A necessary part of my DIY speech therapy is listening to my recordings to evaluate the successes and needs-work of my smooth jazz DJ voice. When I’m reading something that causes me to have outbursts, those interjections revert to my default offended-crow squawk. Between the switch-flipping and the commentary, it’s hard to keep a straight face while listening to those recordings.
Here you can see I started out calm and steady. You can also see when I lost my shit and started yelling about the nonsense. Below is a transcript of the volume spikes.
ETA: I’m not going to identify the book. Irate rants are funnier than earnest enjoyment, but they also give terrible books a million times more free publicity than any good book ever gets, squeezing the “I see it everywhere and if it’s popular, it must be good” marketing trigger that so reliably propels incompetence to fame and fortune. Not in my house.
Book: I’d been foolish, and I’d be lucky if we didn’t all pay for it.
Me: I don’t understand the stakes here. The man walked in wearing a magical bulletproof cloak. He doesn’t have weapons to kill you the way you have weapons ready to kill HIM.
Book: We were going to die.
Me: That would be great. But how? You’re all strapped. You have SNIPERS outside. He’s one guy in a magical bulletproof cloak. You seem to be overreacting a teeny tiny little bit.
Book: I knew to the depths of my being that neither of them considered this a real negotiation, so what were they playing at?
Me: How do you know ANYTHING to the depths of your being? You are CONSISTENTLY wrong about LITERALLY EVERYTHING.
Book: In the meantime, [the two characters who don’t consider this a real negotiation] actually reached an agreement and drafted up a paper.
Me: “I know to the depths of my being they don’t consider this a real negotiation” and they’re executing a contract. You stupid cow.
Book: *guy in magical bulletproof cloak pulls a knife*
Me: Signing the contract in blood is so extra but, for a change, entirely consistent with this guy’s previous behavior.
Book: *main character leaps to some other conclusion, impulsively fires gun*
Me: How do you know he’s not going to PRICK HIS FINGER and sign the contract in blood? Is this another case of the undefined scale that’s plagued this entire book? I’m thinking pocket knife but you mean a fucking machete that cannot practically be used in a nonviolent way? Or are you just wrong about EVERYTHING CONSTANTLY?
Book: *goes on for several paragraphs about how ill-advised shooting was, bullet ricochets off magical bulletproof cloak* Heart in my throat, I frantically eyed every one of my teammates, waiting for the moment one of them would double over.
Me: It’s been 87 years dot gif. How long do you think it takes for a bullet to ricochet? Is it just ping-ping-pinging off the walls all this time without losing any velocity? Are we in a Mel Brooks movie?
Book: A harrowing couple of minutes passed before I realized that none of them were wounded.
Me: A harrowing COUPLE OF MINUTES. If you fire a gun and I have time to MICROWAVE MY LUNCH before there is an outcome, that is the opposite of harrowing. You could evacuate a mall in a COUPLE OF MINUTES.
Book: Someone had to find a way to stop [guy in magical bulletproof cloak] before that happened.
Me: I dunno, why don’t you just pull off the magical bulletproof cloak? Is it glued onto him? You can’t strangle him, put an arm around his neck, put a belt around his neck? There are six of you and one of him. “We’ve tried nothing and nothing worked! We’re doomed!”
Book: [Guy in magical bulletproof cloak] swung at him with his bare fist.
Me: What happened to the murder knife? He whipped out a murder knife to use on a disabled woman, but when some supernatural dude gets in his way, he’d rather fist fight. Okay. Sure.
Book: … the knife still clutched in one hand, not that he even needed it.
Me: That’s worse! To put IN THE TEXT that he doesn’t need it, AND he doesn’t USE it in a fight… You know what, never mind. Nothing matters. Just let it wash over you.
Book: [Decorative side character #5] held a pistol half-raised, trembling so hard I doubted she could use it even if she had the chance.
Me: Plus, didn’t you so brilliantly demonstrate guns don’t work? Being able to retain information is a curse.
Book: I didn’t know what to do.
Me: So you’ve said, repeatedly, and you still don’t seem to be having a brilliant brain moment to figure it out. Why do people keep making protagonists who can’t figure anything out? Is this generational? Gen X swore “I’ll never tell MY kids to ‘just figure it out'” so now there’s an overabundance of people who never had to figure anything out and that’s being reflected in fiction?
(Editorial note: I’m not going to look up the author’s age because that’s creepy, and I’m quite aware that my contemporaries and elders are equally capable of helpless hand-wringing. I have never before seen that trait so frequently portrayed in the main characters of books, however, not even as a weakness to be overcome but just as a normal state of affairs, so I wonder if it is indeed normalized in children who weren’t expected to fend for themselves like feral cats and who are now adults writing and publishing books through that lens.)
Book: I opened the door, leaped into the driver’s seat, and realized only then that [guy in magical bulletproof cloak] was indoors and the car was outdoors, which made hitting him with it kind of unworkable.
Me: Oh my god. And fuck you for resetting my Days Without Casually Participating in Cultural Christianity sign to 0, though that is the LEAST of your crimes against me.
Book: Meanwhile, who knew what was happening to [decorative side characters still inside the building].
Me: Are you just going to ram the building with the truck and collapse it on everybody? Yeah, that’s a much better plan than seeing whether strangling would work.
Book: The sudden sound of shattering glass made me jump in my seat. I frantically looked for a source for some explanation of what had happened.
Me: I frantically looked for a source. Period. It’s implied that the reason you would do such a thing is to discern an explanation of what had happened. Although in your case, I gotta say it can’t be taken for granted why you would do anything, so fair enough!
Book: A few seconds passed before movement drew my attention towards a window that I could just barely see from this angle. A leg covered in [disabled side character’s] pantsuit emerged from it.
Me: That could be anybody’s leg, the way it’s worded. Wait, windows with GLASS? I thought this was an abandoned ruin in the Italian countryside, a few rocks held together by their own weight. This is going to be another case of “But I have aphantasia!”, and I, an aphantasic who’s been published longer than you’ve been alive, probably, am here to tell you writing description is a SKILL that can be learned, and SHOULD be learned so readers know WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. I don’t “see” anything in my head when I read, but I do conceptualize, and I have no idea what space anything in this book occupies because there is NOTHING to define it. You give me nothing, I fill in the blanks, and you come in after the fact to argue with me about things somebody who doesn’t care about your feelings should have told you to put in writing at the beginning of the scene when you’re supposed to orient readers so shit you write later doesn’t come out of NOWHERE.
Book: *multiple pages elapse before everyone else walks out of the building, through the door, without incident*
Me: The disabled woman had to climb out a busted window, but… this. Y’all could have left at literally any time, huh? I know writers who use stakes, and they’re all cowards.
Book: He’d failed to take into consideration that [decorative side character #5, disabled side character] and I were scientists, creative problem solvers who never knew when to stop banging our heads against that wall.
Me: CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVERS. You have solved ZERO problems anywhere in this book, and wet cardboard is more likely to experience a creative spark than you are. Get Science’s name out of your mouth.
Book: *main character is inside the truck, which is a distance from the building disabled side character was able to crawl to truck from window, and everyone exited the building in an orderly fashion and is standing around calmly* I floored the pedal (Editorial note: There was a lengthy pause before “pedal,” which could indicate either a laggy page turn or one of several recent encounters with “peddle” that briefly sent me out of my body. I’m not redownloading this book to check.), aiming the car straight for [guy in magical bulletproof cloak].
Me: How far away is the vehicle? It can’t be too far away from the building because a disabled woman CRAWLED to the truck, and it didn’t take 13 pages to accomplish. How much acceleration do you think you’re going to get from a dead stop in… 20 feet?
Book: [Guy in magical bulletproof cloak] didn’t even try to get out of the way.
Me: Because he understands the laws of physical reality and can tell it’ll be like bumping him with a shopping cart?
Book: Our eyes met through the windshield, and an uncertainty I hadn’t felt in a while began to creep up on me.
Me: Hadn’t felt since you ineffectually shot him in the face minutes ago? Pepperidge Farm remembers. I read it ONCE and remember. Did this go straight from rough draft to published without even being GLANCED at?
Book: *airbag deploys on impact but affects neither main character’s face nor view of guy in magical bulletproof cloak through the windshield*
Me: All vibes, no thoughts.
Book: And then [guy in magical bulletproof cloak] smiled, mirth lighting up his face, an alarming bit of malice mixed into the expression.
Me: You’re alarmed that you tried to shoot a guy in the face and smash him with a truck and he has malice? Seems to me like the single most foreseeable consequence of your actions, but what do I know.
Book: There was a white bottle in [decorative side character #5’s] hands, and it took me a moment to recognize it as the bleach she’d packed.
Me: Why would anyone pack a bottle of bleach to go to a contract negotiation. (Editorial note: This was not a question. This was condemnation.)
Book: The tail of the [magical bulletproof cloak] peeked out from under the car, and that was what [decorative side character #5] aimed for, thrusting the bottle towards it. That was… actually clever. Maybe damaging the garment itself would disrupt the magic of the cloak.
Me: BLEACH? Heads up, fantasy authors: all you need to defeat magic is the power of Clorox! You pack a bottle of bleach to go a contract negotiation with a guy you DON’T KNOW has a magical bulletproof cloak for the simple reason that you’d never leave the house without such a powerful weapon. If your ride is waiting, you tell them to WAIT because only a FOOL would go to the laundromat OR a contract negotiation without a gallon jug of bleach. The only mistake here was not carrying some in a to-go cup at all times. Could have splashed him the instant he came through the door and ended this before it began.
Book: *whew, I almost gave someone agency, but fortunately I caught it in time and made the day-saving bottle of bleach fly out of decorative side character #5’s hands and conveniently splash all over magical bulletproof cloak guy, thereby winning through happenstance*
Me: Amazing. There’s a whole series of this, huh?
Book: *when magical bulletproof cloak guy starts getting a rash because the bleach is eroding the protective magic, the main character doesn’t reattempt crushing him and none of the multiple people with guns standing around doing nothing think to shoot him NOW, and the good guys just run away while magical bulletproof cloak guy fucks off into the sunset*
Me: What about the snipers?
Book: *oh, I didn’t forget them! they take 3 shots at magical bulletproof cloak guy, rocking him back on his heels and buying the good guys a few extra seconds to escape*
Me: The first shot. Inside the building. That ricocheted off him. Rocked him back on his heels. THE BLEACH DID NOTHING BUT GIVE HIM A RASH AND RUIN HIS CLOTHES!
That was a single scene, y’all.
You, probably: But what happened to the knife?
Me: The knife, which was never actually used on anyone, never reappeared. Both of the dude’s hands were free to punch a truck, but it wasn’t explained whether he sheathed the knife, dropped it, or tucked it behind his ear for safekeeping first. He should have left it home and brought his own bottle of bleach, the only weapon that matters!
At least it was a free book. Only time and brain cells wasted.