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Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 21, The World or “You’re never going to guess where the plot finally shows up.”

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This is it, everyone. Exactly one year since we started Chapter 0, we’ve reached the end. This is the final installment of our Handbook For Mortals recap. I want to announce that I’ll be doing a Facebook Live event on Saturday night, 10 P.M. EST, on my Jenny Trout Facebook account, to talk about the acknowledgments section and do some drunk Tarot to get a forecast for the future of the book series and upcoming movie. These are pretty fun to do, because I can talk to you while I’m doing them, so drop on in at any time after 10 P.M. to join the live feed.

Shit, I might even brush my hair or put on makeup or something.

Or like.

Shower that day.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all for coming on this journey through hell and scandal with me, yet again. Here’s hoping nobody pulls any bullshit and hits my nasty button for a while, so I can take a vacation from shitty, shitty books.

Jealous Hater Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 20 Judgement or “Aptly named, considering what I’m about to do to it.”

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UPDATE: I should have remembered this in the first place, but thank you, everyone who has tipped me through Kofi, not just this week and last week but all the weeks. Book sales are down and you guys really help me out.

No news this week! I wonder if all the exciting media buzz is under embargo. Because, you know, surely with a movie and book this spectacular and eagerly anticipated, it must be kept under wraps.

Oh, but there is a gross and bloody gif in here. Heads up.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 19 Death (part two) or “THAT’S IT I’M SETTING THIS BLOG AND THEN MYSELF ON FIRE.”

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In this week’s Jealous Haters Book Club, there is no news about Handbook For Mortals.

Because it’s fading away. But don’t worry. You can still find a copy of Handbook For Mortals at your nearest, cursed bookstore.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of consignment, what happens is that a bookstore and a self-published author or a small press representative make a deal in which the store will carry a title, which the author or small press provide, and if the book sells, the bookstore takes a cut. This is different to how a book that sells enough to legitimately make #1 on the New York Times list would be sold in a store. A book that is actually popular and in demand would be sold to the bookstore at a lower-than-retail price, which they would then sell at retail price. I’m not knocking consignment; I’ve done it myself because what else do self-published people do? But in one scenario, the business is investing in your product. In the other, the business is willing to let you rent shelf space. Twilight wasn’t hitting Waldenbooks on consignment.

In other news, a friend who lives in Las Vegas excitedly texted me, “You’ll never believe who’s on my flight!”

I was super disappointed to learn that it was not Carrot Top.

Jealous Hater Book Club: Handbook For Mortals, Chapter 19 Death (part one) or, “Super easy, barely an inconvenience.”

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There isn’t much to report in the way of news this time around. Which is odd, right? I mean, considering this is definitely going to be bigger than Twilight and is going to be a major motion picture *checks watch* this year? Really? Are we still buying that line?

This is another ridiculously long chapter, so at the risk of extending the recap of this book out through the course of my entire natural life and into the bowels of hell that will feel like a blessed escape from this shit pile, I have to split the recap in twain.

I read the Handbook For Mortals screenplay. It is worse than you could possibly imagine.

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There’s an important rule that you must always follow when sharing your creative work with people you trust: you must take caution not to fuck over those people with your egomaniacal scheming so that they later have the desire to see that work dragged to hell and New Zealand and back in front of all the mighty gods of Mount Olympus.

An anonymous source contacted me last week to gift me with some gossip and the most cursed object of all time:

A photo of the Handbook For Mortals screenplay on my dining room table, with highlighters and a mug of coffee.

That’s right. I have in my possession a copy of the Handbook For Mortals screenplay.

Please note the revision number: 3841. I sincerely hope that this was part of a numbering system and this has not, in fact, been revised three thousand times. Because I have read it, dear reader. And three thousand more revisions would not have saved this. From its earliest days, Handbook For Mortals has been a total non-starter.

“Wow, Jenny! I can’t wait for you to rip this thing to shreds in a very special episode of Jealous Haters Book Club!” you may be thinking. Sadly, it’s much more difficult to prove Fair Use for unpublished material. After a weekend of reading up on Fair Use and unpublished work by living creators, I have decided to forgo becoming embroiled in the stupidest lawsuit of all time. I will not be excerpting any lines of text. However, the dialogue and much of the action in the book is taken wholesale from a draft of the screenplay. In some passages, even typos are duplicated, suggesting that it was copy/pasted from one document to another. You won’t be missing much.

Remember when I was like, “Wow, this book sucks so much because you can tell it was being adapted from a screenplay?” Yeah, I was wrong. The book sucks because the screenplay sucks, and somehow the book is an improvement. This draft of the screenplay is from 2011, so it had at least five years to age like milk, but somehow it managed to come out as a fine…well, I can’t say wine, but at least a vinegar that would be particularly useful for cleaning laminate flooring.

So, just how bad is it?

Shot according to this script, Handbook For Mortals would have been a shockingly short film. If we were to follow the oft-repeated “one page equals one minute” advice, the 112 pages of Handbook For Mortals would create a movie that’s just shy of two hours. But that oft-repeated advice is wrong as hell, as anyone who has ever read a screenplay could tell you. This has a lot to do with the pacing of scenes. For example, the movie Braveheart was shot from a screenplay that’s 143 pages long, but it clocked in at 177 minutes. Why? Action scenes take up a lot more room on film than on the page, as do sweeping shots of the Scottish countryside. On the other hand, movies with snappy, quick-paced dialogue like Moneyball, have longer page counts and shorter run times (168 pages of mostly dialogue for 133 minutes on the screen). The Handbook For Mortals script is mostly dialogue with little action and incredibly short scenes, some with only five to eight lines of conversation without action, like the scene that opens with Mac and Zade lying on some grass chatting for less than a page. What isn’t dialogue is usually description, rather than action. If produced in this format, Handbook For Mortals would be more Dunkirk, less Gone With The Wind. It would need significant padding to get it past the one hour mark. And speaking of those short scenes…

The film version would be choppy and confusing to any viewer who isn’t Lani Sarem. Think the “several weeks later,” time jumps in the book drag the story out over what feels like a full calendar year? Well, you’ll love the screenplay, where everything seems to happen on the same day. Zade leaves her home in New Mexico and seemingly auditions moments later, as we shift from leaving home to the theater without any indication in either the script or the dialogue to suggest a passage of time. No shot of Zade passing a Welcome To Nevada sign, no exterior of the theater, just straight from Zade telling her mother goodbye to Zade opening the doors in the casino. After Sofia’s literal stage dive, she shows up at a bar just a scene later, fully healed, with no mention of a passage of time. Events within scenes move weirdly, too; within eight urgent lines of Pete shouting for someone to call the paramedics, they arrive on the scene as if they’ve been standing in the wings waiting for their cue.

Sarem’s writing micromanages everything. Anything you’d see an actor do on screen from laughs to eye rolls, even blushing is scripted. It’s true that direction like, “(laughing nervously)” will come up in screenplays, but it’s usually when the action is commented on in the dialogue. I haven’t read the Fifty Shades Of Grey screenplay because I don’t hate myself, but I assume Ana’s lip biting and eye rolls would have been included because they’re an impetus for Christian’s lines that follow and therefore must be acted out by Dakota Johnson. In the Handbook For Mortals script, Sarem frequently specifies how the lines should be delivered, what emotion the actor should convey, and what expressions should be used. As someone who reads a lot of screenplays, I feel pretty confident in stating that the number of times this occurs in Handbook For Mortals is highly unusual and displays a shocking lack of faith in the director and actors. This could be due to inexperience as a writer; multiple crucial elements are either missing or employed in strange ways, like fades to black separating what should be continuous scenes and v.o. dialogue labeled as o.s. lines, which suggests this may have been Sarem’s first time.

Sarem included plenty of chances to showcase her singing as well as her nude or nearly-nude body. We know from interviews and the listing on IMDB Pro that Lani Sarem envisioned herself taking on the role of Zade. Which is what makes it so incredibly cringe-worthy when the position of her body is breathlessly described as being fully nude and barely covered by a sheet or lying on her stomach in just her underwear while reading her tarot cards. Why would she be nude, you might ask? Because the “passionate kissing” post-motorcycle ride doesn’t end with the pair just going home and taking things slow. Instead, there’s a sex scene, complete with Mac undressing her and a morning-after discussion of her tattoo, which stands in for the family necklace. In case you’re not impressed with Sarem’s beauty, she included a lot of subtle hints that you should be.

She’s sexy and she knows it, and you’re going to, as well, audience. Besides the nude scenes, we’re treated to the same book interludes of male characters standing around and discussing how sexy they find her. When Sofia is introduced, it’s important to Sarem to note in the action that it should be clear to the audience that though Sofia is beautiful, her personality makes her unattractive. Many characters make references to how gorgeous Zade is and how great her body is, to the point that it borders on sexual harassment of Sarem, by Sarem.

The characters are all somehow much, much worse than their book incarnations…except for Mac. Without the narrative to explain to us that Zade is given lots of gifts and perks at the production’s expense, Sofia’s griping about the special treatment Zade receives comes off as nothing more than unfounded jealousy. There’s no internal monologue from Zade or Mac to describe Charles as socially awkward or unusually career-driven, so on screen, he would just appear to be a total jackass. When the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dates with Jackson are removed, you’re simply left with a guy who likes to talk about how much he’d like to bang the chick he works with. Yeah, you read that right. The dates with Jackson aren’t in here at all.

The love triangle from the book is non-existent. Answering perhaps one of the most pressing questions I’ve had about the novel, the screenplay leaves out the oh-who-ever-will-I-choose subplot by almost immediately pairing up Zade and Mac. As in the book, Mac asks that they “take it slow,” although there’s no mention of his past heartache and just a few scenes later, he calls a company meeting to kiss Zade in front of the entire cast and crew, settling the matter. Though Jackson does have designs on Zade (and Sarem makes sure to include a scene where they kiss), his feelings aren’t reciprocated and absolutely no conflict arises as a result. This may be due in part to the fact that “Jackson” is literally Jackson Rathbone playing Jackson Rathbone. While the novel features “appearances” by Plain White T’s, the screenplay explicitly uses 100 Monkeys as the band, as well as the titles of their songs and the real names of the band members. Sarem wrote this while she managed the bandImagine if someone you worked with wrote a screenplay in which you’d be expected to portray yourself kissing and delivering lines about how much you want to fuck the character based off of and played by them. Considering that the marketing of the Handbook For Mortals novel now includes “Team Mac” and “Team Jackson” merchandise, it’s clear that Sarem saw Rathbone, still starring in the wildly popular Twilight franchise, as her ticket toward getting the film produced. When the personal and professional relationship between Rathbone and Sarem soured and she set out to turn the book into a Young Adult sensation, she simply tacked on a love triangle because Twilight had one, and Twilight was the only blueprint she had to work from.

Handbook For Mortals was never meant to be a series. In another blatant attempt at copying the success of Twilight, Sarem stretched her original idea (already paper thin) into what has allegedly always been a planned series. Leaving aside the age of the protagonist, the love scene and multiple unclothed moments, the Handbook For Mortals movie was clearly meant to be a one-off. The single element in the novel that suggests any sort of continuation of the story, Lamborghini Girl, is conspicuously absent. There is no mention of being the town outcast due to special “magick” powers, and there’s no greater “magick” community that could oppose Mac’s involvement with Zade. The “magick” conflict is missing because…

We don’t find out that Zade is “magick” until page ninety-four. The novel’s scenes of Zade’s secretive illusions are presented in the screenplay as exactly that: illusions. The confrontation at the lemonade stand and the attempted murder of a cyclist––events that are superfluous in the book––would have tipped the audience off to Zade’s abilities and were sorely needed on the screen. Instead, her powers are inexplicably revealed at the end of the script when Dela breaks the news to Mac. Imagine watching a movie that appears to be a romance with a weird title from beginning to nearly the end before learning that it’s actually a story about witches. And then imagine that when the love interest finds out that his girlfriend is a witch who’s been using him for magic without his knowledge, he simply laughs it off in the final line of the movie.

All of the problems from the book are present here. For example, Sofia’s name flipping between Sofia and Sofie depending on its use in dialogue or description remains throughout, as does her abrupt, unexplained disappearance from the book. Overly used phrases like “show blacks” and “deeply into [his/her/character’s] eyes” first debuted here, in abundance. Dela and Charles’s flashback is unnecessarily included and, if filmed, would be one of, if not the, longest scenes in a movie that…isn’t about them. Dela’s manipulation of Charles with magic, as well as Zade’s use of magic on Mac are never dealt with, and though the mysterious family necklace becomes a mysterious family tattoo in the screenplay, it’s mentioned once and nothing ever comes of it, similar to the book. The characters state their personalities aloud in dialogue, just as in the book. The tarot card reading scene is still just Zade talking aloud about what the cards mean. Basically, anything that didn’t work in the novel was ported over from the screenplay, which was already terrible.

So, there you have it. The Handbook For Mortals movie that, God willing, will never come to fruition. The only good thing I can say about it is that they actually say the title of the movie in the screenplay. And even then, it sounds stupid.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals, Chapter 18 The Chariot part 2 or, “No One Is Responsible For Their Actions”

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For your laughing pleasure, Esther Anne sent me this lovely screenshot:

A tweet from @JustinBrady that reads, "It was fun to meet @RockanRollGypsy and @TINband in the @WHORadio studios today! Some are saying their new collaboration is going to be bigger than the Twilight series!" followed by a link to a radio interview and a photo of Sarem and Nicholas with the WHO Radio DJs.

First of all, @WHORadio is a prime example of why you need to carefully consider how your social media/web branding is going to look without spaces in it.

Second, the “some are saying” part is 100% true. It’s just that the “some” are Lani Sarem and Thomas Ian Nicholas. It’s a very exclusive group.

You can listen to interviews here if you have a high cringe tolerance.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals, Chapter 18 The Chariot part 1 or, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”

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I don’t think I have any Lani news this time around, simply because Book Twitter is so busy with #CockyGate and #ForeverGate at the moment. But I do have a heads up about content this time around. If you’re mentally ill and “crazy” or “insane” as a pejorative bothers you, it’s all over this chapter. No exaggeration. “Crazy” is used seven times in this chapter. “Insane” is used four times. That might not seem like a lot, but in context, it becomes impossible to overlook. It will continue into the next recap.

There is so much in this chapter that I’m splitting it into two parts. It’s not that the chapter is long, necessarily. It’s just the high amount of wrong with it.

We’re also going to get the G-word and a lot of made up, One True Path™ nonsense, too. Enjoy!

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 17 The Lovers, or “Shot through the heart/and you’re to blame/darlin’ you give love a bad name”

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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:

 

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 16, Justice or “Girlfriend in a coma/I know it’s serious”

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March went out like a failure:

A Facebook update from the official Handbook For Mortals account: "Much of the setting in Handbook For Mortals is based on Lani Sarem's experience working with Cirque du Soleil! What is your favorite Cirque show? Here's one of ours..." followed by a link to highlights from Le Reve on YouTube.

Le Rêve is not a Cirque Du Soleil production. It’s a competing franchise bankrolled entirely by…the Wynn Hotel and Casino, where the magic show in Handbook is set.

You’d think that someone who researched the setting of their book and worked for Cirque would have known that.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 15 (part 2) The Tower or “This is the part where adapting the screenplay into a book got hard”

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Every time I think, “You know, I’m going to run out of Handbook For Mortals shenanigans before we get to the end of the recaps,” I am proved wrong. So, this installment brings us…

REBRANDING!

Awesome tweeter Aron alerted me to this press release, tweeted by an account called ADA IT Solutions. Since Handbook For Mortals has nothing at all to do with either the Americans with Disabilities Act or improved access to technology as outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act, it’s pretty clear that Cision PR Newswire’s strategy seems to be “throw something at the wall and see if it sticks.” Which falls right in line with Handbook and Lani Sarem, who both receive a generous re-branding as we steam toward the release of the movie.

Really.

Author Lani Sarem, whose initial offering Handbook for Mortalsdebuted at No. 34 on the USA Today Bestseller list, continues promotion on the national Comic Con circuit alongside American PieRookie of the Year star Thomas Ian Nicholas. The film is scheduled to shoot later this year, based on the book.  In a year of empowering females within the industry, it’s important to note that the film is not only very female-driven, but also includes a strong female protagonist, female director, female line producer and Sarem herself as the author.

No longer billed as a New York Times bestseller, this bulletin is content to celebrate the (also scammed) success of the book as a USA Today bestseller. I mean, who needs a big flashy label when you’re suddenly, out of absofuckinglutely nowhere, a juggernaut of feminist power? I mean, a female director (probably Lani Sarem), a female line producer (also probably Lani Sarem), and a strong female protagonist who never has to work to get anything she wants because her daddy gives it to her? Hold onto your pussy hats, ladies, we’re going to the theater!

Handbook for Mortals is about a young woman with supernatural powers who joins a Las Vegas magic show only to find that love is more dangerous than magick.

It certainly is for the girl at Hot Dog On A Stick who’s covered in broken glass and lemonade.

Sarem and Nicholas took an interesting approach to find an early audience for the franchise. Nicholas was booked as a celebrity guest at many conventions including Motor City, Alamo City and all the Wizard World Comic Cons starting early in 2017. They promoted the story and pre-sold Handbook for Mortals all across the country before the book even had a cover. In fact, it was at Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia where they met comic book artist Ryan M. Kincaid, who ultimately drew the cover art.

If I’m ever accused of a crime, I’m going to use that line. I didn’t burn that house down. I “took an interesting approach” to building redesign. I didn’t murder that guy. I “took an interesting approach” to interpersonal conflict resolution. I didn’t steal that loaf of bread. I “took an interesting approach” to capitalism.

You know. Just the same exact way Ryan M. Kincaid “took an interesting approach” to drawing the cover art by literally tracing another author’s work.

On creating a story centered around a female lead, Sarem notes, “That was always the idea. Even at a young age I noticed what was going on.”

According to the feature on her on Vulture, the thing she noticed that was going on was that she couldn’t get parts as an actress, so she wrote this one specifically for herself. This isn’t empowering to women. It’s empowering to one woman.

About the comic conventions where she allegedly sold one book every forty-six seconds, per the math done by commenter Maths GCSE Graduate on the last recap, Sarem says:

“It’s a great place to meet fans looking for the next source of entertainment,” Sarem explains. “They’re excited to find something new and there’s nothing like watching them walk away clutching the book like it’s the most valuable thing they own.”

Nobody has ever felt that way about this book. And most people don’t go to conventions looking for “the next source of entertainment.” They go to see the people who are already making the entertainment they like. They want to meet the artists and illustrators and celebrities they already know.

You might be thinking to yourself, “How did Lani Sarem get this far into the press release without namedropping?” Well, don’t worry. Thomas Ian Nicholas is there to do it for her:

Nicholas also says, “It’s fun getting this project off the ground by connecting directly with people in the right environment. Plus, spending the weekend with other guests like Gregg SulkinJason MomoaHolly Marie CombsBonnie WrightSebastian StanIan Somerhalder– it’s starting to feel like one big supportive family.”

Okay, but they’re no Carrot Tops, are they?

The press release goes on in an attempt to tie Sarem and Handbook to Disney via Thomas Ian Nicholas and John Heder’s Disney trivia panel that Sarem moderates and that a Disney artist showed up to hand out prizes for. One thing you can say for Lani (who absolutely wrote this press release herself, as no one who does this as their job would write a press release that included so much information completely unrelated to the main point), she sure knows how to starfuck in public.

Lest you think the entire thing is about the famous people Sarem and Nicholas sometimes stand next to, oh no, dear reader. We haven’t forgotten that this is a work of fearful and staggering feminism:

 For several years, she was one of the youngest female band managers with two platinum selling, Grammy award-winning acts nestled in her roster of bands. Music is another area of the entertainment business that is typically a boys club. Sarem is no stranger to breaking down those walls and says, “It’s always an interesting challenge to find your place as a woman in a male-centric business. I hope I’m one of the many people that bring about positive change to the film industry. I want to inspire young girls to know they can dream big and achieve whatever their heart desires.”

Yes, young girls, you can dream big and achieve…wait, what the fuck has Lani Sarem ever achieved, aside from being fired from the bands she managed because they apparently grew tired of her schemes and going on to expose herself as a clumsy fraud in the literary world? Watch out, film industry. Lani is on her way to fix you the way she fixed publishing. Sit down, women in Holywood who have been fighting for equality! Lani Sarem has it handled.

Obviously, now that Handbook For Mortals is burning its bra, everyone is going to stop mocking it, right?

Gretchen Weiners from Mean Girls saying, "That's just like, the rules of feminism."

Nope! Sorry, Lani Sarem, but your scam has never been about “empowering women.” It’s been 100% about you getting famous by any means necessary. It’s been about empowering you. Now you’ve been slightly sort-of kind of notable in a fully non-important way for almost a year. That’s all people are willing to give you in all of this, which is honestly more than you deserve.

Anyway onto the blistering female empowerment of Handbook For Mortals

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