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Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia chapter 7

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I give up. There will never be aliens.

In case we didn’t realize that Rory is speshul, she reminds us right at the top of chapter seven:

I didn’t drink coffee, tea, soda, or hot chocolate. If I drank anything but water, my throat would feel dry and raw.

I will take farthing wagers that this never comes up again. Or that it does come up again, when we inevitably discover that Rory is an alien. Rory believes she’s inherited this trait from her mother, who didn’t drink anything other than water until she turned forty, and then got into white wine. Maybe this is an indication that she’s an alien, and her mother was an alien, and aliens killed their whole family. I’m just trying to find some tenuous link to science fiction in all of this. Rory remembers how beautiful her mother was, how she looked in the middle of their ordeal, the terms of endearment her father would use, and it all ties into another flashback of what happened the night Rory’s family died.

“Charlotte,” my father had said, “sit still, love. It will all be over soon. Just let them get what they came for, and we can go home.” He looked at me with calm eyes. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.”

So, the people who killed them were looking for something. Something science fiction-ish I hope.

She was a mother bear, unleashing her wrath on anyone who dared mistreat me or disrespect me or made me feel anything less than the amazing being she thought I was. Watching the knots being tied around my wrists and then behind my head, the begging in my eyes, and the torture on my face when I had to watch them hurt my best friend, who I’d known and loved since I was three, killed her hours before she died.

Holy run on there. Look, I write a lot of run-on sentences, and I generally don’t mind reading them; that’s how people think, so it sounds natural to my head. They can, however, become very confusing if they cover too much narrative ground in one shot. Writing Tip: if you’re faced with a run-on sentence, you’ve got to know which information you can leave out. In this case, it’s “who I’d known and loved since I was three.” What we’re supposed to get from that sentence is that watching her child being bound and tortured killed Rory’s mother before her actual physical death. That’s a powerful statement, but one that gets lost in construction. I had to read it several times to understand that it wasn’t Rory’s best friend who died hours before her physical death. The reason this happened was that throwing in “who I’d known and loved since I was three,” moves Rory’s thoughts and the reader’s thoughts away from her mom:

Watching the knots being tied around my wrists and then behind my head, the begging in my eyes, and the torture on my face when I had to watch them hurt my best friend, who I’d known and loved since I was three, killed her hours before she died.

In that blue section, Rory has gone from telling us about her mother to telling us about her friend. But her friend isn’t the important part of this statement. We’re hearing her thoughts about her mom. There’s some word rep in there, and some unnecessary detail, as well (she could have easily just whittled the first part down to “Seeing the knots tied around my wrists, the begging in my eyes and the torture on my face,” for example), but the important part to take away here is that if you’re going to write a monumental run-on sentence, you should at least stick to one object.

I was standing outside of Microphysics class, frozen.

Another really good example of Rory’s PTSD, in a realistic way, is the suddenly realizing where she is without knowing how she got there, because she’s been checked out in her memories as she’s been walking.

“You look lost,” Benji said.

“Isn’t everyone?” I said, leaving him alone in the hallway.

Benji chuckled as I passed. “That’s deep, Rory. We feeling a little emo today? Hey… I’m just kidding… Rory?”

Writing Tip: Write your actions in the order they happen. Rory can’t leave him alone in the hallway and still be in the hallway to hear all of this. Leaving implies that she’s gone. The “leaving him alone in the hallway” part needs to fit in somewhere after the dialogue where he’s watching her leave.

Ice-cold fingers found their way to my chest to touch the stained hair that was no longer there. When I needed to remember her, I would reach for my hair, but I’d shaved it off so that I could forget.

Rory shaved off her stained chest hair, is what that passage is saying.

Forget my mother. Who does that? Was it too much for me to keep the one tangible thing I had left of her? It wasn’t only my blood that had saturated my hair but hers, too. And I’d thrown it in the trash.

Okay, but hang on a second. You’re switching tenses mid-sentence. “It hadn’t only been my blood” is how that sentence should have started. And the way this is worded makes it sound like she’d thrown her mother’s blood in the trash.

The thing about Rory’s memory of these horrible murders and the psychological trauma she’s experiencing is, it’s more interesting than any other part of the book. I don’t care about the space rock. I don’t care about the love triangle or who is or isn’t an alien. If McGuire had written this book and it was all about just this girl trying to get through college with the memory of her family’s grisly murder haunting her every waking thought, that would have been enough plot. And you know how I know that? Because every other part of the plot is standing in the wings, waiting for its entrance. Writing Tip: if your character’s backstory is so overwhelmingly wrought that it would be unrealistic to take time away from it to tell the story the character is in, you’re either starting your story in the wrong place in the character’s life, or you’re telling the wrong story. Seriously, if your character has so much baggage that it becomes more interesting and engaging than the plot of the story, then either do something with their baggage (move the murder of her parents back a few years, or the story forward a few years) or make that baggage the plot.

After class, Rory is still so shaken that she runs to Dr. Zoidberg’s office for comfort. She tells Zoidberg that she she needs her mom, and he tells her she shouldn’t have cut her hair.

Once I got a handle on my breathing, I noticed someone sitting in the swivel chair on the other sice of Dr. Z’s desk. It startled and embarrassed me, and then that embarrassment flashed to anger.

“What are you doing in here?”

Cy didn’t answer. He just watched as my eyes darted between him and the professor.

Zoidberg tells Rory that he and Cy had a meeting, and Rory is furious that she wasn’t asked to be there.

“You’re assuming it was a research meeting,” the doctor said, his voice low and calm as always. “Remember, Cyrus is also my student. We do have other things to talk about.”

Rory tells Zoidberg to just call Cyrus “Cy” because it’s what he prefers, and then she’s all like, wondering why Cyrus didn’t tell Zoidberg that himself. And I’m like, because that’s his professor, and maybe he wants to maintain some kind of student/teacher boundary that he obviously doesn’t feel the need to create with you, Rory. Damn.

Since Rory’s there, Zoidberg decides they can talk about the research.

“I’ve determined that this project should be kept between us. All the data should be recorded and put into an encrypted file, and then all the paperwork should be shredded and taken to the incinerator.”

That’s good thinking, Dr. Zoidberg. The best thing to do with new scientific developments is to spend hours studying them, writing all the stuff down, and then never, ever sharing this information with anybody. Also, you should definitely keep all your data in one single file, and destroy any other record of it.

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I know that there are lots of secret scientific studies and experiments going on out there, and I know there is a reason people keep the lid on a lot of science things in competitive fields. But I still can’t suspend disbelief enough to buy it here. One, there’s no way this space rock is a secret. It’s just not. Dr. Zoidberg brought it back from the arctic. It’s not like he just drove up to the north pole by himself, grabbed a rock, and brought it back without telling anybody. He would have been part of an expedition. After that, he would have had to bring the rock through customs from Canada. Someone knows about this rock. Two, we’ve already established that this rock wouldn’t be in Dr. Zoidberg’s hands from the moment he discovered it, because that’s how reality works. If you find a mineral that’s not native to earth, there are bigger institutions that snap it up and then they probably keep it pretty secret, at least until they know what they’re dealing with. And third, they’ve been working on this rock for at least two months, and:

“And we shouldn’t speak of it,” Cy added, “to anyone.”

At this point, isn’t it a little too late for that? “Oh, by the way, that thing you’ve been working on every day for the past two months? The thing you probably mentioned to Benji a couple times? Don’t tell anyone about it.”

Dr. Z intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his desk. “I’ve been receiving emails from a Dr. Fenton Tennison. He’s from a special division at the CIA, one of the heads of a committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials. In some circles, this committee is known as Majestic Twelve. He’s… interested in the specimen.”

In case you’re unfamiliar with the CIA, they’re basically the single scariest agency in the United States. They’re independent of the government, have offices all over the world, and answer to pretty much no one. They’re super secretive, they have dabbled in shit like, oh, nonconsensual human experimentation, extreme and illegal methods of torture, and planned assassinations of world leaders and shit like that. Some people actually believe they could have been behind the assassination of President Kennedy (conspiracy theories involving the CIA’s role in the assassination range from absurd to plausible). Long story short,

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if the CIA wanted that rock, Dr. Z would have already been found dead in his car with a “self-inflicted” gunshot wound and a suicide note that matched his handwriting impeccably. Even Rory knows it’s unlikely that Tennison wouldn’t be able to take the rock:

“We’re going to keep it from him? Can’t he just take it?”

“Hopefully not without a court order. Theoretically, that gives us some time to finish recording the data before we move the specimen to a safer location. It’s more important than I could have dreamed, Rory. We need to keep it out of hands that might exploit the knowledge there is to learn from it.”

“Those special departments don’t usually wait on court orders, Dr. Z.”

Yeah, usually the just come in and take it by force. bullock

They establish that it might be ever so slightly illegal to hide something from the CIA, but nobody is like, “Um, maybe we shouldn’t fuck with the CIA, because they’re super scary and they probably are watching us right now, since they’re interested in this rock and also one of us is an orphan with no family to ask questions if she were to disappear.” Instead, Rory is like:

Thanksgiving break began in two days, and the campus would be desolate. It was the perfect time to hide out in the Fitz and dedicate all our time to recording Dr. Z’s data. It was also perfect timing for me. I wouldn’t have to spend Thanksgiving alone, and the project might even help to keep my mind off my orphan status.

“Perfect,” the idiot thought. “Running from an all-powerful intelligence agency is just the thing to take my mind off the grisly murder of my parents, thus opening me up to the possibility of further psychological and physical torture at the hands of people who really know what they’re doing.”

“I’m in,” I said. Cy and Dr. Z traded knowing smiles.

That doesn’t seem sinister. After a break, Rory is eating pizza in the lab, hoping that she can somehow entice Cy into a conversation with the promise of pizza.

After every class, Cy was waiting for me with a smile on his face. He would offer his arm and ask me every question he could think of about everything but my family or my past in general, which I appreciated. We talked about fun things like concerts and food, and we talked about things people weren’t supposed to talk about, like politics and religion. Cy wanted to know my opinion about everything but not because he wanted to argue. He just wanted to know.

This section begins with Rory trying to get Cy’s attention, because he’s not giving it to her in this scene. Then she goes on to talk about how much attention he’s been giving her. They’ve got this important research going on, and they know the CIA is breathing down their necks, but Rory wants him to stop lining up specimens–that’s what they’re doing, because it’s one of the two things they ever do in the lab–and pay attention to her. She tries to get Cy to eat pizza, and he says:

“I’m not sure if I should.”

My nose wrinkled. “Why?”

“Because I…I’ve never had pizza before.” ”

You’ve never had pizza,” I deadpanned. “You’re lying.”

This should scream alien to everybody, because I know for damn sure and certain they have pizza in Egypt, because here is the Pizza Hut Egypt store locator. They have fucking pizza.

“Unless you’re lactose intolerant, take a bite or forever be a pussy in my eyes.”

“A-a,” he stuttered. “I presume you’re referring to one of two definitions for that word. The less vulgar possibility doesn’t make sense. The second is preposterous. How could one become a vagina when not taking a bite of pizza? I’m clearly a male–”

I assume he was going to end that sentence with “–human, of the genus homo, species sapiens, native to the planet Earth, located in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy in the Virgo supercluster. I assure you, I am not an alien.” He eats the pizza and then a few minutes later starts violently upchucking.

As quickly as his groaning, moaning, and hurling started, it stopped, and he sat, leaning against a file cabinet, breathing hard. A thin sheen of sweat covered his olive skin.

Can I just say how much I love the juxtaposition of him having “olive” skin while she’s eating pizza?

“I am so sorry. Are you on a special diet?”

He wasn’t a skinny man. He stood at least six foot and filled out his height fantastically. He yanked off his tan twill jacket, and for the first time, I saw that his arms also filled out his shirtsleeves.

“I need to describe how super hot this guy’s body is,” the author thought. “I can’t do it anywhere in the first seven chapters of this book, for reasons. Ah, I know. I’ll do it immediately after he has vomited copiously.”

Cy tells Rory that he is kind of on a special diet, and she asks him why he didn’t tell her.

He stood up, almost a head taller than me. “You’re a bit intimidating, Rory Riorden.”

Did we know her last name before now? If so, how did I miss how awkward and bizarre that name sounds when you say it out loud? Keep in mind, I love names that have the same first letter (I wrote Sophie Scaife and Penny Parker, for god’s sake), but try saying it. Try saying “Rory Riorden”

rural juror

Rory asks what Cy’s last name is, and he won’t tell her because he doesn’t think she’ll be able to pronounce it. His last name is Kazemde. Which Rory doesn’t think is that hard to pronounce, and I’m in agreement with her. Especially because he like, said it out loud to her, so she knows approximately how it sounds. And if she can say “Rory Riordan” without swallowing her own uvula, she can say Kazemde.

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I will be using this gif any time we see Rory’s full name. This I vow.

Cy also tells Rory about his favorite food:

“It’s hard to explain.” When he realized I was waiting for an answer, he continued, “It’s called mahallajharad. It’s similar to what you call seafood.”

“So, it’s a fish?”

“Similar to a fish.”

RORY HE IS A FUCKING ALIEN. Space rock? CIA? Guy who has never eaten pizza, and eats a sort of fish? Is an alien.

Mahalla, by the way, is a term denoting an Arabic language neighborhood or enclave in a country. Jharad is a name. So what the author did was just pick a couple “Middle-Eastern sounding” words and smashed them together.

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Brace yourself. Space Egypt is coming.

But just when you thought this whole thing was only sliiiiightly racist, like a grandmother’s surprisingly liberal opinion that still doesn’t quite break away from Fox news, this happens:

“What do you do for fun?”

“My culture is different from yours, Rory.”

I raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Are you saying Egyptians don’t have fun? Bullshit.”

“I’m saying our fun is studying, learning and exploring. It’s just different, and I know your culture has a difficult time with different. You practice much…disbelief.”

Look. You and I both know he’s an alien. He knows he’s an alien. But he’s supposed to be Egyptian for all intents and purposes. The only fun in Egypt is studying, learning and exploring? Explain to me, then, why they have nightclubs, live music, movie theatres, restaurants, you know, stuff that’s entertaining? I’m uncomfortable about the portrayal of Cy as an Egyptian in so many ways. We know he’s going to turn out to be a fucking alien, it’s been telegraphed for a while now. So, he’s pulling a Mork and trying to disguise himself as an Egyptian. That’s fine, okay, whatever. But in the universe of the book, he’s doing a good job pulling this ruse off. And every bit of it is based on tropes like honor culture and mystical brown people. This is like if Cy burst into the story pretending to be an American by talking incessantly about how hard it is to pronounce Smith and saying his favorite food was EthnicsuburbDave, everyone would see through it. But to all the characters, these stereotypes don’t seem to be the obvious CBS sitcom characterization that they actually are.

“I disbelieve that you think I’m intimidating. You really have the angel-living-in-the-garden-of-evil thing down.”

That’s a Lana Del Rey lyric. Bullshit Rory listens to Lana. She’s not “alternative” enough.

The conversation gets heated:

“I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”

“The feeling is mutual!” he said, taking off his glasses.

Once again, I found myself hating him while lost in his weird and amazing golden eyes.

Rory can’t handle working around those weird, amazing eyes, so she gets her coat to leave.

“But…we have this stack and the core samples and–”

Yeah, Rory. You have all this work to do, on the project that has to be done before the CIA kills you all, and you’re worried about losing your position as a research assistant. So… I’m at a loss here. Why, exactly, are you about to run out on your work? I thought you were going to work extra hard to prove your dedication.

Cy feels the same way. He tries to get her to stay:

“I’m really very sorry,” he said, an edge of begging in his voice. “I felt weak because I was ill, and I disguised it as anger and directed those feelings toward you. Inexcusable. Please forgive me.”

I turned. “What are you?”

Ohhhhh myyyyy gaaaaaaaaaad…

Snl-so-freakin-excited

“What?” he said, shifting nervously in his chair.

SNL_1606_10_Surprise

“You’re at KIT, but you sound like a Psych major.”

kristen wiig what

Nope. This is not our, “I know what you are”/”Say it” moment. Which is bullshit.

Also, the science school is called KIT? SUBTLE AS FUCK.

“It doesn’t make you weak to forgive someone, you know,” he said.

“No, but it gives people another chance to hurt you.”

I’m confused about Rory’s emotional scars here. Did Rory’s parents get murdered for forgiving someone? Was it like, a Snape/Dumbledore thing? I understand not trusting people, and not wanting to get close to them. I don’t understand the “fool me once, etc.” attitude.

“Did I? Hurt you?” The thought seemed to wound him.

I swallowed. “No one can hurt me. It’s like trying to fill a cup that’s already full.”

Aww, Rory is one of those “glass half full” people. I knew she was positive deep down.

She leaves anyway, because you know, the CIA breathing down their neck can wait for her temper tantrum.

Running up the stairs, I didn’t stop until I burst through the double glass doors. Once outside, I took a deep breath, as if I’d just come up for air. Still going to The Gym on occasion with Benji, I wasn’t as out of shape as I used to be, but I was pissed off. No one confused me, angered me, or made me want to tackle-kiss him like Cy Kazemde.

Let me assure you, reader, that I, Rory “Rural Juror” Riorden, have amazing sexual chemistry with this character. I know you don’t see it on the page, but believe me, it’s definitely there, and you can tell because I just stated it as fact.

What was it about him that made me feel such conflicting emotions? And what was it about me that I couldn’t shake off the feelings I had for him?

I don’t know. You’re both aliens and you’re the last two remaining kinds of your species, so you’re going to have to make frick-frack or something? I honestly can’t tell whether that plot twist would be predictable, or if it’s simply impossible because there’s too much of a science fiction element in it.

A person popped up beside me. “You okay?”

I jumped. “Damn it, Benji! What are you doing here?”

Benji wants to get his nose broke a second time, I guess, because he has still not figured out not to sneak up on or abruptly touch Rory. How is he smart enough to be going to this school?

He tells Rory he was waiting for her, so he could walk her home:

“You’re approaching stalker status.”

Right. I mean, she’s got a dude hanging around every single one of her classes and waiting patiently to walk her to the next one, the same dude who came to her dorm in the middle of the night on the very first day he met her, but Benji is the stalker.

What is the obsession with everyone wanting to walk Rory home? Does she get lost easily? Is GPS confusing for her? Oh, no, I get it. Men feel very protective toward her, because of how vulnerable and fragile she is. Rory is a cactus made of exquisite spun glass, and the light that plays off the prickly nubbins of her boring personality inspires a caveman instinct to the male brain.

“I thought about that. I didn’t really mean to. I just waned to make sure you got home okay and thought maybe it was my turn.”

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Your turn? YOUR TURN? Bitch, she is not a slide. If she wants that alien guy to walk her around like she’s a horse who needs to be led, that’s her prerogative. You are not owed a turn.

Rather than point this out, Rory tries to pull the “I don’t need anybody” routine with Benji. Which, of course, gives him an excuse to continue badgering her:

“I know. You don’t need anyone. Maybe it’s me who needs a friend. Have you ever thought about that?”

First of all, if you’re such good friends with Rory, you know that she doesn’t think about anyone but herself. Second, even if you need a friend, she doesn’t have to be your friend. She’s choosing to for some reason, even though she can’t stand you, but no one is obligated to give you their friendship.

The crowd of students usually heading to a party now was nowhere in sight, which meant one thing–

that there isn’t a party?

the warehouse. I sighed. That meant paying for a taxi.

Or just… not going to the warehouse?

People were not my thing, and parties were definitely not my thing, but at the moment, I would take any distraction to get my mind off of Cy.

I predict the distraction will be constant complaining about being at the party.

They go to the party (Benji lets Rory drive), and right away I’m seeing a problem with how it’s run, but we’ll get to that in a second:

The warehouse was home to two parties a year, hosted by students belonging to a secret society. No one saw it being put together or taken down. No one knew it was going to happen until it did.

Because this is a science fiction novel, this better turn out to be an actual secret society. Here’s a thing I notice occasionally in a paranormal romance or a science fiction romance. The author will use words like, for example, secret society, or phrases like, “see into my soul” or whatever as a metaphor. Writing Tip: if your book has any elements that fall outside the realm of realism, you have to be careful that your wording can’t be taken literally. In this case, we’re dealing with a space rock and the CIA, and now there’s a “secret society.” Is this a secret society for real, or is it like, a frat thing? The possibility is open, and if a reader is expecting a literal secret society, they’re going to be disappointed or confused or possibly both.

I could barely hear the clanging of the iron catwalk under our feet. I wasn’t sure what the warehouse had been used for before,

It was probably used as a warehouse, Sherlock.

but now, it was a maze of debauchery–new couples making out, keg stands at every other corner, dark rooms filled by couples having drunken sex, and people surrounding a few makeshift tables covered by lines of coke.

Here’s my problem with the warehouse party thing. I know Jamie McGuire was alive for the rave boom. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, raves used to be these crazy illegal dance parties where you and a couple hundred other people would trespass at some huge, usually abandoned public space like an old warehouse or a field in the middle of nowhere or what have you, and you’d take a bunch of hallucinogenic drugs and dance badly to EDM until the authorities arrived to break it up.

I used to go to raves pretty regularly, some legal and some illegal, and both A) were shut down by cops, and B) could never be held in the same place twice because it made A) too easy. If this is a party known for public sex, booze flowing without ID checks, and mountains of coke just lying around (what is this, Tony Montana’s house?), it’s going to get busted, and the people in charge of it, no matter how secret they are, will likely get caught and arrested setting up the next one. So this is super unrealistic, and one of those things that should be fairly obvious to anyone.

Also, is coke back in style? I know that during my early twenties, any self-respecting person wouldn’t be caught dead with coke because it was so démodé. I saw it at approximately two parties, and they were both with the community theatre crowd. Is coke making a comeback?

It’s finals week, and that’s why everyone is getting so rowdy:

We all had to find an outlet or pop, but no one wanted students screaming, vandalizing, wrecking their cars into trees, secluding themselves, or wielding guns.

They would rather they pass around STDs, get alcohol poisoning, and overdose on coke. Also, screaming, vandalizing, and car accidents rarely follow out of control parties at which numerous young adults are engaging in the aforementioned activities.

Benji pulled open a heavy metal door, and then we walked outside into the courtyard.

Warehouses have courtyards?

Once we made our way to the front, Benji held a cup under a keg nozzle and waited as the beer dribbled out. He looked at me apologetically. We arrived so late that the kegs were nearly dry.

It doesn’t matter, though, because at the very beginning of this chapter we learned that Rory won’t drink anything but water.

Ellie was standing in a doorway with a random stranger.

How do you know he’s a stranger? You don’t know Ellie. Maybe that’s her boyfriend.

His jaw worked as he kissed her so deeply and sloppily that it made my stomach turn. His lips were sealed and working impatiently over hers. I anticipated that the skin around her mouth would be glistening with a ring of his spit when he pulled away, and a shiver ran down my spine. She had one of his legs trapped tightly between her thighs, and she was moving her hips ever so gently against him.

cute bi girls no matter what

My favorite part of this is that immediately after this paragraph, a guy comes up to Rory and she’s instantly repulsed. She has a suuuuuuuuuuper good reason to be, but the juxtaposition of the breathless, sapphic prose immediately above just tickles me. The guy has a reputation around campus for being a rapist who keeps getting away with his assaults. How fucking sad is it that with all the other stuff in here that is so incredibly not right about college life, this is the one thing that was common knowledge enough that it couldn’t escape the author’s research? What the fuck does that say about rape on our college campuses?

Rapist jerk backs Rory into a wall.

I could smell the alcohol on him before, but now it was pungent, saturating my skin–just like the breath of the men who murdered almost everyone who ever cared about me.

It’s a good thing she can defend herself, like how she ninja-flipped Benji that one time.

I looked around for Benji.

Or not, depending on the needs of the plot, I guess.

Benji shows up and tries to intervene while the rapist rubs Rory’s hand on his crotch. When it turns physical, that’s when Rory’s ninja instinct kicks in:

Before either of them could make another movie, I moved my hand in a downward motion, forcing Kevin’s hand off of Benji. I grabbed the thumb on his offending hand and bent it backward, and with my free hand, I grabbed his throat and slammed him against the wall where I once stood.

Or, Writing Tip: “I grabbed Kevin’s hand and bent it backward, grabbed his throat, and slammed him into the wall.” Or whatever. If you’re writing a fight scene, you need to use an economy of words because it makes the sentences tighter and the action move faster.

Kevin runs off, and Benji is super impressed at her skills:

“You…wow. How’d you learn to do that?”

I glanced around, seeing that now, of course, everyone was paying attention. “I took a class. C’mon. This was a bad idea.”

I bet he’s relieved that she’s now answered his identical question from the first time he found out Rory was good at self-defense in chapter two.

Lest you think this is a Rory-gets-protected-by-a-guy scene turned on its head in a positive, empowering way… it’s not over yet.

Once we turned the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks. Kevin was against another wall–this time, being held by Cy.

Writing Tip: Be careful not to make your action-packed scenes read like tender moments in M/M romance.

It’s not enough to have one guy rush to protect her. Both guys have to.

Cy released me and looked to Benji. “You’ll see her home?”

Benji nodded. “Of course.”

Cy cupped my face, kissed my forehead, then walked away.

I’m convinced that Rory doesn’t know the way back to her dorm, or to and from classes. She’s so helpless and lost and must be protected at all costs.

What’s so infuriating about this is that we know Rory really can do fine on her own. We’ve seen her do it. And until the beginning of this book, three years after the trauma she’s faced, she didn’t need protection from either of these clowns, she was doing it. But now that they’ve suddenly shown up, she has no further need for personal autonomy, because if she had it, there would be no room for the contrived drama that is overshadowing the alien rock plot of what was supposed to be a science fiction novel.

Plus, it doesn’t make sense compared to what we know about Rory. When Benji touched her shoulder, she immediately defended herself. It was an autopilot reaction. When the rapist guy backs her into the wall, she looks for help and tries to assert herself verbally three times. Now, I get that this time she could see rapist guy’s intent to touch her, rather than being immediately triggered and acting without thought. But it’s only when Kevin threatens Benji that she makes a move. As long as the male love interest is present, Rory isn’t interested in helping herself.

Benji drives Rory home and walks her to her door. He apologizes for leaving her alone at the party and that the guy harassed her. He also says he knows she’s been through something terrible:

“No, I know you don’t want to talk about that. My point is, I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m sorry that all I can think about right now is the image of you in his arms and how relaxed you looked.”

I’m really sorry that you’re obviously affected by some deep trauma but FEEL MY MAN PAIN.

Rory tries to change the subject, then tells Benji that he doesn’t know what she feels about Cy.

He looked up, and his eyes met mine. “If you’d let me, I could make you feel like that. Safe, I mean. I’m here, you know. I’m not going anywhere. But he’s…Cyrus is temporary.”

Look at the balls on Big Ben, damn. He’s saying he’s permanent, though Rory hasn’t made any kind of commitment to him. They aren’t even dating.

I tried really hard to think of another reason to say no besides the truth, but I didn’t have a single one other than my own fears. I was afraid about what might happen if I invested in a real relationship with someone again. There were far worse things than giving Benji a chance, and telling him my fears and why they existed was one of them.

I guess the moral of this story for her is that she needs to open up to love or whatever, but it’s okay if you don’t want to get into a relationship with someone just because you don’t. “No” is a good enough reason.

I pushed my hands and arms through the space between his arms and his sides and then held my palms flat against his back. After the shock wore off, Benji pulled his hands out of his pockets and pulled me closer to him, resting his cheek on my hair. He moved a fraction of an inch to kiss my temple.

“This isn’t so bad, right?” he said.

Ah, yes. That moment of wonder when you wear a girl down and finally, finally, she realizes that physical contact with you is not so bad. It’s what the greatest romances are made of.

He was right. I felt just as safe and warm in his arms. It was different but in a good way. He held me tighter. This was the way a man held a woman when he loved her. Salty tears burned my cheeks. I didn’t even know why, but I just wanted to stay there–in a pair of arms that belonged to a man who would never let me go if I didn’t want him to.

Or if you did, really. He’s already worn you down this far.

See the part where it says “salty tears burned my cheeks?” Writing tip: if you’re describing one sense (in this case, the tactile sensation of burning), don’t use an adjective from another (taste, for example) to portray that. This is something I struggle with a lot, much like mixed metaphors.

One of the main lobby doors swung open, and Ellie sauntered out. “My, my…you’re just making the rounds, aren’t you, Rory?”

Everybody is taking turns hugging Rory, Ellie. Catch up.

“Who’s the new man?” Ellie joked, tapping her chin with her index finger. “I just know that I know him from somewhere.”

“If we’ve met, it must not have been a memorable moment for me.” Benji said.

I couldn’t help but smile.

If Ellie doesn’t turn out to be some kind of alien monster by the end of this book (which seems unlikely, as there is absolutely no science fiction in this science fiction novel), then I will be so furious. I’ll still be mad at the amount of girl hate we’ve seen, but I’ll be even more angry if it turns out that there’s nothing, absolutely no reason, for it to have been included. I would forgive sloppy internalized misogyny in the writing before I would forgive a side character who exists merely so the main character can snipe at another girl.

Ellie leaves and Rory and Benji joke about how she’s probably going off to fuck a professor (ha ha, girls who have sex with men with whom they share an imbalanced power dynamic are such sluts), and Benji suggests:

He hesitated to say his next words. “I can stay, you know. I can sleep on the floor if you don’t want to be alone.”

Sam
“That’s a great idea!”

Seriously, that is as creepy as when Sam Merlot disguised himself as a dog to sleep on Sookie’s floor. Hey Ellie, I can come sleep on your floor and watch you while you sleep and count your breaths, holding each one close to my stalkery little heart.

Rory is like, nah, I’m good, and he’s like, are you sure, and she’s like yes, and she goes inside.

As I walked to my room, I could still feel Benji on my skin. For whatever reason, though, I couldn’t shake that Cy was supposed to be in my life, and no matter how much Benji wanted to believe it, Cy didn’t feel temporary.

And yet again, there is absolutely no science fiction.

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96 Comments

  1. Ilex
    Ilex

    Watching the knots being tied around my wrists and then behind my head, the begging in my eyes, and the torture on my face when I had to watch them hurt my best friend, who I’d known and loved since I was three, killed her hours before she died.

    Jen, in addition to deleting “known and loved since I was three,” I’d also change “killed her” to “killed my mom hours before she died.” The first time I read this sentence, I thought Rory’s mom WAS Rory’s best friend, and I ended up wondering how they’d only known each other since Rory was three, before figuring it out. You don’t want your reader having to stop and parse all the possibilities of who everyone in the sentence is — that just throws me out of a story. (On the other hand, the sentence probably makes more sense if one is actually reading the whole book, and not just excerpts.)

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • Sarah
      Sarah

      It read to me like they tied a series of knots around her hands (like they crocheted around her hands or something…), and then (for whatever reason) stood behind her tying knots randomly behind her head. What were they doing with those knots? Were they tying her hands behind her head? Or tying up her hair? Or tying her TO something?? It’s very unclear.

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
      • LV
        LV

        And *I* thought Rory’s friend killed Rory’s mom hours before she died. So. That too.

        December 29, 2014
        |Reply
  2. Laina
    Laina

    Oh, god, I’m exhausted and I just almost peed XD This was a good (bad???) chapter.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
  3. “The possibility is open, and if a reader is expecting a literal secret society, they’re going to be disappointed or confused or possibly both.”

    I’m disappointed, confused and BORED with this entire story. This is supposed to be a love triangle? I don’t see it. There is no tension, no chemistry. They barely interact and it’s all a bunch of garbled crap like she just threw a bunch of words at a piece of paper and they stuck and she called it a book.

    “I wasn’t sure what the warehouse had been used for before.”

    Spike lived there! Oh no. That was the factory.

    “Also, is coke back in style? I know that during my early twenties, any self-respecting person wouldn’t be caught dead with coke because it was so démodé. I saw it at approximately two parties, and they were both with the community theatre crowd. Is coke making a comeback?”

    I never did any drugs, but I knew a lot of people who did a lot of coke about the time you would have been in your early 20s. It might just depend on where you live. Whether it went out of or came back into style, I have no clue. It isn’t something I keep up with.

    “His jaw worked as he kissed her so deeply and sloppily that it made my stomach turn. His lips were sealed and working impatiently over hers.”

    What? How is he kissing her deeply with his mouth closed tightly??

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • Tammy
      Tammy

      “What? How is he kissing her deeply with his mouth closed tightly??”

      Because I think the author thinks that people make out like Barbie and Ken do, which is just smashing their faces together.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • Aurora
        Aurora

        I like that interpretation! I was amusing they were sealed over hers like a suction cup and sort of…sliding around and distorting. He is probably about to suck her soul–only not, because there is nothing whatsoever that Ellie could do without Rory seeing it as gross and soulless.

        January 11, 2015
        |Reply
  4. zeee
    zeee

    rorellie fo’ lyfe! look at that tension! at first i was thinking “maybe the author just doesn’t know how to write that sort of underlying, semi-deniable tension.” and then a scene with ellie pops up AND THERE IT IS.

    it’d like pitch perfect (excellent gif usage 😉 ), really. that one dude (did he even have a name? eheheheh) and beca’s romance came from left field! all of the actual tension was between her and chloe.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
  5. Cat
    Cat

    Wait, I thought Rory got mad at Benji before because he knew Ellie? Now Ellie and Benji don’t recognize one another?

    Granted, I’m only reading these chapter recaps so I could be mistaken but I thought everyone in that little brief conversation were acquainted with one another. At this point, I’m hoping Rory is the alien and that she gives off some sort of radiation or something that causes mass confusion.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • I think Ellie was being facetious? Rory says, “she joked.”

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
    • TayciBear
      TayciBear

      I thought the same thing and I’ve read the chapter. It’s her writing.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
  6. 1. Knots were being tied behind her head – a blindfold, yeah? So how was she able to watch her mother watching her? I call shenanigans.

    2. Thanksgiving break is in 2 days and it’s finals week! Nay, I say again, nay! Finals are typically before Christmas break, not Thanksgiving. Gawd.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • Ilex
      Ilex

      I thought her hands were being tied behind her head for extra misery. So that bit worked okay in my mind. But you’re right, the knots being tied around her wrists “and then” behind her head is a bit problematic.

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
      • Yeah found the hostage/murder/tying up description bafflingly confusing too.
        I assumed they tied her hands then somehow tied their around/behind her head so her elbows would be sticking out in front of her. creative I guess…?

        Also the description of the mother’s misery for seeing her daughter sad because her daughter’s best friend got iced or whatever is confusing, but maybe I don’t have enough context and need to read the whole scene. It just sounds like Rory’s being self centred under the guise of her mum’s feelings- HER pain about someone else is upsetting the mum. Not that the mum is upset because she feels helpless for her own child, which would really be the focus. I…I don;t know. i’m nitpicking. But it didn’t sound right.

        December 29, 2014
        |Reply
        • shel
          shel

          Add me to the group who was all “huh?” in trying to figure out what the heck she was describing… both with the tying and who was doing the dying and when…

          December 30, 2014
          |Reply
          • It seems like no one besides the author read through this book before publication. There’s a reason writers are not good at editing their own work. SHE knows what it’s supposed to say so it reads clearly to her.

            One of the things I want beta readers to do is point out sentences and paragraphs that don’t make sense on first reading. If you have to go back and re-read it even once to understand it, it needs rewriting.

            December 30, 2014
    • TayciBear
      TayciBear

      Not to defend the book/author, but I’m on a quarter system and my finals are during Thanksgiving week and I get the entire month of December off.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
    • Maggie
      Maggie

      At the university I went to, we had finals right before Thanksgiving fall quarter, and then had a six-week break, which was REALLY nice for getting a holiday job.

      Or we did until partway through my time there, when they realized it was also REALLY nice for people who weren’t thrilled with their fall quarter grades, because they had plenty of time to do the paperwork to transfer to another school, instead of sticking out their whole freshman year and then transferring.

      But AFAIK my university was really really weird in that way.

      August 22, 2015
      |Reply
  7. I now picture you pointing at things – ANYTHING – at random and yelling “ALIENS!” in a desperate attempt to find the sci-fi in this book. This now means Rory & co are occasionally interrupted by a Jenny charging onto scene screaming “ALIENS!”.

    I strong advise it, it makes the book much much more enjoyable.

    The sentence structure is just awful – I keep having to re-read to try and figure out exactly what has been said. The author also seems to have little experience of… well anything in the world? ALIENS clearly!

    Also – super-sekrit science project I can understand – super-sekrit ultra-confidential science project that also involves a student who hasn’t signed any kind of confidentiality clause? Not so much. A super-sektrit ultra-confidential science project that doesn’t involve any large corporations or government bodies? Nope. And
    “Majestic 12”? The CIA are openly naming themselves after the illuminati?*snorfle*

    Y’know, the whole “let’s risk our lives trying to protect a rock from the CIA” might actually be plausible if there had been even the SLIGHTEST attempt to establish this rock as important – rather than something that Rory finds so immensely boring

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
  8. Ilex
    Ilex

    She tells Zoidberg that she she needs her mom, and he tells her she shouldn’t have cut her hair.

    Instead of scolding Rory, why doesn’t he suggest she grow her hair back out, which is something she can actually do?

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • the-great-dragon
      the-great-dragon

      That part baffled me. “Hey, old family friend, I’m feeling horribly traumatized by the murder of my loved ones and I’m clearly distressed.”

      “Maybe you should have thought about that before you cut your hair? Hmmm?”

      Like damn Dr. Z, a++ on the empathy there.

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
      • “Hey, old family friend, I’m feeling horribly traumatized by the murder of my loved ones and I’m clearly distressed.”

        “Maybe you should have thought about that before you cut your hair? Hmmm?”

        Yeah I’m an Aspie and even I was like “whut”

        And immediately after that exchange:

        “Oh my love/lust interest is sitting here too! How YOU doin’?”

        January 2, 2015
        |Reply
    • the-great-dragon
      the-great-dragon

      Also, is it ableist that I now kind of want a book where Rory has a slow breakdown from trauma and starts pretending to be her own mother (the hair, dressing like her, mimicking her speech patterns) and the story ends with her killing Benji, Cy, and Dr. Z sacrifice style before she stabs herself to death in front of the bathroom mirror? (and then the book will end how it began, with her describing herself in front of the mirror, only she’ll be dying, so it’s better.)

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
  9. Lieke
    Lieke

    The author gets nothing right. There’s no tension, no science-fiction. It’s all just dull, dull, dull with a bonus of poor sentence structures. Bless you, Jenny, for slogging through this repetitive, tedious bullshit.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
  10. the-great-dragon
    the-great-dragon

    Since I started writing a fanfic for this thing, I’m afraid about being overly critical, bc then apolonia fans are gonna be like “you just hate the book, hdu.” But tbh, the fricken CIA’s involved and this book’s still boring.

    On a different note, I firmly believe Cy and Dr. Z are boning. “Remember, Cyrus is also my student. We do have other things to talk about.” Like putting the ass in astrobiology, am I right? Huh? Cyberg ftw.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • Ilex
      Ilex

      On a different note, I firmly believe Cy and Dr. Z are boning.

      YES!

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
      • Ilex
        Ilex

        But somehow Cy won’t be a slut for having sex with his professor …

        December 29, 2014
        |Reply
    • shel
      shel

      Please, please, please make the illicit affair with Dr.Z part of your story! We don’t even know how compatible Cy’s “i’m not an alien” body parts are… it could be quite interesting… and maybe actually related to science fiction!

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
  11. Ilex
    Ilex

    Would anyone actually name their kid a tongue-twister like Fenton Tennison?

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • Ilex
      Ilex

      Never mind. In a world with Rory Riordan, that was a really dumb question.

      December 29, 2014
      |Reply
      • Rory Riordan reminded me that one of the suggestions for names when I was pregnant with my daughter was “Aurora”. Except her father’s last name was Ortega. Try saying “Aurora Ortega” it’s easily as bad.

        January 1, 2015
        |Reply
    • the-great-dragon
      the-great-dragon

      I probably would, ngl.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
    • Randonimity
      Randonimity

      NGL, I thought “Fenton Tennison” was a reference to Danny Phantom (a cartoon about a teenage boy who could turn into a ghost) and Ben 10 (a cartoon about a 10-y-o boy who could turn into different aliens).

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        But Fenton is Danny Phantom’s last name, why not go with Danny/Daniel Tennison? It’s sounds slicker and reminds me of booze for some reason. *despair*

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
    • Suzy
      Suzy

      So my name is Suzanne Shell. I love have the same first and last initial. My middle name however…it is lovely but I don’t think my mom said the name out loud. Say it now, Suzanne Rose Shell. This is why I have perfect diction, had to make sure people knew my name is not Suzanne Rochelle. So I feel for tongue twisted names.

      January 2, 2015
      |Reply
  12. Adrian
    Adrian

    I really agree with the your criticism regarding the lack of science fiction in this purportedly science fiction novel. The most science fictiony thing should not be a space rock that does absolutely nothing. The science fiction I have read tends to start with the introduction of something that is different from real life. Then it creates extensions based on the few differences that are introduced. From the perspective of Rrr Rrr, there’s hardly anything surprising about her world. We have space rocks and she has space rocks too.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
    • unamadridista
      unamadridista

      Me too! I actually thought this space rock might be described as something completely different from any other space rock, or it could do something strange one night when Cy and Rrr Rrr are “gathering data” (what the heck are they doing to it anyway?). But alas, it does nothing, like you said. What’s the point of having an ordinary space rock that’s no different from real life?

      I also felt adding the CIA bit now seems random and disjointed, like the author thought of it only when she was writing dialogue for chapter 7. Wouldn’t it make more sense to bring it up in the first chapter? It would at least explain why Dr. Z. is keeping it in his lab with only two undergrads for a research team in a small uni. The secrecy angle from the beginning would have made more sense and explained professor’s methodology behind picking only two students that he trusts.

      Dang, from recaps this book sounds nothing like what the exert on Amazon described. It was supposed to be an action packed New Adult science fiction with some alien-human romance. Where’s the action? Where’s the science fiction? Where’s romance? Is it me or is Cy and Benji are kind of interchangeable? Sure, Cy is supposed to be an alien masquerading as an Egyptian studying abroad, but until the pizza scene, I couldn’t tell the difference between him and Benji. They have similar reactions and their personality is kind of bland, but apparently it doesn’t matter because they’re both just so good-looking. They’re both practically the same guy with a different name, so where’s the romantic conflict here?

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
  13. Amanda
    Amanda

    So many thoughts!

    “Rory believes she’s inherited this trait from her mother, who didn’t drink anything other than water until she turned forty, and then got into white wine.” — This explains a lot, I imagine that you miss out on a lot of nutrients and brain-building fats if you drink nothing but water from birth.

    She’s been working with Cy for months and didn’t know his last name yet??

    “His lips were sealed and working impatiently over hers.” — Somebody already said it, but I too am picturing this dude kissing her passionately with a closed mouth. Just rubbing his face on her face. So sexy.

    December 29, 2014
    |Reply
  14. shel
    shel

    So this is (like most of these) a wacky Twilight-ish type knock off, right?? Is that why she had to goad Cy into eating pizza and then he had to get all sick all over the place?

    Correct me if I’m wrong, since I haven’t actually read Twilight, but somehow know more about it than I care to… but wasn’t there something in there about Edward eating pizza? Like that he could eat it, but then he had to hork it up later because he can’t digest people food?

    I mean, I get that the point was more hints that Cy is an ALIEN!!! OMG! SHOCKING! so we can all say AH! at the final reveal that I assume is going to be on the final page along with something about how he exploded on the way back to his home planet never to be heard from again… but how about pick another food or something?

    Thanks for slogging through this mess for us, Jenny… I much prefer to jealously hate-read books this way 🙂

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • Laina
      Laina

      I think it was an apple? But otherwise, yeah.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • Rosa H
        Rosa H

        It was pizza. The apple on the cover was only there for the sake of contrived biblical symbolism.

        December 31, 2014
        |Reply
        • Ilex
          Ilex

          Contrived and contorted symbolism. Since Twilight is about Bella’s journey to becoming a vampire and immortal and happy forever with the love of her life (i.e., attaining the Garden of Eden rather than being kicked out of it), what exactly does that apple even mean from a biblical standpoint?

          December 31, 2014
          |Reply
          • Rosa H
            Rosa H

            I saw it as Bella tempting Edward to sin (to either drink her blood/kill her or have sex with her.) I like your take on the story though, as it places Bella in an active-ish role. Unfortunately, Twilight is mostly just Edward’s journey focalized by Bella. 🙁

            December 31, 2014
        • Ilex
          Ilex

          Unfortunately, Twilight is mostly just Edward’s journey focalized by Bella.

          Ugh. I never thought of it that way. And it brings up some disturbing questions in my mind, like “Did it sell so well because if it’s secretly a book about a boy, NOT a book about a girl after all, it makes it seem more ‘worthy’ somehow?”

          Except that Edward’s journey seems even more boring to me than Bella’s. “Must not eat Bella … must not eat Bella … oh, now she’s dying and I can suck her dry to ‘save’ her! Deus ex machina rules!” Or am I missing something deeper and more touching?

          December 31, 2014
          |Reply
          • Ilex
            Ilex

            Perfect!

            January 4, 2015
  15. Tammy
    Tammy

    “Rory asks what Cy’s last name is, and he won’t tell her because he doesn’t think she’ll be able to pronounce it. ”
    *puts on binoculars*
    Is that a…a reference to…Star Trek?

    Great recap as always, Jenny. If you would like, I can send you my 20 pg MFA novel manuscript that has more science fiction in it than literally one page of these seven chapters so far, and not a speck of girl hate. ‘Tis the start of the tale of an android named Shima who’s receiving memories of an older generation android, and she wants to find out what happened to this android and why she’s now receiving his memories. Even if I don’t get accepted, I have plans to finish the novel and to write a short story set in the same world but with mechanical merpeople and mechanical sea lions, wee!

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • Hth
      Hth

      I think some kind of TroutNation writer’s group would be awesome. I’m so afraid to join most writer’s groups because…generally pro writers seem so arrogant and awful? And I’m afraid those would be the sort of people you’d meet? But I think people come here for the lack of bullshit, honestly, and I’m for that.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • I started a writer’s group years ago and it was a horrible experience. I was the only “pro” there (I was a journalist at the time, but working on fiction writing). The amateurs can be pretty crappy, too. You get a lot of people who can’t separate themselves from their work and refuse to accept any kind of critique. I would try to help them improve their work and they would get very angry and ignore my advice.

        I was pretty amused, though, when a literary agent gave a seminar at the local library (this was Steve Berry’s agent — he’s a NY Times bestselling author who happened to live in the county) and she said all the things I had been saying. One of the worst offenders from my writing group was there. He didn’t come back for the afternoon session. lol

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        Hell, it’d be worth a try. I think it would be good not just for improving one’s writing, but for taking criticism gracefully too. Or we can share tips and tricks too, like how I won’t show something unless it’s in its third draft and I’ve had time to cut the umbilical cord and let it form as its own entity.

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
        • I’m not against it. I’m a pretty good editor and try to give useful feedback. I’m tough and honest, but I’m not mean about it. People just have to be willing to take the critique and use it and not get defensive. It isn’t personal. I look back at things I wrote 10 or 15 years ago and cringe. I’ve improved since them precisely because I listen to advice and critique. Not everyone can do that, though.

          December 30, 2014
          |Reply
          • Tammy
            Tammy

            I’ll admit, when I was getting my BA in English I was being way too much of an asshole about critiques, and I look back and cringe because now I realize I was being more hurtful than helpful.

            I also think that when doing internet writer’s group, you can review what you’ve written as a critique or an answer to a critique, have the chance to ask yourself “Am I being a douche about this?”, and change whatever you need to change instead of spewing the first thing that comes to mind when you’re under pressure by the group.

            December 30, 2014
          • Well, I need more incentive to work on my writing and to stop procrastinating, so maybe this would be helpful.

            December 30, 2014
          • unamadridista
            unamadridista

            @Renee

            I’ve also transitioned from journalism to fiction and I wish I had someone like you in some of the writing groups I was in. I heard a lot of professors and writers encourage being involved in writing workshops/groups but, much like what you wrote, people either were not serious about professional writing or treated it as a social club. I was in a good local group when I moved to the States, but it fell apart when everyone’s schedules made it difficult to meet consistently. I don’t miss the bad experiences but I do miss the benefit of the good one. Of course, my only good experience included a mix professional writers with aspiring, so that’s why it worked because people wanted constructive criticism to help them improve and didn’t want just empty praise.

            December 30, 2014
          • OK. So I’m thinking setting up a communal email account might be the best option. I can do that and then send you all the password. I’ll set up the account and post the address here, then everyone who wants to join can email me there and I’ll send back the password.

            Does that sound good?

            December 30, 2014
  16. Tammy
    Tammy

    @Renee because the reply button has gone missing: Lol same here. I just finished my resolution list of works I need to write and, much more importantly, finish. I am cursed with the ability to work on three projects at once and not finishing any of them because I beat myself up about my writing.

    I wonder how we should go about this creating bookclub, however. Oh great lady Jenny Trout, dost thou have any ideas?

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • JennyTrout
      JennyTrout

      I was in a writing group that used to meet every Friday, and you had to have pages to read, or else there were many arch looks cast in your direction.

      If you’re meeting online, why not make an email list or something, and you can all email your pages to it and everyone downloads and critiques them and sends them back. So, if five people are in the group, everyone gets four different critiques of their work. Does that make sense?

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        Yup yup! Sounds good to me!

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
  17. Tammy
    Tammy

    @Renee again: When you started your writer’s group, how often did you meet up?

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • I want to say once a month? It was a LONG time ago and it was either once a month or week, but probably month. I think if it’s online, though, it could be more often or people could set deadlines and just send things around for feedback. Logistics would have to be worked out.

      December 30, 2014
      |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        ” I think if it’s online, though, it could be more often or people could set deadlines and just send things around for feedback.”

        This idea is extremely appealing to me. Thank god for the internet!

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        I was also just thinking that if we’re going to have a Jenny Trout specific writing group, maybe what we can also do is if we all have wordpress blogs of some sort (I’m starting mine sometime next month), we can upload what writing pieces we want critiqued on our individual blogs, send the links to the same person in the group each month or even Jenny if she would like too, and post those links once a month.

        December 30, 2014
        |Reply
        • If we do that, I’d be more comfortable having them password protected. I don’t want stuff that I’d like to publish one day being too public.

          December 30, 2014
          |Reply
          • JennyTrout
            JennyTrout

            If you guys wanted me to get a password protected forum for this, I could do that. I’d just need someone to volunteer to moderate it.

            December 30, 2014
          • Jenny — if we were to post to our own blogs, we could password protect them and send the code to whomever was going to critique (or the entire group). We wouldn’t necessarily need you to do anything.

            I like the idea of an email address. We could set up a gmail account or something that we all have passwords to, then set up folders with each person’s name and everything would be right there.

            December 30, 2014
          • I think ultimately, having the Word documents would be easier than a blog, anyway, so we can make comments and use track changes and stuff like that.

            December 30, 2014
  18. Tammy
    Tammy

    @Renee: Oh cool, I didn’t know you could do that with gmail! That sounds like a sound idea too with the word docs. I don’t have much experience using google docs, tho. Is it fairly simple to use?

    Also, I’m going to have to leave the computer for a little while, but y’all can email me at tjallen89@gmail.com if you need to get in touch with me. I’m super excited about this!

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • The “reply” button to Jenny’s post above has gone missing. I volunteer to moderate the forum if one is built. I currently only write business articles, no fiction, but wrote fiction and poetry in college. And I love to read new work and give opinions that are honest but not mean.

      January 2, 2015
      |Reply
  19. OK. I created a gmail account. Send an email to troutwriter2014@gmail.com and I will send you the password and create a folder with your name. Then everyone can send their writing to the group. You can create subfolders under main folders, so you can create subfolders for different pieces you’re working on. We can decide deadlines and such once we get going.

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
    • Melodie
      Melodie

      I don’t comment here a lot but this writers group sounds interesting. I have a novel that I’m trying to work on but it feels like a mess as im out of practice with my writing. I need focus and guidance with my tenses and flow. I also want to make sure it makes sense. Can I join?

      December 31, 2014
      |Reply
      • Absolutely! I’m on my phone right now, but send an e-mail to that address and I’ll send the password tomorrow. So far there are only two of us. I’m hoping more people who expressed interest will join, too. And of course anyone else interested. The more the better.

        December 31, 2014
        |Reply
        • Melodie
          Melodie

          I tried to email the address but I keep getting a delivery failure because the address doesn’t exist? Did I enter the address correctly?

          troutwriter2014@gmail.com

          January 1, 2015
          |Reply
    • I’m thinking about joining too, because this may give me the kick in the pants I need to get back to writing my novel, or writing anything for that matter. My concern is genre. I’ve never been in a writing group before but I think they probably work better if everyone wrote in genres that are at least similar and familiar to the writers in the group. I write mostly fantasy type stuff with horror and romance mixed in and I like to set my stories in historical settings. I wouldn’t feel comfortable critting a piece that was Sci-Fi or murder mystery because I’m either not into those genres or unfamiliar, and I don’t want someone critting one of my pieces if they feel similarly uncomfortable.

      January 1, 2015
      |Reply
      • I read everything, so any genre is good for me. I’m mostly looking at plot holes, character development, typos, POV, etc. Those things are pretty much the same across genres. Anyone familiar with reading and writing can pick up on something that’s out of place, even without being an expert in the genre.

        For the details you’re looking for, you of course would want someone familiar with that to look at it. But you’re going to need more than one beta reader, anyway.

        January 1, 2015
        |Reply
        • Okay, that’s good to know. I’m on the first draft of the story I’m writing now and as a pantser I don’t plan out my story ahead though I do have an idea as to where I want it to go. I don’t like to share until I get through at least the second draft when I have the story more put together, cause right now it’s in pieces all over the place. What I need right now is motivation to work on it. I came to a stop at the end of October when life stuff got in the way and my mind hasn’t wanted anything to do with writing, but now that the holidays are finally over I am starting to feel that itch again.

          January 1, 2015
          |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        Yay, another fantasy writer! But I don’t think your critique would be useless if you were reading something that was in an unfamiliar genre. As Renee said, all genres still need to be looked over for grammar, plot holes, characters, etc. I also find a person who’s not familiar in the genres I write essential for reading my work because they help me really make sure that the worlds I build and the story lines I present are super clear and can hook in someone who might not have tried the genre otherwise. Like for my MFA sample, I had my mom look at it (she’s particularly good with grammar flaws) and even though the science fiction world didn’t appeal to her, she still liked reading it because of the mystery plot that went with it.

        January 3, 2015
        |Reply
    • Dracon Ra
      Dracon Ra

      *sigh* I would love to join, but my English is not good enough.

      January 2, 2015
      |Reply
      • Tammy
        Tammy

        Do it anyway! One of the ways that helped me learn French more fluently was by writing by writing comics and short stories in French.

        January 2, 2015
        |Reply
        • Dracon Ra
          Dracon Ra

          Ok, I’ll try.
          I did want to edit the story that was inspired by the mighty trout nation, my take on the “Alpha male sub”, I could try to translate it, too.

          If nothing else, it will be an interesting experiment.

          January 3, 2015
          |Reply
      • Laina
        Laina

        Plus, writing is not all about grammar. It’s also about characters, plot, prose, etc.

        January 2, 2015
        |Reply
  20. Lindsay
    Lindsay

    Maybe the author is more clever than we think. Maybe when Cy was studying human culture and deciding where to land and do his thing, he was like, huh, Americans will believe just about anything about other cultures. I bet if I land there and call myself an “Egyption,” I don’t have to worry about accidentally saying things about my real culture and experiences because Americans will just think it’s some weird Egyption thing.

    Also, I cannot express how sick I am of writers being like “my character is super anti-social and introverted, but I’m going to have them go to parties so that they can hate the party.” Especially in this example where Rory is saying, well, I hate people, and I hate parties, but I need to get away from Cy and distract myself so I GUESS I have no choice. Bullshit. Amazingly there are all kinds of interesting and distracting things you can do that don’t involve surrounding yourself by people and situations that are going to make you miserable. And a people-hating sociopath like Rory would know all about those types of activities.

    And one last thing, the aspect about how its “finals week” and that’s why everyone is letting loose otherwise they’ll snap or whatever is ridiculous. Listen. I didn’t go to a science college, but I did go to school where your finals meant your entire grade and people were always super super stressed during finals week. You know what the last thing anyone was going to do during finals week? GO TO A PARTY. I mean, it’s just logical. The reason students are super stressed during finals is because they are spending 16 hours a day desperately trying to learn the material from all semester–what part of that makes someone think, oh, they definitely have time for parties and crazy sex and hangovers in between all that! That’s not a thing. You get super drunk and have crazy parties AFTER finals are over.

    December 30, 2014
    |Reply
  21. Germaine
    Germaine

    ‘“I’m in,” I said. Cy and Dr. Z traded knowing smiles.’

    Honest question …if this story is told from Rory’s perspective how would she know they’re trading ‘knowing smiles’ ? I haven’t read the book so maybe the knowing is referring to the fact that they’re going to be secretly working with the space rock, but when I first read that I interpreted it as foreshadowing since it was just between Cyrus and Zoidberg. Like my guess is later they’ll tell Rory that Cyrus is a space alien. Anywho …my question is about perspective. Maybe I was caught off gaurd just because I’m used to hearing it like ‘we traded knowing smiles’ ? It is essentially just another way of saying ‘I got a feeling these people know something I don’t.’ But it seems like weak foreshadowing for something THIS big. Of course I could just be reading it all wrong.

    December 31, 2014
    |Reply
  22. “Salty tears burned my cheeks.”

    She’s an alien slug.

    January 1, 2015
    |Reply
  23. jayw
    jayw

    When you started theorizing that Rory herself was an alien, I started thinking that maybe the murder of her friends and family was actually some kind of vivisection, government experiments on aliens type of thing. Which would have been a neat twist, I think. But if that were the case, Rory should have been a lot more afraid of the CIA’s interest in the space rock.

    January 1, 2015
    |Reply
  24. Carolina West
    Carolina West

    As shitty as this book is, I have to admit I like the passage where we finally find out what Cy actually looks like.

    January 1, 2015
    |Reply
  25. Brian
    Brian

    “just like the breath of the men who murdered almost everyone who ever cared about me.”

    This tells you everything you need to know about the character. It’s “everyone who ever cared about me.”, not “everyone I ever cared about.”

    :/

    January 14, 2015
    |Reply
  26. No recaps since December. I think Jen has truly given up. Don’t blame her, though. There’s nothing happening in this story.

    January 27, 2015
    |Reply
  27. Rachel
    Rachel

    So commented 7 months after this has been posted… Any who drug of choice, yes people still do coke but I believe the wildly popular drug of our generation would be Molly, that is a purer form of E. It was mentioned in a Miley Cyrus song. This lady is definitely out of touch with us youths.

    July 2, 2015
    |Reply
  28. kayenjee
    kayenjee

    So, there’s a new development in this recap. Rory has a coat.

    July 14, 2015
    |Reply
  29. kayenjee
    kayenjee

    Jenny, maybe you’re being racist to aliens and Cy likes eating Neighborhoods (of people named) Jharad or Jharad’s neighborhood or a neighborhood named Jharad. I have no clue about grammar in Arabic, but maybe he’s into eating entire Arabian neighborhoods. I’d like to think so.

    Disclaimer: The phrase “racist to aliens” was used in jest.

    July 14, 2015
    |Reply

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