Eighth Post!
Jun. 25th, 2023 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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secretfanspaceIt'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)
(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)
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 06:55 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 07:17 pm (UTC)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.)
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 07:31 pm (UTC)(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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 07:41 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-06 04:28 am (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-06 07:41 am (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-06 07:50 am (UTC)Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 07:50 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:00 pm (UTC)Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:02 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:10 pm (UTC)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...
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:13 pm (UTC)But to make up for that, it is revealed that mother's brother saw her by the beehives, having sex with the cop.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:42 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:50 pm (UTC)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
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 08:53 pm (UTC)AM DEAD)
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:05 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:14 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:22 pm (UTC)...
I was just going to leave this on its own, because it was silly, but as I substituted the love-interest cop's name for something easier for our nonnies to follow, I noticed.
The cop's name is Newcomb
New comb.
It's a bee pun.
GjskfhskfhslahfjfkdjKdhakda
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:40 pm (UTC)Something flickers in Asher's eyes-- relief, but also confusion about why she'd been absolved, while he was put through the wringer.
You and me both, buddy!
It's not explained. Mike says "sometimes accidents are just accidents", and that's that. Dafuq? But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth! If it means the end of the book, that's the main thing. Completely ruins the structure, but who's keeping score; we already had a tonally-inappropriate skunk. We're on page 429, now. I think the authors have got bored because they've run out of stonewall copypasta.
More great prose, this time of the pastoral persuasion:
In late September, the trees turn vain, wearing their fiery tiaras.
And another:
Her car is packed to the gills
Oh, I was wrong! There IS time for a bit more copypasta, albeit mermaids, not stonewall. Here's Lily's mother with the coup de grace:
Her eyes shutter. "I lost a son once, but that was okay, because I gained a daughter. But now..." She shrugs. "Now I have nothing."
We are told that "sadness orbits around" lily's mother. Understandable!
But wait!
Narrator has a plan!
Brb while I get a screenshot of the last page of this masterpiece.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:45 pm (UTC)Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 09:48 pm (UTC)Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 10:05 pm (UTC)A girl called Maya killed the poor sweet innocent tim
The courts just left her to it
The book ends with a bunch of recipes using honey, which makes me feel slightly better about my poor relative having spent actual money on it. Then again, knowing these authors, they've pasted the results of a search: "what foods make with honey".
There are some closing notes from each author. At a glance, Mr. B writes some cringey shit about how great he is, and Jodi P uses it as an opportunity for yet another TRA lecture. Looks like she has a friend who has just "come out" as a "trans man". That's how uncool it's all got.
If there exists such a thing as a fan of this book, avoid them; behind their eyes there blinks the void.
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 10:26 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 10:56 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 11:03 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-05 10:17 pm (UTC)"So she lost a son to gain a daughter to lose a daughter to gain a jar of honey!"
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 01:07 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 08:34 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 08:50 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 08:51 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 09:11 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan) - review hilights
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 12:28 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-06 04:37 am (UTC)>.<
You can't make this up. Is the dissonant tone supposed to make this passage poignant or ? What is the point of including that?
Re: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2023-07-06 07:53 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Books - mad honey (Jodi Picoult, Monsieur Boylan)
Date: 2023-07-06 10:23 am (UTC)From the doylist side, I guess that trial would be a lot terfier because the tim's hormone-induced blood condition would be a major boon to the defense. Can't have that.