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!

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Comments

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

[(Anonymous)]

tim gets violently abused by asher on a car ride (am not sure the authors appreciate that it's abuse; will see; asher scares him by driving too fast, then shoves him into the window; tim is bruised), then flashes back to when tim got violently transphobically bullied and humiliated at school (the students play "dude looks like a lady" on the prom sound system, spike his drink, crown him as both king and queen, and then rip his clothes off. This is what prompts the suicide attempt). Given this is set in 2017 and the school is a progressive one, with 'vegan hippy' students, I don't find it remotely believable, but it could happen somewhere (or, parts of it, at least), so whatever. But the scenario is too badly-written to be sad (this is no Carrie) and instead just reads as trans misery porn, and a rather desperate attempt to imply that trans suicide attempts result purely from others' abusive behaviour. I suppose at least the propaganda is being worked into a semblance of a plot, instead of just a lecture delivered by some jerk.

But am still only on page 258, whyyyyyy

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

[(Anonymous)]

oh fucking hell

So the reason they rush this kid through surgery as a minor is because he tries to kill himself after the assault

these clowns think this is a GOOD reason to rush a kid into surgery

"Once you chop your dick off, you're immune to bullying" said nobody ever.

So looks like this whole book is Making The Case For Cutting Off Kids' Genitals

I'm not surprised, just disappointed. These people always discover new lows to sink to.

I hope this book is taught on history courses, one day.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Quick! This child is mentally unstable! Surgically alter their body in a way that has major implications!

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

[(Anonymous)]

It's even more fucked up than that because the way it's set up, it really feels like the mother is just pulling the child along. 3 months after suicide attempt (during which time kid "mastered" the cello sonata from scratch, after allowing wrists to heal-- so "mastered" it in a month, maybe? Okay so I know there's not much point nitpicking timeline for anime cello, of all things, but), she takes kid out for picnic and then annouces out of the blue she has been speaking to Marci Bowers/Monica Powers about surgery. Kid is shocked, notes that you have to be 18! Mom tells kid that sometimes there are special exceptions when a kid has been on PBs and is living successfully as the other sex (tim even thinks something along the lines of "hm, but I'm not very successful though..."). Mom says she previously felt surgery was step too far, felt kid would be making a mistake, but now she has seen the error of her ways. (in fairness to mom, we could read this as her having a breakdown and losing her head; she has no friends or other family, her kid is her "best friend" and I assume mermaids is bullying the shit out of her online. So although the authors intend this as a sermon, it may actually have some realism... Just doesn't mean what they think it means).

So tim goes for the surgery, despite never having actually expressed any wish for it on the page. Dr powers tells him his neovagina will be so convincing, even his doctor won't be able to tell the difference. 🙄 But also, I'm curious; wasn't Marci Bowers in the Matt Walsh film, fleeing the sinking ship as fast as his little legs could carry him? I suspect he would rather they hadn't immortalised him in print like this. So I wonder how this happened!

Tim notes that transition is not about sex, for him. No shit; poor kid was apparently put on PBs when he was 12...

Anyway, we get a scene of tim's first time having sex, and it's bad sex writing but no worse than most, for the most part. The big issues are that the text claims he experiences orgasm (sorry, kid, no, that has been stolen from you), and that his non-virgin bf doesn't notice he's male. (Nah)

But yeah, most of the prose is just blah, not godawful. MOST of it. Because then we get this line:

"I'm wet as a harbor seal now, and Dr Powers's distant promise to me echoes deep in my memory: you'll be sensate, mucosal, orgasmic."

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

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno about you, but that sounds more like a description of a tentacle monster than anything I want to have sex with.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmmmucosal

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

[(Anonymous)]

Rolls off the tongue.

And everything else, for that matter.

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

[(Anonymous)]

There's also more awful and bizarre authorial-musical-knowledge bragging:

"I know he is lying there listening to the sound of my heart pounding like the kettle drums in the molto vivace movement of Beethoven's Ninth.
Molto vivace means very lively."

I think we're meant to be wowed by this.

(There's also an odd bit earlier, where kid is asked if he's applying to a conservatory, and goes "maybe, not sure". Erm, that's a no, then. Music was a bad motif for these particular authors to choose...)

Cut to surgery room. Kid is having the anaesthetic. Meets dr. More of this cringe:

"I'm Dr. Strauss."
"The Waltz King!" I said, thinking, of course, of Johann Strauss, who wrote "The Blue Danube" and "Tales from the Vienna Woods," and all those corny old songs in three-four time.

...

MOVING ON.

They ask tim to count back from a hundred. He does this in German, and I think we're meant to be dazzled by this? This book is a great example of why authors would be wise to be very careful when attempting to write characters who are smarter than they are.

(Sidenote: is the counting a thing? I've never been asked to count while having general anaesthetic, and I've had it like 10 times.)

As the kid drifts off, we get this:

"When I wake up, I thought, the world will be different. In that new world, I would never be sad again."

This book is an accidental terf.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Also it has just hit me that Asher's abusive father is a surgeon. So according to rules of fiction, he's probably found out about liam/lily's surgery somehow. Maybe I overestimated this book and these dumbass authors really did have him kill lily.

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

[(Anonymous)]

("he" being the father)

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

[(Anonymous)]

We get more tim backstory. When he was 3 or 4, he said he wanted to dress "like the other girls". He continued to dress in a feminine way as he grew up, and his father was a conservative dick about it. Then other kids also bullied him at school. One day, after a bad bullying incident, his dad gave him a buzzcut, to "make it easier for him". So that night, his mum packed their bags, and left. She waited for the kid's hair to grow back before she enrolled him in a new school, and told everyone he was a girl. But the dad caught up with them, told the other kids that his son was really a boy. The kid was bullied again, culminating in the suicide attempt. After that, the mother took him to get surgery.

So let me get this straight. Cutting your kid's hair off in an attempt to protect him from bullying is the worst fucking evil you can commit, but cutting your kid's *dick* off is to be lauded?!!!!

*screaming break*

Back. So, tim has lived out same jackie green scenario we warn about all the damn time. Mother straight up quotes the infamous mermaids line.

Book continues to be accidental terf.

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

[(Anonymous)]

(tbf not yet clear if father actually trying to protect kid, or just bullying. Doesn't matter. Still no need to castrate anybody.)

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

[(Anonymous)]

Being in court this morning had already taught me that [tim mom] is a better mother than I am.

Really? *That's* what you took from that?!!

Oh yeah, also, on another note, forgot: earlier in the book, it mentioned that her abusive husband (who beat her for years, dislocated her shoulder and choked her repeatedly) just stopped bothering her completely once she got a restraining order. Oooooookay.

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

[(Anonymous)]

The defense are now going to summon the doctor who castrated Lily, "Monica Powers", to the stand as an expert witness. "Why?" asks a character, to which the defense attorney shrugs, because sure, that's how real courts work in the real world.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UEGVxLs6Sr0

(Hm, this book is set in 2019 and published in 2022. So maybe it was started in 2019, and that explains how Marci ended up making his celeb appearance. But who knows. Will read on.)

I'm 300 pages in. Only 100 left. I was hoping to finish this trash today, but suspect this readalong may take longer than expected; my eyes are getting tired from squinting at the page to make sure I am seriously seeing this shit.

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

[(Anonymous)]

(But yeah the main thing I am getting from this depiction of court is that this defense attorney is truly atrocious. Who the fuck puts some random on the stand, some random they haven't prepared, just because. A random who has a connection to the deceased and not to the defendant. And why is he making this case hinge on "nobody knew the dead kid was trans", which even if proven doesn't DISPROVE murder, rather than "the kid fell" or "someone else did it".

The narrator keeps praising the attorney, who is her brother, which makes it funnier.)

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

[(Anonymous)]

(tried to find more on bowers' stance, made me wonder if I was thinking of someone else, but I think it's just contradictory because he flipflops)

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

[(Anonymous)]

I'm back and I've brought the bees with me.

*furious buzzing*

Flashback to youngtim, 2 months before death. (Of course this book frames the whole timeline relative to his death. Death cult gotta death cult.)

"I am eating apple pie with cheddar cheese melted on top of it"

NEVER MIND, I THINK WE'RE DONE HERE.

We get a more detailed description of this disgusting dessert:

It is a little bit sweaty, and very gooey, and frankly, sort of nasty.
But surprise: it's ridiculously good.

???????

Guess it makes as much sense as anything else in this book.

Anyway, LOL, because turns out tim's previous bullying transphobic school was in California. AS IF.

flashback to tim's ex. More cheese. Literally, I mean. They spent their dates at a creamery. Wondering if author craved dairy while writing this chapter; no previous chapters have had such high cheese content.

tim and new bf go to an ice rink for a date. tim is paranoid about his big feet. Hrm, do feet actually grow properly for kids on PBs? Gap in my knowledge. Hadn't thought about it, but I'd have assumed since it's a sex difference that finalises when you're a teen, PBs must fuck up your feet, too. Will have to look it up later.

He's a size 10, anyway. He freaks out for a second because the only available skates are black, which apparently means they're men's skates. 🤦

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

[(Anonymous)]

"Asher sits in a chair by the fireplace as I play my cello for him. It's "The Swan" by Saint-Saens. I think about the legend of the swan, the one that says that the bird is mute for her entire life, until the moment she's about to die, and then she sings the most beautiful melody in the whole universe, so gorgeous that just hearing it can crack you in half.

It's called a swan song."


I will give all you dans a moment to wipe away the tears that must be cascading down your faces rn.

.

Weeping break over. We get this accidentally terven snippet:

"I worry my mom has spent so much time worrying about me, she won't remember who she is when I leave for college."

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

But the main focus is tim's relationship with the dude on trial for killing him. Tbf, it does look like a bunch of red flags. On their first date they kiss and the bf touches his breast. In the first week, tim takes his top off and bf draws him topless. All seems a bit much too fast. (tim has had 1 bf before and is a virgin)

And then HOLY SHIT WHAT BRB GETTING SCREENSHOT

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

[(Anonymous)]

CONTENT WARNING: CURSED CONTENT

https://imgur.io/GIos5UM?r

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

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, I hate it.

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

[(Anonymous)]

tim is then compared to an endangered bird by his munchausens mom. ("They're so beautiful, and so threatened.")

bf sees a photo of tim as a boy, tim lies and claims it's a photo of a dead cousin he's just made up. (tim has now falsely claimed 2 relatives are dead, for anyone keeping track).

more text that unintentionally implies tim is leaping into relationship with bf to get away from overbearing mother, while he lacks the vocab and conceptual tools and distance to express it. I think the authors are just trying to show his mother loves him, though, because they're the sorts to think they need to say that, repeatedly, at great volume.

Characters mention they're gonna get ice cream in West Lebanon. For a second I thought they meant actual Lebanon. This book would be so much better if it were set in Lebanon. The soundtrack would be better, for a start; instead of "Top 10 Basic-Ass Cello Hits", it'd be smoooooth Lebanese jazz. (This nonny happens to have a very romantic picture of Lebanon.) But no forests here. Yet another disappointment of this book.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, that is cursed.

Mad science mutilation is so ~quirky and fun~

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

[(Anonymous)]

My understanding is that while girls have their growth stunted by PBs, for boys it’s hormonally more like being a eunuch, and eunuchs keep growing in a distinctive kind of way.

On the other hand, that doesn’t seem to be mentioned much here https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/84/12/4324/2864451 (warning: genitals). This has a bit more on it https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270377933_Skeletal_effects_of_castration_on_two_eunuchs_of_Ming_China but it’s one of those things that I thought was just ‘well known’, which makes it especially odd that people use it on boys who want to be smaller adults. And, of course, it goes along with osteoporosis.

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

[(Anonymous)]

The counting may be a US thing. I was asked to count when I had it.

Aside: was thinking while reading the comments that all this felt like New England craziness. Looked up book and authors. It is indeed New England (and New York) craziness. 😎🙂🥲

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

[(Anonymous)]

In a way, that's comforting, since I had assumed this madness was US-wide.