Born At Midnight By C.C. Hunter Review

 I  am  Scootaloo.

*TW  For  Slight  Discussion  Of  Rape,  Blatant  Homophobia,  LGBT  Slurs,  Slut-Shaming,  And  Pure  Stupidity*

I'm  glad  to  know  there  is  a  chance  for  me  to  sloppily  rewrite  a  former  book  of  mine  and  get  it  published.  I  can  be  extremely  hateful  to  someone's  personal  situation,  lack  originality,  and  have  page  after  page  of  angst.  That's  Born  At  Midnight.

I  may  as  well  summarize  this  up:  Kylie  was  caught  at  a  party  that  had  drugs.  Her  parents  are  divorcing,  so  they  send  her  to  Shadow  Falls  summer  camp,  a  camp  for  "troubled  teens".  It  turns  out  these  troubled  teens  are  actually  not  troubled  teens,  but  paranormal  creatures.  Kylie  wants  to  deny  it,  but  she  too  is  a  paranormal  creature.

Let  me  tell  you  about  a  YA  novel  I  once  tried  to  write  before  I  realized  what  shit  it  was.  It  involved:

-Vampires  (An  entire  school  just  for  them)

-Angst

-Scenes  where  you  wish  something  would  fucking  happen  already

-Forced  Romance

But  there  was  one  catch  to this!  The  romance  was  gay!  There  were  a  bunch  of  gay,  lesbian,  bisexual,  and  trans*  vampires!  (I'm  serious,  I  was going  to  have  at  least  one  of  every  letter  of  the  LGBT  acronym.)  Before  I  realized  it  sucked,  I  thought  it  was  genius.  Not  only  were  the  vampires  not  going  to  all  be  straight,  but  they  were  not  all  going  to  be  white,  either!  I  didn't  get  that  far  in  the  book,  but  the  main  character's  love  interest  was  Native  American.  There  would  have  been  more  characters  who  weren't  white  later  on,  but  I  didn't  get  very  far.

Anyway,  if  I  did  want  to  rewrite  it,  I'd  have  to  throw  around  a  few  terms  offensive  to  the  LGBT  community,  make  every  fucking  one  straight,  and  have  a  token  non-white  character.  I'd  also  have  to  mock  someone  with  a  serious  medical  condition.  Cause  that's  perfectly  fine,  right  guys?

So,  let's  first  look  at  the  book's  romances  so  we  can  get  them  done  with.  Enter  Jerk  One,  Trey.

Trey:  Sleep  with  me.

Kylie:

So  Trey  goes  and  get's  a  girl  who  will  sleep  with  him.  It  is  bad,  but  so  is  calling  the  girl  a  slut  multiple  times.

Enter  Derek  to  stage  right.

Derek:  "I'm  Fae."

Kylie:  "Oh  so  cool.  He  must  say  Fae  cause  any  guy  who's  Fae  that  calls  himself  'fairy'  must  be  gay.  I  mean,  look  at  how  he  walks.  He  so  doesn't  walk  gay."

Derek:  "I  have  this  weird  thing  with  emotions."

Kylie:  "So  you  can  manipulate  girls  to,  you  know?"

Derek:  "I  only  used  them  to  get  a  girl  to  notice  me.  If  I  used  them  to  sleep  with  her,  that'd  be  rape."

Kylie:  "Oh  I  should  have  never  said  that,  I'm  such  a  bitch."  It's  not  like  we  should  be  concerned  that  studies  have  shown  23%  of  men  surveyed  stated  that  rape  is  acceptable  if  the  woman  asks  the  man  out,  the  man  pays  for  dinner,  or  the  woman  goes  back  to  the  man's  room  after the  date,  totally  not  concerned.

Lucas,  stage  left.

Lucas:  "I  know  I  killed  your  cat,  but  I  protected  you  from  bullies.  Also,  I'm  sexy,  so  love  me."

Kylie:  "Oh  what  to  do?  So  sexy,  but  kitty."

Lucas:  "I  got  you  a  new  cat."

Kylie:  "Yay,  I  love  you."

That  is  the  romance  in  a  nutshell.

So,  let's  discuss  why  this  book  is  so  bigoted.

Sarah  is  a  slut.  She's  slept  with  three,  possibly  five  guys.  She  had  a  pregnancy  scare  and  might  not  get  an  abortion.  She  can  flirt  easily  with  guys.

 

And  Kylie  knows  when  to  tell  a  boy  to  stop,  she's  still  a  virgin,  and  she  can't  flirt  easily.  Clearly  we  should  sympathize  with  her.

I.  Just.  Can't.

It  is  perfectly  acceptable  to  ignore  the  gay  subculture  of  bears  because  clearly  gay  guys  must  be  feminine.  They  MUST  walk  a  certain  way.

You  see  those  guys?  They're  clearly  not  gay  because  they  aren't  feminine.

Also,  it's  perfectly  fine  to  use  "gay"  as  an  insult.  Because  clearly  when  a  guy  vampire  bites  another  guy  by  the  neck  to  turn  him  it's  because  he's  gay  and  not  because  he's  a  fucking  vampire.

Why  am  I  so  mad  at  the  throwing  around  of  gay?  I  get  enough  shit  for  being  a  lesbian  that  I  have  every  right  to  be  mad  at  people  who  throw  around  words  like  "lesbo",  "gay",  "fag",  and  "tranny"  (I'm  not  trans*,  but  I  have  many  trans*  friends).  Those  words  are  never,  ever  OK.

Now  do  any  of  your  relatives/friends  have  brain  tumors?  Have  they  died  from  it?  Well,  it's  not  nearly  as  bad  as  being  a  vampire  or  fairy.  Sure  you  can  live  one  hundred  to  five  hundred  years  as  a  paranormal  creature,  but  OMG!  They're  freaks!  It's  way  better  to  die  a  horrible  death  than  to  be  a  freak!

I  just  can't.  This  is  offensive beyond  reason.

I  reread  this.  It  was  so  bad  that  it  was even  worse  than  last  year  when  I  first  read  it.  What  compelled  me  to  reread  it. . .

The  world  may  never  know.

I  also only  made  it  through  about  160  pages  before  skimming  the  rest.

HOW  DO  YOU  SNEAK  A  LION  INTO  A  CAMP?  Seriously.

It  was  also  offensive  how  it  was  said  paranormals  caused  The  Civil  War.  I  just  can't  understand  what  the  author  thought.  Then  WWII  was  added  as  a  possibility. . .   How  is  this  book  published?

And  that  is  my  jumbled  review  of  this  book,  almost  as  jumbled  as  this  book.  Amaingly,  I'm  rereading  another  book, one  I  am  determined  to  finish.

One  fucking  damn  star.

The Space Between By Brenna Yovanoff Review

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Hey guys, I haven't written a review in a while, so I'm going to do one now, and will be doing many more in the future. I have finally woken up from my hibernation.

This book was a product of the YA market. It had the regular YA feel with the pretty girl in dress cover, the average undeveloped romance, and the bland heroine and hero. It also had vampires, er, demons.
I originally promised myself that I wouldn't read this, knowing it'd be a mythology fail. I was right on target when I thought that many months ago. It was hard to get through, involving me rolling my eyes through what must have been the entire book.
So, let's start first with my feelings on the characters. Nothing seemed really significant about the characters. Daphne and Truman both bored me to tears, their romance fake. The other demons weren't very interesting beyond Beelzeebub and Obie, but they rarely had their time to shine. No, we had to hear about Daphne and Truman.
I don't buy that Daphne couldn't be destroyed; it had special snowflake written all over it.
What the hell did Daphne see in Truman? Sure they were more or less partners in crime, but in love? No.
I hated being in Truman's head. He was very dull, the chapters centered in his mind seeming unneeded, nothing more than extra pages. I never felt anything for him, not for his mother dying, his relationship to his Dad, and not even when he was getting wasted and trying to commit suicide. I just read through his parts, not even hoping it'd get better.
Daphne's sisters were obviously meant to be sluts. Daphne not wanting to be sluts like them, going from guy to guy to guy to guy, was obvious slut-shaming, and it was not OK. Daphne was also a special snowflake. (Wait, so were Daphne and Truman in love because they were both specshool widdle snowflakz?)

Now, let's get onto the mythology. I may get something wrong, and please do point out so, because I only know the Protestant Bible of no particular denomination. There may only be parts specific to Catholicism in this book (and some I was able to understand, others I may not have), so I'll mostly be saying stuff that leans toward Protestantism.
The Hell made of metal? No, the Catholics don't even have that. The Catholics go back 200 years, back when metal cities would have been stories you told children at best.
The demons having fun in Hell? No, Hell is for suffering.
The human stuff in Hell? The Bible states you can take nothing with you when you die, so I'm sure this wouldn't work if a human can bring nothing to Hell.
Basically, why aren't all the demons in Hell suffering? Most of this had nothing to do with mythology and what the Bible says, instead stemming from the authors imagination. The Garden scene I am sure was entirely the author's imagination.
Hell, the author even made Lucifer seem like a good guy. I just can't understand this book. Time and time again I thought of giving up and putting the book down.

The book was somewhat good in the last seventy to fifty pages, though it isn't enough to earn this book another star. It may have to do with my lack of knowledge in Catholicism, or maybe my wish for there to be gore, but it honestly didn't keep me reading. The book just barely picked itself up off the ground, but it so little off the ground you could say the book was still lying in the dirt.

The metal part wasn't even very original, as it reminded me of a book in The Spiderwick Chronicles where some sort of creature (though I can't remember what) wanted to turn the world to metal. The creatures didn't need to breathe. They even froze the girl character in a coffin to look pretty. So it too had pretty girl on cover.

This book was lacking in many, many things. This is my first review in a while, so it may not be as well written as others. I'm usually good at writing reviews for bad books, but this. . . Well, I'm reading Everneath next, and let's hope it's worth at least the three stars I gave it before.

Evermore By Alyson Noel Review

Evermore by Alyson Noel

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Why did I read this book? Of Flying Spaghetti Monster, why did I read this book? It can easily be described in two words as horse shit, but that's be an offense to horse shit everywhere. Besides, I need to make a slightly longer review to repulse you from reading this.



Dun dun dun, let's meet Ever. She's your average special snowflake heroine with psychic powers (that are cool for a while but then "I LOVE DAMEN") and a dead family. She always wears hoodies, sunglasses, and listens to her iPod. . . for some unexplained reason. It's not like she likes doing it but you can't write a YA novel these days without unexplained angst.

Has anyone ever heard of Creepypastas where someone hears or sees something and it causes them to commit suicide (some examples are Lavender Town Syndrome and one where a college girl sees a picture and she's so terrified of it she kills herself)? Well, this puts even Lavender Town Syndrome to shame. I honestly don't know how I made it through this. I wanted to rip this book apart and set it on fucking fire. It was not good.

Miles was a shit head. He treated Ever like crap, stalking and emotionally abusing her, while we still must think he's perfect. I wanted this guy to fucking die (and yet the dick bag's immortal). He was everything love isn't and yet he's the love interest. I ended up repressing almost all he did because he was that fucking bad. How is he someone worth spending eternity with?

Drina was a very forced character with little meaning. She just existed to add plot to an already boring as fuck book.

Miles was the character who was a boy who may as well have been a girl. He WAS the stereotypical, token gay character:

-He was promiscuous and sex-crazed.

-He was Will from Will and Grace except not funny or on Lifetime.

-He's the lead in Hairspray for fuck's sake!

I swear, this is not good representation when his personality is literally being gay! Why? Because being gay is not a personality.

And Haven, our stereotypical Goth. I'm Goth, but I almost never listen to Marilyn Manson. Shock, are all the other Goths kicking me out? Another shock, I'm not Goth just to get attention, I'm Goth because I like being Goth! Could it truly be that I don't want everyone to notice me, but instead I want to feel good about myself? Yes! Will I be the first to follow evil? Anyone can follow evil, not just Goths. Hell, I can see a girl clad all in pink just as easily following an evil spirit, the spirit would just be in a different form. See, I broke another Goth stereotype!

Let's just say no characters were developed, OK? Because I could probably complain about each and every single damn one for hours.



The plot was nonexistent. It was just page after page of shit. All I knew was that Damen was hot but he had a secret, Ever was annoying as fuck, and that my hair was about to be ripped out of my scalp.



There aren't even any GIFS to describe this book.



But guys, I've decided to read Blue Moon. Kill me now.



However, I recovered by reading Persepolis. It was a great book!



View all my reviews

Crossed by Allie Condie Review

Let's take a quiz, everyone! What is this quiz? The quiz where we see if you are a humanist! What is a humanist? A person who wishes to further the goodness of humanity and help humanity prosper! Now, I'll tell you a little story about this subject:

How Your Possibly Ex-Boyfriend (You may still be together) Inspired You To Become A Humanist:
Let's say your boyfriend was a victim of a crime, such as a hate crime, a rape, a victim of the Holocaust or Stalin's purgings (really any genocide), his entire family died, he was abandoned, was a victim of an abusive relationship, think of something bad that could have happened to your boyfriend. Think of how he might be, very depressed, having emotional problems, reclusive, or he could have gotten over it. Getting over any of those things listed above are very hard, but people can learn to get over it. It takes time and it's very hard.
Now, what if your boyfriend is over what happened to him? He knows that even though someone may have hurt him, no one of either gender, race, or some other thing is all truly evil (EX: his mother beat him, he knows not all women are evil, vice versa if his father beat him, not all men are evil). He wants to help other people and learns that telling his story may be hard, but even telling a few people can help. He doesn't have to write a bestselling book on it. Your boyfriend inspires you, so even if you break up you still want to help people.
It may not be your boyfriend who inspires you to do that, it could be a relative, a friend, that person doesn't even have to be male. Their gender doesn't matter or even who they are to you, what matters is they got over something horrible and they are learning to get over it and trust people again. They want to help others. Do you know who that person is? A hero. I can understand why you'd become a humanist because of your boyfriend (or like I said with a relative or friend) if something like that happened again.
Maybe something like that didn't happen to your boyfriend (or the relative or friend) specifically, but someone they knew. If that truly changed their life and yours also when they tell what happened to the person they knew, I would understand why your boyfriend (or relative or friend) made you become a humanist. Maybe his friend was in a hate crime or he helped war refugees. It doesn't matter, as long as you both have a true meaning for why you learn to become humanists.

But if you (and also possibly your boyfriend) become a humanist because you want (and possibly your boyfriend) to rip each others pants off, that isn't humanism. That means you are selfish and don't really care about humanity's oppression.

So, does this book pass the quiz? No. This is false humanism. This book tries to look like it cares about oppressed people in dystopias, that it has a deeper meaning than the horny teenagers who are the main characters, but it doesn't really. The main characters Ky and Cassia are perhaps some of the most selfish people in fiction. They don't care about the people oppressed by the Society in this book, they only care about stopping the Society so that they can be together. It's true, they don't care that the Society is sending off kids and teenagers to die in war, they just want to fuck each other. The only reason they went through so much in this book was for each other, they joined the Rising so they could fight to be together. They don't care about anyone but themselves and their sexual organs. I hate hearing about how this helps us understand oppressed people, it doesn't! It's practically stated in the book Cassia and Ky care for no one else but themselves. What are some reasons each of the characters are selfish?

Cassia:
-Endangers her family even though she ignorantly claimed she isn't trying to so she can be with a boy I feel she isn't truly in love with because we were told they were in love, not shown (I don't think she loves Xander, either).

Ky:
-Also falls in love with Cassia even though I don't understand why.
-Forces a boy to come with him and Vick to escape their oppression just because he looks like Cassia's brother. Yes, a whim that the kid looks like his fuck buddy's brother! He doesn't even give the poor kid a choice!

So, are these characters selfish? Yes. Like I said, they don't want to further the good of humanity. They are NOT heroes. Cassia's boyfriend is NOT, I repeat, is NOT a humanist. Neither is Cassia.

The quiz is done, the book does not get any awards. On with the review.

-They feed full meals at work camps (I never truly understood the camps). Where have you heard of work camps where they feed full meals?
-The places in Utah that were based in real life for the Carving in the book appear to not have changed much over time, and since we have no idea how far in the future we are and with the Warming (which wasn't explained well), so it defies the science of rock changing over time in the rock cycle.
-It was boring and very slow. There was no pace. I literally almost made this a DNF.

We meet new characters and get more characterization of characters we already know (that for some reason we didn't get in the first book). But don't worry, everyone is still robots.
Cassia and Ky really haven't changed.
Vick and Eli were pretty unexplored characters.
Indie? Well, you know how I said Divergent copied Phineas and Ferb? Well, Condie copied Futurama with Indie. 

 How is Indie like Bender?

-They both make boats to escape their evil controllers (Bender from Mom Corp. and Indie from the Society).
-They both really don't know how to boat (Indie got caught, Bender cursed Poseidon).
-They both ended up back on shore (Indie got caught, Bender ended up with the other old robots).
-In the end they both join and cause a rebellion (Indie joining the Rebellion, I can already guess what will happen in the last book. Bender and the other old robots tried to destroy basically all technology and failed).

 

 -They both take place in a poorly explained future (although one is funny, I bet you can guess which one that is).

I also really never understood Indie.
Watch the best Bender clip of this I can find on YouTube since I can't find anything better (the episode's name is "Obsoletely Fabulous"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA0MWKlPN-c

The book is just as homophobic as ever, extremely heteronormative (I've learned the author is a Mormon, possible hint why).

At times the book reminded me greatly of the scenes in Brave New World that takes place in New Mexico, and Condie is still copying Lois Lowry.

I feel sorry for myself. Why? Because I'll most likely read the third book to see how it ends. I didn't like the first book, I also didn't like the second. *Sigh* This book only gets one star. Now excuse me while I actually TRY to further the good of humanity for everyone without any sexual undertones and also go clean my brain with Futurama. Read this if you dare!

XVI by Julia Karr Review

This  book  took  me  so  long  to  read,  it  was  that  painful.  It  confused  me  at  times  and  at  others  I  just  wanted  to  scream.  Long  story  short:  I  DID  NOT  like  this  book.

So,  let's  begin  this  review.

The  world  building  was  awful  and  had  no  explanation  whatsoever  on  anything.  Here's  examples:

1.  You  call  cars  "trannies"?  Every  time  I  read  that  I  continued  to  think  of  transgenders,  which  of  course  the  book  has  none.  It  never  told  why  that  happened  or  how  a  word  associated  with  people  who  are  the  opposite  gender  born  in  the  wrong  body  became  cars,  so  like  other  viewers  pointed  out  on  Goodreads  and  Amazon  (many  of  them  also  thinking  of  transgenders  and  transsexuals  during  this)  considered  useless.  Books  have  parts  that  can  tick  me  off,  that  definitely  did.

2.  Everyone's  vegetarian?  I  guess  the  author  is  one  and  decided  everyone  in  this  world  should  be,  too.  There  was  no  explanation  at  how  this  happened  and  made  the  times  when  everyone  ate  have  that  stick  in  my  head.  There  has  to  be  good  reasoning  for  it,  but  there  is  none.  And  yet  they  still  breed  animals?  Do  they  keep  them  under  constant  guidance  so  they  don't  breed  too  much  because  without  eating  them  they  just  stand  around  in  zoos,  clearly  they  have  to  make  sure  they  don't  take  up  too  much  space.

3.  The  Reproductive  Rights  of  Women.  This  was  mentioned  in  the  book  and  I  found  it  hard  to  believe.  This  society  seems  like  the  last  place  where  women  would  be  shooting  out  babies,  you'd  think  this  society  mastered  birth  control!  But  no,  girls  have  constant  sex  but  they  still  get  pregnant  because  of  it.  Wow.

4.  The  Tattoo.  The  tattoo  seemed  useless,  why  bother  with  it  because  I'm  sure  forty  year  old  men  had  sex  with  their  six  year  old  daughter,  anyway. 

5.  Slut  Shaming.  All  that  ever  happened  was  Sandy  got  slut  shamed,  by  her  clothes,  by  the  way  she  acted,  just  for  having  a  freaking  sexuality!  I  know  women  have  strong  sexual  desires  like  men,  forget  the  good  girl  crap!  She's  also  super  stupid,  a  total  stereotype!  Sandy  is  treated  like  dirt,  by  people  who  apparently  don't  have  sex  and  therefore  are  above  them.  Thank  you  Julia  Karr,  you  can  go  back  to  your  abstinence  only  education  class!  It's  the  only  class  I  seem  to  fail  in  (I've  been  in  one  before  and  it's  like  birth  control  doesn't  even  exist,  needless  to  say  I  plan  on  finding  some  way  out  of  it  this  year.  If  I  don't  I'm  actually  tempted  to  buy  a  pleasure  pack  from  the  gas  station  just  so  I  can  break  the  teacher  into  at  least  acknowledging  it).  And  of  course  the  stereotype  of  teens  take  control  of  their  sexuality  and  then  someone  dies  (Sarah  Dessen's  Someone  Like  You  ring  a  bell?)!  In  this  case,  she  dies.  Wow.

6.  How  Did  This Happen?  It  wasn't  explained  at  all  other  than  there  was some  treaty,  which  still  had  no  explanation.  Really?  People  live  on  Venus  for  crying  out  loud  and  it  wasn't  explained  at  all!  I  mean  that  would  have  to  some  serious  changes  for  humans  to  even  be  able  to  reach  the  surface!  Can  you  take  a  science  lesson?  Why  aren't  there  more  outspoken  Christians  because  there  are  a  few  churches  left,  and  I  may  be an  Atheist  but  I  have  some  of  Jesus  Freaks  and  there  were  people  against  the  Nazis,  the  Romans,  and  the  Soviet  Union,  clearly  there  would  be  a  bunch  of  JF's  there.  So  do  I  find  this  realistic?  With  no  explanation,  then  no,  I  don't.

7.  George  Orwell.  I  was  sick  at  the  constant 1984  references.  1984  was  a  great  book,  and  it  was  anti-sex  (Brave  New  World  however  was  far  more  believable).  This  place  had  a  bunch  of  dead  zones  (gee,  wouldn't  the  government  worry  about  that?)  but  in  Orwell's  even  the  Proles  land  was  dangerous.  And  wouldn't  you  think  she  wold  have  mentioned  Brave  New  World  of  all  books?  The  promiscuity  (although  women  were  much  better  treated  in  Huxley's  and  far  more  believable),  the  tight  cast  system,  but  I'm  sure  Karr's  never  even  read  a  single  work  by  Huxley!  I  have  no  more  to  say  on  this.

8.  GLBT.  So  are  there  any  gays  or  lesbians?  I  expect  to  see  rent  boys  running  around  because  gays  won't  fall off  the  earth.  I  could  easily  believe  those  government  leaders  had  sex  with  men,  too.  And  trans?  No,  they're  just  cars.

9.  AVEN.  I  could  understand  more  if  Nina  were  asexual,  but  no  she's  a  heterosexual  but  won't  have  sex,  which  can  be  fine,  but  in  the  end,  no.  There  aren't  any  asexuals  in  this  book,  either.  No  gays,  lesbians,  transgenders  and  transsexuals,  hey  probably  even  transvestites  for  crying  out  loud,  asexuals, or  dodo  birds. 

I  don't  consider  this  a  feminist  work.  The  men  are  sex  monsters,  the  women  are  too  dang  submissive,  and  it  reminds  me  too  much  of  Christian  stereotypes.  I  didn't  like  this  at  all,  and  it  felt  like  it  wa s written  for  a  church.

I  give  this  one  tiny  little  star.  I  hated  this  book  and  I  won't  bother  with  the  sequel.

Read  instead:

Brave  New  World  by  Aldous  Huxley

1984  by  George  Orwell

Heck,  may  as  well  go  read  Naomi  Wolf  for  crying  out  loud!