Monthly Archives: November 2019

The Ninja Daughter by Tori Eldridge (2019) – BR00166 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 10 2019

Plot or Premise

A Chinese-American woman trained as a ninja and now protects abused women in L.A.

What I Liked

The story works on three levels for me. First, there is a mystery to solve involving multiple bad guys, politics, and a new subway being constructed (the motive is obvious, the details are not). Second, she helps women get away from their abusers, and feels a bit in places like the Jane Whitefield novels by Thomas Perry. Third, she is choosing romantically between a nice guy and a danger guy, similar to the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. I had a small sense of deja vu that I knew this storyline as it progressed.

What I Didn’t Like

As the first story in a series, there is a lot of exposition going on. Explaining Lily’s background, her mixed Norwegian / Chinese heritage, and even some of her relationship with her parents. Her angst with her mother is brought up about six or seven places in the novel, while 1-2 would have been fine. Equally, her father’s colloquialisms show up way too often, “doncha know”. Plus, she explains kunoichi about three times, as if we didn’t see it the first two times. The repetition was a bit heavy-handed. 

The Bottom Line

Good debut, look forward to the next story.

No Second Chance by Harlan Coben (2004) – BR00165 (2019) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 9 2019

Plot or Premise

A surgeon wakes up in the hospital, an apparent victim of a home invasion that left him shot in the head, his wife dead, and his infant daughter missing.

What I Liked

There were a fair number of possible red herrings running around in the story, and everybody gets suspected of something. His lawyer friend, his dead wife, his sister, an ex-girlfriend, a scummy adoption lawyer, even the police investigating the crime…all of them are a little bit off.

What I Didn’t Like

There are a couple of scenes that are completely over the top, and the ending is ridiculous. All of the work to find his daughter, with lives at risk all the way along and him accused of murder, and someone he knows knew the truth all along. But he’s semi-forgiving. Ridiculous.

The Bottom Line

Over-the-top plotting in places, ridiculous relationships, and absurd ending.

The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis (1946) – BR00164 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 9 2019

Plot or Premise

A professor is killed, and a young student in love with him confesses to the murder. But there are lots of other more likely suspects.

What I Liked

Eustis won the 1947 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, and it is easy to see why it won. The sense of place is strong, and a strong foreboding all the way through the novel adds some suspense. There is more than a hint of psychological darkness lurking in the shadows.

What I Didn’t Like

There are some parts that just don’t hold up. The understanding of mental health disorders was not very rich, and the interactions of the two protagonists are misogynistic to read (he continually calls her fatty and comments when she drinks a beer that there too many calories). There’s also an underlying current that women are nothing without a man. Hard to read in 2019, even as historical. The red herrings are clear by midway through the novel, and the solution / foreshadowing is obvious, leaving the last 40% of the novel just “get to it, already”.

The Bottom Line

Doesn’t hold up through the years.

Series premiere: Raising Dion

The PolyBlog
November 5 2019

I have a pretty high tolerance for suspending disbelief in various superhero shows. I don’t expect high quality writing, acting, etc. Sometimes I get that there isn’t even a plot other than villain of the week. Okay, they’re not all home runs. When I read about the new Netflix show called Raising Dion, about a mother with a son who develops powers, I thought it was worth a shot. Man, was I wrong.

Short version is that a family of three has a father who is a storm chaser, and who died chasing one. The details aren’t entirely clear about what happened, other than he drowned. He left behind a kid and mother/wife. The kid still hopes Dad will come back, Mom knows he’s gone, even if they never found the body. The son is trying to learn magic, and starts displaying telekinetic powers. But after he does some basic stuff, cyclones seem to come with it. He has trouble turning off the power. And, overall, Mom is struggling to deal. Then the ghost of Dad appears…whatever.

Here’s the problem. The kid is TERRIBLE. He’s played by Ja’Siah Young, and I’m sure he’ll improve, or okay in short bursts, but he’s in most scenes and he’s unwatchable. His mother, Alisha Wainwright, was okay on Shadowhunters, and basically okay here, but the show isn’t about her. Or the kid’s godfather, played by Jason Ritter.

I finished the first episode, and I was lucky to get that far. Meh.

Series premiere: Looking for Alaska

The PolyBlog
November 5 2019

Author John Green provided the source material for Hulu’s Looking for Alaska, a story about a kid going to boarding school, falling in love and dealing with loss. It’s not clear who will be “lost”, but since it looks more like a mini-series than a series, I didn’t predict renewal or cancellation. It likely will be the narrator who is lost, so mini-series makes sense.

Charlie Plummer plays the main character, Miles aka Pudge, and generally speaking, he’s a wallflower to whom nothing ever happens. His father went to a boarding academy (which seems way more like a summer camp), and he wants to go too to experience SOMETHING (not for nothing, he had no friends at his regular school anyway). Plummer is okay, but the character is mostly a blank slate. I haven’t seeen Plummer before, but wide-eyed innocence is fine. In fact, the whole show feels a lot like Almost Famous, same outsider-looking-in vibe.

Except instead of Penny Lane, we have wild child Alaska Young, played by Kristine Froseth. Alone, no family seems to be in the picture back home, drinking, smoking, has some college-age boyfriend somewhere. But Miles is wowed by her. Yet for all the adoration, I didn’t see it. She seemed kind of average to me. There were no huge Penny Lane / bigger than life moments, and while she’s okay, I didn’t really see the wow factor.

Other citizens of the academy include Denny Love as Miles’ roommate, and Jay Lee as the cool kid who knows all the dirt on everyone. They were okay, but I didn’t care about either one until near the end of the episode.

There’s a sub-story about who ratted out two kids who were going to have sex for the first time, and if it wasn’t Alaska ratting them out, I’d be shocked. Everybody assumes it was the new kid (Miles) or his roommate, but that’s just a plot device to ramp up some tension with some other kids. Yawn.

I care not one whit about the show. I am however tempted to consider picking up the book and giving it a go.