The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Book #76 of 2016:

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

A short but charming novel for young readers, Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan is as much an educational piece about great apes and animal captivity as it is a story. Any primatologist will recognize the emotional and cognitive complexity in the fictionalized gorilla Ivan, whom Applegate endows with real pathos while being careful not to anthropomorphize him too much. A few moments stretch credulity – this is still a children’s book, after all – but as a whole the novel is a great way to introduce kids to the wonders of animals like Ivan.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Book #75 of 2019:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Uprooted is a beautiful story set in a fantastic version of medieval Russia and Poland. I rolled my eyes at its initial premise, which involves a village sacrificing its young women to a “dragon” who is actually a powerful wizard living in a nearby tower, but the plot grows organically far adrift of that, and the book is better for it. I particularly enjoyed the way our narrator Agnieszka (the latest sacrifice) uses magic, which she likens to picking her way through a forest rather than following someone else’s established path. In many ways it seems like Naomi Novik picked her own way through Uprooted, and I loved that I could never guess what the next step would be.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket

Book #74 of 2016:

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #8)

I’m still reading A Series of Unfortunate Events for the first time, and I have to say, I’m getting a little frustrated at how slowly the overall plot details are getting revealed. I like that the series has diverged from its earlier formula of giving the children a new guardian every single book, but the stories are still very episodic with little progress made on the larger plot each time. On the plus side, I liked that this novel directly addressed some of the non-heroic things that its heroes have found themselves resorting to. That’s a darker note that suits this series well, and I hope that thread continues in the rest of the books ahead.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan #1)

Leviathan builds up a neat alternate history of World War I, wherein Austria-Hungary and its allies wield massive steampunk war-mechs against the bioengineered Lovecraftian monstrosities of the UK, France, and Russia. The worldbuilding here was deeply cool, with the promise of even more to come in the sequels. On the other hand, I really didn’t like the two main characters, whose defining traits seemed to be “mean” and “whiny,” respectively. They got a little better near the end, but a book this imaginative shouldn’t have felt like such a chore until then.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 2

TV #41 of 2016:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 2

The main accomplishment of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s second season is definitely delivering on the Jake-and-Amy romantic tension that developed over the course of season 1. But watching this season for the second time, I was also struck by how much the character of Madeline Wunch adds to the series. Giving Captain Holt a nemesis like that really lets him cut loose in a way that is reliably hilarious each and every time, given the contrast to his usual self-control. And of course, that character-shading in turn improves the ensemble comedy immensely. So, kudos to whoever came up with that plot thread.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Book #72 of 2016:

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #2)

This is not Agatha Christie at her best. Too much of the plot here relies on weirdly biased assumptions on the part of her detective Hercule Poirot: a certain open grave must have been dug by a man because no woman would have the strength, a young gentleman’s first love must have been an actress because that’s the sort of person young gentlemen always fall for, and so on. This wouldn’t be a problem if these deductions were proved erroneous, but such is not the case. It makes for a rather poor showing of Poirot’s genius, since any modern reader is forced to conclude it merely happenstance that he solves the mystery at all.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Book #71 of 2016:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #1)

I still don’t quite understand the title, but Six of Crows was a really fun fantasy heist novel, featuring a gang of criminals breaking into (and back out of) a high-security prison to rescue a captured scientist with the chemical formula to make super-powered magic-users. Of course, that plan goes south pretty much immediately, so a lot of the action ends up being clever people improvising their way out of a succession of tight spots.

There’s some heavy stuff like drug abuse, sex trafficking, and plague victims that all gets treated with the proper seriousness, but for the most part, the novel zips along on a lighter level and requires no previous knowledge of the ‘Grishaverse’ setting. It’s no Lies of Locke Lamora, but it was still a lot of fun.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley

Book #70 of 2016:

Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley (The Checquy Files #2)

Stiletto, the second book in Daniel O’Malley’s Checquy Files series, is that choicest of sequels that improves upon its predecessor in every way. That first novel, The Rook, had a lot to accomplish between the introduction of its unique setting and magical system and the amnesiac / secret traitor plot at its center. The second time around, O’Malley feels a lot more confident in his storytelling, and the result shines.

The plot here is tighter, the magic powers are weirder, and the characters (both new and returning) are much better drawn. There are some tense fight scenes, a few characters who hate one another but believably end up as friends, and a proposed merger so unpopular that it would give even Jon Snow pause. The Rook was a somewhat rocky entrance into the world of the Checquy, but Stiletto proves that it’s a world with plenty to offer.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

Book #69 of 2016:

The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

I rather liked this novel for junior readers about the boy who would grow up to be Pablo Neruda. It’s below the level that I usually read, but the magical realism of the boy’s daydreams mixing with reality certainly made it memorable. I don’t know enough about Neruda to judge how closely the book stuck to the actual biographical facts, but this was a neat way to tell some of his life story to new generations.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The West Wing, season 3

TV #40 of 2016:

The West Wing, season 3

My wife and I are still making our way through this show for her first time and my nth. The third season holds up pretty well, even though this was the one that began airing shortly after 9/11. There are definitely some plot decisions that I’m sure were not in the original plan for the show, and it’s got some growing pains to adjust to the new reality.. (On the other hand, though, what work of popular American fiction from the past 15 years hasn’t been affected by 9/11 in some way or another?)

Anyway, The West Wing’s pivot toward Middle Eastern terrorism isn’t handled all that terribly, and now we get to dive into the election episodes at the beginning of season 4. I don’t like this storyline as much as I do the election at the end of the show, but it’ll still be fun to watch as the actual US election draws closer.

★★★☆☆

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