After months, almost half a year, I finished The Stand by Stephen King.
I wanna start out by saying that I enjoyed it for the most part. I know a lot of people consider it to be his best work. I still have a hard on for the final installment of The Dark Tower series that shares the same name, but I do think this one is in my top five for sure.
My favorite character in the entire book was Nick. Favorite is a bit of an understatement, I think. I was in love with Nick. Like, I am ready to dive headfirst into some fanfiction and read some sweet, sweet Nick scenes over and over again. If Nick was real, my fiancé would have some real hard competition. Do you get what I’m saying here? I have feels for Nick in the worst of ways, and it is probably not healthy. NICK was the BACKBONE of the whole shebang, and what does King decide to do after he birthed this magnificent human being into existence?
Stephen King took my heart and crushed it like a stale cigarette.
If I ever have the chance to meet him again and actually talk to him, I’m going to have some strong words.
I recently wrote a post in a Stephen King group about this very same topic, to which I got a multitude of responses. Most people agreed with me, so in that aspect, I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt real attraction to a fictional character. I’m also worried about what that says about us as a whole. I don’t think this is a normal thing. Like, I embrace it, but cautiously.
Some people told me basically to get over it, since it is a Stephen King book, and the man has a knack for killing off the most beloved characters. To that, I lovingly say ‘fuck off,’ because it’s not the same. Stephen King has a knack for killing off beloved characters in a satisfying way that gives the reader some closure. I would provide examples, but I don’t want to spoil any more stories than this one. Just take my word for it. I have loved other characters of his, and at the time of their death, while yes, I was devastated, I was also accepting of the fact. My favorite character is dead, but their friends are grieving with me, so it’s going to be okay.
A large handful of people agreed with me, that yes, Nick’s death comes out of nowhere, and yes, the characters did not grieve in the way I wanted. However, the part I was missing was the fact that these people had already experienced so much loss before Nick’s passing. How could I blame them for being numb to it all? And to that, I say…you’re right. Everyone lost their families, their friends, the people who were closest to them. Who had I lost? Who had the readers as a whole lost? Their best friend, Nick.
That speaks to me.
While I felt for (and maybe you did, too!) everyone who lost someone during the pandemic, I couldn’t take part in their pain. I only had a few pages of knowledge about the relationship between them and their loved ones, while they had a whole lifetime with them. I could only share in their pain when I lost someone, too. That someone just so happened to be Nick.
In the end of it all, I suppose I need to be grateful that King created a character so real I could almost touch him. He was made from nothing, and when he returned to nothing, I felt a hole where he once stood. That’s some powerful stuff. That’s why he’s one of my all-time favorite authors.
And, when it comes right down to it, I guess I hope that one day I can do the same thing. I hope that in my own writing, I can create someone that feels real, not just to me, but to another living person. I hope that I can illicit this outpouring of emotion, whether it be good or bad, like he has done for me and countless other people.
I think a lot of authors getting a feel for the ropes want to be famous. As for me, that’s not what I strive for. Don’t get me wrong, selling books to get by sounds amazing. However, in the end, I want to give what authors like King have given to me: an escape.
All that stuff aside, the book was solid. It had several likeable antagonists (Flagg, Lloyd, Trashcan Man), a couple of likeable protagonists (Nick, Tom, Gene, Larry), and some damn fine storytelling throughout. He did a fantastic job of showing the “bad guys” not as monsters who were all out for blood, but real-life people who were just as good as you or me.
As for a rating, I’ll give it an 8/10. You probably think I docked it because of what happened to Nick. You’d be wrong. This baby doesn’t get a solid 10 from me because I didn’t like Stu or Fran, and they got the most screen time out of anyone. They were the main mains, and I wasn’t here for it.
And Nick exploding didn’t help.
Before I end this off, I shared a couple songs when I finished The Dark Tower, and that was kind of fun. So here’s a couple songs that feel like The Stand to me.
This first one reminds me of Nick. It feels sad and a little hopeless, which is something I imagine Nick felt a lot of throughout his journey:::
And this one reminds me of the overall fight between good and evil in the story. It’s less sad, more angry. It’s something I associate especially with those in the Free Zone. Listen to the lyrics:::
Have you read The Stand? God, I hope so, otherwise you just got something big ruined for you. Who was your favorite character, and why was it Nick? I’m just kidding. But really, tell me who your favorite was. If it was Stu or Fran, please tell me what it is about either of them that tickled your fancy. My cousin loves both of them, and I just don’t get it. Tell me your thoughts down below!!
I want to start out by saying that I enjoy Tim Burton’s projects. His art touches me in a way no other entertainer does. He’s all sharp angles and dark whimsy. You know who he is; you know what I mean. He’s someone that speaks to all those who, like me, have a weird little heart.
However, like the Wizard chilling behind a curtain in his castle in Oz, not everything is quite as it seems. Or so it would seem. The mirrors crack, the smoke fades, and we’re left with just a man.
Let’s reminisce a little first, though.
The Appeal
I can still remember the first time I watched Nightmare before Christmas. I was young, staying with my siblings at my cousin’s house. Our parents went out for the night (probably gambling, let’s be real), and they had left us to our own devices. There were eight of us in the house, four kids on each side, each pair almost the exact same age as the other. It’s like our mom’s were on a mission and their biological whatnots were in sync. Kinda crazy if you think about it.
Anyway, I was with my cousin in the den, and our parents had either rented or bought the movie for us to watch so we would stay out of everyone else’s hair. I remember it was scary in some spots, but not so bad I got nightmares. After we watched it all the way through, we rewound it to the part where Jack first goes to Christmas Town, after he sings his iconic What’s This song, and he runs into the pole. We laughed a lot. I also remember wanting to eat the snow. I remember falling in love with Jack Skellington, and all the spooky things involved with him. I don’t know if that movie completely molded who I am today as a person, but it definitely set some things in motion.
I watched that movie for years to come, sometimes multiple viewings in a row because I didn’t feel like I appreciated it enough the first run through. I still bust it out to this day, devouring it piece by piece, falling in love with a walking, talking, singing skeleton over and over again. I grew with it up to the age when I realized it’s not just about Halloween and Christmas, but about a guy stuck in a rut and depressed and searching for something to make life exciting again. It’s about trying to run from your problems and having to come back and face them head on. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but where you water it.
Nightmare before Christmas had some very grown-up themes for a kid’s movie. I think that’s a big reason why I still consider it a part of my life as a 31-year-old. It’s a masterpiece, in my humble opinion.
Fast forward several years later. I was in college when Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland came out. This was not the film of the century. It’s not as influential as Nightmare was by any means, but it’s a favorite of mine. Any version of Alice has a special place in my heart. I love the story of it. The whimsy. The implied drug use (even though that’s just a theory everyone clung onto and is in no way the real deal).
I remember seeing this film as well. It must have been a break of some sort because I was at home. A simple Google search could answer this for me in a second, but the exact time frame isn’t important. I was at work, and my sister text me to see if I wanted to go with her. I, of course, did, but the movie started about a half hour before the end of my shift. We decided I could still make it, that I’d only miss the previews. I clocked out at ten til, because that was legal for Walmart standards at the time, and made a mad dash over there. She’d bought my ticket despite me telling her not to, we ran into a half empty (or half full??) theater, and I was blown away enough to buy the DVD when it came out. We repeated the process almost word for word when the sequel came out. The theater was our happy place.
Again, this wasn’t a masterpiece. The plot won’t stick with me the same way as Nightmare. I will grow older, and it will stay very much the same. And the important thing to get out of this is that’s okay. Not everything you consume has the obligation to be a mindfuck. Entertainment does not always need to have layers upon layers of deeper meaning. Alice in Wonderland was a feel-good movie with enough bizarre imagery to make it undeniably Burton. That was enough for me.
Fast forward again. It’s November of 2019, and I’m in Vegas with my soon to be fiancé. I had just been to Vegas a few months prior for my coworker’s birthday trip, but I chose to go back. On one hand, I was doing the good girlfriend thing: My fiancé got the go ahead to hit up SEMA, a personal goal of his. I’ll be real with you. Cars interest me not in the slightest but seeing him happy makes me happy. Yanno, that lovey-dovey bullshit. I had my own reasons for joining him to Vegas for the second time in a year.
The Tim Burton exhibit.
Lost Vegas.
Words don’t do it justice, so I’ll just share some of my favorite pictures with you.
This was truly a once in a lifetime experience. It’s one I will never forget, and I’m so grateful to have gone.
The Bad
What celebrity hasn’t had a controversy or two during the life of their career? If you name one, I’ll tell you to just wait. At the end of the day, no one is perfect. We are all human. We all have skeletons in our closet and demons under our skin. It’s a fact of life. It’s what makes us real.
In the past, I had heard of Burton being in hot water with social justice warriors everywhere because of the type of characters he chose to portray. Yup, I’m going there. The white-washing whatnots. This article gives a pretty good summary of it.
TL;DR: He was confronted about his lack of diversity in his films, and he responded with “Thing’s either call for things, or they don’t.”
Here’s the thing. When this was making headlines, I was standing off in the corner. Quiet. Mostly because I don’t like to go along with movements, but also because I don’t like to start shit.
(And now here I am. It’s whatever. It’s cool. Please don’t hate me.)
Diversity is a fine thing. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s what makes life worth living. I like seeing differences come together. It’s beautiful.
But I get what he’s saying. Having a black character or an Asian or Hispanic or whatever it may be, simply to say that you have one, is insulting. Throwing someone in just to meet a quota is wrong. You make a token character. There is a reason that the black kid in South Park’s name is Token. It takes away part of the creativity.
This is not a popular opinion, and I guarantee that my stance will be twisted into something that it’s absolutely not. Do I think that there should be more representation for people of different races and beliefs and sexual orientations or lack thereof? Yes. Absolutely. Do I think that every movie from here on out needs to have a cookie cutter cast list to appease every person to make sure they are accurately portrayed? Absolutely not. I feel like doing so is a form of censorship, and as I have stated in posts past, I hate censorship. Even when I disagree with the subject material. Hell, even when the subject material is so far out there and wrong and what I consider to be immoral. I don’t think art should be censored.
I think that if Burton wants to have characters with skin tones ranging from alabaster to porcelain, that is his deal. Will I look down on him for it? Not necessarily. Will I continue to support his and other’s movies that have a cast of all one race? Not necessarily, because I don’t watch movies to fill an agenda. I watch to escape, and if it’s a good movie, I don’t care who’s acting in it. If Burton continues to create films starring his best friend and ex-wife, good on him. At the end of the day, he’s creating, and I’m not going to shit on anyone for creating.
His creative choices (though poorly worded, I’ll admit) are not a comment on his character. Primarily white characters are not enough to make me stop consuming.
However…
The Ugly
Over the holidays, I was stuck in quarantine. This led to a lot of show binging and random documentaries. One of them that struck my fancy on Netflix was a series called “Holiday Movies that Made Us.” There was only two episodes available, and low and behold, one of them was all about Nightmare Before Christmas.
Now, first I want to say that I did not enjoy the episode. The editing and cuts that were in it reminded me of a special on Bravo. The awkward repeats and upbeat, snarky narrator didn’t tickle my fancy. It felt like it was trying too hard to be funny and edgy and it fell flat. At least for me. My mom would probably like it. You might like it. I did not. That’s not the important part, though.
Here’s the thing: I could have at any time stopped watching. I could have added some arbitrary statistic that someone either at Netflix or otherwise deems as too scary to finish, when in fact, it is lame. That’s a conversation for a different day. I could have stopped. But I did not. And the reason for that was something I wasn’t expecting.
I, who had grown up watching Tim Burton and stood in his corner when others attacked him, was horribly, utterly, terribly disappointed.
Let me explain.
Spoiler alert if you want to watch the episode.
Tim Burton was hardly involved in the making of one of my favorite childhood movies.
No freaking way!! – Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Okay, so I’ve asked around since I learned this, and apparently this was common knowledge for a good amount of people. I was not in on it. I had no idea. I was 31 years old when this little tidbit of information was thrown my way, hitting me in the face like one of those rubber dodgeballs, and splaying me out on the floor.
So then, why is it considered Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas? The simple answer is big business trying to distance itself from the little guy. Disney gave Burton the go ahead to make the film, but after a tense preview, they decided they didn’t want to be associated with it. It was dark, it was scary in some parts, and it didn’t fit their brand.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why. 😉
Ultimately, they let the filming continue, but when it came time for it to be released to the world, they gave it to their sister company and slapped Burton’s name on the title, gracefully bowing out to watch from the shadows.
Of course, they changed their minds years later when Nightmare made a comeback, and rereleased it, letting everyone know that the cult classic was, indeed, a Disney masterpiece.
Corporations are dumb sometimes.
Truth be told, the shock shouldn’t have hit me so hard. It wasn’t a secret. The truth was in the credits the whole time. I just never cared enough to look, and there’s probably others out there who are the same way.
The other big truth bomb that went off while watching the reality-tv-style documentary was something I never would have dreamed was real. If it didn’t come from the mouths of the people who worked with him (or, rather, under him), I wouldn’t believe it.
Tim Burton is kind of a dick.
Dick might be a strong word. He is eccentric, which is not inherently a bad thing, but he takes that quirk to diva territory. I’m talking all-out temper tantrums. The man would scream when others would come to him with different ideas for the story. He kicked a hole in the wall once during one of his rare visits because he got upset over creative differences.
Okay, so dick is just the right word.
For someone relying on a crew to essentially ghostwrite and create his vision from the ground up, including modeling, set builds, script, music, lyrics, and voice acting, he sure liked to throw what little weight he had around. It’s not a good look.
Tim Burton: The Legend
So what does all this mean for people who, like me, loved everything about the man up to this point? It’s like a crossroads. One side is all the good memories associated with his works, or at least the ones with his name plastered on them. The other side is ideas built upon with lies, whether intentional or otherwise.
Here’s where I stand.
Have my feelings about him changed? Definitely. It’s embarrassing to admit this aloud, but I held him on a pedestal. It’s the same pedestal I put all celebrities or influencers I admire. Hell, it’s the same damn pedestal I put close friend and family on. When they are up there, they can do no wrong. Everything they do has a good reason, and any bad they do is forgivable, and with a flick of the wrist, their wrongdoing is gone, forgotten.
If I may continue on that idea, I am a paradox. I believe so hard in good that I refuse to see the bad. At the same time, when there is bad, I force myself to recognize that anyone can do it, that no one is evil, that we are only as bad as our choices, and that everyone has some good.
That came out confusing. Simplified: Good=can be generalized. Bad=can never be generalized.
If you’re still confused, shoot me a message and I’ll give you my Hitler talk to illustrate it better.
The point is Tim Burton is no longer on a pedestal. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the dickishness. I am a pacifist at heart. I care possibly too much about how I make people feel in all situations. I don’t like it when people raise their voice at me, and I definitely will not raise my voice at them. Anything can be solved with kindness. I’ll stand by that fact until the day I die. No matter what was going on, nothing excuses screaming at your crew or damaging the wall. It’s a gross quality to have. Explosive anger does nothing for anyone.
After I watched that film, I thought that my opinion would be forever changed about him. I wasn’t going to denounce my childhood, but I wasn’t going to immerse myself into anything he does in the future. This was all purely out of spite. I thought I lost my love for him.
Then Christmas came. My fiancé and I were still locked in quarantine. I was finally experiencing the joys of Covid, and my fiancé was starting to get better. His family brought over our gifts and some food so we would feel a little bit of normalcy during an otherwise shitty holiday season.
Lo and behold, his family got me a signed print. The print: Nightmare before Christmas. The signature? You guessed it.
When I opened it, I just stared at it for a long time. It came with a certificate saying the signature was legit. It was in an absolutely beautiful—and fitting—frame. We opened up other gifts, and I kept coming back to this one. When gifts were done and we were getting the living room back in order, I kept coming back to it. Even now, as I write this, I keep glancing over at it, just staring, willing this office to be done so I can hang it on the wall above my desk so I can look straight ahead instead of off to the right.
I treasure this. I treasure this as much as the signed Stephen King and Joe Hill books I own. Maybe, dare I say, even a little more than those.
Void, I can’t stay mad.
Here’s what it all boils down to. I love Tim Burton’s work. Whether or not he was directly involved with all of it, he breathed life into it. He made his mark on it. I love his aesthetic. He takes death and makes it beautiful.
That being said, I don’t know if I would ever want to meet him in person.
Let me backtrack that statement in case future Manda has an opportunity that today Manda doesn’t see. If I had the opportunity to meet Tim Burton, I would take it. But if I died without ever having breathed the same air as him, I would be okay with it. At the end of the day, I am content with consuming what he delivers; my compliments to the chef without the chef having to come out from the kitchen and make the whole exchange awkward.
I recall in the film The Fault in Our Stars (total chick flick by the way, not the type of movie I would ever choose to watch, but I’m generally overruled when it comes to picking those kinds of things out), the girl has an author that she absolutely adores. Closer to the end of the movie, the love interest of said girl finds out where this author lives, and they go to meet him. They get there, and he is nothing at all like she imagined. He’s just plain mean. A dick, if you will. I remember watching that and thinking, oh god, I never want that to happen to me.
Luckily for me thus far in life, all the people I admire whom I have had the pleasure of meeting have been coolly pleasant to outright friendly. But I dread the day where the one I meet is a dumpster fire of a person, forcing me to have a whole new outlook on the world.
Now what?
I want to end this off first by saying that the negative information about Burton all came from a Netflix special that was poorly edited (in my shitty opinion) and featured old coworkers with a chip on their shoulder. It never once interviewed the man himself to get his side of the story. Was he asked to be a part of it and he declined? Did they have their own narrative they wanted to push and decide not to involve him themselves? I don’t know, but either way, the end result was one-sided. I understand the point of the episode was not about Burton at all; they wanted to show a fun behind the scenes of Nightmare. But at the same time, they sure did leave some road rash when they passed by. (Is that even a phrase? Whatever. It is now.)
Secondly, there are testimonies from others who have worked with him who claim he’s a great guy. I don’t doubt that, mostly because I don’t want to doubt that. At the end of the day, you can’t make everyone happy, no matter how hard you try.
Thirdly, despite all this, I still like him. His movies are still some of my favorites. His gothic whimsy makes so much serotonin in my brain. If he made a billion more movies with a pale cast list and the same three people in lead roles, I wouldn’t be mad one bit.
This is all I know, and the only thing I want you to take away from this. It’s not that you should hate him, nor should you adore him. You need to make up your own mind on that.
No, what you need to take away from all this rambling is this: Kicking holes in walls is a dick move. Just don’t do it.
Whew. Hey Void, did you make it through all that? Okay, sweet. Now’s the time I turn things over to you. I want to know your thoughts on Tim Burton. Good, bad, don’t matter. Is obscure involvement in things and dealing damage to literally anything the end of the world? Or does none of that really matter? Do famous people get a pass for being a dickbag? Am I reading too much into the whole thing?? Let me know!
Have you ever powered
through a string of books that felt meh and slow and ultimately unsatisfied,
and then you get one that you read in less than a week that captivates you from
the first chapter and keeps you at the literal edge of your seat (chairs in the
break room are very uncomfortable) (gotta change up the weight on the ass fat
or it goes numb) (tmi?) until the very end?
Asking for a friend.
Almost Orgasmic 😉 – Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
This time around, The
Perfect Child graced my inbox in the form of a free e-book from Kindle. Written by Lucinda Berry, a trauma
psychologist, it takes us through the day-to-day of a couple who decide to
adopt a child who is just a little bit more than what they bargained for. And by “a little,” I of course mean “a lot.” Let’s be honest, there wouldn’t be a lot for
me to asdfghjkl; about otherwise.
Are you ready for the
shortest, most vague review ever?
Because I don’t want to spoil a thing.
This book switches between
three points-of-view: Chris, Holly, and Piper, as they retell their experience
with a little girl named Janie. Janie is
first found in a parking lot, where she is taken to the hospital Chris and
Holly work for care, and they fall in love with her for moment one. But not everything is as it seems. As the story draws to an end, the truth
behind Janie’s past is revealed, and nothing will ever be the same again.
And that’s it. That’s the most direct I’m going to be with
this thing, because honestly, the book is a rollercoaster, and it should be
experienced as such. Hell, the blurb itself
is vague, which could be seen as both a good and a bad thing, as is evident on
the reviews. Of the ones that I read,
most all negative feedback revolves around the idea that the reader didn’t know
what they were in for, and there were scenes that were hard for them to get
through. I didn’t find one that insulted
the author’s writing style or anything of that nature (which doesn’t mean there
isn’t one lurking there, I just didn’t care enough to dig when I disagreed with
what they were saying).
One thing I will draw
attention to is the cover, just so if you decide to read it, you aren’t thrown
off.
Look at that hand holding the balloon. Look at it.
Is there anything about that
hand that says teary-eyed drama? Is
there anything about that hand that says feel-good love story? Is there anything about that hand that
suggests the story is soft in any way, shape, or form?
No.
That hand, ladies and
gentlemen, is a claw: all joints and nails, grasping at something that should
be handled with care, unless you want it to pop.
That hand is the whole
reason why I chose this book, and damn, am I ever glad I did.
On the whole, I would be as
bold as to give The Perfect Child a solid 9 out of 10. My only criticism is I wish there was more to
the ending. I am a fan of learning more
about Janie’s past, yo.
Sometimes a book takes you
by surprise. The pages speak to you,
laying everything out and leaving nothing unturned. You read, and you have to take breaks in
between because there is so much familiarity that it’s dizzying. It speaks your truth, unabridged and
unfiltered.
I’m Fine and Neither Are
You. This one was another freebie from
Amazon Prime. To be honest, I didn’t
read the description when I chose it. I
liked the title. To me, it captured the
theme of depression. I feel like a lot
of the time, people who are going through some stuff will say that they are
just fine when really, they are so far from it.
A+ on that title game.
I only had one issue with
the book, and it’s a little complicated.
I didn’t like the way it was written.
Let me back that up.
I think it was written the
best way it could be POV-wise. Third
person wouldn’t do well to show the raw emotion the main character, Penny, goes
through at the loss of her best friend.
It just wouldn’t be the same story.
I don’t think there was too much dialogue, and I think the pacing was
good. It was fine for what it had to
offer. My main problem lies in the fact that
I did not like Penny very much as a character, and a big part of that is unfair
to say on my part, because my reasoning isn’t a solid problem with the author’s
(Camille Pagán, btw) writing style or voice or some editing issues or anything
like that.
I didn’t like Penny because I saw a lot of myself in her. And as everyone who knows me would tell you, no one hates me more than me (sometimes I’m joking sometimes I’m not but it is what it is). So to see my own thoughts and worries and keeping to ridiculous expectations and losing battles just trying to keep the peace was, to me, disgusting. Vulgar, even. Problems I’m having in my own life are just laying there in print (or pixels if you wanna get technical on me) (pretty sure you can buy a physical copy of it, though) for the world to see. Make sense?
Like looking in a mirror and I don’t like it – Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com
That being said, while I
hated the main character, I think she was well written. I think the pacing of her mind in any given
situation is right on par for what a real person (ahem, me) would be thinking. Her insecurities and pushing boundaries and
inherent need to get out of her current life are believable, and let’s be
honest here, believability of a character is one of, if not the most, important
element of a story. I think it’s
important to keep in mind that you don’t have to like the protagonist. In fact, I think a semi-unlikeable
protagonist is better than one everyone loves, if only because their character
is usually more complex, and as a result, more interesting. While I did not like Penny, she definitely
piqued my interest.
Okay case closed we get it
we get it.
There’s one more point I
wanted to touch on briefly before closing this one out (minor spoiler alert):
Suicide. Suicide and how it effects the ones around
us. Suicide and how hard it is to be
upfront with what happened and how hard it is to cover it up. While there is no real way of knowing whether
or not Penny’s friend’s death was premeditated or just a bad mistake, it doesn’t
change the outcome. It leaves so many
questions unanswered for the ones left behind, and it’s not fair for them.
I read this book when I was
at a bit of a low point. I was dealing
with issues at work and at home and myself.
I was overwhelmed with the need to run away from everyone by any means
necessary. I don’t know if I meant to go
down the road of considering self-harm yet, but left unchecked, I would
have. Life can get overwhelming when you
set such a high standard for yourself, and if you’re left in your head for too
long, things get messy. It’s hard to
explain what you need or the logic of your thoughts to anyone else, because
that’s a mystery even to you.
I’m not going to say that
this book saved me. That would be a blatant
lie. But it did get my mind turning in a
different direction. Seeing my thoughts
coming from a book from a stranger was a weird, tough love sort of eye opener.
Confused? It’s okay.
Me too.
Overall, this book hit home
in a lot of different ways. It’s one
that I’ll likely read again when I’m in a better place emotionally, namely to
see if my opinion of Penny has changed at all.
I give the book a 7/10. I give
Penny a -5/10. Just don’t like her, yo.
Have you ever read a book
that you liked, even though you didn’t care for the protagonist?
Where do I even start? The believable, relatable characters? The phenomenal descriptions from beginning to
end? The total twist at the end that I
did not see coming?
Nah… Let’s start instead
with the subject matter of the book.
I feel like rape stories are
done time and time again, but I haven’t even seen one from the point of view of
someone not directly involved in the act.
This story is told through the daughter of the accused, who allegedly
raped her best friend. WAIT it gets
worse. The dad allegedly raped his
daughter’s best friend, who happens to be underage. WAIT WAIT!
The act allegedly happened while the daughter was in the same room,
sleeping.
What. The.
Fuck.
The daughter, Katie, has to
go through the next six years of her life without her father. She is fiercely loyal to him, and grows up
hating her best friend, Lulu, for ruining her family’s life. She cuts contact completely, not only because
the lawyers tell her to do so, but also because she wants nothing to do with
her anymore. Katie was in the same room,
for godsake. She would have known if
something was going down that shouldn’t have been. Besides, her father loved those girls. He accepted Lulu as one of his own. He was a well-respected man of the community. There’s no way in hell that Lulu’s
allegations could be true.
Right?
The closer it comes to her
father’s release date, the more unsure she becomes of what exactly happened
that night. Had there been a fight
between herself and Lulu? Did Lulu have
motivation to get Katie’s father a one way ticket to the jailhouse?
There’s a blank spot in her
memory (some forgotten hours, ROLL CREDITS) but when she goes back to the cabin
they spent those summers at to get it ready for her father’s return, she finds
a box of letters and receipts that offers answers if only she is brave enough
to follow the trail.
Did her dad do it?
Did Lulu lie?
I’m not here to spoil that
for you. Read this book. It’s not one I would normally pick up, but it
was a freebie on Amazon one month (yey prime!) and I’m glad I chose it.
The Forgotten Hours delves
into a subject matter that is uncomfortable but necessary. There’s the #MeToo movement happening (wow
girl welcome to the party like fifty years later seriously), and I first want
to say that I stand behind it completely.
Consent is an important thing to give and receive before any sort of
bumping of the uglies commences. With
more and more people coming out and saying that they’ve been harmed in one way
or another by another person, it can be hard to trust in someone. And I’m not saying that it’s just for women,
either. For men, too, it can be hard to
trust. And I feel like this is because
the whole concept of “consent” is a tricky subject.
Now, backtrack a little
bit. When I say that, I don’t mean
blatant rape. Like, violence against a
person is bad. Date raping a person is
bad. If someone says “No, don’t touch
me,” that is obviously rape. If someone
is passed out and you choose to feel them up, that is bad. There’s things that are obvious.
You still with me here?
So, consent. It’s tricky.
It’s tricky because both people are supposed to be mind readers. In the case of Lulu and Katie’s father (NO
SPOILERS okay some spoilers), there is no violence. There is no “No, don’t touch me.” There is the thing of being underage and statutory
and all that shiz, but that’s a different subject. Let’s take that out of the picture
entirely. Let’s pretend she’s eighteen
for the sake of my point.
Okay, we pretending? Sweet.
If Katie’s father and Lulu
sleep together, and Lulu didn’t really want to, but she didn’t say anything
otherwise, is it rape? Or did they
consent? I don’t know, because what is
considered consent varies from person to person.
Which is why it’s important
that people talk about it.
Where do we draw the
line? Katie wasn’t completely sure. Lulu wasn’t entirely certain. Katie’s father, well, he goes to jail over
it, so you can draw your own conclusions on what he thinks.
One final point I want to
make is about character. As I said
before, Katie’s father is a well-respected member of the community. He’s involved in his family. He is a friendly, outgoing man. He’s always ready to welcome people with open
arms. He likes people and people like
him. He’s always ready to turn any bad
situation into a new opportunity. He has
all these good qualities, and so his friends and neighbors can’t believe that
he is capable of doing something as terrible as what he’s accused of.
What people forget is that
every person (both in real life and in good fiction) has multiple qualities
that make them who they are. Very rarely
is there a human being who is all good or all bad. Katrin Schumann, the author of the book, made
it a point to tell all the good about Katie’s father all the way through, and
that’s important. People who are
considered saints by all that know them are still capable of doing horrible
things. People who are labeled as
criminals can still help those in need.
There are no monsters in this world.
I’ll say it again:
People are not monsters.
Big Foot might be where I draw the line Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com
People you don’t like are
not just like Hitler, and Hitler was not a monster. He was a man.
A man who committed atrocious acts and convinced a country to dispose of
an entire group of people for reasons I cannot pretend to understand, but he
also did a handful of good, too. In no
way does that excuse what he did. But at
the end of the day, he was a man. Not a
monster. I feel like society is quick to
label people monsters because they don’t want to accept that anyone is capable
of doing bad things, but at the end of the day, at the end of right and wrong,
we are all capable of anything. And that’s
scary.
Annddd somehow I went from a
book review to the fundamentals of labeling.
I think that’s a good place to stop.
Hey you! Yeah, you! Kid, you like roller coasters?
Ya want some candy? Photo by Daria Obymaha on Pexels.com
Well, then do I got
something for you.
Was that a stupid enough of
an intro for this? Probably. But in all seriousness: Joe Hill. More importantly, Joe Hill’s short story
collection, 20th Century Ghosts.
This book has fifteen stories that range anywhere from terrifying to
heartwarming to just plain sad.
This is why I love Joe Hill.
I feel like the best way to
do this is to choose my favorite and least favorite story. Otherwise this will go on for thousands and
thousands of words, and, let’s be real, neither one of us have the time or
energy to go through that. 😉
So, Pop Art. The first sentence begins, “My best friend
when I was twelve was inflatable.” I’m
thinking, alright, cool, crazy kid with a blow-up doll, or maybe not even
necessarily crazy, but definitely lonely.
An imaginary friend story. Those
are fun. But that’s when things get
interesting and Hill forces me to think outside the box.
First of all, the inflatable
friend isn’t imaginary. He’s real. He goes to school, other kids acknowledge
him, and he’s able to communicate with others via a whiteboard and some
crayons. Him being inflatable isn’t a
metaphor for some kind of ailment or disease or anything like that. He’s 100% full of air; no organs, no openings
(save for the spots where he can take in more air), so no mouth. If he isn’t careful, he can float away. His parents are not inflatable. They are normal everyday humans who eat and
talk and function like anyone else. He
is not adopted. He was just born that
way.
When I accepted this fact,
the rest of the story was enjoyable, and rather sad. The protagonist of the story is kind of an
outcast with a bad home life. His mother
is gone and his father doesn’t want much to do with him. He befriends Art (the inflatable kid) at
school when a couple of bullies are after him.
After that day, they hang out at school and at each other’s houses,
until the protagonist’s father gets a dog and things get a bit tense at his
house, so they instead hang around Art’s house.
I don’t want to give the
whole story away because I think you should read it yourself. It’s funny and sad and heartwarming and
frightening all at the same time. I may
or may not have cried at the end of it.
It’s a great story about what a person would be willing to do for their
best friend. Ahhh I love it.
My Father’s Mask. Now, I can’t say that I hated this one. It was good for what it was. I was tense the whole time I was reading it;
the story has an uneasy feel, like there’s something under the surface that it’s
not letting on.
The short of it is that a
boy named Jack goes with his parents on a trip to this cabin and he doesn’t
really want to go. The mom plays a game
with him and makes it out to be an adventure and tells him that he can’t be
seen by anyone or else they will come to get him. The kid is too old for these kinds of games
(I believe he’s a teenager?), but he plays along anyway. Cut to the cabin. There are a ton of masks laying around and
hanging on the walls and just everywhere you look, there’s a mask. If you thought the parents were acting off
before, they really act off now. They
wear a mask, and insist that he wears a mask, too. There’s almost a taboo sexual feel to the
whole thing? Like, the kid wants to
leave the cabin because he wants to let them do their thing without having to
be a part of it. He goes into the woods
to gather some wood and gets lost, but he meets a kid who he thought he saw the
night before who makes him uneasy, so he runs and hides. Then he meets two other kids who offer to
answer one question if he beats them in a card game with ambiguous rules.
Confused yet?
A lot happens in this story,
but it’s all rather vague. I still don’t
know what exactly happened in the cabin, or in the woods, or when he gets back
to the cabin. Everything feels off and
uneasy. The entire time I read this one,
I had my head in my hand and my face scrunched up the way, as if screwing
myself up would help me understand it better.
That being said, I liked
it. It scared me, and I had no idea what
was going on. I don’t know if that was
purposeful or if I was missing some major plot point, but either way, it
fucking worked. I felt like I was in the
woods with Jack, but he left me behind, and several weeks later I still can’t
find my way out.
Have you read 20th
Century Ghosts? What was your favorite
story in it? And (more importantly for
me anyway) did you understand My Father’s Mask??
The Dark Tower. The final installment of the series that
shares the same name. I heard from a
large handful of people that I wouldn’t like the end because it was a “major
letdown.” While it definitely wasn’t the
ending I wanted, I can say with complete sincerity that it was the ending that
was needed.
Let’s take a hot minute here
and talk about some of the characters. I’ll
go from least favorite to bae (good god I feel like I’m too old to say that
word). Ready?
Susanna. It wasn’t that I hated her by any stretch of the
imagination. I liked her. In a vast sea of interesting people, though,
she just wasn’t as interesting to me.
Her other two personalities you meet when you first come across her in
The Drawing of the Three, however, were amazing. Total polar opposites. Detta will forever be my hero; she was a
blast, if crude and rude and all around nasty to everyone most always. But Susanna was just a steady middle ground
between the prissy high-class Odetta and the take-no-shit Detta. I fell out of love with her when she got her
mind under control.
Jake. I didn’t have anything against him. There just wasn’t very much about him that
was memorable, aside from him telling Roland at the very beginning, “Go
then. There are other worlds than these.” (Awesome tattoo idea, by the way.)
Roland. What a dick.
Just kidding, but seriously, though.
He’s so single minded and selfish that it’s infuriating. He’ll do anything so long as it gets him
closer to the tower. And you know
what? That’s what I love about him. He’s got this anti-hero dynamic about him
that the reader (or me, at very least) loves to hate. He’s not above saving people and telling them
to fuck off immediately afterward. Cold,
calculating, and better than you in almost every way, but with certain touches
that border adorable, like his mispronunciations and literal attitude. He’s not a monster; he can feel love and
loss, but he pushes it to the back of his mind so he can accomplish his
quest. Misunderstood, I suppose, is a
good word to describe him.
Oy. Oh, god, how my heart bleeds for Jake’s best
friend. I have a soft spot for animals
anyway, but make them talk, and I’m head over heels in love. But Oy is more than a cute mimicking
pet. He’s hands down the most fiercely
loyal of the ka’tet. Everyone is willing
to die for the cause, and that’s all good and grand, but Oy is willing to stay
even after he has literally no reason to.
The same can’t be said for the others, in my humble opinion.
Alright, that brings me to
the man of the hour, Eddy. This
sarcastic, wise-cracking street-smart druggie was destined to be my favorite
the moment Roland entered his mind in the second book. The reader is with him through his transformation
of body and mind, with Roland teaching him the ways of a gunslinger and him
dealing with withdrawal and learning to let go of his past. He might not be the smartest of the ka’tet,
but he has a way with words and can talk his way into and out of most
anything. He’s not above making jokes
even at the most inappropriate of times, but he has a heart of gold that makes
up for it. I’m unashamed to admit that
he was my book crush for the series, but I really don’t think I’m alone in that
respect.
Some quick thoughts about
The Dark Tower itself: The first half of
the book made me want to vomit, what with the pus and snot and people eating of
the people (and not-so-people) in the city where they break the beam. The last half of the book made me want to
cry, what with all the dying, some definitely more unexpected than others. Mordred was terrifyingly evil and every time
he was mentioned my skin would crawl. The
final battle was a bit of a letdown for me.
I wanted more than anything for Roland to have this epic showdown with the
Crimson King with lots of one-liners and action sequences and instead I got…
SPOILER ALERT
…erased from existence MS
Paint style. For how much the Crimson
King was talked up throughout the series I thought it would be more drawn out
(lol), or at very least he would be dealt with by Roland exclusively.
But such is life. What can ya do?
Now, this ending, the real
ending, the moment I was waiting for from the first time I picked up The
Gunslinger years (and years and years goodness gracious this series took me a
long time to get through and there were a lot of breaks between books for me)
ago. I’ll keep it short, because I’ve
been rambling for longer than what I intended to make this. Was this the ending I wanted? Of course not. I wanted him to find what he was looking for
with his ka’tet at his side and finally be at peace. He had been working so hard for so long, he
just needs some damn rest! Instead, he
walks up and up, reliving every painful memory and mistake room by room, floor
by floor, until he reaches the top and is pulled back into the loop, destined
to repeat his journey to the Dark Tower once more. Roland is stuck in purgatory, and who knows
how many times he’s been through the journey before now? This wasn’t the ending I wanted for Roland,
but I believe deep down that it was the ending that Roland deserved. He’s sacrificed everything for the tower:
strangers, friends, even family, without even knowing what was inside, without
ever questioning. He was obsessed and
greedy and just couldn’t leave well enough alone with saving the beams. I hope his next journey that he plays his
cards right and is able to get the ending we all want for him and he can
finally stop fighting.
Before I end this, here’s a
couple links that are my headcannon theme songs for Roland and the tower.
Manda Kay Writes 