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)]

LMAO

Turns out I know this book's continuity better than the authors do.

Pg 1:

"When I gave birth, and the doctor announced the baby's sex, I did not believe it at first."


Pg 332:

"I think about how, when Braden and I went for our ultrasound of Asher, the technician asked if we wanted to know the sex. She had pointed to the tiny thorn of a penis on the grainy screen."

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

[(Anonymous)]

More manipulative shit about how "trans teens" are guaranteed to die without parental support.

But then Asher's mother briefly wonders about the tim's mother's feelings, wondering if she's "grieved twice".

Careful there, them's perilously close to terfin' thoughts!

Powers insists that men can't tell the difference between putting their dick in a vagina, and putting their dick in a surgical wound that a man has made where his genitals used to be. Well, maybe, though I doubt it. Personally, I think this was a bad point to make your court case hinge on.

But the narrator is too busy droning on about honey. She mentions ancient Egypt, for some reason. (I wonder if these authors even know that Egypt is a country in Africa?)

Prosecutor asks why on earth they gave hormones to a middle school kid, and cut the dick off a minor. Go prosecutor!

Powers responds with "I look for a combination of physical and emotional maturity in the child". That's... pedo talk. No other way to read it.

Powers claims that even a pathologist would not be able to distinguish between an actual vagina and Powers' attempts at imitating one. This should be taken as evidence that Powers is delusional and not to be treated as a reliable witness, and seriously needs to be kept away from kids in Africa and anywhere else. If the writers of this book thought that this depiction would make the man who inspired the character look *good*, it's had the opposite effect, to put it MILDLY. The character sounds like Jimmy Saville x10000. Let us hope that fiction is not reality.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Asher's mother then has a romantic-leaning scene with an old ex bf of her own at the courthouse. The guy hits on her and she is pleasantly flustered. Because nothing like a bit of flirting on the second day of your kid's trial for murder.

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

[(Anonymous)]

"Judge Byers calls for a lunch break, but I have lost my appetite. Dr. Powers did more to validate Lily's life than to clear Asher from being involved with her death"

Well... yeah. That's why you don't put some random on the stand just to Educate the room on transactivist talking points when you're supposed to be trying to clear your son of murder.

But I do love how this implies that transactivists will take whatever you're doing, and make it all about them, at cost to you.

mother's abusive ex husband, asher's dad, shows up. he tells the defense that he needs a better witness. eh, no argument there.

(just in case you're wondering if the prose has improved with the experience these authors have gained over the 339 pages they've written so far, here's a snippet:

"He exudes power and privilege, a superhero coming to save the day in his tailored suit. But you don't get to be the hero of the story when you're the villain."

Profound.)

Son reveals he has been meeting up with his abusive father every month without his mother's knowledge:

"I didn't know how to tell you that I was seeing him," he says. "Remember when Uncle Jordan found texts on my phone to Ben Flanders? That wasn't a guy on the hockey team. That's Dad. I gave him a fake name so you wouldn't find out."
Ben Flanders. Braden Fields. "Why, Asher?" I ask.

(fair play, this nonny did indeed think 'Ben Flanders' was a fucking stupid name when she saw it, but she figured that was just in keeping with the rest of the book)

Anyway, yeah, the abusive dad is called Braden, fyi. I find this funny because the only Braden I've ever met was a gay mormon teen who was utterly, pathologically obsessed with Lady Gaga. It's the wrong name to choose if you want this particular nonny to feel a powerful sense of dread.

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

[(Anonymous)]

>When you're the villain

Why am I reminded of the 'He was an hero' meme, awful I know, but somehow fitting.

>Gay mormon teen
These _exist_???

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

[(Anonymous)]

Where I am, every combination of adjective exists! Not sure if he stayed mormon; he was an irritating person and we didn't stay in touch.

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

[(Anonymous)]

SD

(yeah, that was it, Lady Gaga and charlie the fucking unicorn, nonstop

i had forgotten how annoying that guy was)

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

[(Anonymous)]

*not sure if he stayed mormon after he came out as gay, I mean. nobody was surprised when we heard on the grapevine he'd come out, but he wasn't openly gay at the time we knew him, whereas he was openly a mormon. however, inertia being what it is, and religion not being very popular or taken seriously here, I would personally guess he's still a gay mormon to this day.

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

[(Anonymous)]

We get this bit, that sounds rather implausible to me:

"As fiercely as Braden loved me, he hurt me. If I had known that his love came at such a high price, would I have married him?

The answer is, sadly, yes. Even if someone is violent, or a liar; even if he breaks your heart every time you hand it to him-- that doesn't necessarily stop you from loving him. The two are not mutually exclusive."

Right, but the question wasn't 'would you still love him?', it was 'would you have married him?'. And you fled from him. So I don't think you'd be there like 'well, if I could do it all over again with full knowledge, yeah, sure, I'd choose to get beaten and then at some point when it got too much I guess I'd leave AGAIN'.

But I don't know why I'm bothering to look for consistency in this book. The authors already forgot the main detail they opened with on the very first page.

Ooh, but! Now we've reached the part of the book where the title is featured in the prose! We cut from a scene where the mother silently worries that the son is lying and that he is an abuser, to:

"There is one type of honey you should avoid at all costs. Mad honey"

Alright, alright, I've clipped that so that it looks stupider.

"There is one type of honey you should avoid at all costs. Mad honey comes from bees that forage on [blah blah blah blah blah]"

She describes all the ways that mad honey makes you ill, and can kill, and then we get this dazzling metaphor:

"The secret weapon of mad honey, of course, is that you expect it to be sweet, not deadly. You're deliberately attracted to it. By the time it messes with your head, with your heart, it's too late."

So there, at last. That's why this book is FULL OF BEES. Your honey was your abuser all along!

There are not enough Pulitzer prizes for this book.

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

[(Anonymous)]

another flashback to her abusive ex. He is a heart surgeon, and it has just hit me that this profession was chosen purely so that the narration could do wordplay involving broken hearts. +_+

He claims that a woman's heart beats faster than a man's. Not true, in my experience. Admittedly, I have a very small sample size. But my heartbeat is MUCH slower than those of the men I have had a chance to compare it to. google search agrees with the heart surgeon character, but the same resources refer to women as afab, so I am abandoning the whole medical establishment and am henceforth fixing all ills with a trusty poultice. I'll take my inspiration from history; an older relative says that when she was a kid, the treatment for ear-ache was to put a pouch of warm onions against one's ear. still better medicine than the stuff promoted in this book!

I'm getting tired, as is probably apparent. More tomorrow, methinks. (we've reached page 343)

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

[(Anonymous)]

DID SOMEONE SAY MAD HONEY?!! =D

Let's see what it's got in store for us today. I hope I can finish it, but I'm starting later than usual...

We actually start with a good flashback scene, of the mother taking an elaborate route home to avoid her abusive ex's wrath. This is one of the few scenes in this book that has a ring of truth about it; I assume it is a real woman's story. So we're on a grand tally of 3 good scenes in this book!

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The mother's name is Olivia McAfee. Every time I see it on the page I start snickering. idk why they chose the name of the world's most notorious antivirus for the main character in this heart-rending novel, but I noticed I hadn't informed you! So there you are.

The mother testifies as to her son's character. This strikes me as thoroughly pointless, but I don't know enough about the court system to know whether that happens, and they do a lot of insane shit, so maybe it does. She says nice things about her son while reflecting that an outsider looking in on her abusive marriage from a distance would have said the same nice things about her husband. I wonder if this was the initial seed of the book and then all the other rubbish got tacked on, because it's a cool idea for a scene. Obviously it's only executed as well as these authors can executed, but the mindfuck still comes through.

She says her son is a great guy, as instructed-- but then right at the end, she goes off-script, and mentions that Asher has been "protecting me since he was six". You would think her attorney would be making frantic gestures at her to shut up at this point, in case she incriminates her kid, but no, he's 'torn', and his facial expression indicates he is just worried she might "reveal something personal that [she] might later regret".

So, yes, she decides this is her moment to REVEAL to the court that she has been abused in the past! It is something that needs to be REVEALED! She tells them she is familiar with abusers, and that she therefore knows that her son is not abusive. (she in fact has no such certainty, and considers herself a liar) I'm curious whether this book will punish her for this. This seems like the sort of book that might punish a mother for this.

Anyway, yeah. She thinks "I am so, so tired of hiding" and then announces to the court that her ex-husband abused her in front of their son, and had been doing so for years. Because obviously, that's going to make the court think that her son is LESS likely to have picked up that behaviour! There exists no media that claims abusive men are those who have abusive childhoods!

But we've had no logic for 348 pages, so why start now? I think we're supposed to think this is some grand redemptive confession. She bursts into tears, the court takes a break, and her attorney comforts her:

"You didn't have to do that" (yeah, no shit)

"I was trying to save my son," I answer. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

He grimaces. "Not if it meant sacrificing yourself."

He really is the worst lawyer ever.

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

[(Anonymous)]

...The blurb looked ok tbh and if it wasn't for your highlights, this dan would've thought it was some variant of We Need To Talk About Kevin but probably wrt the cycle of abuse.

What you have revealed to this dan is considerably more trippy which fits the title, dan guesses!

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

[(Anonymous)]

Fair play to Picoult, the title is the perfect title for this book!

* There is a lot of honey; 'mad' honey, one might say

* The story is both insane and angry, on a topic that gets everywhere and swiftly makes things sticky and unpleasant

* At a glance, this looks like it might be an actual book, much as "mad honey" looks like it will be a tasty snack. But if you swallow any of it, god help you.

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

[(Anonymous)]

After her big reveal, there's a scene with her son. She thinks he did it! But before he can say one way or the other, the court session resumes.

She heads back toward the courtroom, and bumps into her old flame again. And we get this majestic scene:

"Olivia." He hesitates. "I'm sorry. I... didn't know."

But you did, I want to say, thinking of the time he pressed the card for a battered women's shelter into my hand years ago, at the farmers' market. Or at least, you suspected.

He reaches out and gently touches my arm. "Not every man is like that," he says.

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

[(Anonymous)]

> The mother's name is Olivia McAfee.

Part of me is hoping the book will introduce her other ex, John, and the plot will unravel into a frenzied whale-fucking fever dream.

I suspect this will not happen.

(This readalong has been absolutely amazing, nonny. Thank you for posting.)

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

[(Anonymous)]

("And you fled from him" -- fled from him, and stayed fled for 12 years. If she'd thought that the good times made the bad times worth it, she had 12 years to go back to him. She didn't!

This is probably a stupid thing to get hung up on, given the much bigger flaws in this thing, but I just really hate it when a book makes some declaration as though it's a fact about the world of the book, while everything that is happening in the book is actively contradicting it. It's something you always see in the worst of YA.)

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

[(Anonymous)]

SD

Fantasy examples of the kind of thing I mean:

"jimbob is the kindest person you could ever meet."

*on multiple occasions, Jimbob is depicted viciously bullying someone vulnerable*

"Maisie is my best friend. I tell her everything."

*character and Maisie exchange only small talk over the course of the story*

"I bring my dog everywhere."

*The dog does not come on the adventure*

etc. Like people are just copying their very first planning notes straight into the final work and publishing them.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting article, in which a bbc journalist is far too credulous for my tastes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26577358

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

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if anyone ever followed up with the women who were operated on.

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

[(Anonymous)]

More detail about the cult funding Bowers' 2014 activities in Burkina Faso:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism

I... don't think the reason the local authorities shut it down was that they were stuffy religious meanies who just hated fun, dear bbc journo.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Nonnie, thank you so much for this. I have been reading through this and being entertained and laughing at the freakin' _period party_ and how transparent this thing is, and how bad it is.

Thank you for confirming my bias against recently-published books.

You've worked so hard, well done. This should go down in meme history as one of the big things.

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

[(Anonymous)]

dyrt

<3 <3 <3

This means so much to me!

But, so help me god, I still somehow have another 100 pages to go... D:

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

[(Anonymous)]

Cheering you on, nona! You can take a break if you want, it might be late where you are, and you've done a sporting job of it today.

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

[(Anonymous)]

dyrt

I'm trying to race through it so I can READ SOMETHING ELSE, but then every other sentence is so bad I have to pause to type it up to you guys, so it just never endssssss aaaaarghhh 😅

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

[(Anonymous)]

> I wonder if these authors even know that Egypt is a country in Africa?

You can’t have a country inside another country! That’s, like, totally fake, man