Eighth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

It's one thing if mankind is hunted to extinction by ChatGPT, but I really do object to being executed by Bing.

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/2511.html?thread=3169743#cmt3169743 )

Welcome back! Fandom chat, misc creativity, internet weirdness, books, films, anything! Tell meme about it so we can get to the next post title!

(start a comment thread by replying to this post)

Comments

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

I am not joking, this is the plot.

I am rooting for the bear. It's the most relatable character so far. I like that it is not a teenage boy and that it is not trying to be a Cool Mom.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Okay I have criticised other depictions of domestic violence but this may well be the most inept I have ever encountered. Dude goes from 0 to physically violent in a second, out of nowhere. There's no buildup, no emotional abuse, just "happy marriage then suddenly he broke a door on me". It's so rushed it's comical. I guess there must be a fashion for writing dv atm, because this isn't an author-duo that gives a fuck.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

On page 20. It is becoming grimly apparent that every teen in this book wants a sex change. I am hoping I have misinterpreted but I do not think this is a subtle book.
I think this is "Mermaids-style emotional blackmail: the novel", told by a Mermaids-sympathiser. So the main character is a middle aged woman, the type of person Picoult et Monsieur believe they ought to educate. Cynical? Moi? Not as cynical as them. "Terfs care about violence; give our protagonist some violence and show she doesn't have to be terf". Well, if that is indeed what I am reading, then a hearty fuck you is due to the authors. :)

But I judge so soon! Perhaps it will be about killer bees. Perhaps we will see more of the bear. I liked the bear.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Anyway yeah I assume lily is a tim and asher is coming down with a bad case of rogd right about now.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

FIVE THINGS ABOUT MY MOTHER THAT MAKE HER A BADASS

1. Her best friend is me

😬

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

No rogd for asher (so far), but the authors have indeed finally confirmed that lily is male. On page 204. Despite this being obvious 20 pages in, the authors treat it like it's a twist; it is dropped as a bombshell at the end of a chapter by a forensic pathologist in a courtroom, to explain the mYsTerY of why lily does not have a record of a 'female genital system'. Sounds like someone's getting cancelled!

(I flicked back to around page 20, and came across a lovely bit of prose I overlooked the first time:

Words scramble up the ladder of my throat.)

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Apologies to anyone who wanted to get through the first 20 pages of mad honey without spoilers. After all, lily first appears on page 8, so it may be possible to go a whole 11 pages without knowing that lily is male (the surrounding characters are all inexplicably ignorant, and remain so, which adds to the comedic tone of the book).

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

I am genuinely impressed by just how much shit you've found to complain about in only 20 pages.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

*bows*

I'm having a good time; I think this is the worst book I've read all year. I guess my rants will be split between irl and fanspace, unless I get told off for spamming.

I am now on page 22. Their idea of what mothers aspire toward is just sickeningly immature and insulting.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

This book claims heart of glass is in 7/4. It isn't. (there's a section, but most of the song is 4/4) The 11th doctor theme is in 7/4, so clearly they should have used that. Or agent 9's theme from spyro.

So much of this book feels like it was just Wikipediad onto the page.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Dialogue so bad. Characters so boring. We are meant to find these teens charming because they joke about nobody liking pineapple on pizza. So original. Definitely signs of life and not written by an AI.

Oh well, at least it made me want pizza and now I get to smile at how replaceable-by-AI authors like this are.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Teen TIM's boyfriend finds teen TIM's estranged dad and surprises teen TIM with him, because everyone in this book is mental. I'm only on page 28. Y'know, this could work as a plot if it turned out that everyone was trying to get "Lily" away from his munchausens mom without spooking them.

I somehow suspect this book will not go in that direction.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

(boyfriend (asher) bruises tim (lily). 'Lily' should dump him. Asher goes 'wah wah wah i grew up with a single mom so i tracked down ur dad becuz i don't want the same for youuuu '. Authors like this are so fucking weird about divorce and single parents. My friend quips "this sounds like the hallmark ad of books". Yes, that's exactly what it is. Degoutant.)

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

now tim is sadly playing a cello.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

The creepy jock hits on tim. Presumably he'll lash out later, when he learns tim is tim, and then later still he'll see the error of his ways and they'll become best buds. (Oh yeah, forgot to say, I think the author thinks the reader will be surprised that the character is a tim; it hasn't been said overtly yet. So I could still turn out to be wrong! But I'm not wrong.)

(tim himself is quite a likeable character so far, by this book's standards. He doesn't do anything other than be sad and state incorrect facts about music in that way autistic characters in books do. So it is possible to read this as a psychological horror about munchie parents if one wants, and indeed may be the copium I resort to to get through it. Interesting that author is agp man and character is hsts kid. Not gonna write about a 44yo straight man, guys?)

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

The sheer prose-quality of this book is breathtaking:

Nobody is a do-over of anybody else, and if you get to do anything at all on earth it's live your own life, not be some sort of ghost version of somebody else's.

I can't handle the TRUTH and POWER of this book.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

tim sees block of butcher's knives and thinks "hm, maybe?". He has slit his wrists in the past. Just in case you thought there was a cliche that it avoided.

He also mentions wishing he could stay friends with his bf's mom if they break up. As you do.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Interlude to enjoy this fabulously backhanded back-cover endorsement, courtesy of Marie Claire, of all places!

There are writers who try and do what Picoult does, and then there's Picoult.

I agree, I agree.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Now asher is in police station. tim has been found in house covered in blood. i assume jock attacked him and everyone will assume it was asher? (or maybe even his father attacked! But that seems a bit ott even for picoult. So I assume jock tried to sexually assault him, then discovered he was male and attacked) tim taken to hospital. Asher talks to police, even though his mother is there and should be advising him to keep his mouth shut and get a lawyer. but she's too busy trying to be her kid's best friend, I guess, to be a good parent, so he just talks to the police in front of her and probably incriminates himself by accident.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Another dv scene. Feels like someone just typed "what do abusers do" into google and pasted it onto the page. To be fair, these guys often do have very similar playbooks. Still feels like chatgpt drew up the scene.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

"his eyes so red it looks as if all the blood vessels have burst"

See, if you just stuck to *a* blood vessel, the image would be fine, but ALL of them is just silly and turns it into a comedy novel.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

tim has died! :( Aw. what is it with shitty authors killing off the only halfway bearable characters.

Picoult is going for sad, of course. Unfortunately, her prose is so bad I cannot get through a sentence without giggling. "I hang up as a tsunami of sadness sinks me into a kitchen chair." "It doesn't
stop, this waterfall of pain. It comes pouring out of him" interspersed with some shit about bees.

(I also suspect the detail of her comforting her kid with the owl and the pussycat has been pinched from another, better book. I think I read it elsewhere recently. But maybe lots of people do that?)

to top it all off, tim's cello playing is described as stunning.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

So, your son's partner has just died. And this is how you narrate it:

"I bolt upright in bed, thinking of the bear that decimated my hive, and then the rest of the day fills in the empty spaces in my conscious mind."

This is the comedy novel I never knew I needed.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Friend suggests the twist will be that jkr is the killer. I wouldn't put it past these people.

Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)

[(Anonymous)]

Oops! Forgot to link you all tim's anime cello of great power!

https://imgur.io/Izp3dMA?r

The way these authors write about music weirds me out. So many instruments and pieces on the page; SUCH an unmusical approach to it all.