Embrace-ing Stereotypes

The Buzz: “Finally,” decry the mysterious “they” who inform us of all the key books we simply must read, “a strong, well-defined, kick-butt female protagonist in a paranormal romance book with angels!” Because apparently we don’t already have enough bland Buffy clones substituting well-timed roundhouse kicks for characterization running around.

The Booze: This is the kind of book that reads more like a laundry list of every YA cliche imaginable than anything resembling a new or interesting story.

Love triangle between some hot dark-and-mysterious dude that shows up and your best friend? Check.
Mysterious and unexplained supernatural rules that dictate She Cannot Be With The One She Loves for no apparent reason? Check.
Survival of the entire world literally hinges upon which dude she picks in her angst-ridden love triangle? Check.
Ridiculously hot heroine convinced she is fugly? Check.
Unique never-before-seen snowflake of a heroine who has magical powers no one in the history of ever has had before? Check.
Abusive past for said heroine? Check.
Blindly helpful best gal pay with no personality aside from totally ignoring her BFF’s mental health and safety? Check.
Deceased mother? Check.
Constantly busy/borderline-deadbeat dad? Check.

Either this author has never read a YA novel before, or has read so many that she decided the key to the BEST STORY EVAR would be taking all of the overused easy bids for reader sympathy ever and stuffing them all into one book. Fine. Plenty of other people have done this (obviously, or it wouldn’t be cliched). You would think that all of these trite appeals to our pity would make us feel some kind of marginal empathy for our heroine, Violet Eden (yep, Eden is her last name, in a book about angels. Subtle, right?! I am only surprised she doesn’t have purple eyes, but there’s always time for those to appear).

Luckily, any sympathy we might feel for any of Violet’s many plights is pretty much immediately killed by her fucking whiney-ass attitude.

The book opens on Violet sitting on the bus home from school, ignoring her “best friend” as she “blabbers on” trying to cheer Violet up (how fucking dare she, that bitch?!), because it is Violet’s birthday, and Violet’s mom died giving birth to her, so clearly all of the emo feels must be had.

Violet then goes on to bitch about, in no particular order: her dad ignoring her, her dad paying attention to her, her best (girl)friend ignoring her, her best (girl)friend paying attention to her, some creepy guy hitting on her, said creepy guy no longer hitting on her, her best (guy)friend not telling her he has feelings for her, her best (guy)friend revealing that he couldn’t tell her about those feelings because of angel rules, her best (guy)friend breaking the rules to tell her he wants to be with her, finding out she’s part angel, finding out she has magic powers, finding out her best (guy)friend was forced to lie to her through no fault of his own… And so on. Basically, at some point in the novel, she complains about everything that happens, whether or not it was exactly what she told us she wanted to happen 2 pages ago.

And while we’re on the topic of complaining, may I just complain about the fact that the MC’s glossed-over abusive past experience (the point of which seems to just be Motivation To Become a Badass and also maybe the reason she’s attracted to so many way-older guys) makes the absentee dad a million times more unbelievable? “Gee, my daughter was nearly raped and is clearly still suffering from some PTSD, I think I’m going to go on a business trip for the duration of this entire book! 25-year-old boyfriend, what? Don’t worry, I gave him a stern talking-to about respecting my daughter after they’d already spent 3 years in constant company alone at his apartment!”

On the bright side, I did appreciate that the heroine is shown actually, you know, training in martial arts/running/climbing/general badassery. She doesn’t just magically become an awesome fighter after previously having issues even playing a game of volleyball. The prose was decent at some points, especially when Violet was waxing poetic about her love of art. That may be the only thing she never bitches about, in fact.

My rating? Two sideways thumbs of “meh.” I dunno. If you’re obsessed with angels, sure, give it a go. I still recommend you have a drink on hand. Just in case.

Prescription: Muddle mint leaves with lime juice, mix in equal parts club soda and white rum, and top with a floater of Bacardi 151, which should then be set on fire. Works even better if you sugar the rim of the glass first, because caramelized sugar and flames for the win. And because you’ll need that extra kick of 151 to get through the descriptions of the secondary love interest’s jealous possessiveness, dark sexy eyes and “sparks of energy.”

Beautiful Costu — I mean Creatures

I would marry this dress

Not going to lie, I read this book a long-ass time ago, and all I really remember about it was that I loved the creepy gothic southern setting, but I was totes pissed off at the ending. The entire book was a giant countdown to the main character Lena’s 16th birthday, a day on which basically the fate of the entire universe hinges, because she’ll either be a nice witch and save everyone or be evil and destroy mankind. But then you get to her birthday in the book and you’re all like NOW THINGS WILL HAPPEN MWAHAHA and she’s like “and then I did a magic spell and delayed my birthday.” …. Huh?

BUT to be fair, that was probably more the publishing board going AHEM EXCUSE ME why isn’t this a trilogy, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MORE MONEYS WE COULD MAKE? And so I shall try not to blame the authors for this let-down.

I didn’t read the rest of the series, and I mostly was a bit annoyed at the trite themes in the first anyway (it’s another sexy relationship with a supernatural being who may potentially kill you if you continue to date them). Except this time, TWIST, the possibly-evil-one is the chick and it’s the dude who hangs around despite threat to his person. Okay I guess, nothing super innovative.

So when the movie debuted, I was like, meh. Maybe I will see that. But then you know how it goes: your friend is in need of a shitty movie to distract them from sadness, you are bored and it’s late at night and you’re near a theater, you happen to have bottles of alcohol sitting in your purse which you can’t drink at a bar…

And possibly it was because of my incredibly low expectations for how Hollywood would make this alright story even worse. Or it might be due to the 2 (okay 3) bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade smuggled into the theater with me. Could be that Hollywood seems to have trimmed down the trilogy into a single movie, which clearly had plenty of time to sum up the plot (hence why I think maybe it was supposed to be a standalone title all along). Or maybe it was just the magic of Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson… But I actually did not hate this movie!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing especially unique or genius about it. The British actors for some reason faked a Southern accent far more convincingly than the American actors, and if you’re from the south and not a Bible-thumping die-hard extreme right-winger, you might want to skip this one, as you will probably be SUPER OFFENDED. Also the only black woman in the movie (HI VIOLA DAVIS) is a voodoo priestess. Just saying.

BUT. You know. It was enjoyable. There were unrealistically, definitely not 17-year-old hot girls who employed the usual bitchy-cheerleader snark. Lena and her book-loving boyfriend (WHERE CAN I ORDER ONE OF THEM BTW) dish as much bitching as they take. There was much “YOU GO GIRL”-ing from some drunk middle aged man a few rows behind us. And I was super pleased by the ending, in which (pseudo-spoiler alert) the characters do not decide that true love is more important than possibly destroying the entire world and tons of innocent bystanders. The very very last scene kinda ruined the wonderful effect of the rest of the ending but HEY IT’S HOLLYWOOD, I can forgive it. It was almost poignant this time.

Anyway. All that was great. But my personal favorite had to be Ridley, Lena’s cousin/sister-type-gal-pal-turned-evil-witch. You may or may not (in my case) recognize her as the lovely, talented young 19-year-old from The Phantom of the Opera movie (SHE WAS ONLY 19 THEN WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE), but in this movie she shows that even in a role with no singing involved (though she is a Siren, TEEHEE), she can fucking rock out. She seduces her way across town, and I am totally like, I WOULD HIT THAT AND I AM STRAIGHT.

And, I mean, just look at that dress. Admit it. You would kill for that dress. And those boots. And also the sexy sunglasses she rocks. And the red racecar. Mmm, the racecar.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go sign up to join the dark side, because those bitches be sexy as hell.

Trad Publishing’s Achilles Heel

Modern Editorial Boards

I have just about fucking had it, traditional publishers. You want to know why self-publishing is upping its game? Why you’re making less and less money while more and more authors “betray” you by switching over to Amazon and publishing their own goddamn shit so you can’t skim your fucking humongous cut off the top anymore?

I will fucking tell you: It’s because you’re all fucking pussies.

You want to find The Next Big Thing? Then stop spending 6 and 7 figures on Twilight knockoffs and distilled versions of The Hunger Games set in even less believable shitty future realms than Panem.

“We want something NEW and UNIQUE” you constantly decry in every public sphere available. But as soon as something fucking amazing and weird and hard to categorize lands in your lap, your marketing/publishing/editorial boards start going “whoa, wait, we’ve never seen this before. How will we shelve it in B&N? What books can we compare it to on Amazon to increase traffic? What similar authors can we find to blurb it? There aren’t any! THIS IS TOO HARD, WAHHH” so you fucking cop out and buy another Paranormal Justification for Pedophelia that’s only “unique” feature is to somehow twist yet another notoriously evil, ancient, spine-tingling monster into a hot teenage boy for the MC to fawn over.

Do I sound bitter? Well, I am. It’s impractical for authors to publish traditionally, especially now that print-on-demand and ebooks have advanced so far. But, having browsed the fanfic.net equivalent of the slushpile, I know what the average reader will be facing if trad publishing collapses entirely. Contrary to whatever you’re thinking right now, I’M ON YOUR SIDE, guys. I want publishing to stick around. I want authors to feel that thrill of seeing their book on a shelf in B&N and their deal announced in Publisher’s Lunch, rather than just having their self-designed cover pop up on Amazon like some intangible figment of their imagination.

But you all need to fucking get your act together, or you’ll soon be as obsolete as typewriter manufacturers.

In short: Grow a spine.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Can Read

The Buzz: In Abandon, NYT Bestselling Author Meg Cabot delves into the realm of YA paranormal romance with snappy one-word titles because all the cool kids were doing it too. In yet another Greek mythology retelling, Pierce (alas, not Brosnan) is brought back from the dead after an accident by escaping the Lord of the Underworld.

The Booze: After what’s clearly supposed to be an intriguing, foreshadowy introduction, we’re offered this nugget of life advice: “Don’t blink.” Why? Nobody knows. Blinking and the lack thereof are not in any way involved in the story from here on out. But it sounded cool, and will maybe make some people think of Weeping Angels, so I suppose that helps set the tone for the novel (as long as you aren’t expecting Steven Moffat-level writing, that is).

A few more chapters pass with Pierce heavy-handedly hinting that, besides dying, other mysterious and shitty things have happened to her in the past year, all of which make her life so much fucking worse than yours, so DON’T EVEN TRY AND START NO PITY CONTEST, BITCH. Pierce will win. All because of Hot Gothboy, aka Death Deity, aka John (okay, I did enjoy that the Lord of the Underworld is named John. Lolol).

See, Pierce has been hallucinating this pale, rugged, tall, super-muscular dressed-in-black biker dude since she was a little kid (but he’s not “hot,” she is careful to point out in case we mistake him for a trope. He’s only super attractive and magnetic. That’s totally different). When Pierce dies, he escorts her spirit from the shitshow that was the Ferryman’s crossing to set her up in his Underworld living room. Unfortunately, John forgets to explain to Pierce that this means she’ll be trapped there forever. So, as you do upon learning you are dead and now you must live with this strange dude for all eternity, she runs. Luckily hot tea is John’s weakness, and it’s pretty damn easy to escape the Underworld.

Back in the land of the living, Stalkerboy continues to display overbearing, overprotective, truly Edwardian behavior in following around Bella – sorry, I mean “Pierce,” around as she lands herself in one dangerous situation after the next. In a series of progressively more confusing and repetitive overlapping flashback-laden infodumps, we learn that Pierce, being a ridiculously hot chick in a paranormal romance novel, was of course nearly molested by her teacher (seriously, do we not know any other way to give hot female characters sympathetic backgrounds?). Luckily she was saved at the last minute when John fucking rips the guy’s hand to pieces.

BECAUSE INJURING PEOPLE FOR YOU = TWOO WUV, LADIES.

After 90 pages of flashbacks and background stories (NO FUCKING EXAGGERATION), all told while Pierce and John stand around in a cemetery for no apparent reason, we finally reach… drumroll… a “first day at a new high school” montage! Pierce makes some predictably snarky new friends, meets the Plastics and their hot boyfriends who all have insta-crushes on Pierce, and concludes the day by learning about visiting rules for the city cemetery. Seriously, is this their town’s goth version of the pub from Cheers? The Chief of Police AND the “Cemetery Sexton,” whatever that is, both visit her high school just to give a speech about how all them rowdy kids can only visit the cemetery during daylight.

We are now halfway through the book, and still nothing has happened plotwise. For no real reason (as with most events in the novel), Pierce decides to go back to the cemetery, AGAIN. At our new fave hangout, she has a neverending, dense conversation with the Sexton, who explains she visited the Greek Underworld when she died. This is apparently a FUCKING MIND-BLOWING REVELATION TO HER. I’m not quite sure why, since she’s been quoting Persephone myths and talking about the Underworld all along, BUT OKAY. “Who’s Homer?” is her next question. (THIS IS A SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL. No child left behind, indeed).

After 20 pages of rambling dialogue, the Sexton eventually gets to the point: he knows John, and John has been super emo ever since Pierce dumped his ass. Basically, it’s all her fault that Death is pissed, and she’d better go be nice to him if she doesn’t want more innocent bystanders to get injured.

NO PRESSURE, but if you don’t make this moody-ass guy you’ve met maybe 4 times (and who is already in love with you) happy, WE WILL ALL FUCKING DIE (how exactly is never specific, because that would lend some sort of threat or story arc to this fucking shitshow).

Sexton goes on to chuckle indulgently at the death-threats John made to Pierce (“Because you were clearly aggravating him so much, he felt like killing you,” hahaha!), mansplain what “hyperbole” means, and then we reach what I’m guessing is the climax of the novel, or would be if it had anything resembling causality or a plot. John lures Pierce outside by threatening to kill small animals. She says they need to talk, they rehash shit we already know, then John yanks her into his lap and starts making out with her. He continues to do this after she pushes him away, and when she finally convinces him to stop, his explanation is, “You wore the necklace. […] You know what that means, Pierce.”

Yes, keeping jewelry from boys means THEY OWN YOU, LADIES. Some more kissing makes her realize that ZOMG she actually DOES love him! Clearly all of her pushing him away was a cover for her fear of loving people, definitely not a natural reflex to a verbally abusive asshat. He commands her to wear the dress he likes and meet him the next night. Woohoo, we have officially checked off all of the fucking items on the Daddy Issues list.

Replete with all of the clichéd one-liners ever (some highlights: “A storm is coming” and “Check yourself before you wreck yourself”), and completely lacking in any sort of coherent storyline, this is just the thing to read if you love abusive, manic-depressive buff dudes.

To be fair, there are some unintentionally hilarious lines in here. Personal favorite being when Mom busts out: “Honey, some boys stopped by to see you. They had wood.”

Prescription: Persephone-style, get yourself a bottle of Pama liquor. If that’s too pricey, any other pomegranate liquor will do. Drink the whole fucking bottle straight, because trust me, you’ll need it. It does have pretty low alcohol content, though, so if you need to give it a boost, I recommend mixing 1 part Pama to 2 parts vodka, adding a splash of cranberry juice and a squirt of lime, and getting your buzz on.