Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

My top books of 2025:

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2. Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang
3. King Sorrow by Joe Hill
4. The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul by Victoria Goddard
5. Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
6. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
7. Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
8. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
9. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Will I make it to 200 books this year? 2.5 to go!

"There are no gods. I should know, I've met a few."

I've now been to two weddings this year where Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive was featured as part of the vows, and I can't say enough how much I love that.

"'This fridge,' said the Doctor, 'will be bursting with all manner of good things to eat. I will remember to go back and fill it especially.'

The fridge door unsealed on the Doctor's third pull. A river of freezing air flowed out over his knees. Waving away the vapour he peered in at the empty shelves. So I forget, thought the Doctor. There's never a temporal paradox around when you need one."

'I used an eighth-century dialect that has since become accepted as the formal tongue of the Japanese royal family,' said the Doctor. 'I expect they were a bit surprised. And I doubt they understood more than one word in ten. Which is just as well. Because what I actually said was "Make way! For I am the official keeper of the Emperor's penguins and I must hurry because his majesty's laundry basket is on fire."'

As of yesterday, I've now officially finished more books in 2025 than 2024 (when I read 188). I think I can probably hit 200 for the year if I keep up my current pace, but I'm not going to push myself to hit that.

I'm not loving this, but I might as well finish it.

My six-year-old reader wasn't happy with how slowly one chapter a night was going, so she took the book and finished it on her own 😂

And now we're eating live baby mice for some reason.

There's such a douchey bro vibe to this, too. Like casually comparing people to crackheads, background misogyny in character descriptions, etc.

Not really getting the hype so far, and also not really vibing with the snarky humor. Unless things turn around, this is probably getting a 3-star from me and I won't bother with the sequels.

Keep forgetting to add this on here. I've been reading a chapter most nights to my daughters as a bedtime story.

This story structure is so weird!

This is fun, but uhhhh where is the Doctor? Really weird choice to keep him absent for so long, especially when we just had a new companion join the TARDIS in the last book. This should be Benny's first big adventure, and she and the Doctor are both totally AWOL so far.

Callllllllled it!

Aiming to finish this one today, but we'll see.

This is definitely a You've Got Mail situation, isn't it? Enemies in real life not aware they're actually (telepathic) pen pals?

I wouldn't say I'm loving this, but it's not nearly so bad as I expected from the average rating.

Yep, that's our murder boy Ripley alright

"Ace wandered away from the Library, thinking about sex and death. She glanced up at the Doctor, deep in thought. He wasn't really into either, she figured. If he died, he'd just regenerate, and although he sometimes let slip things about a family, he never seemed to fancy anybody."

Asexual Doctor (or #7, at least) confirmed! Ace and ace, lol.

Okay, I can't complain too much about a Goodreads call-out, but you can't actually rate a book as zero stars on here, dude

noooooooooooooo

"Full dark, no stars" lol okay my guy

Blue chambray shirt in a Stephen King / Joe Hill book. Take a shot!

Oooh, I was wondering what the rest of the book would be about. That's devious.