One Bloody Thing After Another Book

Note: Those of you who follow my reviews know that I try very hard to always be nice when reviewing. Even when I don't like the book, I try to offer constructive criticism and give out some words of praise.

There will be none of that here. What follows is less a review and more of a rage-induced tirade that was written while in a hazy trance brought about by sheer fury. It will be sarcastic, bitter and with more than a slight hint of a parent pointing at a child saying, "I'm not mad, just disappointed" but they're lying because if they spoke the truth the child would run away in tears. If this distresses you, stop reading now. If you're intrigued, I hope you enjoy the ride.

The late Roger Ebert, whether I agreed or disagreed with him, was a witty, and entertaining reviewer. He was thoughtful and usually offered well considered criticism… but every once in a while a movie would hit that seemed to leave him so boggled as to be at a loss for words. Take for example his review of the film North, which had this gem of a line:

"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Truly, I could just leave this here and end the review with that, but no… as much as I generally hate writing 1 star reviews, I take something of a personal insult that this book was published, as it means a few more trees were removed from the world (something, that would no doubt distress our protagonist) in order to allow people to read it. Those trees could have been used for such better things! Like pamphlets with instructions on how to properly watch paint dry.

In order for me to enjoy a book, I have to get AT LEAST one of three things (preferably all three). Good character, prose, or plot.

Let's take these on one by one, shall we?

Characters - In a word: shit. I hate the characters. I hate them all so much. I don't think I was supposed to, but I could only take so much teen angst, and descents into madness that were never properly developed due to a time skip. After 50 pages I was ready for a zombie apocalypse to hit in the hopes that we could pick a couple of them off. 20 pages to the end, I was just hoping to get a bloody final with detailed descriptions of their horrible demises, as it would have been therapeutic after dealing with their bullshit. I mean, there are quite a few disturbing moments of violence in this book, which could possibly be entertaining for a time, but once you're mentally tuned into the Caligula mindset, the bloody details swiftly starts to feel repetitive and unsatisfying. I mean, killing a kitten and a baby, bah, by the point we get to such things, why should I care? Why don't you make a bomb that kills puppies and grandmas (but only nice ones who bake cookies made with love in every bite) every time someone uses a vowel? It would make as much sense as anything else in the plot… but this is the character section, let's eviscerate the plot later.

Our main lead is Jackie. She has no characteristics that would be considered realistic human qualities other than rage, sadness and being horny. She comes off less like a real teenager and more like the media's fear of teenage hooligans that will throw rocks through your window without even the slightest moment's hesitation because you said the wrong thing (which is actually a scene in the book, as someone cut down a tree on their own property, which just happened to be where Jackie had her first kiss). Seriously, let's throw out every teen angst cliché we can think of short of smearing makeup on our face while screaming out My Chemical Romance lyrics. The other characters are equally underdeveloped and annoying and about as three dimensional as a cardboard cutout of Pac-Man.

Prose - Now if I were a paranoid man (which I'm not, no matter Fred across the street may be saying about me), I'd say this book was deliberately trying to provoke me. As mentioned, the book is fairly violent and filled with little disturbing moments, which is odd given that it isn't even up to middle grade level prose Let's use small sentences that sound like they could mean something, but only if you close your eyes and wish really hard. Perhaps this could explain the simplistic nature of the characters, but I doubt it as most middle grade books have more respect for their characters. The language is insipid, and perhaps the only thing praise worthy is that it occasionally does sound like the sort of thing a teen may write in their diary and look back at and say "Oh dear, glad I outgrew that nonsense," while trying to hide their embarrassment as they set it on fire. It's also filled with one page chapters and that are composed of a single paragraph the size of my pinky finger. The short blunt sentences almost have a Hemingway feel to them, except Hemingway could actually upon occasion say something meaningful with those words.

Plot - HA! What plot? This is a series of fragmented snippets of a plot that feel like an outline at best and bad poetry at the worst. It's about teen angst, and zombies and ghosts. These come together to a point, but never in a satisfying way. I mean sure there's some nightmarish sequences, but after a while they get boring because it seems to be implying that life is one giant nightmarish delusion even when we aren't dealing horrific abominations… it never lets up, and the nightmare becomes the norm.

In closing: If I described this book in a word, I'd say useless. It's not entertaining, it's not clever, it's not even scary. It's a waste of time. I never regret reading a book, even bad ones at least give me a chuckle and I at least feel like I enjoyed the process of reading them. Not so here. I only finished the damn thing because it was only 165 pages long (and given the one paragraph chapters and spacing, it was probably more like 130) and even with that I feel like I lost time that could have been spent doing… well, practically anything else would be more interesting. 1/5 stars