#45 - "The Selection" by Kiera Cass

Trystopia

(3/10)

by Admiral Fartmore

(book submitted by Peartree)

Editor's Note: I first met Ms Cass while nude sunbathing in French Polynesia. She suggested I submit her book to the club after two very tall glasses of Pernod. She seemed intimidating so I said ok.

"The Selection" by Kiera Cass is a young-adult series commonly described as The Bachelor meets The Hunger Games: it takes place in post-WWIV North America, which is now a dystopian, caste-based monarchy called Illea, and the plot pivots around the selection of the crown prince’s bride through a very Bacheloresque competition between young women drawn from across the land. The story follows a beautiful yet truculent young girl named America (fuck, yeah!) as she navigates her way through the selection process. Both fair in complexion and fiery in disposition, from humble background but with great potential, our heroine must attempt to balance love, independence, political intrigue, and more. Does she succeed? Does this heavy-handed personification of American exceptionalism manage to ‘have it all?”

America, who has red hair, is caught in a love triangle between a hot rich guy and a cute boy-next-door. Sound familiar?

I don’t know how what happens, because I only read the first book, which ends completely out of no where. America gets out of bed one morning, and then the book just ends. While most of the competitors are eliminated, there are still 6 girls left vying for the Prince's heart. It doesn't even fucking say "The End." Seriously, I haven't seen something finish this prematurely since something-something penis joke. I think the series resolves itself after three books, but I'll never read it, because I already feel cheated. I'm not going to be suckered into making three orders of book just to get a single helping of story. It's like the middle piece of bread in a Big Mac - absolute bullshit.

The Selection has the literary equivalent of this ending.

I am most interested in discussing the world. It's drawn a lot of comparisons to The Hunger Games, but I don’t really think the comparison is all that warranted. Following World War IV (which apparently wasn't fought with sticks and stones, Einstein, you idiot), the world’s nations have formed into several supranational states covering areas like North America, East Asia, Europe, etc. These states are in perpetual war, and there’s also a lot of revolutionary activity within their borders. You might be tempted to say this sounds 1984-inspired, but I really don’t think you need to read Orwell in order to dream this kind of simple future up. Did I just casually reference 1984 to sound smart? Yup. You bet your sweet ass I have my grade 9 education.

What were the Third and Fourth World Wars about, by the way? Well it all started with a Chinese invasion of the United States. I’ll allow Cass to describe in her own words how this came about:

Reading that, you can’t help but picture China as some kind of Scorsese-style bookie, baseball bat in hand, knocking on an apartment door. But whatever, this is young adult fiction. We aren’t looking for in-depth discussion of sovereign debt. But I really think Cass could have done better when it comes to what the Chinese renamed the US:

Hahaha.

It’s 2015, so of course big-bad China is the rising threat to the United States. If this had been written in the 70’s, it would have been the USSR. In the 80’s? Maybe Japan. In the 90’s? Gangster rap. And so on. While none of this is particularly imaginative or original, it’s also not exceptionally bad compared to anything else in the future-sucks genre. 

There is, however, one major issue I have with Cass’ vision of the future: Italy is still a country. Every single country referenced in The Selection has been renamed and reshaped by war and economic collapse. Except, apparently, Italy, which is still just Italy. That’s right, Italy - the country with enough debt to make Wesley Snipes blush; you know - the country where the Prime Minister can get away with banging underage prostitutes; you know, the country where football fans chant racist obscenities against their own players. The whole world goes to shit but ITALY survives? Yeah right. Forgive me if I find Italy-tle-bit unbelievable.

While we are on the subject, we need to stop saying that Italy is shaped like a boot. Italy does not look like a boot. It looks like a horrifying pile of crudely-drawn penises.

I defy anyone to look at this map of Italy without seeing a quivering rat-king of cartoon dicks.

One way The Selection differs from most popular young adult fiction is in ‘Merica’s healthy relationship with her parents. Despite this book being an amalgamation of pretty much every trope from the genre (‘Merica is caught in a love triangle, she’s poor, she’s absolutely selfless, everyone loves her except for this one rich bitch, she’s always awkwardly flirting, etc.), Cass spares us the dead/missing parents angle. That part is at least modestly refreshing, like a warm glass of water. But my god there’s a lot of flirting. I did a word search to see just how many times she mentions hot breath or eyes, and in the process I realized that you could actually recreate a condensed version of the whole story with just a few simple words:

Still missing one thing.

However, I am adult, and this book wasn’t meant for adults. I no longer experience the social awkwardness, drama, or awkward dry-humping that characterize teenage years. So unless you stopped growing emotionally at 14 or just really, really need to escape for a while, this book is no good. It's boring, sentimentalist fluff. But as much as I don’t like it, I will give her this: Cass absolutely nails the teenage demographic. Silvio Berlusconi would be proud.

#44 - "Fat Vampire" by Adam Rex

There Can Be Only Two

(5/10)

by Beau Dashington

(book submitted by Peartree)

Editor's Note: I wonder if fat vampires have to pay for blood just as fat chicks have to pay for sex...

Did you know that there are two books called Fat Vampire? I mean, what are the odds? When Peartree told me I was going to have to review Fat Vampire for my next book, I was flabbergasted, flustered and flummoxed.  Firstly, there’s a book by Adam Rex which is about a vampire who is fat. Secondly, there is a series of books by Johnny B. Truant which are about a fat person who is a vampire. It's very confusing, and it's impossible to tell the two apart. For starters, both are about the obese undead, and both authors have names which are suspiciously fake.

It’s interesting to note that both books start with roughly the same premise; the main character is fat and a vampire, and therefore, gets picked on by other people, even though they’re a motherfucking child of the night. Its also interesting to note that both books seem have a plot based almost entirely on this picture

Both books are based on the simple premise: what would happen if a vampire was fat? Would they still be sexy? Would they be able to run and hunt people? Would they be able to get thin, if they exercized? And wouldn't it be a fun and original idea to find out the answers to all these questions? Just to summarize, the answer from both books for these questions is as follows: not much, no, sometimes, no, and no.

In both cases, the book is generally meant to slot into the vampire canon of literature alongside other greats, that asked questions like: what if an old man became a vampire? What if a baby became a vampire? What if a gangster became a vampire? What if the President of the United States was a vampire? No, wait, what if the President of the United states wasn't a vampire, but he liked to kill vampires?

Isn't this an interesting premise for a book? Also, this particular Fat Vampire seems to have been awarded the Order of Canada.

From the moment that I found out that there were two Fat Vampire books, I knew that I had to determine which was the real Fat Vampire book, and which was the imposter. My first stop was to go to GoodReads and find out which one is the original gangster. 

As you can see, it turns out that Johnny B. Truant's book is better rated, but Adam Rex did it first. I thought it would be interesting to read some of the reviews, to try and work out why Johnny Truant's book is more highly rated. And this is the first review of the Johnny B. Truant imposter Fat Vampire book:

They did, Joe. Adam thought of it first. My boy Adam had that idea fucking years ago while you were still chowing down on Lucky Charms before going to kindergarten. He's written more Fat Vampire books than you've had hot dinners. And he did it first. Who cares if someone else came along and got better ratings on GoodReads by stealing an idea and re-doing it? Stealing someone else's idea has never worked, except in the case of Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Jobs, Guglielmo Marconi, and the Prophet Mohammad as well as many of the most successful people in history. Just because Johnny B. Truant (if that is his real name) did it better doesn't mean shit to me, or my boy Adam. We're super tight now, I can tell.

Me and my boy Adam are going to go have some beers and forget about this whole mess because we don't care what you think. I'm sick of society judging me for being different (a horse), and Adam is too. He hasn't said that explicitly since I have never been in direct contact with him, but I can tell. Because we have a special connection, and no one can break that, not you, not Johnny Truant, and not even Barack Obama or the Devil or somebody (although they're probably all the same thing).

And that's all I have to say about that.

Oh wait, I almost forgot to review the book. It's a story about a kid called Doug, who is a chubby teenager. He gets turned into a vampire one night, and because of that, he is doomed to be fat forever since vampires don't age or change physically. He gets picked on and called 'Meatball' by his classmates, including the quarterback Victor, who is actually the vampire who turned Doug. Along the way, he hangs out with his bro Jay, as well as a new Indian exchange student called Sejal who was sent to America after "contracting the Google", an ailment whereby she couldn't stop googling herself. They end up looking for Doug's vampire ancestors, they kinda try to date a bit, and the ending is a bit violent.

Perhaps it's not a masterpiece, but it's not a Piece of Shit™ either. My one criticism would be that the book has trouble deciding if it is about teenage angst, or something else entirely, and as such, the tone feels a bit inconsistent. But, it has lots of popular culture jokes about Star Wars and stuff, and lots of good reviews on various websites. People who like vampires will find lots to like. So read it. Or don't. Whatever. 

Also, after I'd finished this review, I realized there's a third fat vampire book. And a fourth. For fuck's sake.

Beau Dashington

22/07/2015

#43 - "Your Code Name Is Jonah" by Edward Packard

Whalesongs Are Terrifying

(3.4/10)

By Peartree

(book chosen by Beau Dashington)

Editor's Note: Do you want to continue with this review? If you select 'Yes', scroll further down the page and continue reading. If you select "No", then re-direct your browser to the beginning and start again.

During my first run through this book, I died after 8 pages. It was complete bullshit. I had made all the right decisions as a spy such as George Lazenby would have. I was assigned the task of finding some scientist who disappeared after he discovered the secret to decoding a message from whales. The whales, of course, were trying to help us defeat the Russians. But some lady picked me up outside the office, pulled a gun on me, tortured me, then shot me.

I wanted to seduce the woman into not killing me like GL would have done by just getting naked and showing her my special gadget, but that wasn't a choice. And that's the main problem with these 'choose your own adventure books' (or CYOA for those hip people). It's not 'choose your OWN adventure' it's 'choose ONE OF THE LIMITED PREDETERMINED POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR adventure'. But OOTLPPCOAWBTAA doesn't roll off the tongue I suppose.

So anyway I wanted to write a review based on those 8 pages, but Beau said I had to read the entire book even though the first page is a warning with three (!!!) exclamation marks stating that you should NOT read it all the way through and that 'you cannot go back!'. But in the end I decided to say 'fuck it. I'm George fucking Lazenby'. Besides, it's a warning on a children's book, it's not a cop, what's it going to do?

What happens throughout the book you ask? Well for starters there are only 27 endings, not 40 like the fucking book cover states. Lying Piece Of Shit™. Other than that it was what you'd expect from a kids novel about spies. You can rescue the scientist from the bad guys' headquarters in a New England mansion, chase some evil dudes out on a boat, board a submarine to steal a recording from some villainous bros, get double or triple crossed by a nefarious pal, sell information to odious fellows, and a bunch of other stuff involving all around disagreeable chaps.

The one thing missing is that you are never swallowed by a whale, or giant fish for some reason. I assumed that was the whole point of the codename Jonah. Why else would the author give your character such a pansy ass name.

Here is a little chart of the possibilities.

That little symbol under the gun is supposed to be a wave. You drown. I should have just put this but ah well.

12.7 pages to read through the average adventure. Twelve point fucking seven. Maybe this book should have concentrated on more depth instead of breadth. Sure they idea of choosing where your character goes is fun, but if it only lasts 4 minutes it's like telling 8 bikini clad women to put together a giant four piece puzzle of George Lazenby's face. Everyone's going to be disappointed rather quickly.

Speaking of disappointment, let's go over the entire plot of the book. Some scientist has discovered that humpback whales are trying to communicate with humans and for some reason you and the Russians are warring over the information. I don't understand why. Who the hell cares what a whale has to tell you. "Hey! There are some great krill over there!" I don't care, stupid whales. By the way, ever listened to a whalesong? It's terrifying.

What they actually tell you, and I promise I'm not making this up, is there is "a huge, protected cavern in the Arctic, twenty kilometres across - a whole country, owned and occupied by whales, talking whales". It's odd that two countries would be warring over this, but you quickly learn that both countries want to use the cavern as a military base. Because fuck those talking whales. This earth belongs to us.

Every ending in which you complete your mission the President decides to not build a base there, or makes peace with Russia and they both decide they will not invade the whales' cavern. If you don't complete your mission and/or are killed you have no idea what happens because just as in life there is no epilogue. I can only assume that the Russians invade the cavern, kill off most of the whales, and hold a status referendum for the territory to join Russia.

If that is the case I hope the whales are as bad ass as my character was to take them on. In one of the stories I was on a ship and a submarine surfaced right below us.

The Arcturus is splitting open.

Water is gushing up. Waves are breaking over the deck.

"Do you think they did it on purpose?" the captain asks.

You shrug your shoulders.

"It looks like we're going down," you say.

"I'm afraid so," the captain replies.

 That's right. You don't mess with a guy who shrugs his shoulders as his ship is going down in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. The last thing the Russians saw was his smiling face as the frigid waters tried to swallow him into the abyss, because he jumped out of the water as they turned around and threw a motherfucking knife into their backs.

- Peartree

#41 - "101 More Uses for a Dead Cat" by Simon Bond

One Hundred and One-Trick Pony

(3/10)

By Admiral Fartmore

(book chosen by Hot Bot)

Editor's Note: I've been patiently sitting on this book for ages, just waiting for my chance to assign it to 'drawing man'.  And I'm so glad I did.  Of course, I'm not a cat person, so I also enjoyed this book's practical suggestions for the felines in my backyard.

There are a lot of famous cats in the world; Felix the cat, Garfield the cat, Grumpy cat, Bob the Street Cat, Hello Kitty, Cat Stevens, etc. And whether they busy gracing your newspaper with the dullest humor alive, numbing your mind during a late-night layover in Taipei, or abandoning a successful music career to convert to Islam, cats have proven time and time again their ability to make a massive impact on pop culture. But although these cats are all famous for very different things, there’s one thing they all have in common: they are all alive.

Hello Kitty after her much-publicized conversion to Islam. Oh shit, that was a different Cat?

Which brings us to my recent assignment, ‘101 More Uses for a Dead Cat,’ by Simon Bond. The sequel to his original best-seller, ‘101 Uses for a Dead Cat,’ it is a collection of understated cartoons that depict dead cats being used as things like pencil sharpeners, headphones, trash cans, and so on. A few examples:

A dead cat being used as a paint-roller.

A dead cat being used as a slingshot.

A dead cat being used as one of those blows-air-into-the-fireplace things that I never remember the name of.

That’s pretty much it. There are 101 pages of these cartoons. Some of them are wittier than others, but overall it’s the same thing page-to-page. The humor here is more in the idea of the book than the actual content, so while you might find the premise funny or weird (dead cats!? what?!), the actual meat-and-potatoes is pretty dull. I could really be missing something here, but the “cats as random objects” shtick gets old for me after 3 pages. Both the tone and aesthetic of the book are vaguely reminiscent of Gary Larson’s Far Side series, except that Larson was able to pack more cat-related humour into a single frame than Bond could in over a hundred.

The silly cat tried to eat a piranha!

I really can’t overemphasize how little there is to this book, and I’ve gone through it front-to-back at least 4 times. Yet it was a huge seller, and even a bit controversial in the 80’s for its macabre theme. But it’s not really that macabre, not like, let’s say… actually turning your dead cat into a helicopter. And neither is it all that unsettling, like the brilliant Garfield Minus Garfield series, which takes Garfield comics, erases Garfield, leaves Jon Arbuckle, and thus tells the story of a lonely man's descent into insanity. Moreover, 101 More Uses for a Dead Cat it isn’t even really funny after first glance. Instead, like a rooftop pool, this book is a fun idea without a whole lot of depth. There's no point in reading the entire book, because it's all there in the first comic.

But then again, maybe you aren’t supposed to read it. Maybe this is one of those books that’s meant to stay closed - a literary ornament, like the Marilyn Monroe photo essay on your coffee table or the copy of Ulysses collecting dust on your shelf. Sure, it’s a conversation starter, but outside of the shallow dance of trying to make guests think you’re interesting, everyone knows you don’t really give a shit about it.

But at the same time, despite the boredom, I am glad Bond went for a full one hundred and one uses for a dead cat rather than cutting things short. He had a vision, however odd, and he completed it. That resonates with me in a time when our media includes so many short, incoherent lists such as “17 Reasons You Should be Eating Kale,” “12 Ways Teddy Roosevelt was a Badass,” “9 Reasons Garfield is a Terrible Comic if You Really Just Stop and Think About it,” and so on. I get it, of course: the list format makes for incredibly easy writing - and writing is, after all, probably the world’s laziest sport - but these list(less?) articles that every aunt on Facebook so loves to post feel weird and incomplete. They read as if the author clicked "save & publish," as soon as their ideas stopped easily flowing, and so we get articles are as shallow and awkward as my 13-year-old niece.

To compare, can you imagine if Purdy, proud mother of the 101 Dalmatians (and underrated candidate for the US $10 bill), had just given up and quit mid-way through labour? If she just packed it in when things got tough at pup number 12? What kind of story would that have made? Would children worldwide have flocked to the theatres to see a film called “Just 12 Fucking Dogs?” Would my mother have spent hour after painstaking hour sewing me a Halloween costume so I could dress up as one of the “12 Fucking Dogs?” Absolutely not.

Dog #8 will have you in tears!

No one would give a shit about just 12 dalmatians, just like no one really gives a shit about the 7 or 9 or 13 reasons to eat beets. So I respect, at least, that Bond made the effort to pump out a full one hundred and one cartoons, just like that brave Dalmatian bitch of Disney fame.

You'll never see kids dressed up as one of the 13 ways kale is great.

To try and bring this all together - and yeah, I know it's incoherent, but give me a break, this book didn't have a single word in it - 101 Uses for a Dead Cat is not really any good beyond the novelty of it, but at least it has some novelty. And at least it's a finished product. Is that even a compliment? I don't know. I still didn't like it at all. But as an homage, I'm ending this review with an entire 101 Uses For Shitty Books!

Actually, I could only think of like 4. So here's 4.

#1: Build a Fort!

#2: Gift them to your coworkers for secret santa!

#3: Start a pretentious shitty book blog!

#4: Throw critical thought out the window, absorb the book's narrative and become a piece of shit racist nutjob bigot! 

Just a few options.

-Admiral Fartmore

#36. "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" by Tucker Max

Fuck You Donika Miller.

(0/10)

By Peartree

(book chosen by Admiral Fartmore)

Editor's Note: Having spent a few rough nights out with Peartree, I'm damn glad he has enough of a brain not to write things down. Also, Tucker Max's head looks like something you'd use to clean the barrel of a cannon.

I have read some pretty shitty books in this club. 'I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell' was the least enjoyable one of them all, and that includes an humourless 1950's guide to raising children with mental disabilities. When something isn't funny, you can at least laugh at it. Whereas when someone is trying to be funny but it's not your sense of humour, the most annoying thing is for that person to keep talking. Imagine being forced to sit through a five hour showing of a Yakov Smirnoff routine. Sure, that one joke got a chuckle but reusing it every punch line makes you go insane.

And thus having read this Piece Of Shit™ I am sullen. Half way through I realised I could not find any funny angle to use, it was just shit. There were no gaps in the coil of this shit for me to get into. Maybe it's because this book is so damn popular and everything has been said about it - it was on the best sellers list for years - but I think it's morseo because he's a self-professed piece of shit who knows everything he puts out is shit.

There is no story in this collection of seemingly cookie cutter anecdotes. Drink alcohol, meet women, insult women, vomit. He even ironically addresses this in one of the stories commenting on how his early days were great but nothing note worthy. One of his first stories which was a catalyst to his fame was when he had a portable breathalyzer, challenged everyone to a drinking contest, lost, and puked in some bushes outside a sushi restaurant. It's an incredibly unimpressive feat and a pandering story.

No matter how much he drinks he always has a witty comeback right on the spot and can apparently keep track of time like George Michael Bluth. One moment he will be falling over drunk and the next he's rebuking girls like a frat boy written by a wannabe Woody Allen. And of course he always has the last word, is never humiliated (unless while it's performing some sex act), and everyone he encounters is incredibly stupid. All the women he meets are 'dumb whores'. None of them are in it for the same thing he is, just a quick bang. No, of course they all adore him and fall for his tricks because as we know no woman has ever wanted to just fuck and be done with a guy. Nonono.

Max is the Shirley Phelps-Roper of misogynists. There are the ones we forget about because of their art like Picasso or John Lennon, but Max's fame is his controversy. He will enjoy anything his name is in, and that's how he became famous. Narcissism is nothing new. From Lord Henry Wotton to the characters of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, we as a society enjoy narcissists. But when people start trying to live the philosophies of fictional characters they become like their characters:  two-dimensional, with no development or true conflict, and also fucking idiots. No one would be friends with a man like this. It would get old as quickly as it was reading about it.

As an easily decipherable parallel for his views on women, and most other men, in one of the earlier stories he goes to a country bar and makes fun off all the 'red necks' and 'hicks'. They, as we all know, are all inbred retarded alcoholics. Yet he decides to go a bar populated by them. He puts himself in situations he feels superior and dismisses all others who challenge him because he is a lummox. This is evident in his new real-life entrepreneurial endeavour 'book in a box' (essentially a ghost-writer networking business)

One of the only lines from the book to make me laugh is after a trip he writes "the way that weekend worked out, we really didn't run into or have to deal with the legions of douche bags and tools that now seem to infect every aspect of Vegas." That was it. The only time I laughed.

So why is this guy so popular? I used to read Maddox with my friends when I was young and it was about the same humour. It could be that as I get older I have less time for drunken aggrandized sex stories, or that I find having constant thoughts of sex and picking up women at any cost pathetic, but I think it's the quantity. If I had read one of these stories while perusing reddit I would have laughed and moved on. But 267 pages of the same shit over and over is depressing and infuriating to the point of psychological damage. So if you want to torment your enemy force them to read this book. Unless he's a twenty-something frat boy. In that case don't waste your time, have some self-respect and get a better enemy.

-Peartree

PS. I should state my actual beef, as per the title, is with Donika Miller. His editor or something who Max says in the acknowledgement 'does more than just add value--her critiques turn good writing into great writing'. I can only guess as to what value she had added as there is none in the final draft, and this book is a fucking astronomical unit away from 'great writing'. Max may embellish and aggrandise his writings, but that was not hyperbole.

#35 - All in a Day's Twerk

All in a Day's Twerk

(2/10)

By HotBot

(book chosen by Peartree)

Editor's Note: I love twerkin'. It's like my green eggs and ham. Twerk that shit in a boat, with a goat, in the rain, in the dark, and on a train.

“[W]e must have the confidence to twerk by ourselves, even if we’re alone in a crowd; EVEN IF you’re the only twerker in the entire club, council chamber or place of worship.”

There are certain circles in which my ass is renowned—infamous, even.  I’m pretty aware of this fact—a girl’s gotta know her assets[1]—and sometimes walk around at home quietly singing “Baby Got Back” to myself (not that I’ll ever admit it, of course).  When I’m having a bad day, I can always reassure myself that ‘well, at least I have a great ass’—it’s the base on which my self-esteem sits.  In fact, someone recently described my ass as ‘phat’, meaning it’s not only magnificent, but capable of causing time-travel back to the 90s.

However, I have one fatal flaw which detracts from my otherwise solid ass-game: I am completely unable to twerk.  And it’s not through lack of trying, of course (oh the things my room has seen!)–rather, thanks to a series of accidents which may or may not have involved a shark attack[2], the lower part of my spine is titanium.  As it turns out, titanium isn’t that flexible, and I just don’t have the range of motion required to ‘twerk it’.

Luckily, my assigned reading didn’t constitute a guide on how to twerk—rather, “Twerk it to the Top” is a guide to the spiritual basis of twerking, and how your inner twerker can be unleashed to gain success in all aspects of your life—career, pastimes, romance.  (Strangely, it didn’t go into many details on the romantic applications of twerking, so I can’t imagine what they’d be.)  It opens with the author’s discovery of the awesome power of the twerk: when his hut was accidentally set on fire one day, he and thirty of his closest family members twerked around the bonfire, putting it out with only the magic of their butts.  After this miracle, the author realises that “twerking is the true godhead”, and the source of all creativity, intelligence, history, culture, and freaking pineapples for all I know.  Twerking is All, and don’t you forget it!  Key to this is your attitude—after all, Columbus[3] wouldn't have twerked his pantaloon-beclad posterior across the Atlantic if he’d listened to the haters.

This historical photo shows Columbus dropping into prime twerk position.  He’s ready to twerk it all day!  I hope the natives are ready to be twerked over.  (Note the guy behind him, who is clearly just waiting for the twerk to be unleashed.)

Butt what if you’re twerkless like me?  Is there any hope for you?  The author says yes—for “If you are reading this book, you have an inner twerker, and if you have an inner twerker you are bound for greatness”.  I’d never previously realised that having someone twerking inside of me was the path to greatness, but I was much relieved to find out that this was the case.

I must say, I was occasionally confused while reading the book.  It gives a list of seven tips for relaxing your body after “a hard day’s night twerking like a dog”.  Like a dog?  Are we meant to be on all fours while twerking it?  Or is that only for advanced twerkers?  Tell me, oh Twerkmeister!

After the author recounts the story of an angel visiting him in his childhood, telling him he was destined for greathood (plus an instance or two of twerk-based fiction), he presses on to more soothing matters.  One of the book’s best inclusions is a meditation routine for realising your inner twerker.  This is essentially basic meditation, combined with visualising your ass “irradiating a bright strobe light”, culminating in an orgasmic declaration of “TWERK” as you let the pent-up energies resound throughout your body.

I’d also like to include a brief excerpt of a particularly inspirational poem from the book.  I’m not going to recount all of it, because I wouldn’t want to be accused of spoilers.  Instead I’ll include just this one following, beautiful stanza:

“Slamming and jamming to that cold hard funk,
I writhe and thrive with the twerk inside,
As butts and crotch and souls collide.”

Isn’t that just one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever heard? Such imagery!  Such power!!  At this point I started to really be touched by my inner twerker.  It was a truly moving experience.

Of course, any treatise on twerking would be incomplete without statements on the nature of the space-time continuum (duh), and our guru Zarathustra is kind enough to explain that “quantum mechanics is merely the study of the cosmic twerking of discrete quantities of subatomic particles.”  Mind, blown.  And when times are tough, never forget that “time is merely change, and all change is the twerking of existence.”  Chills man.  Chills.

I’m giving this book 2/10 stars.  It would obviously score higher for its sheer ability to move people, however I’ve detracted points for the first half of the book, which seems to be copied from a normal self-help book, butt with every instance of the word ‘work’ replaced by ‘twerk’.  That’s just lazy.  On the other hand, at least I wasn’t reading about bestiality this time, so I had a lot to be grateful for.

“Twerk Your Way to the Top” concludes in the most fitting of ways—the Twerk of Independence.  It proves definitively that America’s Founding Fathers were filthy plagiarists, who took what is a holy Text of Twerk and modified it to suit their own nefarious uses.  The Twerk of Independence is clearly the original text, and is much more moving.  I’m going to go and write an angry letter now, demanding immediate corrections to the historical record.  In the interim, I’ll leave this here for evidence, pending the inevitable law suit:

“We hold these twerks to be self-evident, that all twerkers are created equal, that they are endowed by their Inner-Twerker with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of twerking perfection.”

TO TWERK!

---

[1] Apologies for the inevitable word-play.

[2] It didn’t.

[3] Googling ‘Columbus twerking’ led me to this NSFW facebook page.  This is what happens when you try to play Googlewhack.

#34 - "If I Did It" by O.J. Simpson

Blood Orange

(0.1/10)

By Beau Dashington

(book chosen by Peartree)

Editor's Note: Hm.. I thought this was about Mr. Boddy and OJ's secrets to winning Clue.

The Piece of Shit Book Club™ is nothing if not topical. And what could be more topical in mid-2015 than a mildly interesting news item from almost twenty years ago? Nothing, that's what. The OJ Simpson trial is important, and we all care about it much more than Ebola in West Africa, conflict in Syria, or famine in Afghanistan. Why is it still relevant? Let’s find out.

I actually remember where I was when the OJ Simpson verdict was announced. It was 1995 and I was in English class. Some nerds came over the PA, and they mentioned that OJ was innocent, and everyone went crazy. The rest of the day was consumed by a variety of racial theories proffered by twelve year olds. Now, either these kids were precocious racists, or most racists have a child-like intellect. Because I have never seen any theories of race more developed than those that your typical pre-teen can offer.

Anyway, back to the story. Noted actor and part time football player Orange Juice (OJ) Simpson was suspected of foul play in the death of his wife and “her associate” (i.e. bang partner) Ron Goldman. Even though Orange Juice was found not guilty in 1995, he has been hounded by accusations ever since. In order to prove conclusively his innocence, OJ wrote this book describing in meticulous detail exactly how and why he murdered his wife.

The book is, as Juice tells us, a story of love. It details the moment he first met the love of his life and fell head-over-heels, right up to the point that he fatally stabbed her. It all begins with OJ married to a woman who is five months pregnant. He goes out for a beer, meets an 18 year old blonde waitress, and he liked what he saw. He leaves his stupid bitch wife and shacks up with the waitress, Nicole Brown. But things didn't go as well as he had hoped.

One of the main problems, OJ notes, is that Nicole got fat and bitchy while she was pregnant. OJ didn't like this at all. After the birth of their first child, Nicole wouldn't stop crying. OJ was confused; he didn't know if it was from being happy or terrified. He tried to console her and comfort her by telling her she had nothing to be afraid of. Except being murdered by her husband, of course. She had pretty legitimate fears about that, and even wrote about it in her diary. But OJ laughs that off, saying she just liked to write short stories. Turns out, she only had one story: being abused by her husband. But she kept writing it again and again. I guess she had writer's block.

He also details a number of times when the police came to his house after Nicole phoned them. OJ doesn't think it was fair that society accuses him of spousal abuse. He was shocked at the accusations. As he says: “Once. I hit her once… and ever since that day I've been known as a wife-beater.” 

Yes, OJ. That’s pretty much how it works.

Eventually Nicole left, and then she starts to fall apart; fighting with her friends, crying, getting knocked up by random dudes. You know, chick stuff. She also started hanging out with people that OJ says were pimps and drug dealers. And this whole time OJ wasn't being a dick, he was just trying to raise money for “children with birth defects”! What a guy. So anyway, one night OJ went round to Nicole’s house and saw she had a gentleman caller. They started to fight, so OJ grabbed a knife and killed his ex-wife and her lover.

So why is this book still relevant? Well, frankly, it isn't. Simpson clearly wrote the book to make some cash. Only he couldn't, since he still owed Nicole Brown’s family millions of dollars after being sued. So the family took legal ownership of the book and they are now claiming all profits. I am not sure what is worse here; the (alleged) murderer profiting from the crime, or the family of the victim doing the same? As tragic as the murder was, perhaps the family and friends should just let the dead rest in peace, rather than publishing their private diaries or a confession by the (alleged) killer.

Since he was African-American and his wife was Caucasian, the trial created a rift in the USA. But oddly enough, OJ never blames the trial on race. He doesn't even mention it, neither in this book nor in interviews. He claims he was accused because his ex-wife was a crazy bitch. Either way, the trial hit a cultural nerve. Many said OJ was arrested because of his race. Others have argued it was because he was a convicted wife-beater and serial criminal. But I guess the jury is still out on that one. Oh wait, no it isn't. He’s innocent. Except he’s in jail now for kidnapping and trying to kill someone else. Go figure.

At least, though, with this highly publicized trial, and a confessed (alleged) murderer walking away from the crime, race relations in the USA were finally solved forever.

Oh, what’s that? Baltimore is on fire because of allegations of racism in the USA? Oh…

Isn't Baltimore always on fire?

B. Dashington

 10-05-2015

#33 - "The Camp of the Saints" by Jean Raspail

Turd-Eating Indian Zombies

(0/10)

By Admiral Fartmore

(book chosen by Beau Dashington)

Editor's Note: Mmm... turds.

The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is a racist, apocalyptic novel about zombie-like hordes of South Asians flooding into Europe and bringing about the fall of Western civilization. It has been referred to as a French “anti-immigration analog to The Turner Diaries,” the rambling white-supremacist bible that inspired the Piece of Shit Book Club in the first place, and there is no misreading its message: immigration is very literally the end of the world. It’s basically The Walking Dead except with Indians. Quelle horreur!

To briefly recap the plot: in India, a dalit man (referred to exclusively as “the turd eater”) has with his wife produced the Antichrist; a disfigured, wailing baby that is able to control hordes of Indians through his unintelligible screams. The screaming monster-baby rides on its father’s shoulders, commanding its followers to board steam ships and sail to Europe. So millions of impoverished Indians load up in boats and sail to the promise-land. Most of the book deals with the French government's debate over what to do when these steamboats arrive. There’s also some side plots about Chinese flooding into Siberia and black people taking over New York, but they are just typical half-baked race war crap and are secondary to the whole HMS Antichrist zombie-invasion conundrum.

Imagine a combination of World War Z and American History X.

The ships make their way to the French Coast, while their denizens sing, dance, bang and shit a lot. During the journey, the antichrist baby dies on Good Friday and comes back to life on Easter, and international blockades are unable to contain the ships because of how bad they smell. In the meantime, French society has been split on the issue of how to deal with their arrival, leading to the President giving the bizarre order for military forces to shoot at the immigrants “if they choose.” Half the military fights, half doesn’t, a sort of civil war erupts, and then a few months later France has becomes some kind of multicultural dystopia where white women must serve in whorehouses and public pools are ridden with STDs. He’s a bit loose on the details, but I guess racism is always a you-fill-in-the-blanks kind of thing.

Dehumanization is a pretty standard step in any kind of racist manifesto: all other things removed, humans are generally compassionate toward other humans, so you have to make the target ethnicity as non-human as possible in order to kill the reader’s empathy. But rather than use cliché terms like cockroach, rat, leech, etc., Raspail takes things a step further and accomplishes the complete zombification of Indians: they are always in a horde, “a forest of fleshless, Gandhi-arms,” “monsters thronging about,” a “tide that absorbed and digested” all in its path. They never speak, just moan and grope and trample things. They aren’t portrayed as consciously evil, just mindless and starving. So, pretty much exactly like zombies.

Raspail sharing another terrifying tale from the crypt!

Seems like a case of the ghoul calling the zombie dead. And as for the antichrist that leads the zombies from the turd-eater’s shoulders? Well, he apparently looked something like this:

“At the bottom, two stumps; then an enormous trunk, all hunched and twisted and bent out of shape; no neck, but a kind of extra stump, a third one in place of a head, and a bald little skull, with two holes for eyes and a hole for a mouth, but a mouth that was no mouth at all—no throat, no teeth—just a flap of skin over his gullet.”

Raspail's cartoon villains are like something out of South Park, except they aren't parody.

Raspail is otherwise a celebrated figure in French literature, but he couldn’t resist referring to the dalit exclusively as a turd-eater. I think that’s the most annoying part of this kind of racist trash – this strange duality of very serious demonization and very immature characterization of other ethnicities. One paragraph Raspail will be literally talking about the end of the Christian world (a plane carrying the Pope inexplicably explodes), and the next he will be talking about how much better forks are than chopsticks. He says curry stinks. He even says that Indian guys have weird looking dicks. All this, from a guy whose collection of literary awards rivals my own cabinet of Most-Improved-Player awards.

The work is also as much an attack on modernity and liberalism as it is a racist manifesto; the flood of immigrants is basically presented as a punishment to Western society for failing to uphold conservative, Christian values. Raspail includes an extended allegory about an old oak door in some hamlet in southern France (it represents a strong, Christian Europe, or whatever) and this door is eventually destroyed not by Indian zombies, but by infighting in the French army. The real enemies in Raspail’s world are those who failed to just bomb the fleet of ships before it arrived; his heroes are those characters that started shooting Indians (even back in India) without a second thought. Anyone that attacks the mobs inevitably gets crushed to death, but all of them “die with a clear conscience,” and so the book attempts to vindicate extreme xenophobes today by casting them as misunderstood martyrs, while the rest of us are actually working the bring about the apocalypse.

As a work of horror, it’s commendable. This is terrifying for anyone to read; for racists it is a potentially real end-of-days nightmare, and for the rest of us it is an actually real glimpse into a violent, hate-filled worldview. Raspail warns that immigration to the West is leading to a society where people “shit on [the] terrace and wipe their hands on books.” It’s funny he mentions that, because after reading this, I’ve never wanted to wipe my ass with a book more.

Jean Raspail, you - monsieur - are the turd-eater.

#32 - "To Train Up A Child" by Michael and Debi Pearl

Your Child Is A Persian Rug

(2.1/10)

By Peartree

(book chosen by HotBot)

Editor's Note: I'm not entirely convinced that anyone in the Piece of Shit™ Book Club should reproduce.  Participation seems like a fairly good sign that you're a damaged and possibly deviant soul.  All the talk about spanking in this review tends to convince me further.  - the Spanish Flu. 

There's quite a bit I want to say about this book, but really it comes down this: you probably shouldn't switch your toddler for climbing up on a chair, but if your kid ends up on Maury bragging about how much drugs and sex they have you should probably beat some sense into the little shit.

I say 'probably' because they're your kids and I'm most likely not a social worker in your area, but I could be... Hell, I could be the author of this book (which you should totally buy!). I'm also not going to wave a banner with nameless kids emblazoned on it rallying the righteous in the name of abuse. If I see it or hear about it I'll do something to put a stop to it, sure, and I hope those responsible will be punished within the terms of the law. But the number of discourteous undisciplined ass-hats growing up these days is certainly on the rise it seems.

When I was growing up I was spanked on occasion. Maybe three or four times in my lifetime. It wasn't painful, it was humiliating. And I learned my lesson. We had one cardinal rule though, never swear at our parents. When I was eleven or twelve I was angry with my mother for some reason I can't remember and I screamed 'Fuck you' red faced full of adrenaline. My father grabbed me by the collar and slammed me into the fridge. It was not the best way to resolve the situation but I never did it again.

This book, however much a Piece Of Shit™, would rebuke my father for getting angry. It's not a book that really needs a petition to have it 'stopped': some of the other books on this site are far more deserving. Well, half of this book isn't. It lives in a dichotomy of severe religious chastisement with antiquated gender roles and actual sound, loving, parenting advice. I can see why some exaggerate parts of it in mock encomium, but I can also see why people advocate it.

If you took out lines such as,

"if you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign." 

but left ones like,

"do with them the things they enjoy doing. Be caring. Be more ready with your ear than you are with your mouth. Be very sensitive to their concerns. Tie strings until you have earned their respect and honor." 

it doesn't seem like it'd be that bad of a book. With those parts left in, many people view this as a manual for child abusers, and it has even been linked to three deaths, with the parents of one being convicted of first degree murder. The case can be made that a book can instigate violent and abusive ideologies. But condemning a book for a death is, as one fat fuck says, like blaming Columbine on bowling, or like blaming scat porn because your girlfriend makes you shit on her chest before sex on 'special occasions'. It may have opened the door to possibilities or dormant desires, but she was the one who acted on it and now you have to deal with it by cleaning shit stained sheets once a month.

It was the people who read the book and took on the first set of lines who killed a child. You can interpret any writing to fit your needs. Like those people who twist their thinking to interpret the last line of TS Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Yes it says 'we drown', no he is not using Prufrock's soliloquy as a mirror for his poetic creations you twats.

But back to Pearl. The book states so many times, over and over, that punishments cannot be done in anger or be emotionally charged. Yet with passages like the following I suppose it's hard to remember the anger issue. I mean, when you're cutting down a large tree branch to give a kid a beat down you've probably got something building inside you already.

"Any spanking, to effectively reinforce instruction, must cause pain, but the most pain is on the surface of bare skin where the nerves are located. A surface sting will cause sufficient pain, with no injury or bruising. Select your instrument according to the child's size. For the under one year old, a little, ten- to twelve-inch long, willowy branch (striped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient. Sometimes alternatives have to be sought. A one-foot ruler, or its equivalent in a paddle, is a sufficient alternative. For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective."

The primary idea behind all this punishment is to relieve the child of their guilt says Pearl. Imagine your child as a fine pure silk Kashan rug. Intricately designed medallions woven about in a swirl of gold and crimson atop soft hues of green with a count of 800 knots per square inch. It's exquisite. But after you've had it a while, the vacuum doesn't quite get all the dust and debris out any more. That dust is the child's guilt. You have to hang it up over a railing and beat it with a stick to get it out. That's the idea anyway.

If you don't do this, or you do this too much, your children will rebel. Pearl gets real for a moment saying,

"Many parents have thus driven their young daughter into the arms of an unwholesome lover."

And I can attest to this myself from second hand knowledge. One of our own alumni, Wildcard, recently had a second date with a woman stating that he didn't envision them having sex because she was too close, and had a good relationship, with her mother. So having a healthy relationship with your children can actually affect their future suitors. And you don't want your daughters going out with Wildcard. Trust me on that one.

There's a good chance you don't want your daughters to be Pearl's version of women either though. Mixed between his teachings of abuse and his actually sound parenting advice he gives his wisdom on gender roles. My favourite of which is,

"Avoid like the plague the girl who would pursue her own career outside the home"

Yes ladies, you are to be treated like a disease which has killed over 75 million people if you try to pursue a career. I guess feminists and lesbians must be like the Spanish Flu and Smallpox.

Many, many people have reviewed this book and gone over all of the 'monstrous' advice therein. In an age where your own children are threatening to call child services on you, you've already fucked up as a parent. It's either you didn't discipline them enough and you can't converse with them, or you actually beat them and deserve to be jailed. If you read this book and come out of it with thoughts of "I should cane my children" you're a pliant idiot who never should have reproduced in the first place.