So I read the opening of John Dies at the End because it was recommended as a book to do.
“Dave? This is John. Your pimp says bring the crack shipment tonight, or he’ll be forced to stick you. Meet him where we buried the Korean whore. The one without the goatee.”
And you know what? Nope.
The very next lines are:
That was code. It meant “Come to my place as soon as you can, it’s important.” Code, you know, in case the phone was bugged.
which undoubtedly the author would point to when defending himself. His character doesn’t murder prostitutes! See, the joke is he’s saying something incriminating as code instead of the opposite! It’s hilarious!
And nope.
This could be a funny joke. For example, if the joke was that the police don’t care about prostitutes, so talking about that crime will make anyone listening just ignore you. But the next bit is them continuing the joke by talking about killing the president, so it’s obviously just a laundry list of everything edgy the author could think of in one go.
That’s why part of it is clarifying if the murdered prostitute had a goatee. That doesn’t have anything to do with illegality, so where does it fit in? Well, it’s either a male prostitute, a disgusting female, or a tranny, and the only thing funnier than those existing is murdering them. Haha, it’s ironic? Because it’s something that actually happens because these people aren’t thought of as people, which is also the same thing this joke is doing! And why Korean? Because human trafficking and the inherent abuse is extra hilarious! See, it’s easier to kill those people and bury them in shallow graves. Haha! That’s the sort of high quality layered irony you get from a white guy who uses an Asian penname.
So. Nope.
If you want to find out more about the book, just google it and download it yourself. I’m going to post a bunch of cat pictures and call it a day. They’re probably better than the book.
The Saturday poll appears stable for the moment, so I’m going to be putting up the one where you vote for the next book. I’m going to just do a regular poll this time, so you can express your antipathy toward a given choice just by voting for everything else instead.
I’m adding the next Exalted book, although your votes will not really be controlling much there – if I hit yet more surprise rape in The Host, we’re doing that next because I need a break. I never thought I’d be thinking of running off to Exalted because it was less rapey than YA fiction, and yet here we are.
Oh my God, he named the main characters after himself and his BFFL. God I hate this guy.
I don’t remember any rape in The Host. Granted I’m not sure I remember much of that book. I do seem to remember some pretty abusive behavior between the lead and the love interest. And that the lead’s name is Melanie Stryder. Isn’t quite using your own name in the story but damn is it close!
Yeah, if the Twilight saga is anything to go by, general consent issues will probably be a thing, but we’ll be spared any actual rape or threats of it due to the author’s weird line-in-the-sand prudishness, if nothing else.
ETA: Well I guess there was Rosalie’s backstory, but that’s a rape-and-revenge narrative, which may be kind of tacky but at least isn’t rage-inducing like the shit you’ve been dealing with lately.
“but at least isn’t rage-inducing like the shit you’ve been dealing with lately.”
Really? I found the Rosalie story to be one of the most offensive things in the entire book. :
She tells Bella a story about how she got gang-raped and the fact that she was *raped* doesn’t bother her nearly as much as being unable to have babies that share the same genes as her.
Rather than just having Rosalie explain how she always wanted children, put her in some random fatal situation, then have Carlisle save her life, it HAD to be a gang rape. And then she had to be so offensively blasé about it.
I’m probably missing the point or something, but it almost felt like a cautionary tale. “If you don’t have lots of BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN as soon as you can, you’ll REGRET it. You might even get gang raped!”
…ah. Well, I’d only read second-hand accounts of it, so I may not be the best judge. I just thought it was cool that the first thing she did on changing was murder the Hell out of the bastard.
It is actually even worse. First, there is that “what happened was bad because she can’t have babies now” message. Then there is a story itself which fails from historical perspective (a rich banker during the Depression, really?).
Then you have a nice bit where Rosalie describes her revenge and says something along the lines of “So I killed all five of them – oh, wait, there also were those two bodyguards (who presumably didn’t know anything about gang-rape and just did their jobs. During Great Depression), almost forgot them. I guess it makes seven kills then”.
It is amazing how Meyer manages to make a rape victim avenging her death unsympathetic.
And the icing on the cake is Carlisle’s motivation for turning her: he “was saddened to see such beauty wasted” and vaguely hoped that Edward would hook up with her. So he basically stumbled across dying rape victim and thought “Hey, what a pretty dying woman. Edward would like her. Lets subject her to three days of agony and eternal life as a monster without asking her first. Great idea!”.
Tl;dr: Twilight is fractal bad: every part of it is just as bad as a whole thing.
Suddenly people’s reassurances seem less reassuring.
Nah, there’s no rape in the Host. There is some irritating romance stuff, but no rape.
Fair enough.