#15 - "My Immortal" by Tara Gilesbie

Wait, what just happened?
 (0.5/10)

by Captain Charisma

(book chosen by Admiral Fartmore)

Editors' note: Reading My Immortal has caused Captain Charisma to complain to the committee that since this is an unpublished book, it shouldn't be a valid choice. But we know that in reality, he's really just being a baby about reading such a shitty book. I'll try and respond by channelling the free-flowing, teenage-web-forum dialect My Immortal so vividly captures as best I can: U fukin joyned dis club 2 read shit bookz. Dnt b a fukn P0SER,

In this ‘epic’ fanfiction we see a new side of Hogwarts systematically neglected by J.K. Rowling; the widespread 'Goth' subculture. Clearly Rowling is just like everyone else in her blatant disregard for those not accepted by mainstream ‘preps’; lack of Goth inclusion extends beyond North American suburban high schools to those with magical powers and what are presumably other species, such as vampires, werewolves and demons. Shame on you, Rowling; you’re perpetuating the hardships faced by sad social-outcast teenagers. Either that or, as suggested by the inherent conflictual attitude of the author to anyone not a Goth (“if you don’t like this book then all you preps and posers can fuck off”), they’re doing it to themselves.

Harry has been replaced as the protagonist by a young Vampire named Ebony. Ebony is a sexy, horny, manipulative Vampire Goth who bases her identity on being sexy and loving all things relating to the high school teen Goth subculture. She sleeps in a coffin, slits her wrists regularly, is highly promiscuous, has an obsession with Marilyn Manson, Good Charlotte, and My Chemical Romance (particularly that sexy bastard Gerard), and most importantly, has an intense hatred for preps and posers. Her identity is based on pop-culture accepted by her subculture, such as Hot Topic, a Goth clothing store with a convenient location in Hogsmeade. Also thankfully, her favourite Goth bands seem to perform in Hogsmeade on a daily basis, especially that sexy bastard Gerard from ‘MCR’.

Ebony has a highly sexual relationship with Draco Malfoy, a sensitive, bisexual Goth who slits his wrists on a bi-weekly basis. She also finds Harry Potter very sexy, who’s been renamed Vampire (because he’s a Vampire). She also finds Tom Riddle sexy, which is confusing because in this Voldemort is a different character, who she also finds sexy, “in a evil way”. Ebony finds just about everyone sexy and her highest praise is: “almost as sexy as Gerard”. In fact, the only person not sexy in the book is that fucking prep Dumblydore (spelled this way throughout the book), who always attempts to stop their adolescent substance abuse and risky sexual behaviours. I would like to further point out that Ebony is described as doing everything “sexily”; walking, talking, looking, eating, touching, sleeping, smoking (including crack), drinking, dancing, etc. On one occasion she does something seductively, but then she reverts back to her sexy ways.

In regards to plot, I really didn’t pick up on anything. At one point Ebony has to go back in time and seduce Voldemort, which she of course does sexily. I presume this was a prevention measure to stop something terrible happening, but my graduate degree didn’t prepare me to understand the complexities of this writing. At one point a bunch of people, including Hagrid, film Ebony in the shower. On another occasion Ebony films a bunch of professors banging. Also, whole bunches of people go to Azerbaijan, which I’m assuming has replaced Azkaban as the horrible prison circled by Dementors. Fair enough, I always assumed that place must be a shithole.

To review this work as a literary piece is simply not valid. This is not a book; it’s a testament to the failure of our public school system. Firstly, I have no idea what just happened and what the book is actually about, aside from descriptions of high-school ‘Goths’. The identity of this subculture seems inextricably determined by aesthetics and specific popular culture knowledge/references. Secondly, anyone who has been to school should be able to use some rudimentary form of spelling and grammar. I was previously under the assumption that computers tend to do that for you.

To be fair, a lot of people that aren’t suppose to write books write books. I’m not suggesting the author is an idiot; rather, I’m hoping she have multiple other talents, or at least slightly more ability in every other aspect of her life. I also sincerely hope she has grown out of her casual references to people getting AIDS, slitting their wrists, and teenagers smoking crack.

In sum, the most interesting part of this book is knowledge gained regarding ‘Goth’ high-school subculture. Goth identity is as much about bizarre and small common fashion and music taste as it is about being a social outcast to everyone else.  Goths, like everyone else, have emotions, except it’s sexy when they’re sad. Goths seem to love that bizarre sexy Vampire thing that’s been going on for a few years now. Goths pride themselves on telling everyone else to fuck off.

If you’re up for a challenge, I strongly suggest reading the author’s notes prior to the start of each chapter. Here, in text phrases I rarely understood, she tells all the posers and preps to fuck off, and that anyone who didn’t like her previous chapter is clearly a prep or a poser, clearly indicating they can also fuck right off. I leave you with these two beauties:

“stfu prepz git a lif!111111 U SUCK!11 oh and form now on il be in vocation in england until lik august so I wont be able 2 update 4 a while, lolz. fagz 2 evry1 hu revoiwed expect da prepz hu flamed FOK U!1 MCR RULEZ 666!111

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX666XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” (p. 64)

“well I hav noffing 2 say but evrt1 stup glamming ok!!111 if any gofik ppl r reading dis den u rok!!!11 omg I stil kant wait 4 da movie!!!1 tom fleton is so hot lol I hop harry wil bekum gofik koz mi friend told me he iz rlly emo in dis book!!!!

1111 omfg im leeving dubya pretty soon kant wait!!! Diz wil prolly be da last chaptah until I kum bak.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX666XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” (p. 73)

Fuck you for making me read that Admiral Fartmore, you fucking prep.


CC

28/11/2014

#7: "Bennie and the Bears: Book One - The Rugby Cub" by Tom Farrell

Literally Half the Book is a Threesome (2/10)

by Captain Charisma

(book selected by group consensus)

Note from the gang: The Piece of Shit Book Club™ is proud to introduce our newest member, Captain Charisma. This book was chosen for CC by the existing members of the club as an initiation requirement. We chose the book because he loves rugby, but despite the innocent sounding name, it turns out it was hardcore bear erotica. Whoops!

I grew up playing lots and lots of rugby. I obsessively played rugby to the point where I believed that it was the only thing worth devoting my time to. I thought I knew everything about the game; at times I played on 4 teams, training at least three times a day, and my weekends were devoted to matches and tournaments. However, this book has taught me one thing I didn't before understand. Hypermasculinity in contact sport is actually just really, really gay.

Rugby acts as a sexual release for our adolescent post-pubescent protagonist. Bennie is an “affable young man” (p. 6) who, prior to seeking homosexual relationships, has regular has wet dreams about “all that physical contact with fit male bodies, and hitting the showers afterwards with the rest of the team” (p. 8). Ten pages of backstory can be summarized in the following sentence: Bennie refrains from his desire to get banged by big hairy dudes so as to avoid disappointing his religious fundamentalist mother who remains unstable, resulting from the tragic death of his father in a fishing accident. Nevertheless, the backstory provides the most creative technique found in the book through the genius use of foreshadowing, i.e. Bennie is really gay and is going to bang a lot of dudes when he goes off to university.

Bennie goes to university in Aberdeen where the gay scene is too small for him to discreetly hide his homosexuality from his mother. But, he really wants to have sex with dudes and has never done it before. He chooses to respond to an online post, which states: “two grizzly bears looking for a discreet but adventurous cub to play with!” (p. 11). Bennie responds, goes to their house, and that’s basically the entire book. The following forty pages are long descriptions of old dudes banging a “rugby cub”. Oh and guess what, both of the bears are buff and have huge dicks. One of them has a PhD in Behavioural Psychology and uses his expertise to become the overbearing controller of the threesome and completely submit Bennie. Also, Bennie goes to the university where he’s a professor. Ethics and rapeyness aside, at one point they at least have a real “penile feast” (p. 55) on Bennie to at least make sure he blows a load as well.

This review is limited due to the fact that I have not previously read either straight or gay erotica. However, this book really is just a massive pile of shit. Regardless of the subject matter, the overall lack of literary tact makes this read simply challenging. As you read on you come to the realization that the book has a near total disregard for literary technique; tools such as allegory, metaphor, hyperbole, imagery, paradox or simile are simply omitted. Anthropomorphism is occasionally used, but only when describing cocks, so I’m not sure whether or not that even counts. Rather, we’re left with fantastic literal descriptions, such as the following definition of ‘spit-roasting’: “shafted at both ends; a dick up the ass and in the mouth at the same time” (p. 12). For clarification, spit-roasting is in fact a metaphor, but the author did not make it up so this does not count. I would also like to clarify that the error in semicolon use in the sentence is a direct quote.

Bennie and the Bears is ripe with dick and asshole descriptions. Up to three different dick words are used to describe one dick in one sentence: “Scott reached over to grasp Jim’s big solid prick, pulling the skin down on the obscenely fat shaft and fully exposing the huge knob at the end” (p. 22). Cock… meat… cock meat… penile meat… rod… shaft… prick… dick… phallus… member… pole… knob… all used in the act of “spurting out a load of spunk into guts” (p. 32). Guts is a common asshole description, with less used examples including chute, hole, cherry, flower, arse, juicy ring, and pucker. Here I can provide some positive feedback; the author has an impressive repertoire of penis and anus synonyms. For this reason, the book receives a generous 2/10.

For the record, I only had one erection when reading this book, but I’m pretty sure that was about something else.

Captain Charisma

09/10/2014