a glistening turd of a novel as redolently vile as it is girthily stupidunbelievably fappable.
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so full of poisonous ideas i think it may actuaa glistening turd of a novel as redolently vile as it is girthily stupidunbelievably fappable.
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so full of poisonous ideas i think it may actually retard your ability to be a kind and loving person.
it takes every hateful red-flag of abusive and misogynistic relationships, fetishizes them, and then clumsily wraps them up in stilted, simplistic prose about as nuanced as a middle-grade book report.
bizarre and disgusting details stuck in my mind as i read: steaming vegetables in the microwave means you don't love your son; only whores carry condoms; sluts deserve to go crazy and die.
naturally, all the idiotic characters and heinous dialogue and appallingly psychotic ethics on display in this Tome of Dafuqery did not immediately quell the imperatives of my libido.
which is to say: it was hot as hell.
at least, at first.
i'd fapped five times before the oppressive weight of such staggering horseshit crushed-out what little pleasure there was to be found in as pathetic and virulent a tale as this. [ETA a year later: but not for long.]
which is fine.
whatever.
it suits my bleak sense of irony that the endless scenes of neolithic boyfucking were the only instances of wholesome entertainment in the entire book.
15/2/2015: *retroactively added a star in gratitude for helping me rediscover my sex drive after a personal setback. i'm talking about a full-on fapapalooza i am not even certain is officially concluded just yet*
2/9/2015: *retroactively adds yet another star because let's be real i've returned to this fucking thing to fap my brains out four different times since i first read it and i am nothing if not honest*
Merged review:
a glistening turd of a novel as redolently vile as it is girthily stupidunbelievably fappable.
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so full of poisonous ideas i think it may actually retard your ability to be a kind and loving person.
it takes every hateful red-flag of abusive and misogynistic relationships, fetishizes them, and then clumsily wraps them up in stilted, simplistic prose about as nuanced as a middle-grade book report.
bizarre and disgusting details stuck in my mind as i read: steaming vegetables in the microwave means you don't love your son; only whores carry condoms; sluts deserve to go crazy and die.
naturally, all the idiotic characters and heinous dialogue and appallingly psychotic ethics on display in this Tome of Dafuqery did not immediately quell the imperatives of my libido.
which is to say: it was hot as hell.
at least, at first.
i'd fapped five times before the oppressive weight of such staggering horseshit crushed-out what little pleasure there was to be found in as pathetic and virulent a tale as this. [ETA a year later: but not for long.]
which is fine.
whatever.
it suits my bleak sense of irony that the endless scenes of neolithic boyfucking were the only instances of wholesome entertainment in the entire book.
15/2/2015: *retroactively added a star in gratitude for helping me rediscover my sex drive after a personal setback. i'm talking about a full-on fapapalooza i am not even certain is officially concluded just yet*
2/9/2015: *retroactively adds yet another star because let's be real i've returned to this fucking thing to fap my brains out four different times since i first read it and i am nothing if not honest*...more
i've got trolls up my ass, and shitheads subbing me in their own reviews of this bowell, shit.
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further developments at the end of this review.
i've got trolls up my ass, and shitheads subbing me in their own reviews of this book with direct, verbatim quotes from mine, like utter assholes—but i'm writing today to explain that over the course of this day i have come to the conclusion that my initial impression of this book was probably mistaken.
to be clear, i'll go to my bloody grave criticizing this shitty blurb.
i didn't arrive at my erroneous ideas about this book because i'm crazy, or vicious, or actively looking for books to be mad at.
no, my problem here is that there's nothing in that blurb to tell me that the MC's perspective is in any way different from the casual micro-aggressions i have had to swallow for my whole life.
the origins of that abuse can be traced to everyone from random papi chulos on the street affectionately calling one another poncey faggots in lazy dominican spanish, aaaaaaaaall the way up to my own quite hilariously evangelical family, who once laughed in my fuckin face when i took the plunge and admitted that i'd always dreamed of the day i might be able to marry a man who loved me.
and that's the kind of bullshit i endure every single day.
in silence.
but not here.
***
to be fair, that's obviously something some nice lady in perth might not have had to worry too deeply about as she drafted her latest novel about White Boys Fucking Somewhere Temperate.
but regardless—a flawed synopsis that completely fails to make it clear that the first character it describes will undergo some sort of wholesome transformation and shed his aggressively neurotic homophobia—
a blurb that fails to make explicit that it's not, in fact, as it is everywhere else in my life, simply a given that it's perfectly fine for someone to speak or think that way about queer people like me—
well, that's gonna straight-up trigger a dude.
so i had beef.
its just.
...i'm thinking i might have been hella wrong about all the rest.
***
so please allow me to share my conclusions:
1. despite my intensely negative reaction to its blurb, i did not assign this book a spuriously shitty rating like some grimy bastard.
even though such an action is entirely in accordance with this site's terms of service, it so happens i don't like to do that sort of thing.
as some of you already have cause to know perfectly well.
i simply noted my reasons for choosing not to read it.
that's literally it.
now, that i did so with the, um, colorful and rrrrrrrobust vocabulary that is as much a part of my personhood as my lustrous and supple chest hair—
well.
that's completely beside the point.
bcuz:
i maintain the right not to read this book for any reason i please;
i maintain the right to complain about said book in three languages and two dialects across the entire span of my social media presence with or without the use of darkly amusing gifs;
and i maintain the right to do so in defense against unwonted jibber-jabber from anonymous internet entities, all day long and well into the next, until either sweet baby jesus comes to rapture me away or a rugged gentleman climbs me like a tree to stick his dick in my mouth.
2. trolls swept all up in here to abjure my choice not to read a book.
they seemed pretty pissed-off about both the presumed font of vulgar impropriety and the festering mental illness inside of me.
they also appear to have concluded that these things were the driving forces behind my decision to explain to my friends why i'd chosen to read a smutty fanfic about male pregnancy, instead.
honestly, i day-drink all the time—and i've still never quite been that bad at saying "greetings, fellow goodreads user! let us discuss this book as civilized persons, and my goodness, what lustrously supple-looking chest-hair you have."
3. ultimately, i do not feel responsible for what happens to books produced by famously indifferent publishers who can't edit prose for shite and whose blurbs are regularly, objectively terrible.
it's not my fault they don't know how to properly launch this author's book.
and it's not my fault a troupe of deranged circus animals decided to take matters into their own hands and shit on my head for a couple days, clearly hoping to cow me into submission as if i were some trembling dishcloth of a man instead of a stroppy latin homosexual with more backbone than money, who also sees no reason at all why he should ever again bow his head to meekly accept the abuse of boors and savages.
***
so.
y'know.
that.
***
and yet...
as this is the beginning of a third day of pointless internet dafuqery—
i find that i feel bad.
not because i know for a fact that some of these people behaving this way towards me are gay men who know what it feels like to perceive that someone wants to shove you back inside the closet you've already left behind.
what it feels like to look for love and joy in stories that are almost never written with you in mind.
what it's like to be asked to fucking kneel.
don't get me wrong. that they'd choose to nip at my heels like that despite their intimate understanding of both my nature and my concerns, all for the sake of a couple of harmless shots across the bow—
for shits and giggles?
that's despicable.
but that's not really why i feel bad.
people like that have been coming for me since my father caught me fooling around with another boy when i was ten and promptly tried to beat the demons out of me with an extension cord.
but i'm not that defenseless, anymore.
now?
now i am strong.
now, i have teeth.
***
so that's not it.
what's been nagging at me this whole time is that i know it can't have felt all that great to have seen my review space festooned in spirited caribbean outrage, and then to observe said review constantly refreshed with ancillary escandalos over a series of days as those hoydenish Opprobrium Deputies popped 'round a complete stranger's comment thread like tag-team wrestlers slipping in and out of the ring with metal folding chairs—first to ineffectively dispute my right to have an opinion on the internet, and then (when that appeared not to be a successful stratagem for sending me to the loo to weep brokenly atop the toilet) to dispute my capacity for the intelligence required to even form such an opinion in the first place.
and so, for all that?
i feel compelled to say...
my bad.
i was wrong. and i sincerely apologize, ms. kaye.
[nope, i wasn't wrong. see notes at the bottom of this review.
she's horrible, her books are horrible, and i am done discussing this rationally with people who are irrational.
her crimes are invisible to people who are privileged enough not to suffer for them.
we've all enjoyed problematic texts we didn't realize were painful for other people o read.
but the answer is not to tell those people they got it wrong or that they didn't read the books properly.
the answer is to listen.]
***
so, uh, as a gesture of my, y'know, et cetera:
to my goodreads buddies at large—maybe give this book a second chance, yeh?
if you haven't already.
i've heard it's basically a jolly nice read.
some people even go so far as to say it's delightful.
***
therefore, in the spirit of rapprochement—here is the author interviewing the main characters of this book, who actually don't seem all that toxic to my peace at all, really:
and now, here is a heartfelt apology card meant exclusively—quite literally for no one else, you see—not ms. kaye, or her readers, or my lovely goodreads buddies, or any of the random people who might stumble upon this review for what i feel confident will be legit decades into the future—
i say again that i mean this token of my remorse exclusively, ex-clusively for the trolls my opinions happened to offend, as well as for those tacky-assed, juvenile, scrotum-faced, butt-licking, beeyoutchy reviewers who thought i'd somehow fail to notice all that salty, salty shade they were casting my way despite half the fucking internet cross-posting all of our shit all day long:
get a real good look at the detail on that badboy.
just for you, guys.
just you.
please, rest assured:
i mean the sentiments therein with all of my heart.
regards,
jülz.
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——————————————————
previous review:
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"He fully accepts that he’s gay, but doesn’t want to be one of those gays, who are femme and girly. He likes football and other masculine pursuits, and firmly avoids anything that could be seen as femme—including relationships that last beyond fifteen mi—"
NOPE.
for the jacked-up comma, if not the toxic femme-shaming horseshit.
eta: she deleted her post, but the internet never forgets. she basically said she didn't believe in bisexual romances and would really prefer they didn't exist. i have a full screenie.
my copy is highlighted-to-shit-and-back with all the horrendous things this book is trying to say.
i'm livid.
book: j'deteste.loathed.
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loathed it.
my copy is highlighted-to-shit-and-back with all the horrendous things this book is trying to say.
i'm livid.
book: j'deteste.
j'defuckingteste!
why?
i'll tell you.
because you, book, do not speak truth.
you take bits and bobs of shit you've seen on the internet and turn it into an embarrassing hash of pseudo-psychological justification for absolute dafuqery.
the ideas you promote, little booky-wook, are toxic and offensive.
because you demonstrate a profound disrespect for the nature of my sexuality for the sake of getting your goddamned rocks off infantilizing a fucking muscly copper by way of suggesting his latent homosexuality is akin to multiple personality disorder.
which is insulting as fuck, given that i paid good money for you to not-make-me-feel-like-a-goddamned-dancing-gay-monkey.
do you even read yourself sometimes, book?
huh? do you?
no?
check out my status updates, then.
because i simply cannot with you right now....more
obsessed with power dynamics, status symbols, and physical beauty.
plus awkward, melodramatic writing as nuanced as any ameridislike.
dnf at 20 percent.
obsessed with power dynamics, status symbols, and physical beauty.
plus awkward, melodramatic writing as nuanced as any american daytime soap or panel talk show hosted by women trying to out-bitch one another for an hour.
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