Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

~We've been broken up for months and I've been hooking up with someone else but I'm mad and jealous that my ex is doing the same now~ 🥱

My job is running a summer reading program, with prizes to whoever can post the most book reviews to the Teams page they set up. In the time since this started, I've been responsible for 14 of the 31 submissions so far, with my closest competition posting another 9.

(The challenge is actually trimming down the reviews I'm writing anyway, since we're supposed to limit each one to 2-3 sentences!)

"She knew if she concentrated on what she read or heard spoken, she would become aware that it was Trans-anglish or Galacticspeak or some entirely new language, but at the moment it was convenient to think of it as her mother tongue. Once again, the TARDIS had telepathically induced the local language through her subconscious mind." First mention of this in the canon! I think?

I'm sure there are some twists a-comin' but this is just a generic Gone Girl knockoff so far

"He's on his way to the cemetery. Make sure he gets the maximum use out of it."

(Progress estimated; I'm reading from my bound series omnibus edition.)

Been reading this as a bedtime story to my girls -- their first Narnia book! My 7-year-old is so far convinced that the Queen is a good guy and Mr. Tumnus is lying about her. I blame Frozen, I think.

"On most inhabited planets with these carvings, there are legends of ancient beings who ruled everywhere, before dying out. The legends also say that someday they may return, but that’s a facet of legends about everything from Davros to King Arthur."

Barbie (2023) ass conversation

This is... a lot of name-dropping of real Hollywood people, and it feels especially disrespectful to say that your fictional character used to date Natalie Wood. I definitely prefer the Taylor Jenkins Reid approach of populating the story almost entirely with made-up celebrities.

If S.A. Cosby ever wrote a vampire horror novel, I feel like this is about how it would go.

This book must have five souls, if you catch my drift.

My one complaint so far is that I want these characters to be textually Jewish! I know that the author is, and we're dealing with some traditional mythological elements, a scriptural reference for the title, and characters with names like Miriam, Esther, and Isaac -- and yet the only actual religion in the book so far has been some light Christianity with vicars and such. What gives?

This is everything I wanted and didn't quite get from Bury My Bones in the Midnight Soil.

Theta Delta Chi mentioned!

Preachy preachy preachy

This is very I'm-not-like-other-girls so far. Probably gonna be a 3 for me.

‘Voice command: inner airlock door close, please.’

‘I dunno why you bother to say please. It’s only a neural network.’

‘Someday machines may have minds too. If the scurvy thing suddenly becomes spontaneously aware, I want it to remember I was nice to it.’

"End of Part I" and it's 20 hours into the audiobook.

Not back on my bullshit. Never left my bullshit. My fourth read begins now!

Always surprising when the protagonist dies this early in a book.

Won a giveaway to get an ARC! Let's goooooo

Was the reveal of those names supposed to be surprising? Sometimes this feels like it was written for a middle-grade audience.

Objection! This story takes place in Alaska. That character should have mentioned Tagalongs and not Peanut Butter Patties. (Two different bakeries supply two different versions of Girl Scout Cookies, you see. It's a regional thing.)

"Towards the end of the twentieth century manned space flights had visited other planets in the solar system."

It's always funny to see sci-fi predictions about the future that didn't come to pass, but that seems really optimistic for a book published in 1993!

And there was only one bed!! This book is more than a little tropey, but I'm enjoying it.

This is long, but really good so far. Feels like it's definitely gonna be at least a four-star for me.