In 2024, the Jealous Patrons of Patreon selected Modelland by Tyra Banks as our Jealous Patrons Book Club selection. I ended up loving it. Here are those recaps, with the occasional updated commentary. If you’re interested in becoming a patron, click that link. We’re currently reading Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas.
We’re seven chapters into the book, the world has been established, the characters have been established, and I was not expecting another layer of plot to get slapped over the thing, but here we are.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the new plot thread’s sudden arrival is unacceptable or that nothing new should be introduced in a book after page fifty. That’s just not how books work. I’m just starting to become concerned that every chapter has been adding a new subplot that’s pretty major. I’ll talk more about that in the Jealous Haters Book Club Book Club post, but I’m getting nervous that a book I’m enjoying might be trying to be and do too much.
Chapter seven opens with Tookie’s father drunk off his ass and abusively shouting at her mother, which wakes Tookie up.
“You came home an hour later than you said you would!” Mr. Del La Créme continued with an acidic rage Tookie had never heard before.
We get a description of Creamy’s office, which sounds absolutely horrific:
Sitting on the long backless couch and the windowsills in custom displays all around the room was her doll collection, which she’d started years before Tookie had been born.
There were swaddled babies. Dolls with eyes that opened and closed. Dolls that wet themselves and digested food and spoke. Each was positioned just so, an arm curled here, a leg crossed there. Their heads pointed straight at Tookie’s mother, as though she were conducting a meeting with all of them. Tookie wished she could close every single pair of glassy eyes. Maybe if they didn’t stare so adoringly at her mother, Mrs. De La Créme could resist their charms and would share some of her love with Tookie.
This is the kind of character moment that ACOTAR wishes it had. This is such a brilliant moment of “show, don’t tell.” Right away, we know from “years before Tookie had been born” that Creamy expected her daughters to be living dolls, and Tookie hadn’t fulfilled that for her mother. Myrracle fulfilled those expectations of tolerating being dressed up and perfect and worshipping her mom, hence the favoritism. That’s what we take away from a simple doll collection and Tookie’s belief that her mother doesn’t love her as much as she loves the dolls.
Zodiac Academy could never.
Tookie’s dad is too drunk to accept Creamy’s excuses:
“Oh, I know you stopped to watch the 7Sevens. But I also know you can see that damn show from anywhere in the world. Hell, I saw it right here from our front porch. You could have watched it here with me. But no, you wanted to watch it with your man friend, didn’t you? I know people, Creamy! And I trust what they tell me!”
I know I keep saying that this book should have been a middle-grade due to its tone, but there are for sure things that would need to be cut because they’re too dark and/or mature. Still, I’m sticking to my guns. Remove the infidelity and alcoholism, and you can still have the parents fighting.
[Ed. I was so delighted that a similar sentiment was expressed in the comments here, due my love of validation.]
But I’m a little confused at Tookie saying in the last chapter that she’d never seen the 7Sevens ceremony in person when it can apparently be seen everywhere in the world. And I’m also still confused about whether Metopia is a city or, you know… the world. Metopia and the world seem pretty interchangeable at this point, and I’m gonna need a final decision on that soon.
Tookie’s parents start flinging insults at each other about their respective appearances before moving on to an argument about the dolls.
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You think I’m damaged goods.” He grabbed Belissima from Mrs. De La Créme’s arms.
Tookie’s mother groped for the doll. “Christopher, don’t you dare hurt her!”
“Her?” He waved the doll in the air. “You say that like she’s a human being. Like she’s more important than me! Where do I fit in your life? Sometimes I think you wish that sword had killed me. So you could continue your life with her father!”
Tookie’s dad doesn’t believe he’s her father, which is news to Tookie.
Mr. De La Créme prowled around the room. “Every time I look into that child’s mismatched eyes, I see—or shall I say, I don’t see it.”
Mrs. De La Créme paled. “But Christopher, you have one green eye! Just like hers!”
Mr. De La Créme glowered at her. “There is nothing about me that lives within that girl. That circus freak. She is uncoordinated, unattractive, and unmemorable.”
[Ed. I’m only just now realizing that her father, an acrobat, famously circus performers, used the circus as an insult.]
Now, Creamy doesn’t dispute anything that her husband is saying here, and Tookie is waiting for her mom to argue that Tookie is none of those things, but she never does. She just argues in her own defense, while Tookie hides and listens to how ugly her father thinks she is, and why he doesn’t love her because of it.
But let’s circle back to him having one green eye. The dude only has one eye in the first place. Was the other one not green? Did they have mismatched eyes before the accident?
Mr. De La Créme exposition dumps about how when Creamy got pregnant, she left for a special hospital to deal with her high-risk pregnancy while he toured to support them. Creamy wouldn’t let him come to the hospital to see Tookie born, and presumably to not prevent her mother from naming her “Tookie,” so he assumes a different father was there during the delivery. He says he’s tired of being lied to, and he plans to take Tookie’s toothbrush to a DNA lab to prove that she’s not his. Once he does, he’s going to send her away to become a Factory Dependent.
And once again, Tookie waits to hear if her mother will be like, no, don’t do that to our kid, but she doesn’t. The part she’s most concerned with is being called an unfaithful liar.
Tookie’s father notices Tookie watching and says:
“Just go,” he said gruffly, staring at her with his good eye. “For all of us.”
Is this an intentional repeat? It’s difficult to tell because it’s not acknowledged. I’m going to give it grace and assume it was intentional.
Tookie decides that rather than be a Factory Dependent, she will run away with Lizzie.
Tookie was escaping Peppertown forever. Escaping her parents. Escaping with Lizzie to the place of their dreams and being in total control of their destinies.
She could start her whole life over…and become a Remembra-Girl.
Tookie is nearly out of the house when her mother catches her and assumes that the bag of stuff Tookie is carrying is just extra emergency supplies for Myrracle at T-DOD.
The family has created these t-shirts that say “MODELLAND NEEDS A MYRRACLE” and, uh, Mr. De La Créme has certainly turned it into a fashion choice.
Mr. De La Créme wore his old Chris-Créme-Crobat costume, the exact costume he’d lost his eye in; he’d cut out the MODELLAND NEEDS A MYRRACLE! portion of his T-shirt and sewn it to the abdomen. There were even old brown spots on the fabric, evidence of the bright red blood that had stained the costume on the day his life had changed forever.
Everything is riding on Myrracle making this great impression, and he chooses to wear a blood-stained leotard with a t-shirt sewn to it? And they’re worried about Tookie being an embarrassment?
Tookie is ready to be out of there, but her mother forces her into the car.
Tookie’s gut told her that if they didn’t escape today, something dreadful would happen to her one and only friend.
Right, but we can reasonably assume that Tookie is going to be chosen at T-DOD, so I’m interested to see how this is gonna work.
Tookie spots Lizzie waiting for her in the yard, but it’s too late. She’s trapped in the car, and they’re driving away.
“Lizzie, I’ll be back for you tonight! I promise!”
IDK, I would have chosen something like, “Lizzie, I don’t want to leave you, but these assholes are basically kidnapping me at this point,” but that’s probably hard to shout out the window of a moving car.
That’s where the chapter ends. Next time: T-DOD.
