Monday, January 27, 2025

Book Bites (Expanded Edition): Never Lie

Never Lie
by Freida McFadden

✩✩✩✩
1 star out of 5

The line separating good books from bad, generally speaking, is that in a good book, plot serves characters, and in a bad book, characters serve plot. Not to crap on bad books; I've certainly written my share. There's nothing wrong with scarfing French fries now and again (Ready Player One, anyone?). As long as people are picking up books and visiting their local library, who cares?

Well, me, apparently.

Never Lie by mega-selling literary sensation Freida McFadden is a bad book. The plot follows homebuyers Ethan and Tricia as they tour the house of missing pop-psychologist Dr. Adrienne Hale, only to get snowed in. Creepiness abounds. Not the most original setup, but it works. Chapters are short and the language feels grade-schoolish, but at least it's accessible.

Much of the book's word count is spent on a2+b2=c2 plotting so formulaic as to be downright boring. Chapters alternate between present-time Tricia and past Adrienne. Tricia is an aw-shucks wilting flower and Adrienne is so logical and cold as to be a complete dick. McFadden takes the reader by the hand and guides them to "Ethan is a horrible murder and Tricia must escape." Dr. Hale has a psychotic patient called, rather suspiciously, "EJ." Its mentioned time and again how many red flags litter Ethan's past. Both EJ and Ethan know their wine. It all makes too much sense, right? I nearly threw in the towel on this one a hundred pages in, rooting for Ethan to bury a knife in Tricia's clueless back already and end this lackluster ride.

Except!

Ethan is not the killer (except he also kind of is)!

Except!

Tricia is the killer (but also Dr. Hale is the killer?)!

Oh, and Also!

Literally everyone here was one of Dr. Hale's patients!

In a good thriller, the twists feel pre-ordained after the plot pivots. The reader smacks their head and says, "oh of course! How did I miss it?" Never Lie's reveal brings more of a, "what? huh?" The tension required to wildly swing its plot is manufactured almost entirely by Tricia and Dr. Hale intentionally withholding information in first-person narration. Two narrators lying to the reader. In a book called Never Lie. Characters lie all the time, no prob, but...in their own thoughts?

So despite laying breadcrumbs thicker than the top of a midwestern casserole, EJ is of no relation to Ethan. EJ is just some rando. Why it took Dr. Hale 80% of the book to call EJ by his real (and very much not Ethan) first name? Insert shrug emoji. And having Tricia be the one who murdered Dr. Hale (oh and also like six other people) requires the reader to completely ignore her early narration. Tricia spends 2/3rds of the book pretending to be afraid of everything. She describes getting bad vibes touring Dr. Hale's house. Well duh, Tricia. Off course the vibes are off; you murdered someone. Bad vibes are inevitable. But then, on the flip of a dime, Tricia is a cold-blooded killer.

Which circles us back to junk food. The characters in Never Lie are all trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup, meant to impart flavor and crispiness but entirely without substance. Tricia and Dr. Hale and Ethan squish and mold into the exact shapes Never Lie's plotting requires, bending and stretching to cover each new plot hole but never quite keeping the rain out.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

O-H!


If Ohio State is going to win a college football National Championship every time the NCAA changes its tournament format (2014/5 and now 2024/5), then I say add more teams next year.

The graphics here are mostly edited versions of "Vs. Duck Hunt" sprites, owed to the fact that the last time Ohio State won a Natty (and I made a pixel art graphic), they defeated the Oregon Ducks in the title game. The exceptions are the Notre Dame Leprechaun, edited from "Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle 4" for GameBoy, and the Longhorn skull which was drawn from scratch.  

And, just for comparison's sake, here's the graphic I made ten years ago (already?!) when OSU knocked off 'Bama and Oregon to win the Inaugural College Football Playoff Championship.

Gonna be real tough to add all the sprites when the Buckeyes win the 2035 Natty in what, I assume, will be a 64-team field. 


Monday, January 20, 2025

Book Bites: Playing with Power!

Playing With Power!: Nintendo NES ClassicsPlaying With Power!: Nintendo NES Classics by Garitt Rocha
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Playing with Power! is a coffee-table retrospective of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Much (Most? All?) of the text seems to be copy/pasted from existing game descriptions and old Nintendo Power Magazine spreads. The text lacks flavor or perspective. The bulk of the content consists of walkthroughs for 30-year-old games. The wealth of classic Nintendo artwork is a treat to look at, but, especially in a crowded retro gaming book scene, Playing with Power! falls flat.

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Friday, January 17, 2025

Book Bites: Fen, Bog and Swamp

Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate CrisisFen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Proulx’s Fen, Bog and Swamp is a messy, unfocused overview of wetland scholarship. The text never really outgrows its seed as a personal essay, with haphazard pacing that is rushed in spots and slow and lingering in others. Though a nice overview of wetlands' place in climate and climate change and superbly written, its probably more useful to read the books Proulx cites.

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