Wherein Lani Sarem explains how her fraud job was all just a big misunderstanding. Oh, and also everyone in YA is a big meanie and the New York Times caved to their whims. They would have like, totally let the book stay there if not for those meddling kids!
Maybe you’re looking for some Twilight––I mean, Handbook For Mortals––merchandise:
When Twilight is your only source of ideas for merch and marketing pic.twitter.com/F2I9Tsdd3M
— Jeannette Editor (@Polar_Bear_Edit) May 1, 2018
We left off with Zit just moments from death in her bedroom back home. Now, let’s journey together through a long-ass story that her mom chooses to tell rather than saving her life.
Dela began to tell Mac the story of how my parents met and how I came into existence.
Okay, let’s just skip over that second part, Dela. We don’t need to hear that, and certainly not through the filter of your daughter.
As I scanned through Mac’s recollection of her telling him the story, I was reminded that my mother can be a magical storyteller, weaving the words of any story into a beautiful tapestry so vivid you’d swear you were watching a motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
Wait a minute. You don’t have to actually write well? You can just tell the reader that your words are really good? What the fuck have I been wasting my time on, then, trying to write decent books with sentences that make sense and aren’t super repetitive? Why have I been laboring tirelessly to improve my craft with each new book, when I could have just told the reader flat out what a great writer I am?
A smile spread across her face and both Mac (who had no idea where the story would go) and Charles (who had lived it with her) both leaned forward to hang on her every word.
They’re so entranced by her cinematic storytelling that they no longer care that the clock is ticking on saving Zumba’s life, apparently.
It was 1977.
Remember the last recap, when you guys were talking in the comments about how weird it was that her parents met in the seventies but she would have had to have been born in the mid-nineties to be in her twenties now? Well, I tried to find some information about the author, namely, her age. Because we know that Zard is Lani, has always been meant to be Lani, and that Lani even went so far as to cast herself in the lead role of Zuck in the film version, I saw 1977 and got suspicious. It was surprisingly difficult to find an age for her listed anywhere, but a modeling profile puts her at thirty-six. No birthdate listed. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that she lowballs her age publically and that she was born in 1978, based on the fact that she seems unable to separate herself from the character and as such can’t stand to alter the book’s timeline from her own. It probably never occurred to her that Zud couldn’t be in her twenties in the book if her parents got down together in the seventies, because that would be when she was conceived and she is Zarck.
The setting now is a traveling circus, complete with that g-word slur.
In one of the smallest tents sat a gorgeous, young girl who was wearing a beautiful long skirt of vibrant colors that rippled as it fell toward the ground, her brown sandals peeking through past the hem of her skirt. One leg crossed over the other, she was swinging her foot slowly. Her off-white cotton top had slipped off her left shoulder and the front was open just enough to show a little bit of cleavage.
Remember also during the last recap, when you guys were discussing in the comments that Lani not only has to be Zanadon’t, but also Hey There Delilah? You were bang-on with that. Now that Zagnut isn’t there to be the center of attention, the mother has to become Sarem’s avatar, as evidenced by the fact that aside from Zalt And Lepper, no other characters receive this level of detail when they’re described. For example, the first appearance of Charles in this flashback reads like this:
Her long hair fell in front of her face and blew slightly when the tent flap opened and in walked a young and very handsome man.
Young and very handsome. Charles is arguably an equally important character in the scene, but he gets two adjectives in comparison to the paragraph Dela got describing her clothes, shoes, posture, and cleavage.
Dela, just eighteen at the time, didn’t even bother to look up.
If Dela is eighteen in 1977, that makes her fifty-nine in the present, meaning that for Lindt Zuffles to be twenty-five, Dela and Charles would have to have been in their mid- and late thirties when they had their ill-advised young love. We know how old Charles is now, too:
Twenty-year-old Charles […]
Making Charles sixty-one…
Now, you’ll notice that Copperfield’s birthdate is 1956, meaning that in 1977, he would have been twenty-one. So obviously, Copperfield and Spopperfield are two different, distinct persons. Don’t worry, that’ll get taken care of later. Right now, I want to focus on this, just a few paragraphs down:
Dela still hadn’t looked up, while the boy who was known as Charles […]
He’s twenty! He’s a twenty-year-old man. He’s not a boy! There is such gross, gross age stuff going on in this book, in terms of language.
Anyway, in all of that, Dela asks Charles why he’s there, and he’s like, you’re a psychic, you should know why I’m here, which has to be like, the most annoying joke to a psychic.
Though she still hadn’t looked up, Dela knew that he was tall and handsome, with tick and wavy dark brown hair, his piercing blue eyes glancing around the room.
Dela is telling this story, so it’s default in Dela’s POV. If she didn’t see him glancing around the room, she can’t tell us that he’s glancing around the room. Full stop.
This whole time, Dela is laying cards out on a table and reading them, but we never learn what she’s reading about, just that she’s flipping over cards. She tells Charles that she doesn’t see something if she’s not trying to, and he asks her what she means by that.
Dela finally looked up and made a huffing noise, exasperated; she shot him a look while scrunching her nose. He found the annoyed Dela to be very cute somehow and thought she looked utterly adorable when she scrunched her nose. He had noticed how stunningly beautiful she was the first time he had met her but they hadn’t exactly hit it off then.
Again, Dela is telling this story. Which means she’s telling Mac and Charles what Charles is thinking inside his head. She’s also describing at length how attractive she is. Not only is that weird, it’s just plain not possible from her POV, especially since she’s already told Charles that she can’t see things she’s not looking for. So, unless Dela is using her psychic powers to find out if Charles thinks she’s cute, she can’t tell us any of this.
We find out that Dela thinks Charles is pretentious and she refers to him as a “so-called celebrity,” which makes me wonder why he’s working at a circus if he’s already famous. But whatever.
Charles––even at that young age––was not used to girls who didn’t immediately fall all over themselves in front of him. He didn’t know how to deal with a girl who didn’t care. He also didn’t believe in what she did and he didn’t understand how she could take herself seriously.
So, Charles sounds like a real winner, huh? POV skew aside, I’m sure this is meant to show us what a pig Charles used to be, so we can see how much he’s changed now. And by “so we can see,” I mean, “so the author can tell us” because so far, he’s still treating women like worthless objects. All of his behavior toward Sofiaeoeouuuu is going to be either justified by some bad action on her part or we’re going to be expected to just pretend we didn’t read about it.
Charles was so busy thinking about how he might charm her that he almost didn’t pay attention to her response––which would have annoyed her more (which he would have found also cute and therefore might have been a win-win for him either way).
Whose POV are we in? Are we in Charles’s POV, or Dela’s, since she’s telling the story? Of course, we’re in neither. We’re in Zwiss Chard’s omniscient POV because god forbid she not be the focus of even her parents’ meet-cute.
Dela tells him that being a psychic is like being in a house and looking out the window to see what’s outside. If she could see everything all the time, she would be overloaded and go insane.
Charles tells Dela to focus on him and tell him why he’s there. The reason he’s there, as revealed by our omniscient narrator, is that he’s trying to figure out how Dela manages to trick people into believing that she’s psychic. She makes a crack about how she’s being tested by him, but agrees to read his cards, anyway. And to prove that Dela really is mystical and powerful and majikkahlly delicious, we get this:
Dela couldn’t help but notice that, when he sat, he loooked exhausted. He almost melted into the chair. Across the table from him, Dela also noticed the deep, almost black looking circles that were under his pretty blue eyes, and she could see that his skin looked dehydrated and showed some redness––all signs of a lack of sleep.
Leaving aside for the moment that his pretty blue eyes and dark circles are across the table from him, Dela: Psychic Dermatologist is doing what we in the business call a “cold reading.” A cold reading is something fraud psychics do; they pick something obvious and ask leading questions like, oh, I don’t know…
“Are you sick?” she asked without looking up.
and, when Charles says he doesn’t think he’s sick:
“Having trouble sleeping?”
If you want to see an example of a cold reading, check out any John Edwards video on YouTube. He’s one of the worst, most obvious cold reading frauds because he sets himself up as a medium communicating with the dead, so he’s already got people who are highly emotional and willing to believe they’re actually communicating with their loved ones because they want to believe. He’ll say something like, “Someone passed away in a car accident,” and a person in the audience will obviously know someone who died in a car accident, because, duh, car accidents are common. Or, he’ll say, “I’m getting a message from someone, starts with a J…starts with a J…I’m getting a Jessica or a Jennifer,” which are both incredibly common names. When he manages to get someone to answer, he continues to ask questions like, “Was there a lot of tension in the family following her passing?”, that will obviously apply to literally any death. Maybe the person in the audience who knows Jessica is wearing a breast cancer awareness pin. “Did Jessica pass away from breast cancer?” Yes, how amazing that he picked up on that detail! People then pour out more and more information so that he can narrow his specific answers. Yes, they know a Jessica. Yes, there was a lot of tension in the family following her passing because her brother decided to turn off her life support and some of the other family members disagreed with that decision. They’ll tell John that detail about the life support, then he’ll ask a question about it phrased in such a way that confirmation bias will convince the grieving person that he supplied those details. I’ve never been able to figure out how people fell for him because he’s just so super clumsy and obvious.
Anyway, that’s what Dela is doing in this passage. She’s looking at Charles, taking in details about his physical appearance and presenting them as though she’s getting the information psychically. In other words, it’s possible that the author of this book is such a con artist herself, she can’t write an honest character.
Charles isn’t falling for it:
That could be a good guess, he thought. I have deep circles under my eyes and I look sleepy. Not impressed yet.
Me neither.
Want more evidence that Dela cold reads?
“You’re having nightmares.” This time she didn’t ask but told him; she was pleased that she could get some information about him so clearly and quickly. She knew that each time she read for someone new the person could turn out to be an “easy read” or a hard one.
I mean. If that doesn’t sound sketch…
Well, that’s a very logical reason for not being able to sleep, so I’m still not impressed.
But don’t worry, dear readers. Dela is the real deal.
After a few moments, with her eyes still tightly shut, she reached out and grabbed Charles’s hand. She gripped it hard and both of them felt the jolt of energy.
If she’s able to just touch someone and tell their fortune that way, why does she need the cards?
Dela tells Charles specifically what his nightmares are about: getting shot in the chest.
Charles’s eyes got big, and he shook his head a little in disbelief. He ran his fingers through his soft and silky hair and his eyes shifted away from hers.
Does anybody really stop to think about how soft and silky their hair is when they’re disturbed by an uncanny experience? Or is this Zambot telling us about her dad’s hair and how soft and silky it is? Not knowing whose POV we’re in, either Charles is super vain or Zuul is telling us about her hot dad.
Charles tells Dela that she’s hit the nail on the head. But he calls her Dely, and you know how the author of this book feels about mispronouncing names.
“Don’t call me, Dely. You know I hate that. I don’t serve sandwiches,” she snapped at him.
Why does he call her Dely in the first place? It’s not like it’s a shorter version of Dela. It’s exactly the same number of letters and syllables. It’s like Sofia’s nickname being Sofie. It doesn’t make any sense.
Charles tells her that she should give away free sandwiches with every reading to increase sales, which they both find very funny.
She couldn’t help but notice how amazing his smile was and how handsome he was––not handsome, actually, but stunningly gorgeous as she watched his amazing beautiful blue eyes light up. He’s funny, too, apparently, she realized.
Good for her, because I’ve yet to realize it, myself. Will there be proof of his hilarity at some point?
One good thing about this chapter is that Sarem doesn’t go into detail about the cards in the spread, so I don’t have to bore you all with a half-hour long video ranting about shitty tarot. All we’ve gotten at this point in the reading is that she’s shuffled the cards and laid down “three more” after we’re told she’s “stacking them in sets of three.” So, it looks like it’s another “just turn over cards until they say something you want them to say” scenario. Like I said, at least she doesn’t go into detail. Charles just looks at the “colorful” pictures on the cards and the “subtle details that seem to point to hidden meanings.” He asks her how she got all that stuff about his nightmare from pictures.
“I’m both clairvoyant and clairaudient. ‘Clairoyant’ you may have heard of. It means you can see things like they’re happening on a TV show. ‘Clairaudient’ means you can hear it just like when you listen to he radio. The cards are tools, but I can see and hear things too. I saw your nightmare just like you do.”
Clairvoyant doesn’t mean you can see things absolutely clearly like they’re being acted out in front of you. For some people, yes, that’s the case. For others, it’s just snippets of mental images or even just persistent thoughts of a certain number or symbol. One of my second cousins is clairvoyant and she knew that her husband had died because she had a vision of leaves and knew exactly what that vision was showing her. Clairvoyance is rarely like how it’s portrayed in the movies. Clairaudience is usually described as hearing the voices of the dead or spirit guides inside your head. I personally feel clairaudience is the most common form of psychic ability. Almost everyone I know (who doesn’t think all psychics are delusional frauds) has had a clairaudient experience. But what both of these things are? Not like they’re being described in the book.
Dela asks Charles if he wants to know what the dream is about, and he’s like, yeah, duh, obviously.
“Shuffle the cards then,” she said as she leaned foward. In her hand she was holding a well-worn deck; he could tell she had been using it for quite a while.
Now, here’s an example of how to not sprinkle your description in. Charles has already looked at all of these cards closely to the point of examining small details. Now, he’s noticing that the deck is worn? That’s a macro detail. The hidden symbols in the illustrations are a micro detail. Don’t describe micro details before macro details unless there’s a good reason, i.e., Wil Graham noticing a missing cat that nobody’s brought up yet.
Dela hadn’t asked Charles to shuffle the deck before, but she has reasons for him to do it now:
“I was just looking at the present. That’s the easy part. I need to look at the past and future now. If you put your energy into the cards it will be much easier. They don’t bite, I promise. I may, but they don’t.” She knew how to be witty as well.
Did she, though?
Charles laughed a little at her joke and, being a twenty-one-year-old guy, he was instantly intrigued to find out if she really did bite.
Screeching brakes. He was twenty earlier in this scene. How long does Dela take to do a reading? And remember when I told you not to worry about Charles not being David Copperfield because it would be corrected later? There you go.
Dela could tell he was nervous, but she didnt know that it was both because he was not completely convinced the cards wouldn’t bite––and he was also still wondering if she might.
The first rule of comedy is: if you find a joke that makes only you laugh, repeat it over and over until it’s even less funny than it was the first time.
“Clear your mind and do your best to keep it clear for the next few minutes. Try not to focus on any one thing or let your mind wander if you can,” Dela instructed him.
She spoke calmly and with concentration; he noticed for the first time that her voice had a sultry tone to it that he liked.
Keeping in mind we’re seeing all of this through Zargon’s “pulled” memories…imagine hearing your dad describe anything about your mom with the word “sultry”. Yeah, the chemical showers are over there. Scrub up.
Dela tells Charles to shuffle until it feels like the cards are going to jump out of his hands to be read. If someone told me that, the first thing I would do is just throw the whole deck directly into the air and be like, “Spiritually gifted! Whooo!” and get kicked out of the New Age bookstore.
That’s not a criticism of the book. It’s just what I would do, because I’m the worst.
Charles began to shuffle the cards faster than anyone Dela had ever seen. The magician in him kicked in and he even did some quite spectacular sleight of hand speed tricks with them wihtout really thinking about it before cutting them. The cards flew fast and quickly, as if they were dancing.
Fast and quickly, huh?
She couldn’t help but be impressed by his skills and, for the first time, she realized how entrancing he could be, and how his eyes glistened. He could tell she was impressed and smirked in spite of himself before leaning forward so they were almost face-to-face, staring at each other.
Were they…were they facing away from each other before? I think the phrase Sarem was looking for was nose-to-nose or something. Also, Charles is still coming off like a total urethra here. Dela is willing to help him with the nightmare thing and he uses it as an opportunity to show off his card tricks. Then he’s smirking.
Fortunately, he gets worse.
“Impressed? he queried, with a cocky attitude but grinning from ear to ear with the nicest smile she had ever seen from a man––well, almost man. He’s still a little more boy than man, she thought, but he could become a great man.
He’s twenty-one! Like, I know he’s a young man, but he’s not a boy. This bugs the shit out of me because so many men are allowed to be immature into their thirties because they’re “still boys”. One of those jackasses fired from the Trump administration was like, my age and people were still using the boy excuse.
“By card tricks? Hardly.” She scoffed at him, even though she secretly was becoming impressed and a little giddy from his flirting––though she hid it well. She knew enough to know that she needed to be coy; he was someone who only liked the chase.
So, why would Dela, who doesn’t seem to like Charles all that much, who stated earlier that she thought he was pretentious, is now thinking about how to…what? Seduce him? Date him? Win his heart? He’s done nothing so far in this scene but reinforce those qualities that she didn’t like about him when they first met.
Anyway, she has him cut the cards into three piles, then starts her little speech about how the cards work.
“The three piles represent your past, present, and future. What I see in the past cannot be changed and the present is happening now, but the future is yet to be. Some things are meant to be and they will be, but most of what happens in our life is not set in stone so, therefore, our decisions cause our course. Even by just knowing how it looks currently and by getting this reading about it, you can affect it. Do you understand?”
“I guess so.” Charles shrugged. He was too busy looking at her to really let the words she said sink in or to try to understand them fully.
Charles Spellman: Certified Dreamboat.
Now, here’s where I start to question how big the table in the “small” tent she’s in actually is.
She picked up the “past” pile and began to lay out cards in sets of three again. As she laid out each set of three she studied them for a few moments before laying out the next set of three cards. She had set out four rows of three card sets before closing her eyes and breathing deep. She fanned the cards but kept them in order as she did this. After a few seconds she did the same thing with the “present” pile, putting the “past” pile back where it had been and then repeated this with the “future” pile.
So, I found my smallest deck––well, not my smallest, as I have a miniature deck with one-inch cards––and tried to figure this out. She’d have to have a dining room table in that little tent. Why are the spreads in this book so huge? I mean, I’m not saying large spreads are stupid or unnecessary, but Sarem has people doing like thirty-six card spreads on beds and in teensy tents.
Anyway, after laying down all of these cards and carefully arranging them and putting them right back for some reason, she takes Charles’s hands to see into his future. While he sees into her shirt.
He was beginning to truly realize how beautiful her face was, her smooth complexion, rosy cheeks, and even her bright, plump, and kissable lips. Though, like most guys, his eyes did eventually wander slightly south of her face. She was wearing an off-white cotton top over her frilly colorful skirt, and the top framed her chest in all the right places. He couldn’t help but stare.
I don’t. Like. I can’t even begin here. How? Where?
I’m sorry guys, I gotta list this one out so I don’t miss anything.
- This is possibly? probably? in Zafé Du Londe’s POV as she’s looking at her parents’ memories. And this is a memory she chooses to visit? The memory of her dad staring down her mom’s shirt?
- This makes Charles even more disgusting, somehow, but we’re supposed to find him endearing because boys will be boys or some shit?
- Yet another description of the female character’s clothes and desirable physical attributes (though I’m not sure how “bright” figures into lip attractiveness).
- The sheer, utter ’90s fanficness of “in all the right places”.
I read that paragraph and I reeled. I got vertigo from the depth of the wrongness in that paragraph but any nausea I experienced was solely from the part where our main character may be fondly remembering her father getting his horny eyes down her mom’s blouse.
But it doesn’t stop there! We head hop in the next paragraph and get Subway’s reaction:
When Dela opened her eyes, it was obvious what he was staring at––especially when he didn’t even notice she had opened her eyes and was staring back at him. She waited for a moment to see if he would look up. Finally, she loudly cleared her throat to get his attention.
“I said try not to focus on any one thing and keep your mind clear,” she reminded him while she shook her head as if she was slightly disgusted. In reality, she was flattered that he clearly liked her.
Lani Sarem is trying to rebrand this as a feminist triumph. Sweet dreams, everyone.
Dela tells Charles that his wandering eye is causing his current troubles.
“You slept with your assistant Betty, and while to you it was nothing, to her it was everything. She’s been in love––and slightly obsessed––with you for over a year. And even though you were both drunk, she thought it was the start of a life together.” Dela made a face of disapproval. Charles wasn’t sure if it was disapproval of Betty or him.
Well, it’s this book, so obviously she disapproves of Betty. We can’t blame Dream Daddy for his behavior because, you know. He’s just a boy.
And of course, Chuckie Spudman had no idea that Betty was into him. Also, Betty? I mean, I know people are named Betty, but in a book with names like Scherezade and Dela and Spellman and Jackson, Betty is where we’re landing? Okay. Anyway, Charles had no idea that Betty was in love with him, therefore he is in no way responsible for his actions. He’s the victim of a crazy, evil bitch:
“Since you slept with her that one night, you’ve been brushing her off, and she’s been getting more and more upset with you. She sneaks through camp at night and watches you sleep.”
The fun doesn’t stop there:
“Well, she saw you two weeks ago with some girl who came to the show. She lost it when she saw you with that other girl.” Dela looked Charles dead in the eye. He returned a blank stare. It was obvious that he didn’t even remember the girl he had slept with only two weeks earlier.
No wonder Betty’s gone full Liason Fatale over Charles. He’s a catch.
“Oh? Oh! Right. I remember her!” He snapped his fingers together and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty blonde. Nice to look at, turns out not even really that much fun. Betty was better than her. Not that Betty was amazing.” He shrugged. It sounded harsh but thruthful..
Dela is going to fall in love with this person. And we’re supposed to be okay with that.
She does tell him she didn’t need the recap, at least. Then she goes on:
“[…] Anyhoo, Betty is a woman scorned, and she’s finally realized that it meant nothing to you, and that she means nothing to you, and she can’t handle that. She’s decided if she can’t have you then no one will. When you do your bullet trick on Sunday, she’s going to switch out the shells for real ones, and when she shoots you in the chest, she’s going to kill you.”
“Aaaaaaanyhoo, you’re going to get shot.”
So, obviously, Charles leaves the tent and finds Betty, firing her immediately. He calls the police and they come and arrest Betty, who has live ammunition in her possession. Obviously, because it’s a book, she admits everything because she’s just too far gone over her obsession to act rationally and not incriminate herself.
Ha ha ha, no, that doesn’t happen at all. That would be the better, but still arguably terrible, course for this book to take. No, no, Dela has a fool-proof plan:
“The only way for this to work out even sorta okay for you, is for you to pretend that everything is fine until Sunday. Then, on Sunday, you will need to wear a bulletproof vest. When she shoots you, you’ll need to fall to the ground as if you were dead. She’ll convinct herself through her actions when she thinks you are dead. Just make sure that you call the cops right before the show and tell them that you have an idea of what’s going to happen. Tell them that you overheard her talking to someone, but that you don’t know who it was, so they can’t try to confirm the story. Do not tell them that I told you, or they won’t believe you. If you do this right, they will take her away. Your problem will be solved and your nightmares will go away. If you try to do something beforehand, no one will believe it and you will have no proof. In that case, the problem will simply get worse, and she will become more obsessed. I can’t even run all the scenarios of waht could happen if you try to do something before Sunday but I am certain that none will work out very well.”
Step one: Lie to the police.
Step two: Get shot with a real damn bullet.
Step three: Count on your assailant to incriminate herself.
Sounds like we can’t lose, guys!
Charles asks Dela if his dreams mean that he’s psychic. Which she feels is an arrogant question. Because apparently only Dela is allowed to be psychic. But she gives him––and us––yet another long-winded explanation about “energy” and “fate” because as readers, we haven’t been beaten over the head about that enough yet in this book. Basically, he’s not psychic, but Betty’s energy and his fate are showing him that he doesn’t need to die. Or something. Honestly, I nodded off halfway through the explanation.
When Dela can’t tell Charles any more information, he starts to doubt again. So, Dela reassures him:
“People do crazy things sometimes––especially women and especially for love.
There’s that sweet, sweet feminism in this ultra-feminist, woman-led project we were just hearing about last time!
I’m not really sure what she sees in you, but love is deaf, dumb, and blind as they say.”
First of all, no, they don’t say that. They say “love is blind.” Second, using “dumb” to mean non-verbal is incredibly offensive.
She threw in a job, though to be honest, she was starting to see what Betty had seen in him. He was charming, magnetic, and extremely good-looking.
Wait, after learning that he slept with his assistant––whose interest he didn’t notice despite her pining for him for a year–– and callously tossed her aside for a girl he didn’t remember––and whose sexual performance he’s just fine with casually rating in front of a stranger who didn’t ask in the first place––Dela is starting to see why women like him? She finds him charming now, knowing all of that? After he stared down her top right in front of her? “Energy” and “Fate” and “Spirit Guides” or whatever the fuck have shown Sandwichella everything she now knows about Charles and that makes him more attractive to her?
This is the most toxic bullsh…
Charles tells Dela that she has a lot of answers for someone so young. So, you know what she’s going to say next, right?
“I was born old, and I have an even older soul. […]”
And I have a strong gag reflex that’s triggered by the words “old soul.”
Dela looks into Charles’s eyes and apparently sees something but even though we’re in omniscient third, we don’t see it. Because the author doesn’t know how POV works, just like she thought she could set up a “big reveal” over something as major as her protagonist’s parentage while writing in first person POV. Charles asks her what she saw and she won’t tell him. It’s apparently supposed to be some big moment, but I skimmed over it because duh, obviously it’s about fucking him and making their abomination of a daughter.
“I have an appointment coming. If you want to live, wear the vest. If you don’t, well, either way you won’t have any more nightmares after Sunday.”
“It’s part of the act to show I’m not wearing one.”
Charles was starting to believe her, but he wasn’t sure how to fake not wearing the vest while actually wearing the vest.
If you can figure out how to fake sawing someone in half or cutting them into three sections in a cabinet or floating them in the friggin air, you can figure out how to disguise a bulletproof vest. Or, I don’t know, make it part of the act, like Penn and Teller do. Either way, there’s nothing stopping her from just shooting you in the face. Maybe pick a plan that doesn’t involve allowing your stalker to aim and fire a gun at you.
Dela basically has the same reaction I did, which was, okay, well, don’t wear it and die. Then an old woman comes in for her psychic appointment, Charles kisses Dela’s hand––which of course he’s a friggin hand kisser, why wouldn’t he be?––and leaves and the chapter ends.
Okay, this is all being told while Zurricane Latrina is nearly dying?!! Why do we need to know how beautiful Sandwich is while this is happening?! I can’t even…
I think of plot holes, story inconsistencies, lack of editing, and the like, as holes in clothes. Small plot holes are no big deal, especially if they’re not obvious — everyone’s clothing gets some wear and tear sometimes. But with this book? Combined, the sheer amount and obviousness of terrible writing and plot inconsistencies has made all the author’s clothes fall off. And not in a sexy way, either. Sarem is prancing around in front of the world ass naked and insisting that anyone who sees that as repulsive is a fool. She’s become the emperor in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” And she thinks we’re too stupid to see through it all.
God, this book…
There’s a photo that’s been floating around my facebook feed of “jeans” that are essentially a waistband with pockets, and the seams part of the jeans, but no actual fabric/coverage. That’s what your clothes analogy reminds me of, and I think it’s perfect.
At least they kept the pockets so it’s practical. ;D
psst, Lani Sarem when someone concludes stuff about other people from available PHYSICAL EVIDENCE they can SEE, it’s called deduction y’know the thing Sherlock Holmes does. It’s not psychic, Conan Doyle already told us thousand times everyone can learn this.
Oh god, I now really want the movie that’s totally happening to have a scene where Dela goes to her Mind Palace a la https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FSKTndbwVo
Dela being played by Lani Sarem, of course.
That’d be a thing to see with the limited budget this so happening movie is gonna have XD really tho, Dela is doing the single least magical psychic thing here and it’s supposed to be uuuuu so spooky and maghick or however, you spell magic in most pretentious way to make it seem unique or smart.
It’s even worse if Dela simply knew Betty, then she wouldn’t even need to be psychic at all. I’m surprised Charles didn’t ask about that or consider it at any rate. Then again, I could never remember who was part of the circus since it was always possible Charles just turned up at random. It’s a bit vague but after reading it again on Jenny’s blog I think Charles and Betty are one of the acts or part of the sideshow and apparently he’s met Dela before based on context clues in the sandwich nickname for example, although it’s also possible that LS simply fucked up because she’s bad at precision details.
The biggest headscratcher is Dela because I guess she could be a singular attraction (since she sees people one-on-one) or else she’s traveling alongside the circus but not directly affiliated. It’s also weird but I’m pretty sure we never get to find out how Dela got her job at 18 and what her family thought about it. That right there would’ve been far more interesting than seeing how she met Charles.
I read “Interview Lani With Sarem” and I actually thought this was correct, thinking that she’s interviewing herself, like some fanfic authors like to do because they’re so fucking important and nobody asks them the deep, important questions they deserve. XD
Okay, so Zardipan is talking to the readers directly because she’s narrating it for someone and she’s already broken the fourth wall a few times.
In other word’s Zephony is telling us what Mac is “telling” her about things that Dumper told him through her, Charles Dickface’s and omniscient-Zurdulu POV.
Spankdank is a fucking douchebag. Arrogance is not charm and self-importance is not attractive.
Of course women are crazy, stupid, and emotional when dealing with love. They get obsessed and want to kill you after you fuck them. Poor men can’t use and discard women like used kleenex without being stalked and vilified by those evil bitches. :c
It’s grating how women are either whores or crazy, obsessed bitches but when men act the same way in a novel they’re a dreamboat and are lauded for their dominance. When women overstep boundaries they’re wrong and stupid, when men do it it’s okay because they know better what boundaries a woman should have. An assertive and open woman is an evil slut but a woman with boundaries is uptight and needs to loosen up for her love interest right the fuck now.
I love how these “Tihi, feminism!”-authors ALWAYS 100% recreate misogynystic ideas and further strengthen toxic masculinity as the be-all end-all romantic hero. By love I mean I loathe them.
The misogyny this book has is mind-boggling. And the fact that douchebag Spellberg is seen as a “romantic hero” is frankly absurd. Who wouldn’t like a guy who treats women like used tissues, stares at your boobs, and doesn’t take you seriously? Delicatessen’s attraction to him after he tells her about his treatment of women makes sense only if you’re like Sarem, and revel in misogyny. Because her avatar is Not Like Other Girls.
Also. Dellaney is supposed to be an agent of fate or karma or some shit like that. Wouldn’t she see that Charley Horse is getting *exactly what he deserves* for treating women like garbage? I’m not saying that casual sex isn’t a thing, because it completely is, but Spellmagiqueckal never asks his partners about how they feel about that. Instead, he simply does what he wants and continues on his merry way, and if a woman is angry for his behavior, well, she’s a slut who deserved it!
BECAUSE ONLY MEN CAN EVER HAVE CASUAL SEX ACCORDING TO THE PATRIARCHY AND ITS FEMALE PROPONENTS.
This book needs a fucking fedora. It’s all women’s fault, EXCEPT for the self-insert and her equally self-insert mother!
“This book needs a fucking fedora.”
You’ve made my evening, thank you! 😀 😀 😀
You’re welcome!
Or a MAGA hat. I just read the actual novel (thanks, library!) and Charles literally gave me an anger headache. I told my sister about his treatment of women, and she responded that Spellman reminds her of Donald Trump. And he totalllyyyy is like the orange one himself. Right down to the sexual harassment and terrible etiquette and white, blond women liking him for some reason. Even the book’s writing copies Trump’s style. Terrible grammar and spelling and punctuation, random meandering, lack of knowledge about homophones, same regressive, sexist ideas…
Charleeeeeee even has a comment that gives me some Ivanka vibes. Page 317:
“But, Dely, our daughter has become a beautiful young woman.”
Jenny covered it, but it will never not be creepy. Especially since he’s attracted to Delano, and Zoop looks exactly like her.
I bet it just killed her that the interviewer called her “Laney” at the beginning. I couldn’t watch the whole thing so no idea if she corrected him later.
She did not correct him, and he pronounced it that way twice more. I thought of the foreward and laughed.
“If she didn’t see him glancing around the room, she can’t tell us that he’s glancing around the room.”
But she’s, like, PSYCHIC!
It’s interesting. When the initial controversy happened Lani Sarem had herself set to play the Zade. It was on her imdb page and everything. When she was being interviewed in that video, though, she wouldn’t commit to saying who they had in mind to play the lead in the movie.
It’s hard for her, because on the one hand, this whole thing was just a vehicle to boost her flailing acting career, but on the other hand, with the controversy, she has to make it *look* like it wasn’t a complete self-insert ego-driven move to boost her acting career.
I think if she were to actually be playing Zade, she would be crowing that shit from the rooftops. I think that because LS is 36, and is only now (theoretically) getting to make the movie she wrote at the age of 25, she’s realized that she can’t cast herself as Zade.
I kind of feel bad for her, but I also genuinely think that a movie starring Sarem as a 25-year-old ingenue would be hilarious. Mostly because she probably acts about as well as she writes. Bonus points if she ends up directing.
Tommy Wiseau, a new challenger has arisen!
All of this is brilliant. I can’t stop laughing at the Tommy Wiseau proclamation!
Oh gosh, that just reminds me of this horrible TV show he made. (I saw a few episodes during a special screening of the room, with an introduction and Q&A with Tommy Wiseau, and ooof) His character was seriously supposed to be in his early 20s, and Tommy looked like he was in his 40s when he filmed the room 15 years ago.
It’ll knock Showgirls off the Worst Movies Set In Vegas list!
I’ve been wondering though, is there really that much physical difference within ten years? If she’d been sensible and said that Zade was 35, would she have any better odds of getting that role? I think with her horrible acting it doesn’t make a difference what age the character is (although it’d be great if she were in a parody as a six-year-old lead.) XD
You’ve seen her act?? Link!!
If she was born in 1978, as Jenny speculated, then she’s 40.
Which makes watching this trainwreck of an excuse for an urban fantasy even more delicious.
‘If someone told me that, the first thing I would do is just throw the whole deck directly into the air and be like, “Spiritually gifted! Whooo!” and get kicked out of the New Age bookstore.’
I would PAY to see that!
Long time lurker, first time commenter. Hi!
I’d like to know how her actions are going to incriminate (I believe this is the word that Lard was going for? Not “convict”) herself? Is she going to shoot him then throw her head back and say “HAHAHA YOU THOUGHT THE BULLETS WERE FAKE BUT THEY WERE REAL AND NOW YOU’RE DEAD!”? If she was going to be super obvious, why the plan? Why not just, I don’t know, shoot him?
She’s ~cRaAaAzY~ and therefore doesn’t need a motive.
Is that a knockoff Harry Potter font in the video? I don’t even want to click it. Please tell me it is.
This was my first thought, too. I just don’t know if Lani chose or the Wizard world whatever people.
Nobody in her 20s in the ’70s was named “Betty.” If her name was Elizabeth, it was usually shortened to Beth or Liz.
Couldn’t she even look up one of those baby names by year things? The ones that tell you why Great-Gran was Florence or Mabel?
Yeah and it also depends on social class. Like people from working class are gonna give different names or shorten them differently than people from middle class or rich people. but we all know Zani Larem doesn’t care about things like research
This is especially important considering this book put so much goddamn emphasis on names.
This was about my only criticism of the excellent book my dad wrote. It’s set in the present day and there’s a woman of 20ish called Angela. NOBODY of that age is called Angela. He won’t change it, though.
My great-grandmother WAS Mabel, by the way 🙂
In defense of your dad, even names that have fallen out of favor are usually still around. It takes a while for a name to die out entirely. Unless her parents were trying to be super trendy or abstain from previously popular names then I don’t think it’s impossible for her to be named Angela. It’s a fair criticism and I’m glad you told him about it. He probably just didn’t know but then got really attached to that name. XD
Angela is still a relatively popular name, at least in the US. It’s ranked in the top 150 girls names. Angie Thomas, Lani’s arch enemy, comes to mind. She’s an Angela (I think), and she’s in her late twenties. Maybe that’s why she goes by a nickname, though!
It depends on class and race, too. Angela was a popular name in the 90s, at least in my schools, because of Angela Bassett, and Halle also had a bit of a resurgence.
The book was set in the UK where the name Angela is officially extinct – 0 babies were named Angela last year – but there would have been a couple 20 years ago, and like I said to my dad it’s only a problem if all his characters had names that didn’t fit their generation. They didn’t – the other young people have names that were fairly popular around the time they were supposed to be born – so it was really just a quick “hang on a sec!” rather than a real problem.
My aunt would beg to differ, but point taken. She’s been known as Betty (short for Elizabeth) since she was small. It might not be a common name, but it’s not entirely inaccurate (though I cringe to think my aunt shares her name with this cardboard-cutout-silhouette of a character).
Anyone secure enough to stick with a name associated mostly with goody-two-shoes Betty Rubble and Betty Cooper at that time wouldn’t be taken in by Chuckles the Clone’s pretensions. He doesn’t like her unfashionable name, he can suck it.
Anyone INSECURE enough to want his approval would have changed her nickname to something kewler the minute she moved out of her parents’ house.
Welp, this is the plot from FSG, so I wonder if Betty will be like, “My master said he liked me!”
You know what REALLY pisses me off about Lani Sarem (caution rant ahead).
It’s the fact that she thought all YA readers are stupid. Kooky name for the heroine – check, magic(k) check, love triangle (check). She thought that’s all she had to do to get a huge following and become the best writer/movie star in the YA universe.
NO Lani. You need more than that. You need a compelling story, a strong hero/heroine, conflict, consistent rules in your universe, AND talent. You thought readers were dumb. You were wrong.
Now granted I don’t usually read YA but I’m still angry. #RantOver
Well, I really doubt she reads YA anyway… Or reads at all. It just gets to me that she keeps saying Narnia is her favorite book. Aslan did not die on the stone table for this shit
LOL! But hey, maybe she admired Jadis? That would explain a lot…
Jadis would eat her soul and then throw it up. The White Witch wouldn’t take her even if she was the biggest traitor in Narnia
Librarian here. We’re getting to a stage where teens are demanding more from their fiction than the generic Twilight formula. They want more diversity, they want LGBT characters, they want romance that’s not insta-love. There’s a reason why books like THUG are getting traction while newer, prettier books like The Blood Rose Rebellion are getting left behind. Teen readers want more from their fiction.
Lani is five years too late to ride on that Twilight wave. Twilight is still popular, certainly, but Lani believes it still has the same drive, and anyone who tells her differently is stupid and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The YA community is telling her her generic Twilight-esque book is passé, and she’s going, “I know more than you.”
Agreed. It’s also the reason why racist books like The Continent aren’t going over well with the YA community.
Not only is she using an offensive term for non-verbal, but saying love can’t or doesn’t speak doesn’t make sense. “Love is blind” because you (supposedly) can’t see flaws in the person you love (even though Sandwich is pretty clear on those flaws until the plot says she isn’t anymore); you could potentially say love is deaf, but we rarely talk about hearing someone’s flaws. If love doesn’t speak, how on earth would we know that someone’s in love in the first place, unless we can invade the memories of someone to whom they told the extremely detailed story of their meet-“cute” using third-person omniscient POV that skews wildly in every direction?
“Charles––even at that young age––was not used to girls who didn’t immediately fall all over themselves in front of him. He didn’t know how to deal with a girl who didn’t care. He also didn’t believe in what she did and he didn’t understand how she could take herself seriously.”
NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS!
“‘Don’t call me, Dely. …'”
PLEASE tell me that comma is in the actual book and not a typo on your part.
Is it just me, or are all these detailed descriptions throughout the book of Tarot readings dull as watching paint dry?
Did people say “anyhoo” in 1977?
I just planted a bunch of stuff on my balcony, and sometimes I just stand out there and look at it and think how pretty it’s going to be and how excited I am to have space to plant things now, and I guess what I’m saying is I would literally rather watch grass grow than read her descriptions of Tarot readings.
I had my first root canal some weeks ago. The aftermath would have been extraordinarily painful without ibu, but the procedure itself is less painful than this book.
So now we know.
The comma is in the text.
Oh, Jenny, that makes my cold, dead heart so happy.
Bwa-ha-HAAAA!
So she’s essentially saying “don’t call me!” To herself.
Maybe Dely is a subliminal name that Dela gives to her daughter when Zade invades her memories and starts experiencing them first-hand or whatever?
“Wow, this is smuttier than I expected.”
“Don’t call me for Mother’s Day, Dely.”
“You must bring my daughter home so I can save her life! Hurry! Lol JK, I just wanted to tell you guys how hot I was in 1977. PSYCH!”
If she had put only a little thought into this, she could have had both this crap that is going on, and a magical healing.
They could have rushed her to her mom who could have explained that some of the stuff she needed is hard to get through airport security, and magically healed her daughter in front of Mac, which then leads Mac to having a lot of questions.
Then all of this truely uncomfortable exposition could be happening while they wait for her to regain consciousness. Zade could have said something like, everyone’s thoughts and memories are just there, in my state it is hard for me to ignore them. Then she could have slipped around in POV and it wouldn’t be such a continuity issue.
It would still be weird and annoying and written like an 11 year old’s first try at writing, but at least logical answers to all the problems L- Annie doesn’t seem to see.
Yeah, unfortunately, it’s easy to trip over ourselves when it comes to how soon something should happen or the proper order of events. LS has a bad habit of introducing things way too late or way too early but since she was focusing on Dela I think that’s why Zade was left unconscious since it made it easier to ignore her… but then we got this horrible 3rd omniscient within 1rst limited so that didn’t work. Maybe LS didn’t think of healing first and exposition second because she thought she could drag out the tension only it severed the string instead of pulling the bow taut.
It makes me wonder if her editors shot themselves in the foot by insisting that Zade was the heroine and shouldn’t be missing for the climax, which is why we got the combo instead of the previous head jumps. They should’ve focused more on what you pointed out but I think two of them died on the wrong hill. The third editor just gave up. :p
So the one piece of advice Lani probably took made the story actually worse. Huh.
Isn’t there a whole rant from Zade about how she hates being called a “magi girl” and it’s a slur and all that? Why would she have a button with that term? It would be like JK Rowling selling “Proud Mudblood” t-shirts or something.
Because she doesn’t have imagination enough to create something else. What else could it be?
If you can’t imagine the characters wearing the button because it’s a slur, what makes them think fans want to wear it????
I’m so impressed by these high-tech buttons that anybody could make with a printer and those kits from hobby stores.
Because as we can see, Lazy Syrup doesn’t even comprehend what a slur actually means. I have a feeling she included the “magi is a slur” bit in response to people taking her to task for her Twitter handle.
“See! I know what a slur is! It’s offensive! G-psy is not offensive at all! SEE I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”
And then she blithely uses the super offensive term she made up, because she doesn’t know that words mean things and thinks it’s cute or whatever.
“The only way for this to work out even sorta okay for you, is for you to pretend that everything is fine until Sunday. Then, on Sunday, you will need to wear a bulletproof vest. When she shoots you, you’ll need to fall to the ground as if you were dead. She’ll convinct herself through her actions when she thinks you are dead. Just make sure that you call the cops right before the show and tell them that you have an idea of what’s going to happen. Tell them that you overheard her talking to someone, but that you don’t know who it was, so they can’t try to confirm the story. Do not tell them that I told you, or they won’t believe you. If you do this right, they will take her away. Your problem will be solved and your nightmares will go away. If you try to do something beforehand, no one will believe it and you will have no proof. In that case, the problem will simply get worse, and she will become more obsessed. I can’t even run all the scenarios of waht could happen if you try to do something before Sunday but I am certain that none will work out very well.”
God, you know what’s worse about this than even the absolutely stupid logic? It’s *boring.* It’s so boring, you guys. Mortadella keeps monologuing about the future and fate and how the universe works, and you just know Lunge Squat thought she was making epic speeches that would awe us, but they’re just. Boring. They drone on an on with no hook. Swordfish really has no writing talent at all – not creative, and not technical.
This idiotic scenario really drives home the point about having a good editor/some form of peer review. I took a screenwriting workshop in college that just consisted of everyone reading and reviewing each other’s WIP’s together. All too often, even the great writers had scenarios like this, where the writer really wanted a certain scene or situation to happen in a certain way that didn’t make sense or just felt overly complicated. We would all then work through the logic together- what is your goal for this scene? What is the character motivation? Is this scene showing that? Why did you specifically decide to do it this way and is there a simpler way to accomplish your aims? Every single time, people defended their script to the death because they either really liked the dialogue they had written or couldn’t see the conflict unfolding any other way. Yes, it’s hard to kill your darlings, but every single time, the changes improved the overall story.
Granted, this whole BOOK is a cautionary tale about needing an editor, but that one paragraph in particular brought up so many memories of that class.
*whispers* But she said she had three editors
I’m halfway willing to bet that she thinks “editor” means “person who didn’t write it but somehow was involved in setting the book up to be printed”.
So maybe she had one who spellchecked it, one who set it up to print all nice without going off the edge of the page, and one who sent it to the printers so she’d have a copy to photograph at airports.
This section would have been the perfect place to jump ahead and have something exciting happen. Like don’t explain the gun and the vest and blah blah blah. Just transition to Sunday and have Betty shoot him and then reveal the vest. At least that could have created some excitement. I think Sarem wanted to create tension here, but it is such a fail because we know Not David Copperfield is alive (duh) and now we know how he gets out of it. And I bet we have to read that scene exactly as Larem has already described it. There won’t be some sort of third option Sandwich didn’t see.
Yeah, and if you can’t get that feedback it’s still good to ask yourself questions as a writer because when it comes to boring scenes most of the time they’re boring to write as well. Some stuff you can’t get around, that’s just how it is, but a lot of the time it is stuff you can cut or rework like Shandy G said.
Obviously, if it’s a darling, it’s a lot harder to talk yourself out of using it even if other people can persuade you eventually. Those are some great questions for finding an alternative though especially if people can offer suggestions. 🙂
“I can’t even run all the scenarios of waht could happen if you try to do something before Sunday but I am certain that none will work out very well.”
If I got that answer from DillyPickle I’d have her go and do another 500 to 1000 Monte-Calo simulations because her ‘solution’ is more fraught with things that could go wrong than a Mars Rover Skycrane Entry-Descent-Landing. I’m thinking with what she suggests, maybe only 20% of the scenarios would work out OK for him. (What if she decides at the last minute to shoot him in the head? Knee? Crotch?)
What if at the last minute it turns out she’s not actually a very good shot, since for all we know this magic show could be her only shooting experience and if she’s been shooting blanks, she’s hasn’t been aiming for a target? Even if she meant to shoot him in the chest, she could very easily hit him somewhere else, or hit an innocent bystander. This is a bad plan!
Also like … most people know what blanks are? I’ve never shot a gun in my life and I know. So okay, it’s part of the “trick” to show that he’s not wearing a bulletproof vest. So … wouldn’t the audience just assume the gun fired blanks, then? What’s the trick even supposed to BE?
Probably some kind of bullet catching illusion? The assistant fires a gun, after the illusionist makes this grand speech about how dangerous it all is. Then when the illusionist reveals a bullet ‘caught by his super speed’, it’s supposed to be impressive.
If she’s amped up and her hands are shaking, she could easily shoot him in the throat, or miss entirely. We already know she’s going to be sleep-deprived.
Why not just switch out the real bullets for blanks again? Trade the gun entirely for one that won’t fire, so her reaction to that will be incriminating?
Mortadella. This works on so many levels: pun on Della and also it’s something you could buy at any deli in Bensonhurst.
I feel SO warm and cozy now.
Collectively, we’re much better at coming up with nicknames than LS is. XD
I know murder is bad, but based on the way Charles treated Betty, and what a douchecanoe he still is in the present day, and also that Betty’s plan is a super Goth and badass way to commit a murder… #TeamBetty, y’all
Plot twist! Betty is Sofia’s biological mother. If this happened in ’77, there was plenty of time for Betty to meet someone else and give birth to her. For years, Sofia has prepared to destroy Charles Spellman, even using her own body as a tool, to avenge her own mother’s mistreatment.
The book ends with Sofia going scorched earth, revealing his immense corruption and publicising his own deadbeat and misogynist misdeeds. Sofia walks up to Charles and Zoapscum, surrounded by cops and paparazzi, and says, “Hell hath no fury.” And then she walks away without looking back at that particular explosion, into her proud mother’s arms.
#teambettyandsofia
A+ work, 10/10, would read.
Revenge of the scorned women?! Absolutely, yes, someone make this a thing. Charles deserves to have his douchecanoe attributes exposed!
Okay, THIS is the best rewrite so far. XD
Especially if Dela doesn’t step in because this is why she left Mr. douchecanoe and she wanted her kid to be better, tried to raise her right, but genetics got in the way and now Zade has simply proven that she is truly the Daughter of Douchecanoe. Dela keeps her back turned; she tried but there’s nothing more she can do.
Then Sofia goes on to record a series of hit singles because that’s her true passion in life. Betty continues to burst with pride and goes back to her baking hobby so she can give her daughter a homemade devil’s food cake with icing that reads “Congratulations from your #1 Fan” and Sofia will be “Awww, mom. You didn’t have to do that.” 😀
For real, I’m rooting for Betty now.
If there are #TeamBetty, #TeamSofia, or #TeamLamboGirl pins being made, I’m 100% in!
Me too, obviously! Hahaha
Okay, I get that this was a screenplay and really this wacky POV is a stupid way to say, hey, here’s a flashback about my parents!!
But this could be written to make so much more sense!! Even though it’d be hard to have both parents POVs, it could be like a shared memory that she is taking from her parents heads as they think about the day they met when they first see eachother again… but instead it’s Lani telling us a story about her mom telling a story about a time.. blah blah. It’s such nonesense. Which of course isn’t a surprise for this book.
The timeline is just irritating…. if Lambada wants to be in her 20s, her parents meeting in their 20s, but 40 years ago just doesn’t work. Poor David Copperfield… his knock off is such a jerk.
Ugh… I have more complaints, but I just can’t even 😛 this book is so lame.
It would be so easy to fix the timeline, too! Just make the book set in 2007, or something. The time is almost ripe for Aughts nostalgia pieces.
Especially if you’re going to insert a real band that hit its stride in 2005 (the Plain White Ts).
I think it would have made the most sense to just have the story in Dela’s perspective rather than a split perspective scenario. Except rather than it being third person omniscient, just make it DELA ACTUALLY TELLING A STORY. That way you could have interjections like ‘I could tell he didn’t believe me’ or Charles cutting her off to add in that he totally thought she was a fraud. Anything other than this massively confused narration that makes you not know who the hell is telling Mac about how bad Charles wanted to bone Zade’s mom or why.
What’s worse is that I’m guessing that this was leftover from the screenplay. Action text that she just chose to leave as is rather than properly adapting the screenplay into a novel. Which means that she intentionally put in all this extra, unnecessary (and frowned upon by the industry) descriptive text that outlined the sexual tension between the character that is ‘her’ dad and the character she describes as looking almost identical to herself, and thus was likely originally planned to also be played by her. A man she describes in incredibly unflattering ways but he’s hot and good with his hands. This woman has some serious daddy issues.
She’s going to shoot you, so wear a bulletproof vest. And… hope she doesn’t aim for the head, I guess.
OK, so of the three, (?) four editors this book was alleged to have, not one spoke up and said “Hey, I noticed you’ve built up a lot of tension about your protagonist’s mystery illness, the potential for death, and the need for special treatment by her mag-ick mother. Do you think spending dozens of pages in a flashback to a completely unrelated story might, I dunno, derail that just a little bit?”
I mean, there can be a time and place for a flashback / how-did-we-get here type story-in-the-story, especially if the flashback story echoes the main plot, or emphasizes themes already established. But, well… it has to make sense.
I’m thinking of the “Machete Order” for watching the first six Star Wars movies. Some people say “watch ’em in the order of theatrical release” and others say “watch ’em in numerical order”, but the most satisfying arrangement I thought was the Machete Order: watch a New Hope, then Empire, then Attack of the Clones & Revenge of the Sith, then Return of the Jedi. Right there, in the middle of the story, we basically get a huge flashback story. But it works for me, because there’s this theme we see (Anakin wants to protect someone he loves and turns to the dark side) that gets echoed when we return to the main story. (Luke nearly kills Vader to protect Leia) We, the audience, have questions at the end of Empire (“Wait, is what Vader said true, or was it a head-fake to recruit Luke? How did he wind up in that armor? Who was Luke’s mother?”) and the ‘flashback’ story works to fill in those gaps. Plus, the story at the end of Empire, downer though it is, gives us a chance to pause and re-group. We can step back, emotionally, from the story, for a bit.
This dreck? Nothing like it. There’s no parallel story-lines here; Deli doesn’t have a love triangle, Mac isn’t a successful entertainer, (though I guess Jackson is?) Mac doesn’t believe in Tarot cards or clairvoyance or mag-ick. There are are no common themes or messages or similarities that I can see. It’s literally just that the plot careened off the road into a ditch labeled “How I Met Your Mother”.
I 100% guarantee it’s because Sarem really wanted to play Dela in this scene so she could dress up in g*psy drag and have some good old-Hollywood banter with a sexy leading man.
Charles is totally speaking with a mid-Atlantic accent in these scenes.
Good lord, it’s been years and I’m still upset with the way they ended HIMYM.
I’m pretty sure the editors said something and were promptly fired or argued into submission. The last guy either gave up quick or said nothing and got a cameo as the doctor (they have the exact same name and he’s the only editor acknowledged in the credits… but LS got one last dig in by making him incompetent, intentionally or not.)
The funny thing is she could have REALLY easily fixed this by just having Dela say ‘I’ve stopped the worst of it, but to get her to wake up we have to perform a special ritual that we can’t do until *insert time frame here*. So for now all we can do is wait…’ and then they have to distract themselves, pass the time, and get Mac to accept that this stuff is real so he’ll do what he needs to do when the time comes.
Exactly, and even if the timing didn’t have to be just right, maybe it took awhile to convince Mac or he had to mull it over a bit.
My favorite thing about this entire chapter is the MASSIVE double-standard between Betty and Mac.
To elaborate:
Mac’s tragic backstory is that he slept with a performer named Clara Faust, thinking it would lead to something more serious. It effects Mac so much that it makes him swear off dating performers FOREVER. Clara is the one painted as being a horrible heartless slut (she’s even described by another character as being “worse than Sofia” or something to that effect). It’s implied that Mac’s physically abusive behavior towards Zade in chapter 14 (I think) where he ends up putting her life at risk (by not doing thorough safety checks) is the result of Clara’s evilness (Zade tells Mac that she’s not Clara, etc.)
Then we get this chapter, where the situation is essentially gender-swapped. Betty has feeings for Charles, and then sleeps with him hoping it will lead to something more. He brushes her off (and is incredibly callous about it), but it’s *Betty* who’s the total psycho clingy ex girlfriend.
Like, obviously, outright planning murder due to being a Woman Scorned (ugh) is obviously morally much worse than accumulating some baggage, even if that baggage is expressed as abuse towards others, but the framing is so telling. Charles gets portrayed as a dopey oblivious boys-will-be-boys hilarious charming womanizer, while we’re clearly meant to take it as gospel that Clara was “a terrible person who makes Sofie (that other horrible slutbitch) look like Mother Theresa.” It’s *Betty’s* fault that she’d be so dumb as to think a hot stud like Charles would ever want a relationship with her, but Clara is an evil seductress who totally led Mac on and hurt him deeply.
This.
Now, if this were worked in a way that makes Mac realize he was expecting more from Clara than what she was willing to give (in a scenario where he knew at the beginning that she was only in it for sex but he thought she could change her mind) then it could have been used to give Mac some needed closer on that broken heart. This would be even better of HE were the one keeping Zuzu at arm’s length to protect himself from being hurt again. Then this story would have a point in the narrative instead of being a time sink when a time skip would be more reasonable.
Oh, yeah! If this was a growth opportunity for Mac it’d be great. His previous actions aren’t good but if he realizes where he went wrong and wants to put some effort into accepting and correcting his mistakes, then forgives Clara (optional since we know nothing concrete about her; maybe Zade actually is Clara 2.0), he can move on and take further steps in his current relationship, if he still wants that.
It’s possible LS had some vague inkling that’s what she was going for here. Like everything in this novel, it’s a perfectly good idea but the execution is both gods awful and bland. That’s if she was consciously trying to achieve such a goal and it wasn’t accidental, like every scene showing the true awesomness of Sofia.
I almost wanna say we should all beg for Team Jackson pins just because we know Mac is end game and I like to think it would annoy Lani to have her afterthought love interest get more attention, but I know she’d just feed off the attention regardless.
She would. So don’t. I have an on-going bet with a friend that she’ll disappear by the end of the year so let’s not ruin that lol
… who’s gonna buy those??? I’m seriously flabbergasted that she’s making merchandise to a book that has no fans! In my library system of four locations, we have ONE copy of HFM and it’s only been checked out ONE time since it’s debut.
Where is she getting so much money for this???
She’s a con artist. She’s conning people.
I’m honestly wondering if she’s a bit delusional too though. These things aren’t mutually exclusive of course.
Wait, do you know who checked out HFM that one time? I’m wondering if they were just morbidly curious or a poor rando. XD
Also, where is your library system?
> and even her bright, plump, and kissable lips.
I’m sorry I just. /gag
It’s HER MOM. EUGH.
Also I just generally have an issue with the term “kissable lips”, do people actually think to themselves “mmmm them lips are so kissable”? It’s just weird, there’s like 400 other ways to phrase that you want to kiss someone or that their lips make you think about it without using the word “kissable”. It just… feels childish? I dunno maybe this is an unpopular opinion.
It was cutting-edge when Fitzgerald used it in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.”
Totally agree.
In some ways I find it similar to the word ‘punchable’. In both cases, the way they’re often used is ‘I have to restrain myself from doing [action] because their [body part] is just so dang [action]able’. Obviously this adds an uncomfortable layer of prioritising your own desires over the wellbeing/consent of the other person.
In general, describing someone else in terms of what you’d like to do to them is just a little gross.
I dunno. Fuckable just sounds childish if it’s in the middle of a sex scene, rather than gross. But yes, overall, I agree. XD
At least we finally understand why Mac is so terrible at his job. Charles has never even considered the idea that someone IN ADDITION TO THE PERFORMERS should check props and take charge of firearms and therefore ensure the safety of everyone in the production.
My boyfriend used to be a member of the magician’s guild, and he is careful to store his stuff in ways that don’t obviously reveal the trick, but it’s not like I don’t know how any of his tricks are done. He typically lets me figure it out for myself, but, c’mon, magic is not so Super Sekrit that NO layperson can be allowed to know.
Same when I worked on a magic show- it’s not like we signed an NDA or anything; we knew how the tricks were done and stored because it was part of the job to know. Not that we did anything dangerous like a bullet catch (that’s a *leetle* dark for a kid’s magic show), but if we had, you can bet there would be one person on crew with the keys to the firearms cabinet and part of their job would involve checking the firearm in and out to the performer and inspecting that everything was working properly with the performer before the show.
I deeply, deeply enjoy the unintentional irony that David Spoofman is repeatedly at fault for the dangerous scenarios his staff works under, and that exact carelessness has finally resulted in the mortal (magical? …whatever) wounding of his daughter, which was the exact thing Subway was trying to protect her from. …If Laney did any of this on purpose, I will buy a very pretty, very expensive hat and eat it.
Luckily, you won’t have to shop for hats. Sadly, I’m pretty sure all of the safety inspection nonsense was pure laziness or disinterest because it got in the way of the plot. We certainly never see any world impact from it and Charles never gets called out as far as I recall.
David Spoofman is the best nickname. I hearby declare that all the other nicknames can go home.
i watched that video. She basically blamed the YA readers for getting her book yanked. She’s such a freaking ass hat! They didn’t understand that it wasn’t geared toward young adults, in certain age ranges. But she’s happy, cause she’s the first person who’s book for yanked. She’s delusional and crazy. She needs to be locked up for her own safety. My goodness!
That’s like being proud to be the first person who got their penis broken. Sure, you’re immortalized and your name will be passed around, but good god people will laugh at your misfortune and be bewildered that such a thing happened.
I loudly gasped when I read this:
“Well, I tried to find some information about the author, namely, her age. Because we know that Zard is Lani, has always been meant to be Lani, and that Lani even went so far as to cast herself in the lead role of Zuck in the film version, I saw 1977 and got suspicious. It was surprisingly difficult to find an age for her listed anywhere, but a modeling profile puts her at thirty-six. No birthdate listed. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that she lowballs her age publically and that she was born in 1978, based on the fact that she seems unable to separate herself from the character and as such can’t stand to alter the book’s timeline from her own.”
That explains so much. Lowball that age. Every time I see a photo of her, I cannot fathom how she can be only 36. That puts even MORE strain on the fact she fancies herself to be able to play a much younger character.
Her slur-handle twitter account lists her birthday as 11/11 and I’m sure she’s pretty pleased with that because it’s “so special looking”. If Zanzibar doesn’t already have an established birthday, I call it. Its gonna be 11/11 or some other bullshit that only further serves to make her look even more fantastically special. *So Unique!!!*
Took a short look at the video. I’m guessing she’s in her mid 40s, looking at her neck, the skin around her mouth/jawline and eyes and the hair quality.
I’m terrible at judging age. Do you think the harsh lighting and constant hair dye might have some effect or is it definitely all time’s fault?
Sure, those things do emphasize whatever signs of aging a person might show. And, you know, stress, poor diet, not enough sleep… but usually you wouldn’t necessarily see them all together at the same time, if it was circumstantial. Also: hair has a funny way of aging in that it gets weirdly coarse.
I’d give her a pass on lying about her age, since many acting teachers tell you to memorize the birthday of the age you PLAY and think of yourself as that age, put it on any audition forms you fill out (not legal forms, obviously), tell all your friends and even family: “Your mom will be thrilled because that makes her younger too,” said one instructor. I asked him, “What if you’re still playing teenagers?” (which I did for years until the pill gave me boobs), and he said, “then chop five or ten years off.” I met a 4’11” woman who played 11 on stage when she was pushing 30 (actually, she wasn’t very happy about not being able to get older roles, but she wanted to work).
However, you do have to be realistic about when your type changes. When I walked into an “Earnest” audition and they read me for Lady Bracknell instead of Cecily or Gwendolyn, I knew that was it. And of course, age on stage is very different from age on camera.
I’m 36. That woman is *not* my age.
I just turned 36 but I’m bad at judging this kind of thing. Even so, I wouldn’t be too surprised if she was older. :p
I was going to say the unique birthday thing is silly but then I realized she actually has “23 hours bestseller” on the fucking banner behind her and I just… all I could do was to laugh. She absolutely loves being a special snowflake. 😛
It isn’t that easy to judge age on appearance. Some people “age” more quickly than others. Some more slowly. Some right “on time.”
Regardless of whether she’s 36 or 46, she’s definitely not in her 20s. And neither is the character, just based solely on the timeline. But I guess subtraction is super hard for Lanora.
I’m a bit hung up on the fact that this is supposed to be the story of how they met, but he’s supposed to know that she hates the nickname Dely, which he inexplicably calls this girl he may or may not be meeting for the first time.
Yeah it’s like, I know there are some people who’d call you nickname from the start or whatever but the question still stands. he is there for the first bloody time, how he’s supposed to know that? It’s like, we know he knows IT NOW and that Dela knows it, but it’s Dela’s POV in the past. God that book is a right mess.
I think the implication is that they’re both working for the same circus so they’ve met before but LS really doesn’t make it easy to confirm. It’d be nice if she clarified important little details like this. Instead, she focuses on whether or not there is just enough cleavage to moon blink a man.
Come to think of it, we have no proof that Dela didn’t curse Betty and enchant Charles, then set the other woman up so she could snag him and become his assistant instead.
Oh my god, this is my new headcanon. Totally writing fanfic with a Masochism Tango between Hey There Delilah and Spoofman now!
Oh my god, this is my new headcanon. Totally writing fanfic with a Masochism Tango between Hey There Delilah and Spoofman now!
I watched the interview because wondering what goes through Lani Sarem’s mind fascinates me the way thinking about what lies at the bottom of the ocean fascinates me. I know it’s nothing good, but I just feel morbidly attracted to want to find out.
She calls herself a “rebel” for having gone about getting the spot on the list in an unconventional way, she fake laughs at 6:18, she lies that there are people cosplaying Zani (because the way her very special clothes are described in the book makes her cosplayable, for sure) and people interested in turning the book into a graphic novel.
It’s… it’s amazing.
Also, Lani dancing around the subject of who will play Zade in the “movie” like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YPxtWhn2R8
I daresay Sarem’s probably just seen a Harley Quinn cosplayer in her normal clothes at some con and deluded herself into believing it’s a Zade cosplayer. Or just any blonde with colored streaks and wearing boho chic. I doubt it would be hard to find at a decently large con.
Yeah, especially since the off-shoulder dresses and skirts have become popular again. I’ve seen them a lot in clothing stores with the Spring/Summer collections, in like H&M or Reserved ect, ect. If you dress your character in casual contemporary clothes then yeah, you get a lot of ‘cosplayers’ because regular people are wearing these things on the street.
Her inability to answer the question makes me wonder if she and the incredibly stupid studio funding this movie are disagreeing about who will play Zade. Lani is all, “Me, obvs.” And the studio is all, “Yeah, we would like to make money so we would like someone believable in the role.”
If there is a studio. I suspect she’s been arguing with American Pie and he said, “Yeah but I need that loan back, honey, or my wife is gonna be so pissed off that she’s gonna tell me to drop the convention circuit and hit up the commercial industry for a few months.”
Even if LS is delusional, narcissistic, and without a conscience, I’m pretty sure she knows that she has to weigh her options. She’d have to find someone else to latch onto if he dropped her little project. XD
“Her inability to answer the question makes me wonder if she and the incredibly stupid studio funding this movie are disagreeing about who will play Zade.”
If I was at the incredibly stupid studio facing this cocky-up I’d just have the Second Unit (maybe even 3rd or 4th or first-years from film school) shoot 10 to 15 minutes of the as-written script with Lani as the lead, then have the real story shot by the 1st unit (in complete secret from Lani, mind you) about the guys that have to deal with this incredibly crappy script and what they could possibly do to salvage it to recover any of their investment. So for Lani’s movie we’d only see 10 to 15 minutes of the truly awful stuff and the moral dilemma for the real protagonist is either 1) save the script and try and get something financially in return out of what his/her boss has spent or 2) Let the boss realize he invested in a bum story by going broke but that means our protagonist loses his job because no money is left over after all has been invested in Lani’s Story and Boss’ company goes bankrupt. (Hmm, title of Real movie: Lani’s Story.)
Jenny, Charles doesn’t need to be funny. His weird spouse/daughter/narrator TOLD you that he’s funny. Apparently, that’s enough. 😉
Team Pseudo Incest, I mean, Team Jackson *rolls eyes so hard they fall out of their sockets*
Alright, let’s break this down. The moment Charles walked through that tent he-
– Believed fortune telling is bullshit and snarked about it loudly
-Stared at Dela’s tits for so long, she had to go, “eyes up here”
-Talked about his past conquests in graphic form
-admits he doesn’t even remember the name of his last conquest
-the only reason he doesn’t remember her is because she wasn’t good at sex
-Called Dela a nickname she doesn’t like
– Dismisses Dela’s anger because it makes her “cute”
Good god, he’s so charming. No damn wonder Dela wants to jump his bones.
I’d jump him.
In an alley.
To steal his wallet.
And his bones.
I legit laughed. XD
I doubt he has a wallet. Charles comes off as the type of guy who “forgets” his wallet when the bill comes….
Or he’s the type who gets offended if his date wants to pay for the meal…
Or he’s the type who takes his date to a really expensive restaurant and then expects her to pay for her meal…
Or he’s the type to expect sex because he paid for the meal….
I’m gonna stop there. He’s all of those douchebags and more.
Can’t believe we’re supposed to believe this guy is the romantic partner of Lezzerus Snape’s wet dreams.
The frustrating part is that this relationship seems the most legitimate. As clumsily as it’s presented, with all of the inherently lazy tropes and problematic details, these two characters have a clear desire for one another. No one else has that (other than Zade wanting to fuck Charles.) If Dela had wanted him from the very beginning, without any need to shift her opinion, and Charles was compassionate, with flaws that weren’t actual deal-breakers, then their relationship would be fine. It’s definitely forced, the Betty sub-plot sure as hell doesn’t help (it’d be better if it at least enlightened Mac but all it does is make me wish Charles gone to Dela for something else, like a sandwich.) It’s not nearly as forced as Zade and Mac (which feels one-sided at best and empty at worst) or Zade and Jackson (non-existent.)
Also, as someone else said (might’ve been Jenny or Lani Not-Sarem) it’d be really interesting to see the general interaction between a skeptical magician and a bonafide psychic fortune teller. Their roles could’ve added to their personalities and their chemistry perhaps. Hell, even traveling with the circus adds nothing. They could’ve been in Donkey Juice and it wouldn’t have made any real difference to the narrative.
Incidentally, going to a psychic is basically akin to going to a therapist for counseling but the former has spiritual authority backing their insight while the latter has social science. With the right person, even a fake could do some good, but in either case, they could do some serious damage if they make a bad assessment and offer the wrong advice. In both positions, a good person hopes you’ll eventually sort things out and no longer need their services. A bad one just wants your money and doesn’t care about your welfare in the slightest or is too determined to be right to consider other options.
Even if Dela can see the future, all of that still holds true for her, but I don’t think she ever explicitly mentioned this. If so, it’s a missed opportunity.
That is true. Despite we spent so much time with Mac and Zoolala, Deli-sandwich and Copperfield actually have some chemistry. They’re good parallels and a perfect example of opposites attract.
Their relationship is still gross, misogynistic and creepy, but a lot more interesting than Zoolala and Superman.
Yeah like there is at least possibility of hate sex between them 😛 Mac and Zade don’t even have that. It’s like “uu, she can’t decide!” *time skip* “they sort of went for a date” *time skip* “she still can’t decide” *time skip* “she won’t tell him a thing about herself bc witch” *time skip* “they have an argument that can really be cearly resolved” “missunderstanding” oh she’s dying…
I thought she looked noticeably older in that video compared to pictures and videos taken not that long ago. She might be too detached from reality for this, but I wonder if maybe the stress of the whole fiasco has taken its toll?
I feel bad for thinking this, but I kinda love the irony of hatching this underhanded, immoral plan to resurrect your dead dreams of being a starlet, only to have it backfire and strip away even more of the youth you’ve been clinging to so desperately.
New theory: Lollipop made three wishes with a genie.
1. To be friends with celebrities.
2. To write a best-selling book that would make her famous.
3. To have a movie made of her book as her jumpstart to an acting career.
She did not word those wishes carefully enough.
We have to wait and see if she becomes famous for acting in the movie because so far the book sure as hell hasn’t and the movie sounds doubtful at this point. XD
Just like John Edwards, Charles wins the award for “Biggest Douche In The Universe”
I assume the three editors didn’t bother to bring up to Lani that this extended flashback isn’t good for momentum because, as pointed out many times already, any suspense for the reader over Zaaaazi’s outcome was already destroyed like two paragraphs after her magic went awry.
Charles and Dela and Mac don’t know this, granted, and should be acting a little more concerned instead of settling in for a long story about the past, but maybe that’s because they all know Zodie is a terrible person whose death would make the world a better place. (Not that Charles is any prize either…and we haven’t seen much of Dela, but given she’s another authorial self-insert she’ll no doubt prove to be as awful as her daughter.)
I don’t know how you keep reading this. The writing alone is just.. it.. it’s not good. At all! Like, basic punctuation errors and useless repetition and bad bad metaphors. So bad!
And the nicknames. Look, Lunky, if you want to keep making the hilarious “Deli” joke, you could’ve just named the mom Delilah, because that’s an actual, bonafied, old biblical name. A bit too on the nose maybe, but hey, you’d get to use Dely and it would make sense as a clumsy nick given by a dingus. (Or change Sofia’s nickname to Sofa because lord knows this book is just filled with subtlety about internalized misogyny….)
This book has some gems though. Like, some of my favorites are,
-comparing a man’s muscles to an allergic bee sting reaction
-“Oh, I didn’t know you were standing there”
-“I have to go…. yes… to buy… uh… hair supplies! Yes! Hair supplies for my hair! At the big hair supply store!”
– Giving thanks to said hair supplier in the dedication page
-The head doctor
XD Bad writing is one thing, but these are definitely the moments that told me Lani not once looked back at her own work and gave it a better look over.
In the video, Sarem says that she sees people coming to the cons dressed as Zade. What do you want to bet that she just counts everyone with dyed hair as a cosplay of her character?
I don’t know much about cosplay, but in order to cosplay a character, doesn’t the character need to have at least two or more distinct features? Like, I’ve seen people cosplaying as Castiel from Supernatural; I know because it’s “tan trench coat + white dress shirt + stubble + close-cropped brown hair”. (if it’s blonde hair I assume they’re cosplaying John Constantine…)
But other than “blonde with streaks in her hair” and “young, thin, and pretty”, what are the distinguishing characteristics of Zade? Can anyone pull a passage of the book where she talks about her favorite jacket, or shoes, or the necklace(s?) she always wears?
Besides the cover art, a outfit I don’t think Zanni ever wore in the book, I don’t think there was any particulair outfit that stood out. Maybe the velvet cloak from the magicK act?
I’ve cosplayed before as a Hogwarts student using an old graduation cloak, chopsticks as a wand, and one of my dad’s striped ties.
Oh. Dear. She ‘sees’ people going to cons as Zade *cough her cough*? She is the most ridiculous narcissistic thing I have ever seen. I wonder what the storm inside of her head looks like.
This whole trainwreck is absolutely FASCINATING!
I feel like this book has had a thousand chapters already. I’m still enjoying your thoughts and wicked snark and all, but I’m also kind of exhausted.
This is not something I could force myself to read. And I read the entirety of a book called Obsolete Absolution.
There are chapters with over 30 pages in length while others only have 2 pages. Many reviewers have compalined about the inconsistancy of the chapter lengths, so it’s not your fault you feel there’s thousands of chapters.
It doesn’t help that Lani wants to follow this odd Tarot card sequence. There’s been a few times where I would use song lyrics for chapter titles and sometimes it lines up perfectly and sometimes it doesn’t. I try not to let it bother me, but Lani was determined to keep her chapters following the Tarot, which why so much is shoved into a single chapter.
So there’s another YA thing Lani wanted to follow: insane book lengths. Twilight had over 300 pages in its final book. If the second HFM comes out, I betcha it’ll be over 500 pages.
Three hundred pages doesn’t sound that insane to me. Iirc, most books aim for close to 340. (Printers like multiples of four because of the binding process.) The problem with Twilight and H4M is that there isn’t enough content to fill half that many pages.
320-360. Sorry. I did bad math and was thinking of a book I checked this on that had 348 pages.
The majority of teen fiction start to taper off around the 200 page mark. The first book of a YA series often do this as well. Than again, we’re talking about books that have plots that matter and font of reasonable size. HFM’s font is as big a children’s book, so the numbers are a bit skewed…
Apparently falling for guys that dismiss their beliefs is something both Hey There Delilah and Zurg have in common.
I mean, even the dismissal could be okay if they had a realistic conversation or series of conversations that brought about some kind of understanding but confirmation or slight compromise, or at least “let’s agree to disagree” but here it’s just “I have logic; you’re wrong” and then later on “Durhur, I guess you were right!”
But yeah, the way it’s dealt with, it might as well be a kink. 😛
It just occurred to me that someone used the same plan as Betty to try to murder someone in an episode of Bones. The frontman of some metal band either had another band member or their manager shoot at him with a blank and she swapped it for a real bullet. Did she get this idea from Bones, or is it a trope??
I would have thought that came from the real-life example of Brandon Lee, who was shot on the set of The Crow when the actor who shot him honestly thought he was using a blank.
I remember this exact plot from Christopher Pike’s Last Act. Down to the details.
Why should we be surprised that the con artist author of this con “art” book with the stolen cover would steal plot lines from other pieces of fiction? I’m not even surprised anymore.
Wait, how close are we talking? Like passages stolen or just “wear a bullet proof vest without showing them that you’re wearing it and let your assistant incriminate themselves?” It’s a super common trope so unless she stole exact details, I’d assume it was a coincidence (especially since I doubt LS reads very much. More likely she saw this in a movie.)
Yes, I was just going to say that. She’s stealing from Christopher Pike, now! It’s also in the Prestige and Psych…and basically every other whodunnit with a magic or stage set.
It’s the trope, not the exact circumstances.
It’s an extremely common plot idea that’s been around about as long as the bullet catch illusion has been. There are also multiple real-world instances.
Stolen from Wikipedia because I’m lazy:
“The best-documented instance of a performer being killed while performing the gun trick is the case of Chung Ling Soo who was shot dead when a firearm malfunctioned in London in 1918. This event ended the popularity of the bullet catch trick for nearly 70 years.”
Here’s some more:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28590/6-magicians-who-died-while-performing-bullet-catch
I haven’t even gotten to the chapter but I just wanted to say that if Lani intends to play Zani in the movie she should probably up the character’s age.
I’m sorry, perhaps that’s mean of me, but Lani does *not* look like she’s in her early 20’s to me. I’m constantly mistaken for being at least five years younger than my age of 30, and I wouldn’t try playing someone in their 20’s.
She sounds awfully similar to that crazy bitch Cathy, wouldn’t surprise me if they have the same type of personality in other aspects too.
/“Impressed? he queried, with a cocky attitude but grinning from ear to ear with the nicest smile she had ever seen from a man––well, almost man./
COCKY! SOMEONE SUE LANI SAREM FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!! COCKY SPOPPERFIELD IS A RIP OFF!!
Can you imagine the battle between those two? Please, Lani call the next one H4M 2: Cocky Chaos Magic.
They’ll never like each other because the two of them are too much alike and, as we all know…there can be only one.
*eagerly munching popcorn*
Okay, I know we were all hating on Lamazeballs for writing real person fic with Bargain Value Copperfield/Rathbone and Plain White T’s, but now I really really want to write an AU fic where Sarem named her book Cocky Magicians and the ensuing head to head between her and Hopkins.
I would PAY to watch that unfold in real life lol
“Head to head”
😉
*Yawn* The “love story” between Dela and Charles sounds like junior high kid’s first attempt at writing romance. I agree that Laney looks 46, not 36. It could be that she’s taken bad care of herself, though.
lol this fucking book.
This chapter reminded me of Dumb and Dumber.
Harry: “the cops gave me a gun, and this bulletproof vest!”
Lloyd: “…but what if he shot you in the face?”
Harry: “………….what if he shot me in the face?!”
FBI agent: “well, that’s a risk we were willing to take.”
Here’s my interpretation for the screenplay version:
INT. fortune teller’s tent
DELA, tarot card reader, sits alone at a massive table occupying the entire tent.
CHARLES enters and literally takes a shit on the floor.
CHARLES: Oh hey, you look like a girl I had sex with maybe but who can remember lol. So, wanna bump uglies?
DELA swoons.
You literally made me spit my coffee out laughing!
DELA: Ah, um, yes, the fates tell me that you are… deserving of consequences for your behavior towards past lovers… which I’m not like, by the way, I’m a Strong Independent Female (TM)…
CHARLES is too busy staring at DELA’s tits to answer. He’s wondering how to get her in bed.
DELA is charmed by his aggressive masculine behavior!
CHARLES holds sexy DELA in his sexy arms sexually.
DELA: Did you even wash your hands after your poop?
CHARLES: Washing hands is for hipsters.
DELA: TaKE me now!
I watched the video, and I’m still a bit confused by Sarem’s business strategy. I understand how she got on the NYT list, but I don’t understand why she picked that method, and I don’t understand why she keeps picking a fight with the YA reader community.
She wouldn’t be able to keep up the fake preorders of the book for very long, so even if she hadn’t been exposed, at most she would have gotten a few weeks on the list. Tops. It’s very odd she would pour money into a scam tactic, and not couple it with at least the minimum of typical marketing, like free review copies, sponsored ads, etc. And now, instead of trying to recuperate some of the notority around her to actually generate sales, she focuses on deliberately alienating YA fantasy readers, and keeps talking about uncool and jelly they are, unlike the (totally-not-overlapping-heaps) comic con crowd.
It’s like she thinks just being on the NYT list briefly would be enough to secure financing for a movie that she could be in charge of. I feel like her has-been actor friend could have told her that that’s not how it works.
I think her biggest beef is that she thought it got on the NYT list legitimately and was ‘unfair’ that it was taken off so soon. I think it’s never sunk in to her that, had the book actually been good enough, it would have rocketed right back onto the list and she would get the adulation she craves. But it’s been almost a year and there’s been no sign that’s ever going to happen. Will she ever realize the writing of this draft just isn’t worthy of being on the NYT list? Perhaps, if she puts it away for 1 to 5 years and then re-reads it, but I’m not going to hold my breath. In the meantime she will most likely just dig herself in deeper as sporkers like Jenny rip the story up one side and down another. But at least she’s getting the attention, just maybe not the type she wants . . . .
Yeah, maybe she still thinks that if she just gets the opportunity to tell her story, people will sympathise and buy the book. It would help to explain the ‘on the NYT list for 23 hours’ marketing move, because that is honestly super cringy.
I personally think the book could be just fine with rewriting and a lot of editing. The premise is unoriginal, but it’s not terrible. The setting could be made really fun, and she does have some plot points that could create suspense and tension. If the core conflict of the story was Zade’s choice between the paths laid out by her respective parents, the story would have been passable imo. Like, Spellman is a selfish, irresponsible and arrogant asshole, but that’s not bad for a story, you just have to run with it. Mac, though…well, he’s a piece of work.
I am just wondering how you tell this story magnificently enough that the listener could possibly have their breath taken away, feel like they’re watching a Stephen Spielberg film, etc. I’m not a master storyteller either but this is basically, they’re both hot, his assistant is trying to kill him, she tells him how he could protect himself…That’s it really.
And… you are helping the next generation fo readers/writers see the difference between prose that is difficult because it is dense, and there’s lots to unpack. And prose that is difficult because WTF, is that even a sentence?
My son is reading _Catcher_in_the_Rye_ right now, and for fun we did a little comparison with that book and some of your excerpts from the YA “novel”. Good times were had.
This afternoon my younger sister asked me if Jenny had written anything new on Lani. I replied that Jenny was taking a well deserved break, but I’d let her know as soon as a new post came out. It’s the little things we share, I read the posts to her while we are doing things together. However that did remind me to come and read the comments because you guys never disappoint! Love it. Freaking love this community.
Whole perusing the comments I was struck by the realization Lani is investing a MASSIVE amount of time to the promotion of this book. A staggering amount. And really what does she have to show for it? A stale nothing-to-see-here over her bad behavior coupled with a horrendously bad wishographi that she is desperately trying schmooze into a film. All these cons, all these book signings and all the interviews are costing her tons of money. Where is it coming from? She must be stumbling wildly into deep debt while she attempts to climb those hights she has her eye on. And all the lies and hate it is being built on? Gag. What a waste of a life… she could have chosen to live it so differently.
Let’s say she really is selling as many copies as possible at cons. Let’s say she really does rake in a couple thousand dollars with every appearance. Okay, fine, but that’ll still not cover everything she has in mind. Unless she’s giving those buttons away with every purchased book, nobody is going to buy them unless they’re already established fans. The few legit positive reviews I’ve read pointed out the large amount of grammar mistakes, or only did it out of spite from the negative reviews. Anyone who is like, “i love this book, can’t wait for the movie!!!!!” is obviously fake.
No fansites, no fanfiction, no fanart, next-to-no positive reviews online, little is spoken on Twitter, Facebook, reddit, tumblr and many other social media sites, libraries only have a single copy in their system, no high demand to get more, still unable to find physical copies in most major book stores, if you google HFM, Jenny’s blog pops up on the first page, no ARCs, no encouragement from other indie authors, no positive reviews on booktube, the publisher site keeps failing-
I can literally go on and on. Even if she’s selling a lot of books at cons, those “fans” probably have no idea what they bought, probably think they just got a simple indie book and are glad to support this “struggling” author. Even by going by those demographics and giving Lani a wide berth, it’s not enough, nowhere near enough to justify “five or six” movies. “The Selection” has a bigger fanbase and the book and author are shite.
My little sister adores the Selection series. I read them, basically thought they were the teenage Bachelor but with ✨ROYALTY✨. Wasn’t great, but didn’t make me throw the book at the wall the way FSOG did. But I’m curious. What makes the author shit? Besides the fact that she clearly has no original ideas and all of her heroines are special snowflakes, but that’s pretty par for the course with a YA romance. And, of course, it’s still a better love story than HFM, so the fan base is a little bit justifiable.
Sorry if this is off topic. I just loooooove author/book gossip.
When a reviewer gave her book one star, the author proceeded to call her a “bitch” and other nasty things, asked her followers to “like” the five star reviews to drown the negative one out, which resulted in said reviewer getting harrassed and demonized. from what I heard, the one-star review wasn’t a flame but an actual critique.
There’s loads others. have you heard about Kathleen Hale? When a reviewer gave her book one star, she cyber-stalked the reviewer for an entire yesr, and then DROVE TO HER HOUSE to talk about the review.
Goddamn! That’s insane!
Authors behaving badly is honestly my favorite form of human behavior, in an awful, train wreck type way. I write quite a bit myself and hope to someday be published. As someone who enjoys my psychology classes and has read several books on psychology for independent studying, it fascinates me to see published authors behaving so terribly. It really drives home the fact that books are NOT our precious babies, and if someone delivers a criticism, then it’s our responsibility to handle the situation like adults. I’ve read about Hale, and the #Cockygate story has kept me riveted. Same with LS and the HFM disaster. Same with every example of writers like EL James, who treat people like garbage if they point out problematic content. That type of behavior is simultaneously amusing, entertaining, and horrifying.
Just watched the interview. What a bunch of fluff. I notice she won’t give a direct answer to “who will play Zade”, probably because she doesn’t want to be ridiculed before the movie comes out when people learn *she* intends to play Zade, but um, no, she will be less believable as a 24-25-year-old woman than Kate Cassidy was at playing a 19-year-old woman in the college era of Gossip Girl. (Cassidy is beautiful, but no way could she pass for late teens.)
“Someone who embraces the fun and free-spirit of the character” okay then you want Emily Browning or Amanda Seyfried.
I also found Lani’s hands very distracting, and at one point it looked like the interviewer was rolling his eyes at the camera.
I notice she didn’t correct him for mispronouncing her name lol
Just a thought here- Dela meets this guy, elucidates all the reasons he’s terrible, calls him out on sleeping around, and then realizes he’s a catch.
What if Zade didn’t get the moonblinking from her magickal mommy, but from her here-to-for considered unmagickal daddy? He was thrown out of the family and magickally blocked from coming back because once Dela fought free of his influence, she realized she’d accidentally birthed a half-succubus with magickal powers- and was doing her best to save the world from letting the incubus father have any more influence than he’s already had. Now that he’s come back- he’s moonblinking her again because she’d let her guard down.
Kinda weird reading this one just days after Alec Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer on set. Also, said incident shows that even if Betty managed to kill Spopperfield, she’d still probably get hit with manslaughter charges.