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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 )

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From: (Anonymous)

Asher describes all the things he loved about tim. This consists in a list of all the random facts tim told him. "Wow, these must be some facts!" you say. Regard!

"She *knew* things -- all the lyrics to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'"

🤷

So, we pick ourselves up off the floor, and the scene continues. Sure enough, asher confirms he knew that tim was tim. Normally I am pleased when I accurately predict books, but this would be a hollow victory. It has been obvious from the moment they introduced this dumb "pretend you didn't know" plot that he was going to have a dramatic court moment in which he told a roomful of people that trans women are women! Thinking about it, I bet he's going to use that exact phrase, in a triumphant chant. Maybe the whole court will chant with him, and then spill out of the courthouse, onto the road, and roll up the whole fucking planet in a big chanting katamari that will zoom off into the sun and extinguish all life on earth

...where was I?

From: (Anonymous)

Asher's manner in court is described as "transcendent".

Also, it's just hit me that probably the reason for going so hard on making the mother wrongly suspect the son is just a big "see, terfs! You see abusers everywhere, but you're wrong! Not all men! And NEVER men who believe TWAW!"

Page 372, so the book still has time to redeem (well, no, improve) itself. Maybe they'll get dark and make asher have done it. Maybe they'll make him innocent but send him to jail anyway, because so far his defense has come down to his football coach and his mother saying he's a nice person, which isn't the best shield against a murder charge. Maybe tim will come back as a zombie and liven things up for the last 50 pages by playing a GHOST CELLO.

But who am I kidding.

From: (Anonymous)

Well, what else would he be? Ciscendent?

From: (Anonymous)

Another memory wipe. Asher understood the strategy earlier. But after his testimony, we get:

In the rearview mirror, I see Asher's wide, satisfied smile. 'That was great, right?' he says, beaming. 'I told you.'
Jordan twists in the passenger seat. "No, Asher, that was not great. In a single hour, you undermined my entire defense."

I laughed quite hard.

I will say, Asher has been consistently really thick, emotional and impulsive in this book. He doesn't feel like a real person, but it's something, I guess.

Atmosphere in the house bad, so mother goes out drinking with Selena, who is definitely a psychopath:

"My son is going to jail and he won't even say goodbye to me."

"Technically he'll go to prison," Selena says. "Jail's when it's for less than one year."

[...]

I look Selena in the eye. "You know Asher. You've known him his whole life. Do you think he's guilty?"

[...] "Good people do bad things all the time. Even Jeffrey Dahmer had a mother."

Then a bartender notices a thumb-shaped bruise on Selena's shoulder, and tells her to leave her husband, narrator's bro. Narrator is horrified that her bro is abusive. But fear not!

"Your brother isn't like Braden. He doesn't lay his hands on me... unless I expressly invite him to."

I recoil. "Ew," I say

From: (Anonymous)

Plot twist! tim's bruises are probably from taking estrogen, not from being attacked!

I kind of hope we get one final flashback, in which we learn he tripped over his own feet and caused a mountain of trouble for everyone, the end.

mother's son still feels betrayed and is not talking to her:

"We have existed in a silent ballet, him choreographing his movements to elegantly avoid contact with me."

👯

anyway some other expert pathologist is called to the stand to talk about the bruising stuff. He gives some tech details, then mentions that he likes Dire Straits, for no reason.

Anyway, bombshell. Lily had a raaaaare blood illness that made his brain bleed! It can apparently cause brain dysfunction, which explains a lot.

AND THEN

The pathologist explains that the fatal blood illness... can be caused by taking estrogen!

Holy shit this book is so cancelled.

🤣

From: (Anonymous)

Book says condition can be acquired by taking estrogen, and causes kidney, heart and brain dysfunction. Says it causes seizures in 20% of cases. Suggests Lily became dizzy, fell down stairs, hit head and died.

I know this book will probably spin this as "why we need MORE trans healthcare" but the accidental terfery of it all continues to amuse me.

383 pages into this courtroom thriller, it explains the concept of reasonable doubt. I cannot for the life of me work out who this dumb book is aimed at. It can't be children, because of the bladder orgasms. It can't be adults, because *waves hand at everything else*. Can it really be handcrafted for the chirpy spidermites of danspace?

"Your verdict needs to be unanimous," the judge says. "You need to listen to everyone else's opinions, but come to your own conclusion."

How ironic. Keep an open mind... But shut it, once you've decided.

I... huh? But that's not what that... what?

Ehhhh, I'll just assume narrator is just way too stressed and no longer capable of thinking rationally at this point.

Pages pass. Mother suddenly realises son is not guilty, because "you don't remove from your world the one person who fills it". This book ain't never seen no murder-suicide men.

But anyway. The defense pushes the "tim had rare condition and just fell down the stairs" story; the prosecution push the more plausible "abusive bf pushed tim down the stairs" story. This is all interspersed with bf's mother's revelations about how bf loved tim so couldn't possibly have done it. While I've consistently got the vibe that that's where the book has been headed with this (because otherwise the book might imply that a tim can never find true luff!), the bf HAS been the most accurate depiction of an abuser in the book, so oops.

What I'm skimming past is how fucking offensive this book is. As predicted, it's devolved into "silly women, stop suspecting the Nice men of abuse, you're projecting", and it is now comparing being "a different person" (or "who you've
always been inside") after leaving an abusive relationship to being "a different person" by disguising your sex and having some creep cut off your genitals. "when you were with Dad, he wanted you to be someone you weren't". OH PISS OFF.

But that's a downer, and it's time to stop for the day. So instead, you oughtta know that this chapter ends with bf and mother sharing a bowl of ice cream, in reconciliation. 😪 And I'm going to amuse myself my imagining that the authors deluded themselves into thinking that this would be The Book To Sway Rowling.

From: (Anonymous)

I was bad and just looked at an interview, I only looked at the first question and closed it, so no spoilers, but OMFG:

Literary Hub: Who do you most wish would read your book?

Jodi Picoult: J.K. Rowling. She is one of the most vocal trans-exclusive radical feminists, and she seems to be using her platform these days to exclude trans women from the overarching category of “women”—claiming that being inclusive somehow diminishes women. She also, as a victim of abuse, points to trans women and alleges that too many are really just men hoping to get into women’s safe spaces to hurt them… when in reality, a trans woman is far more likely to be hurt than a cisgender woman. One of the reasons for making Olivia a former victim of abuse in Mad Honey was to give an example of a battered women who can still choose compassion and understanding, when it comes to gender identity.

These people are such fucking morons.

That said, I wonder what it's like, to be Picoult? To be a being that has a mind that can be held entirely within the average dan's? Does time seem to pass faster for her, as her brain makes its calculations at leisurely pace? Does she hear as many sounds, see as many sights, taste as many tastes? When I try to picture the inner landscape of the being that could author this book, the images I get are of stones sinking into muddy ponds-- silently, and without trace. But then, I think of the sort of person who could be overwhelmed at the thought of counting in German backwards, and I think, perhaps the world is an assault on her senses after all.

From: (Anonymous)

(you may wonder why I ignore agp author. The answer is that I assume he did barely any work and just left it to her.)

From: (Anonymous)

And we're back! I've put some music on to get us in the party mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CvqmD0CZao

Scene of tim practicing for his school orchestra. he muses on how instruments are needlessly gendered (eg: girls playing flutes, boys playing basses), and how it's nice to see people breaking stereotypes with them, which is fair enough. this is the kind of awareness i was hoping would spread further via the trans movement, back when i thought it was a good thing. eh. tim reflects that his own choice was influenced by his socialisation; that he has been influenced by societal expectations even from childhood; indeed! but no deeper insight gained.

anyway, the main thing i take from this scene isn't political, it's that this sounds like a MASSIVE school orchestra. the school is meant to be out in the sticks, in a tiny rural town where everyone knows everyone, but they have: tubas (plural!), trombones, trumpets, french horn, bassoons, clarinets, flutes, basses (plural again!), cellos (at least 3!), violas, violins, A HARP, an oboe, percussion and kettle drums. maybe I should be relieved that it sounds like these authors have never set foot in a school.

the book presents the cello as associated with boys, which may be true somewhere but nearly every cellist I know is female, so feels a bit odd to harp on about it. (er, cello on about it? ANYWAY) but who knows how these things vary. what's dodgier is that he speculates that he wanted to play it because it was the shape of a woman. :/.

tim remembers people mistaking him for a girl as a kid, and wonders whether they sensed 'something in [his] spirit'. yeah, sure, it's probably that. his dad comes across as Not That Bad again; when tim is 7, his dad says he can't wear a dress outside the house, 'This shit has to stop somewhere'. This book isn't doing a great job of convincing me that the dad is evil rather than just clumsily trying to protect his kid from bullies. he hasn't prevented tim from wearing dresses outright, and around the same time it sounds like the other boys start excluding him, so it sounds like dad might have been reacting to that. (tim claims he phones a friend up, aged 7, and asks if he wants to come over and play vidya and friend says no. sounds a bit young to be organising via the phone like that, but maybe it varies).

though, tim is dramatic (*gasp!*), because he concludes that he has NO friends after a single phonecall with one kid, in which the kid says he doesn't feel like hanging out. since the kid doesn't have a reason, just doesn't feel like it, tim freaks out and bursts into tears at the rejection. so... well, he's 7, but this whole setup is told in the usual dramatic picoult style and it's just ?????? anyway this scenario is a great microcosm of the trans movement.

So, alone in the world, tim just plays vidya and cello a lot. "I got really good with the cello as a result, maybe because I have a good ear."

Nobody involved with the writing of this book has a good ear.

"Mostly, though, I was just driven by loneliness. I held that cello in my arms, and let her form the sounds I felt so keenly in my heart but had no other way to express."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVem8hpVwsw

then, one day, his mom gets him a dog. it's marvellous! tim's thrilled. thrilled even after this:

"There," she said. "*Now* you have a friend."

erm.

From: (Anonymous)

another tiresome scene of creepy jock hitting on tim. asher interrupts (their first meeting!) and scares off jock by putting his arm round tim's waist; red flag! but tim is pleased. asher is described as having blond curly hair. whoops, I've been picturing it as straight for the whole book. tbf, it might have said it was curly and I just zoomed past. I do a lot of zooming past while reading this book.

paragraphs in which everyone compliments the tim on his cello-playing. oh, fuck offffff. he is described as 'hardcore'. Maya tells him she can always tell when someone's serious about music. he replies that he's been playing since third grade. She says 'same'. the arrogance of these authors is so exasperating. (remember, this kid wants to study at a conservatory! it grates that the authors didn't even bother to learn the usual proficiency for music, before writing their Accidentally Average mary sue. admittedly i'm slightly grumpier than I would normally be because I've wanted a cello for a while, but there's no room, and reading this makes me feel like I've got a couple of tone-deaf creatures dangling my lack-of-cello over me. But envy aside, the music in this book is shittily written, and there's a lot of it. the tim comes across as a perfectly adequate high school cellist, while all the characters fall over themselves to praise him. tims gonna tim.)

From: (Anonymous)

I'm still hung up on this. Like, sure, there are a lot of people who would think 'hardcore!' if you said you started learning an instrument at 7. But not many in the potentially-serious-musician crowd; they're nearly all snobs who started as babies. :P Their families have usually been playing for generations, and if they're starting an instrument at 7, it's their third instrument.

(and it has just occurred to me that an earlier scene, where tim was finding the rest of the band played badly, wasn't just for humor, it was meant to show that he was 1000000x better than the rest of them... fuck's saaaake...)

anyway, enough Oddly Specific Band Gripes from this nonny. this had just been annoying me all the way through the book and I hadn't said that much on it.

From: (Anonymous)

Ha, I went to school in a swanky rich people neighborhood. Every student was expected to learn an instrument in fourth grade, and I don't just mean a recorder.

The orchestra composition is wild to me too, because even with our inflated parental budgets we couldn't find anyone to play the harp. We had one tuba player and a guy who had to do double duty on oboe and bassoon even though he was a pianist. No shortage of cellos and basses, though, although a lot of them were violinists who switched over so they could have a place in the orchestra.

From: (Anonymous)

+1 to the orchestra composition not being too crazy. Although multiple bassoons and french horns sounds suspicious. And a harp is similarly sus.

Also, from an American dan who knew a few people who attended conservatory... 7 is a normal/late age to start violin or piano but would be an unusually early age to start a wind instrument. Not sure about cello. I knew a fair number of cellists who started on violin and then switched but I don't have a complete picture because as a not exceptional wind player I avoided the strings whenever possible. Except for the bassists. They were chill.

From: (Anonymous)

Right? I'm sure it varies from school to school, year to year, but my school orchestra (which was terrible) was likely the best in the area (I say this bc we had a coveted contract to play a certain gig every year, not trying to flex xD) and we still needed teachers and ex-teachers to bulk the band out for performances to get anywhere nearrrrr this size and diversity. And we weren't out in the sticks (and most students were well off). The book one is meant to just be a regular rehearsal. You could have a kid playing any one of these instruments, but you wouldn't see them all at the same time, because the kids double up the way you describe. I HAD a friend that brought a harp to rehearsal, once. It was the only time it happened in 7 years, and the band went without her main instrument that rehearsal. And it was a lever harp, not pedal. I don't think I've ever even seen one of those in person. Tbf book doesn't specify.

It's a daft nitpick but I spent a lot of time in the room with that terrible band, so if outsized-orchestra-pedantry must be my compensation, so be it.

From: (Anonymous)

But yeah, this dan hath seen the fabled Band Harp, and this is STILL sus.

From: (Anonymous)

narrator remembers the eowyn scene from lotr (of course). pet lotr-fan dispatched to check whether she's describing the scene from the book, or describing the film and trying to pass it off as the book version again.

narrator talks about never getting to choose the books she read with her abusive ex as a couple, and lists the books she *would* have read, in an excuse for authors to namedrop some authors they think sufficiently highbrow. this isn't the first time they've done a list like this.

(lotr-researcher has returned with the results! ambiguous. events don't unfold quite as swiftly as written, but could be excused as a bit of dramatic flair. guess we'll let this one stand. this time. I'm disappointed; I was looking forward to mocking; but I am a nonny of principle.)

We're on page 401. 40 to go.

Jury is taking its time deliberating. 1 day. 2. Mother worries. Selena continues to be psychopath:

Just then Selena bombs into the kitchen. She drops her keys on the counter and brandishes a bottle of Tito's.

"You know what passes the time?" she says. "Shots"

The next day, you'll never guess what happens...

No, seriously, try to guess. I 100% promise you you won't guess the next plot twist of this book. I realise this sounds like I'm being sarcastic, I'm not. I would bet thousands that not one of you would guess the next twist. That sounds more sarcastic! I don't know how to sound not sarcastic.

Anyway, spend a few seconds trying to guess the next plot point.

From: (Anonymous)

Please tell me they don't have a drunk fling.

From: (Anonymous)

drumroll...

A skunk has attacked the bees!

No. I have no idea what the fuck artistic decision-making process was behind this one. 'a jury is deliberating over sending the narrator's son to prison, for life, for murder. we need something to really emphasise the tone.'

'a comedy animal known for its stinky butt?'

'PERFECT'

So that's what we've got. Skunk attack!

What's more, the mother names all her queen bees after pop divas. So at this tense juncture, we get this sentence:

"Sometimes skunks skulk around the hives at night. They scratch until the bees are coaxed out, swat them till they're injured, and eat them live. Around Lady Gaga's colony I see claw marks at the entrance and scat on the matted grass. Even though it is early and still cool outside, Gaga's bees are agitated and flying, irritably charging my veil, their buzz as high-pitched as a helicopter's whine."

the the cop shows up, watches her do bee things in her bee suit, hits on her, grabs her and kisses her, and she's into it.

tonal consistency, baby.

From: (Anonymous)

Time for the verdict! This is quite tense, and this is the sort of trash I THOUGHT I was getting with a Jodi Picoult book. So no complaints here.

I considered putting the verdict in spoiler text, just in case someone wanted to read this clusterfuck with the mystery intact. But let's be real, that fails at the the 'someone wanted to read this' part.

So!

Without further ado!

The court find asher................................................................... not guilty!

I assume the judge is now going to give asher a lecture on how he wouldn't have got away with it were he not Privileged. Come on, authors, don't let me down...

From: (Anonymous)

No judge lecture! I FEEL CHEATED.

But to make up for that, it is revealed that mother's brother saw her by the beehives, having sex with the cop.

From: (Anonymous)

(incidentally, I was really wondering what they were going to do for the next 30 pages, given the main drama of the book was over. Guess it was... that.)

Her brother tells her to use protection, anyway. Which is already weird and incesty as everything else in their dynamic, but then also hilarious given her son has just been on trial for murder, so it really sounds like 'fucking hell, don't have another one'.

another tim flashback. why hasn't this book ended. we're on page 411.

tim describes his mother as 'the biggest badass I know' and it's as embarrassing as all the other transparent manipulation attempts in this book.

a delivery guy hits on the tim. poor lily, so sexy, so dead. we get a scene that I think is supposed to be moving, where tim graciously acknowledges that his mother may keep her photos of him as a boy. mighty good of you, sir.

we next get a description of tim as a kid, where he sounds like an absolutely stereotypical gnc gay kid, wearing a princess costume and announcing himself as queen of the fairies. ;-; His dad is angry ("jesus fucking christ!") and we get a snippet of the argument between father and mother. prepare yourself for the eeeeeeeeevil father!

"my mother saying, *We have to let him be himself*, and my father saying, *We can't let him get crushed by the world*.

Monstrous.

His dad insists he goes to an all-boys school, to 'learn how to be a man'. tbf that's fucked up. kid goes, is bullied, called a 'faggot'. the bullying and liam's reaction to it read as quite realistic, but there is absolutely no acknowledgement that liam is a gay kid being bullied for being gay. oh well, book doesn't have to acknowledge it, I suppose.

liam dresses up more, kids bully him more, dad gets pissed. liam goes all-out, donning his mum's makeup, bra and clothes. dad gets aggro and physically abusive. We FINALLY see the dad actually doing something inexcusable!

up to here, it's quite realistic, and probably the best part of the book, but at this point it gets fucking silly (again). dad hits liam so hard that liam is knocked off his feet, flies across the room, and cracks his head against the wall. liam is knocked out, because that's what happens every time you hit your head in a story. while liam is knocked out, his dad ties him to a kitchen chair with a clothesline, and starts cutting his hair off.

liam spits at his dad, his dad pushes over the chair with liam on it, drives off and leaves liam there on the floor. liam's mom gets back, and we all know the rest.

poor jackie. both his parents suck.

but am amused at how the dad went from 0 to 'punching and tying to a chair', just like the other abusive father in this book. I'm looking forward to seeing author interviews after I finish, and laughing myself silly.

From: (Anonymous)

Aaaaaand another million paragraphs of 'what is a woman, really?' WHY IS THIS BOOK STILL GOING. YOU ALREADY DID THIS BIT. IT'S JUST AS SHIT AS IT WAS THE FIRST TIME.

And then we get a definition of 'woman'! Prepare yourselves, nonnen.

"As we drove east, we kept coming up with a list of all the things people use to define women-- but we'd always find an exception or some rare difference that belied the binary definition. Until at one point my mother suggested that being a woman, for some people, might mean just not being a man."

https://s2982.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/throwing-book.jpg

From: (Anonymous)

(to that, my friend muses, "then she didn't really qualify, did she?"

AM DEAD)

From: (Anonymous)

lily resolves to live his life "with power, and fierceness, and with love". sure, whatever, just don't narrate any more of it, please. I still have TWENTY damn pages!

Mother narrates the awkwardness of life after the trial. Asher spends his days sitting amid some lilies that he planted under the treehouse where he and lily first had sex. Some prose which I think is supposed to be beautiful:

Sometimes he sits with his head bowed, being coronated by the sun. King of solitude, ruler of nothing.

Deep.

Maya shows up. She didn't visit for 3 weeks after the trial, because her moms wouldn't let her in case the stigma spread. You're 18, Maya!

AND THEN, PLOT TWIST

Okay, I did NOT see this coming

Maya killed Lily!!!

ahahahahahaha this fucking book

We're on page 425, and the authors have decided that maya wanted to date asher, so she got in a fight with lily, shoved her and accidentally killed her

I didn't think it was POSSIBLE to make this book worse, but they found a way.

This plot twist was literally too stupid to guess. Kudos, authors.

From: (Anonymous)

So, turns out my friend was actually quite close with guessing that they'd make jkr responsible somehow. If the character weren't called 'Maya', I'd assume they'd tacked this on at the last minute to avoid saying 'cross sex hormones killed the tim'.

But there we are.

"When Maya finishes talking, the truth presses between us like an iron, hissing."

[...]

"A shudder runs the length of my spine. Here is the ultimate irony: Lily Campanello was not killed because someone was threatened by her being trans.
She was killed because someone was threatened by her being a *woman*."

(https://imgur.io/GIos5UM?r just saying)

Maya asks Asher to keep it secret that she killed Lily. But as the next block of narration tells us, it's futile, BECAUSE:

"There can only be one queen in a hive."

I'm not sure if I'm reading or if I'm hallucinating at this point.

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Styles

Page Summary

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

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