Scan barcode
fictionesque's review
1.0
Not shelving in depth because I don't want to promote. This book was sent to me by IngramSpark on accident. I like little chance things like that so I figured I'd give it a try. The TL;DR is that this book has a big misogyny problem, enough to pretty much kill what otherwise might have been a good story.
Syntax/structure/diction/etc is mostly good. There are issues where characters repeat information we've just recently been told. Lot of this dialogue could have been cut out. Formatting is nice. One scene has a character sort of randomly appear who wasn't there before. Major plot hole: why doesn't he call the cops?
This book claims to be a satire but it doesn't seem like the author has enough self-awareness to parody what he's trying to parody. The narrative's framing, from beginning to end, naturalizes male deflection (sometimes that of the protagonist, sometimes just in general), which is the very thing I'd assume a better version of this book would criticize in its narrator.
Ex of what I mean by 'male deflection':
* It makes Kent jealous that other people find his wife attractive. It's her fault for being attractive. She was never really "innocent" or "clean" anyway.
*Kent screws (heh) up and cheats on his wife. It was an unavoidable escalation--it's his "job" to flirt with people. [Admittedly, the implication that miss thang fucked his way up to the top is a little funny. Would have been funnier if we weren't expected to take him seriously].
*Kent murders his brother. In the flashback scene, the lead up to the murder is filled with instances of the brother being a jerk (even though the actual killing was an accident).
*Kent's wife leaves him after he cheats. Framed as the classic "that bitch took everything in the divorce, weewoo divorce rape." Then the wife becomes a pregnant drug mule because without Kent she's nothing.
A generous interpretation would say all of this is part of the satire, but the narrative ultimately rewards Kent despite him not developing at all as a character from beginning to end of the narrative. Just because you show scenes of him shitting himself and throwing himself in a river does not mean he's any less egotistical and selfish than when the story opened. His life sucks because he deserves it, but this book frames it as everybody's fault but his own.
This book seems to posit that healing is about flogging yourself for a while and then stopping, but actual, real healing can never happen until we tell the truth to ourselves. And Kent, right to the very end, just lies and lies and lies some more to absolve himself of responsibility. No one can ever grow or process that way.
It's also hard to take a generous interpretation of the author and his work when he submits to a magazine titled "the eccentricities of women." Jinkies.
Syntax/structure/diction/etc is mostly good. There are issues where characters repeat information we've just recently been told. Lot of this dialogue could have been cut out. Formatting is nice. One scene has a character sort of randomly appear who wasn't there before. Major plot hole: why doesn't he call the cops?
This book claims to be a satire but it doesn't seem like the author has enough self-awareness to parody what he's trying to parody. The narrative's framing, from beginning to end, naturalizes male deflection (sometimes that of the protagonist, sometimes just in general), which is the very thing I'd assume a better version of this book would criticize in its narrator.
Ex of what I mean by 'male deflection':
* It makes Kent jealous that other people find his wife attractive. It's her fault for being attractive. She was never really "innocent" or "clean" anyway.
*Kent screws (heh) up and cheats on his wife. It was an unavoidable escalation--it's his "job" to flirt with people. [Admittedly, the implication that miss thang fucked his way up to the top is a little funny. Would have been funnier if we weren't expected to take him seriously].
*Kent murders his brother. In the flashback scene, the lead up to the murder is filled with instances of the brother being a jerk (even though the actual killing was an accident).
*Kent's wife leaves him after he cheats. Framed as the classic "that bitch took everything in the divorce, weewoo divorce rape." Then the wife becomes a pregnant drug mule because without Kent she's nothing.
A generous interpretation would say all of this is part of the satire, but the narrative ultimately rewards Kent despite him not developing at all as a character from beginning to end of the narrative. Just because you show scenes of him shitting himself and throwing himself in a river does not mean he's any less egotistical and selfish than when the story opened. His life sucks because he deserves it, but this book frames it as everybody's fault but his own.
This book seems to posit that healing is about flogging yourself for a while and then stopping, but actual, real healing can never happen until we tell the truth to ourselves. And Kent, right to the very end, just lies and lies and lies some more to absolve himself of responsibility. No one can ever grow or process that way.
It's also hard to take a generous interpretation of the author and his work when he submits to a magazine titled "the eccentricities of women." Jinkies.
More...