#47 - "Sheriff Found" by Joyee Flynn

Whiny Cynanthropes And Clichéd Insipid-Tropes

(2.7/10)

by Peartree

(book requested by some reddit user)

Peartree's note: I know we've done erotica quite a bit in the past and it's such low hanging fruit it's spoiled on the ground, but this review was started months ago as it was a request outside of the normal betting scheme and had no timeline, so I planned on finishing it. Besides, this one has a shape shifting beagle in it. 

Editor's note: Pssshh, Peartree is one to talk when to comes to low-hanging fruits. Know what I'm saying? Yeeaaaahh you do. High-five, up here. Nice.

Shapeshifter mythology has been around for a long time. From neolithic cave drawings in the Pyrénées to parts of ancient literary works like The Epic Of Gilgamesh and The Iliad, from bad ass wizard duels in the 1960's (you can't fuck with Merlin, Madam Mim) to the wonderful allegorical retelling of the Book of Mormon, Twilight, it is almost universallly found in mythologies across the globe. So it only makes sense to infuse homoerotic novels with such lore. 

That being said, it is still a bit unsettling reading erotic sentences like this:

“Now, fuck your pup until I can’t walk for days and you have to carry me everywhere.”

Especially when you know it's a beagle pup getting his Harry Partch reamed by a six foot two beefcake with a sexual dominance fetish.

You may ask yourself 'Why a beagle?' and to that I answer it was the only logical choice for a shapeshifting 'sub' when you think about it. They are cute without being prissy like poodles, small but not chihuahua-small, excitable but not yappy like pomeranians, they aren't jerks like jack russells, ugly like english bull dogs or pugs, or 'mongoloid' like chow chows. So don't overthink it. Lord knows the author never did.

This story has a lot going for it: therianthropy, beagles, homosexual encounters. Pretty much something for everyone. Nonetheless, Flynn still somehow manages to miss the mark. I can accept that most readers aren't looking for a grand, developed plot with these kinds of books, but how about making the characters at least somewhat interesting and multidimensional.

On the the plot: Toby, our cutsie-wootsie cynanthrope, urinates on Randall, the sheriff of a small town. This marks him as his mate. Instantly, they are destined to be together for the rest of their lives. They begin to share each other's thoughts and feelings in a magical telepathic link, and Randall suddenly develops the "strength of twenty men" if he's trying to defend Toby.

Randall first gets a tingly feeling from his new beagle moments after Toby had pee'd on him. Well before he even knew this dog was a shapeshifter.

"He had a feeling this dog had wiggled into more than just his shirt."

What. the. fuck. The guy is so strung up on getting laid he's looking at dogs and having to actualize feelings of lust with himself. That's some fucked up foreshadowing. But thankfully we're solaced before things go too far into straight up bestiality.

"His sex life was bad, but not bad enough to push him into crazy world yet."

No, it's only after he sees Toby the beagle's "sweet little ass" that he can't help but be thrust into that world. Thrusted over and over and over again. For the next 72 pages, these two shoot off more man milk than Dan White, but once they finally get their Kermit Love out of their system, they get to the real meat of the story: the problem that forced Toby to come down from his pack in the mountains in the first place. 

Toby and his pack have some disease, I can't remember what it was but it was probably made up, like gonorrhea, and it's killing them. It has killed, sorry, a few members of his pack. He went down for help but found his mate Randall instead. He gets some medicine from a vet and they bang for a few days while others are still dying up in the mountains. Then they decide to go up there with a truck load of medicine for everyone. Toby paid for all the medicine because he is "very smart" and started a web design company by himself at the age of 22 or something and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. He even has over half a million sitting in his bank account when we first meet him. Randall hit that jackpot hard with this one. Like, "kneeling on the bed with restraints and a bottle of lube" hard.

Once they get back to the village they find out the pack leader was stealing money from Toby for himself (he seemed to have just been keeping it and doing nothing with it) and they have to kick him out. And the book ends with them fleshing out a plan to guard the pack from other larger shapeshifting packs, getting the other members to quit cam whoring themselves for money, and the veterinarian, also a homosexual, getting banged by some sex crazed exhibitionist shapeshifter. All before Randall sinks into Toby's cinnamon star one final time, of course.

So that's the story, aside from some revisiting of Randall's orphaned childhood being beaten by foster parents and other such clichéd tropes. All in all I've read much worse. The thing that really gets this book down is the whiny -- fucking -- attitude of everyone. The first time they have a Herman Bang Toby declares his virgin love and says they'll be mates for life. That should set off some warning bells for ol' Randy, but instead he's excited by it.

"You’re saying I’m the only man who’s ever going to be in this sweet ass?”

Toby says "Yes" and talks about these books he's read on mating and how it's destiny and he starts to feel Randall's emotions and thoughts. Yet somehow Toby bitches out over everything Randall says and is convinced that he is going to leave him. Ejaculate prematurely and feel embarrassed? Turn into a dog and hide under the couch because you think your lover is disappointed and hates you. Tell him you love him after 24 hours and a few shit-fucks and he doesn't say it back? Turn into a dog and run away. God damn it you emotional train wreck Toby. Put away your Long John Baldry for a second and just talk about your insecurities.

Not that Randall is any better. He constantly needs to be protective and is jealous of the thought of anyone else even touching Toby's booty clam.

“Whose ass is this, Toby?”

“My ass,” I answered, glancing at him over my shoulder, completely confused. When I saw the feral look on his face as he raised an eyebrow at me, I caught on to his meaning. “Your ass, Randall. My ass belongs to you.”

I won't go on quoting but suffice to say it goes like this for the whole book. Maybe it's about a passion that I know nothing of so can't relate. Something which burns so deeply inside of you that it makes you irrational. Maybe that's why these books are so popular. So people can get away from their mediocre relationships and imagine a world where guys will throw caution to the wind and just fuck each other stupid and lose themselves in their lust. Personally that doesn't sound too appealing though. It's been my experience that when you lose yourself in lust you wake up with an Omega Mu and an empty bottle of whiskey. Next time I'm definitely trying out Randall's dirty talk though.

“You look even better with my cock in your mouth than I’d imagined.”

 - Peartree

#42 - "Jersey" by Steven Thomas Dykes

Not even Newark

(-3/10)

By Admiral Fartmore & Beau Dashington

(book submitted by a Reader)

Editor's Note: Beau Dashington and I, Admiral Fartmore, did it together. Err, I mean we wrote it together. We edited it together, too. This review, I mean. We also had sex.

When one engages in writing a shitty blog, there are few things as rewarding as when you get a message of support from one of the 3 or 4 people who actually read the shit you write. And so, it was with a great deal of excitement that we got an email from our new friend Diefenbaker [name changed to protect identity] suggesting we try reading a book called “Jersey”, by Steven Thomas Dykes. He warned us “this book will hurt you.” Sounds right up our alley. But what kind of book is this? Here is how the author describes it:

“Jersey” is the depth of the darkened heart, making their relationship told with the narration of Scott Trejo, along with the sprint to the border after complete oblivion the tale that told on the train that brought me to Mexico for my first day.

I have literally no idea what that means. This quote is from one of the two introductions written by the author which are not part of the actual story. Between them, we learn that the book is based on the author’s hometown of Topeka, Kansas. He considers the book to be the "Romeo and Juliet of the 21st Century." That’s quite a claim; to be the heir-apparent to perhaps the most celebrated tale of tragic romance ever produced by Western culture, and perhaps the most famous in the entire world until Titanic was released. Let's find out if he lives up to it.

The book is filled with characters with pretty implausible names like Pablo Adams and Terrence, as well as a dope-dealer called Samson. Yes, Samson - an apparently accidental reference to the evil drug dealer from Dave Chapelle's 1998 stoner classic, Half Baked. However, the two characters of concern are Scott (a teenage boy and a clear idealized author-insert or "Marty Stu") and Jersey (a teenage girl he falls in love with). The writing is... well… not very good. Here is a sample sentence:

"Damn…There is a plethora of honeys at this party,” Terrence said with a lustful tone.

A plethora of honeys.

But what about the romantic aspirations of the book? Does it move the heart and inspire the soul? The narrator is Scott, our Romeo, who at 13, heads to a party in a field. Enter Juliet, her first words in this play on star-crossed lovers: "Do you have a joint?" Romeo Scott responds in the negative, to which Juliet Jersey replies poetically, "Well…. Shit!"

After that brief philosophical exchange, Jersey's phone rings. Her father has had a heart attack. She asks Scott (who she just met, even though they are in all the same classes) to take her to hospital. For some reason the hospital is refusing to let any caretakers see their patients, which must be a violation of some kind of medical ethics. Jersey asks Scott to come to her house and hold her all night long. And so he does. And they do. But they don't pork each other. It is around this time that they inexplicably change in age from 14 to 17, even though after the age jump they have still only known each other for three months.

“I need my lawn mowed, at least half of it”, I spoke in code. The meaning was that I needed a half ounce of weed as soon as possible.

Not only is this code ridiculous, who the fuck would only ask for half their lawn to be mowed?

The narrator informs us that to understand Jersey, we must look into her past. And so he he tells us a horse-origins story about Jersey's pet stallion, Prince. Anyone who follows the Piece of Shit Book Club™ knows that we take horse matters very seriously. So this better be good. In the back-story, Prince kills a rider, but gets a second chance at life after it is adopted by Jersey. Interesting... but what could this horse have to do with the star-crossed lovers? Let's read on.

I looked back into her eyes, saying "Good... just enjoying another night out in the woods... drinking from kegs and getting high", I answered trying to keep my cool. "I know what you mean," she laughed.

Pictured: 13-year-olds "keeping their cool."

In fair Topeka, Kansas, where we lay our scene, Jersey gets hooked on pot, and ends up crashing her car a couple of times. This happens in literally two chapters in a row: she gets stoned, she crashes, she calls Scott for help. For some inexplicable reason, she starts dating Jason, some random guy, even though she and Scott are in love. Jason gets her hooked on coke, and she goes into rehab. When Scott visits, she tells him, “They are putting me on so much medication for bi-polar disorder that this is the first time I have felt any emotion.” I can tell you, in case you aren't already aware, that this is not how it works. We're talking about a severe mental illness, not a case of the Mondays. And lithium doesn't give you extra emotions. It just doesn't.

I can only close my eyes and imagine the day Jersey and I were the thickness of glue and cohesive enough to be permanent……

We get it, the guy spilled a lot of glue thinking about this girl.

As it turns out, Jersey's addiction to pot is all Jason's fault, so Jersey and Scott decide to kill him. They lure him to a barn, where Jersey shoots him in both kneecaps and in the back of the head with a shotgun. I don't want to be too graphic, but this is what happens when you shoot a watermelon with a shotgun. [WARNING: one watermelon was harmed in the making of this video]. Now, clearly, the author isn't really aware of what a shotgun actually does to a human body, because even though Jason has been decapitated and lost both legs, he is still speaking. So Scott cuts off his eyelids. The torture continues, as the author draws generously from all his favourite movies. Jason has his ear cut off, and Scott speaks into it (à la Reservoir Dogs). He then ties Jason to a chair, and hits his toes with a hammer (à la Payback). A few of the other torture techniques are reminiscent of Saw and Hostel and others.

Realizing they are now going to be wanted for a completely unnecessary kidnap, murder, theft, extortion, and torture, Jersey and Scott decide to part ways, and they never see each other again. And that's it. The absurd violence comes out of absolutely no where, and then boom, story's over. Except for the 2-page epilogue, which states that Scott died in Mexico 53 years later of cancer.

"Thanks," I told him, hanging up the phone while turning up the radio. 'Shorty Wanna Be A Thug', by Tupac Shakur played as we cruised to our spot we called "Viet Nam."

"You got blunts?" she asked me.

"Yep." I nodded with a grin, for our ganja ravings were met with the richest of palates.

An actual picture of "Viet Nam." Jesus Christ, Kansas just makes fun of itself.

Shakespeare, this book is not. It's not even bunk-speare. If Shakespeare were New York, this book wouldn't even be Newark. It'd be somewhere worse, like the shitty part of Mogadishu, or Kansas. If Jersey has any use, it's as a reminder that yes, literally everyone was a loser in highschool, and no, that first love of yours isn't worth writing about. Steven; we feel your pain. To love and lose is one of life's great tragedies, like dropping your last blunt-paper into a puddle. But teenage crushes are best left in high school where they belong.

But not everyone would agree with us, especially not the sole reviewer this book has on Amazon.

If only her horse had written the fucking book, then.



18/07/2015

Admiral Fartmore & Beau Dashington

#37 - "Red Rain", R.L. Stine

Red Rain.  The rain was red.  Red was the colour of the rain.  I read it (not readily).

(0/10)

By HotBot

(book submitted by a Fan)

Editor's note: As requested by DiscordiasFavoredSon, we are reviewing this wonderful Piece of Shit™. 

My favourite film growing up was The Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, and a bunch of puppets.  I really loved that movie (and can still quote every line)—I loved the concept, the magic of the ball scene, the themes of friendship, and I wanted to be Jennifer Connelly so badly (I still do).  However, I re-watched it last year, and rather than magic, all I could see was David Bowie’s crotch.  Seriously, there are numerous web articles about his crotch in that movie (here's a convenient YouTube video with inappropriate zooming; here's the FB fan page for his crotch in the movie; here's a critical analysis of the part played by his crotch).  And why does he thrust all the time?!  People don’t walk like that (/stand like that/sit like that/dance like that).  I’m actually a little concerned for his posture.  The (highly visible) point is that some things should stay in your childhood, and never, ever be revisited as an adult.  Such is R.L. Stine’s writing.

Growing up, Stine’s Goosebumps series was my gateway into two years of reading exclusively horror books.  The second book I started writing as a kid was even in the genre.  Stine’s books had it all—they were easy to read, had novel story-lines which weren’t too scary for kids, and always a twist at the end.  And do you know what Stine’s Goosebumps and Fear Street books have in common with his adult novel, ‘Red Rain’?  EVERYTHING.  AND IT IS A BIG, STEAMING HEAP OF SHIT.

Phew—okay, I didn’t mean to let that out.  I’m just so ANGRY that somebody would publish this TRIPE.  What the fuck.  I mean seriously, the opening sequence features such an intense amount of word repetition that I felt I was going insane.  I now understand how it must be to live with a trained talking parrot—except the parrot would be less repetitive.  ‘Polly wanna cracker?’ on repeat isn’t anywhere near so irritating as ‘Polly wanna cracker?  Cracker wanna Polly.  You know what Polly wants?  A cracker Polly wants.  Cracker.  Polly.  Cracker cracker Polly.’  FOR FUCKS SAKE.  In the prologue, our idiotic protagonist encounters some ‘red rain’: 

“the raindrops were red.  A shimmering deep scarlet.  … “It’s raining blood!”… [she] watched the red raindrops… Stared at her hands as the red drops trickled… raindrops falling all around her.  Red, as if… blood.  Bloodred raindrops… A blood rain…  She had read about a blood rain… red rain poured… the red rain was the onset of the world’s end.  Now sheets of rain fell… Like red curtains… Red curtains of rain…  blood curtains”.  

WE FUCKING GET IT.  I mean, I guess if you’re an adult with a severe short-term memory problem, or are happy to be treated like a complete idiot, then this is the book for you.  Incidentally, I wonder how many pages the book would be if the repetition were removed—the 534-page electronic behemoth could probably be whittled down to 200, at the absolute outside.  And if the completely irrelevant parts of the book were removed, that could probably be further reduced to 50.  That’s right, removing the parts of the novel which are actively insulting to one’s intelligence would reduce it to ten percent of its size. 

God, there’s so much more to this book.  And I mean more in terms of shit-ness.  The characters are completely ridiculous and make no sense, not to mention stupid; the plotline is inconsistent and incoherent; the way in which the twins speak is ludicrous (“We’ll convince the bruvver and sister.” Samuel stared at him. “Convince them? Okay. But no smoked meat, Daniel. Okay? No smoked meat?” Daniel nodded. “Total domination, Sammy. You’ll see. Total domination.”); the language is basic (one might say ‘graded for children’); and oh.  The sex scenes.  Of course, I should cover that—because what the hell business does R.L. Stine have writing sex scenes?  About as much business as the characters do having sex.  I mean seriously, there’s this sub-plot written in where one of the protagonists has sex with his secretary for no reason.  At all.  It’s never addressed other than ‘oh I feel guilty, oops’, and it never forms part of the story-line—I mean it would have made just as much sense to go into a protracted scene about the dude cleaning his teeth.  It contributed nothing whatsoever—it’s like Stine was just dying for one of his characters to get laid.  The scene had the exact awkwardness of a children’s writer chucking in a scene with genitals because he thinks that’s the only difference between children and adults—our overwhelming interest in fucking.  And apparently, fucking written like this:

She uttered low gasps in his ear. “Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, yes.” Like a porno video. He felt his erection grow. “I don’t want this.” But suddenly he did. 

Oh, God. Over the desk. From behind. His khakis were down. And he was inside her. Sprawled over the desk, she moaned, rhythmic soft cries. He buried his face in her soft hair. He lost himself in her. He lost himself. Lost. And came inside her. It didn’t matter. All the doctors said he could never have more children. He stayed on top of her for a long moment, breathing hard, gripping the shoulders of her T-shirt, the creamy ass still moving beneath him. Then, heart pounding, he pushed himself to his feet. She climbed up slowly. Turned to him. Grabbed his shirt, brought her face close, and licked the side of his face. “Am I your best assistant?” A whisper that tingled his skin. “I want to be the best. Am I the best?”

I’m not sure it’s possible to be less aroused than I am right now (without involving scales).  I’m more confused as to why Stine thought that our key priority would be the possibility of pregnancy rather than, say, diseases.  Or the fact the dude had just cheated on his wife.  I’m also preoccupied with how creepy the assistant is—stalker, much?

Lastly, because honestly this book just makes me angry, the ‘twist’ ending.  Every single one of Stine’s fucking books has a fucking twist, so it was hardly a surprise.  In fact, it was downright predictable.  AND IT MADE NO FUCKING SENSE.  The non-twist was in complete contradiction to the mythology Stine had built up throughout the book.  It’s like he realised he’d written a complete Piece of Shit™ and just stopped even pretending to try. 

This book is an embarrassment.  0/10.

#29 - "Glenn Hates Books: Brutally Honest Book Reviews - Vol 1" by Glenn Conley

Reviewception

(2/10)

By Admiral Fartmore

(book submitted by some reader)

Editor's Note: We completely appreciate the irony of this review and think that Glenn Conley would, as well. If you like, you can check him out here.

Today I have the great honor of reviewing a book of reviews by Glenn Conley. If you have not heard of him, Glenn runs a blog on Wordpress (think like bench press, but for nerds), which is much prettier and much more popular than ours. It is called “Glenn Hates Books,” where he posts “brutally honest” reviews of books. This book is a compilation of his blog posts, organized from 1-star to 5-star ratings. A friend thought it would be kind of funny and meta for us to tackle this book, and since anyone who has a blog dedicated to making fun of bad literature is probably a complete scumbag, we figured his work was probably garbage as well. We were correct.

Glenn reads and reviews lots of books. Sometimes he reviews bad books. Sometimes he reviews mediocre books. Sometimes he reviews good books. His opinion is pretty run-of-the-mill in terms of what’s good and what’s bad. That’s uhh, pretty much it. Reading this book is kind of like reading lots of Amazon reviews, but with less variety in terms of narration.

The book bills itself as “laugh-out-loud funny,” which for Glenn means swearing and making the same jokes over and over. His written voice kind of reminds me of a lazy, knock-off Maddox, but more specifically, it reminds me of something I saw my friend’s mother post on Facebook:

Imagine 200 mind-numbing pages of this kind of pandering horse shit.

When every second word you use is some swear word, they start to lose their impact very quickly. Glenn seems unaware of this, as the word "fuck" alone appears over 500 times across this book's meagre 220 pages. In the correct context, exclaiming “fuck” in reaction to something can be a very meaningful and evocative – it can say more than perhaps any other single word in our language. That’s the purpose of vulgarity. But if you are being lazy and just using swear words as filler, you start to bore your reader very quickly. I’ve drawn up a quick graph to demonstrate this phenomenon:

Glenn’s work lands on the far-right, somewhere between when my alcoholic uncle starts explaining his racial theories and when you overhear 13-year-olds trying to sound cool on the bus. 

Unfortunately, this repetitive, boring effect is only enhanced by the structure of the book.  Grouping star ratings together was a bad idea, because it means that there is no variety in tone within any given section of the book. You have to plow through 20 some-odd very similar 1-star reviews, then 20 or so very similar 2-star reviews, and so on. This isn’t helped by Glenn’s proclivity for repeating jokes and turns of phrase:

Fuck [insert name] in their cunt, in their asshole, in their dirty asshole, etc. etc. 

After finishing the book, I'm just left wondering what the point is. Aside from the whole trying-his-absolute-hardest-to-be-offensive shtick, Glenn promises that his reviews are brutally honest. And I have to give him that – he is honest about what he likes and what he doesn’t like. I suppose that’s admirable. But it isn’t particularly unique, either. Actually, I daresay it’s pretty fucking common. And while Glenn’s blog can be amusing in small doses, his bit is just too thin to stretch across 200 pages.