Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

These characters are *really* into oversharing.

This novel is much better than Shadow Scale, and on track to top Seraphina as well.

‪Signs that a book was written in 1966: the main character smokes a cigarette in the morning to get the taste of toothpaste out of his mouth.‬

"She had to go the long way, two sides of the triangle, because the hypotenuse was forbidden her. This struck her as perfectly symbolic of her entire life."

No new information has led to this latest realization. These characters just literally didn't think about the issue for 17 whole years.

That's the big secret? Seriously?

This is very good so far, but I'm a little disappointed that the author hasn't said anything about antisemitism / Christian privilege.

(Yes, the primary focus is on race, but if you're going to mention other axes of oppression, religion should probably come up before things like being tall or conventionally attractive!

Was this entire book constructed to set up that "old flame" pun?

"I learned sign language as a lad from my deaf Irish mother." Cool. That would in no way allow this guy to communicate with a child who speaks ASL. Do better, Joe Hill.

Wow, this is really just a rehash of The Stand, right down to the sex-obsessed traitor named Harold and the deaf kid named Nick.

I've been enjoying this book, but I have no idea what to make of this latest development. (The kids at the door, for those of you who have read it already.)

"There's something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone always dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your children. Or your grandchildren. Death is a raw deal for narrative junkies."

"Her home was so... shiny. She was shiny too, her skin, her hair, her shoes, her teeth. I hadn't even realized before; I am matte, dull and scuffed."

Okay, at least a character finally acknowledged how hubristic that was and how fitting that the ship crashed.

This urban fantasy series is definitely not living up to my high school memories of it, but at least this second book is a marked improvement over the first.

I mean, you named your spaceship the Icarus. What did you think would happen.

This Memento-style backwards timeline isn't really working for me.

The women in the bathhouse seeing Kel's bruises and telling her about a safe place for victims of domestic abuse (and urging her to name the man who struck her) may be the best thing that Tamora Pierce has ever written.

Sadly this has to go back to the library before I can finish it, but it's been outstanding so far. Definitely lives up to the original trilogy, and I can't wait to check it back out again.

Yeah. this book is definitely presented for an audience in our world (references to hot dogs, British butlers, etc.) and it is SUPER not working for me.

This is pretty awful so far, and I don't understand who the imagined audience is. The narrator just compared C-3PO to the Tin Man.

This book is not nearly as good as it could have been with another draft or two.

Oh thank goodness that 200-page road trip is finally over.

I love how popular Doctor Who is now, and I probably would never have gotten into it if the reboot hadn't happened. But I really treasure how weird and dark -- and in this case, gay -- the stories could get in the "wilderness years" when the show was off the air.

So far this novel isn't doing much to justify its existence as yet another Batman origin story. Also, are we doing a Silence of the Lambs pastiche now?

I have the most mixed of all feelings about this trilogy.