ghostbusters before, so her family insisted on fixing that. (She seemed to like it a lot, especially when Rick Moranis ended up having a bigger part than she initially thought he was going to.) As for me, I saw this movie all the time when I was younger but hadn’t actually revisited it in quite a few years at this point, which is always an interesting experience. I’d say it holds up pretty well, even though there’s some weird sexist stuff — and right-wing politics — that I didn’t notice as a kid. And the plot is kind of all over the place. But it’s still pretty fun, and watching it again made me a lot more excited for the new lady ghostbusters movie.

★★★★☆

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Movie Review: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Movie #9 of 2016:

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Simply outstanding. The last two MCU movies (Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man) left me somewhat cold, so it was great to see that Marvel hasn’t lost the magic altogether. The writers of this one did a great job at balancing such a large cast of characters while still giving nearly all of them a chance to shine. They also made it really easy to see the reasoning behind both sides of the conflict (up until the final fight of the movie, which unfortunately didn’t quite feel as earned / necessary to me).

And there was such a joy in seeing all of the different characters’ powers being used against one another; it was clear that the writers put a lot of thought into how the mechanics of this sort of fight would actually work. The new characters were fun too: T’Challa is bae, and the new Spider-Man was a lot more likable than I was expecting him to be. I’m really looking forward to both of their solo movies now.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Elementary, season 4

TV #24 of 2016:

Elementary, season 4

This show definitely peaked with its first season, but it’s been a reliable procedural ever since and there are no signs in this latest season that things are running out of steam. As always I have minor quibbles with plotting decisions – not enough focus on Joan, not enough exploration of what Sherlock’s relapse means for the character(s), etc. – but the casting of John Noble as Sherlock’s father makes up for all of that.

It’s strange that we had to wait this long to meet a character who has loomed so largely over Elementary from the very start, but if that’s what it took to secure Noble in this role, I have a hard time faulting the decision. If we can’t have Natalie Dormer recurring very often, John Noble is a phenomenal substitute as a somewhat-similar foil for Sherlock. The finale was a little ambiguous on this front, but I certainly hope this isn’t the last we see of Morland Holmes.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The Good Wife, season 7

TV #23 of 2016:

The Good Wife, season 7

The Good Wife’s seventh season was also its last one, which makes it hard to reflect just on this season and not on the show as a whole. (Especially when so many parts of the finale are pitched to mirror / echo moments from the pilot.) And this was a good show – as I’ve said before, the fifth season of The Good Wife may be the single best season of any show I’ve ever seen. But it was definitely a series that ended with a whimper and not a bang.

The last two seasons saw the writers lose all sense of who their characters were, with loyalties and convictions shifting from episode to episode. It became really hard to seriously invest in the drama, since every character except maybe the main one became more or less a perpetual blank slate. The acting on the show remained top-notch, including season seven’s new additions of Cush Jumbo and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but the writing just wasn’t there for them. Plotwise too, this season had a lot of issues where things were initially explored but then dropped and never picked back up again.

In its prime, The Good Wife was a top-notch character-driven political drama and legal procedural. I really do recommend it if that sounds at all like your kind of show. But just like Dexter and Supernatural, this is a show where you should really stop watching after you finish season 5.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Veep, season 2

TV #22 of 2016:

Veep, season 2

This season’s humor is sharper than the first, and the characters are better-realized. But they’re still all terrible people, to the point where I’m not really rooting for anyone while watching. (If anything, I’m sometimes rooting against one character more than another based on who’s been relatively more obnoxious recently.) So… I don’t know. It makes me laugh, but I’m not really all that into it. Luckily the seasons are only five hours or so a piece, or else I’d definitely give it up. And only these first two are available free on Amazon Prime at the moment anyway, so I’m perfectly fine to shelve it again for now.

★★★☆☆

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