Cover of Thirteen Reasons Why

I picked up Thirteen Reasons Why recently because it was on my list of “to read” and it had received much critical acclaim. Also it was one of two books I’d brought with me while traveling (not including the two I read on mom’s Kindle). I figured it might be okay, at least.

Allow me to give you 13 reasons I dislike it. And by “dislike”, I mean “hate psychotically.”

[TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE AND ASSAULT]

[SPOILERS]

1. Support of the “Well, she didn’t technically say ‘no’ so it’s not technically rape, right?” trope. The character who gets raped [I'm talking about Hannah; the other character who gets raped is tossed aside like a piece of garbage, her views never explored] is herself unsure if it was rape or no, which is very common because we all get taught that we’re dirty and naughty unless we shout no! in a loud voice — but we’re trained from an early age to never say no, because then the menfolk might get violent. That’s not what I have issue with; I have issue with the book itself seeming unsure regarding the conclusion. If the character who’d been raped could not unequivocally call it that, then another character who knew about it (there were three) should have been clear. Without that clarity it seems the author is saying he agrees that it’s “grey-area rape”. Anything short of enthusiastic consent is rape. Not saying no does not equal consent. The fact that the character was crying and clenching her teeth just to get through it should have alerted the others who knew about the situation that it was rape. Instead, we get vague hand-waving of “well maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t,” and this is wholly irresponsible of the author and holds up standards of misogyny and rape culture.
2. The structure of the book is highly manipulative. The reader is lead on a very deliberate route, leaving no leeway for interpretation. Asher has a conclusion that he wants you to reach and he makes sure you reach it. This leaves you feeling used and abused once the book is done.
3. Horrible characterization: there is no sympathy for Hannah Baker. She’s badly written. Hannah is portrayed as cold, calculating, selfish and childish. Suicidal people get portrayed as selfish all the time, so this is an old, tired, trope. Instead, you feel sympathy for Clay Jensen, who is a basically good guy [even thought he's been raised steeped in patriarchal rape culture but that's not really his fault and despite it he seems to turn out okay, at least] who is in love with Hannah. He had no idea how deeply disturbed she was, and feels she didn’t really give him a chance to help her. The added blow of giving him the tapes will give him guilt and anger towards her, which is unfair and childish: suicidal people usually don’t plan big manipulation games like this. We’re too lost in our own pain to even fucking care about how our deaths are going to affect others — and no, that’s not being selfish, that’s called having bodily autonomy. Also, if you can’t understand what it’s like to just want to die because you’re in so much pain, shut the fuck up about suicidal people being selfish. You have no idea.
   The attitude of Hannah, the whole “I’ll just kill myself and THEN won’t they be sorry!” makes her look like a spoiled child, and not someone who’s truly in a lot of pain.
4. Following #3: White Whine. I mean, fuck, I’m not trying to belittle her problems, but Hannah is so badly written that all of her pain seems like so much white whine. I had things way worse, way earlier in life, and I know I had it good compared to other peoples’ lives. I tried to kill myself several times, but it was never to hurt others. It was to end my own pain.
   And when I finally did find something good, something worth holding on to that eased the pain, I didn’t scream and freak out and push it away because, you know, shit had happened before and somehow having my original fantasies about love and romance ruined made it impossible for me to accept someone who actually loved me. What the fuck, Hannah?
   Like, shit, kid, I get it, life in high school sucks, but yours could have been a lot worse, Miss Heterosexual White Cisgendered Middle-Class girl.
5. Mansplaining. It’s a story about misogyny and rape culture and how it manifests in high school, driving young girls to kill themselves. But it’s told through the eyes of a male character who’s listening to Hannah’s tapes by a male author who couldn’t write women characters effectively if it were beaten into him. For further remark, see #6.
6. The only reason this book received so much acclaim is because finally a white man is saying what marginalized folk have been saying for much longer. HAY GUISE, DID YOU KNOW? RAPE CULTURE. MISOGYNY. THEY EXIST. AND GIRLS ARE KILLING THEMSELVES BECAUSE OF IT.
   Oh, thank the Goddesses! A white man finally noticed that we’re being raped and brutalized left right and center! Let’s watch him do a terrible job writing about it. Mansplaining: not just for trolls anymore!
   I can tell you right now that if anyone other than a white man had written this book it would not have received half the acclaim it has. People do not believe things until white men say it’s the truth. I say I was raped twice, and I am questioned unless a white man corroborates my story. I say misogyny is everywhere, and I’m a hysterical feminist “looking to get angry about something” unless a white man says he sees it too. People of color, indigenous people, transgendered people, disabled and/or neuroatypical people, and queer folk have been saying for years that the police are corrupt and that police brutality is a matter of course in their daily lives. No one listens until Occupy happens, when suddenly white men are being treated this way too.
   So, yeah. Asher had a chance to actually bring to light a serious issue, and he did it horribly. With friends like these….
7. Dual narratives is confusing, dizzying, and manipulative. It is falsely compelling: the intense structure made you feel as if the book was compelling, but the characterization was so bad that by the end of the book I wanted Hannah and everyone else in her small town to die.
8. The message is Anvillicious. Anvils everywhere. Falling from the sky. Especially as the result of Hannah’s probably-false suicide and tapes is to force Clay to insert himself into Skye’s life, regardless her wishes, because may be suicidal. (See #9 for elaboration.)
   We should all care enough about our fellow human to ease their pain, even if just for a while. That does not mean we should see it as our personal crusade to save people from suicide. We need to respect bodily autonomy. Bodily autonomy includes the right to choose how you will die, if possible.
   We need to stop phrasing it as “Be nice. You never know who may be considering SUICIDE,” and start phrasing it as “Be kind, because we all deserve compassion and unconditional love.”
   Also: listen to people when they say they’ve been raped or assaulted. Believe them. Realize what that means. (Ie, YES MEANS YES.) Stop the bros before hos policy that protects rapists like Bryce Walker. The “jokes” of the Who’s Hot/Who’s Not list, or Justin’s rumors about Hannah letting people think they own her — they all support rape culture.
   And Asher’s portrayal of Hannah as completely unsympathetic with Clay being the protagonist voicing the “boys will be boys” sentiment and even a “you knew what you were getting into” trope enforces the idea that it’s “not a big deal”.
   Irresponsible. Completely irresponsible.
9. White knight syndrome. Wow, really loving your portrayal of every single woman in the school needing a big strong man to save them. SO FUCKING ORIGINAL.
10. Hannah faked her own death. Or didn’t succeed and was too embarrassed to show her face at school afterwards. She planned enough to record the blame-game tapes, but not enough to figure out exactly how she would kill herself or to have a back-up plan if the first time didn’t work — when she intended to do it the next day. With perfect timing, as Tony saw her in 3rd period and she was “dead” by mid-afternoon.
    Then she had no funeral and her parents left town.
    I think she faked her own death. And sent those tapes around to prove a point. Through manipulation.
    Making her…a horrible human being.
11. Her treatment of Mr. Porter. Look, Hannah, if you want to exercise your bodily autonomy, off yourself, fine. But don’t bring down Mr. Porter with you, whose only crime was not being able to decipher your totally cryptic replies. The man tried, for fuck’s sake! You gave him nothing. And then you create these tapes wherein you lay most, if not all, of the blame at his feet for not being able to help you.
    Hannah showed more compassion for her rapist, her assaulters, than she did to poor Mr. Porter. Mr. Porter was already close to suicide when he realized that he’d failed to help his student. How much do you want to bet her tapes send him over the edge?
    How is that, in any sense, a simple expression of bodily autonomy?
    Especially when it’s doubtful she killed herself at all.
12. No clear character motivation beyond “I’m an emo white girl who can’t get perspective waaaaaah”. I mean, her torments were real, if somewhat tame to my old, cynical eyes, yet her reaction to Clay kissing her was completely ridiculous, lacking in clear motivation. Is she supposed to be a strong female character? Is she supposed to be a role model?
    Gods, I hope not. She’s worse than Bella Swan.
13. On page 9, Hannah’s recorded voice instructs her listeners to listen to all the tapes and then rewind them when they’re done before mailing them off. When she doesn’t even know how tapes work why should I trust that she figured out how to effectively kill herself?

On the plus side, the spelling, grammar, and punctuation were good.

However, I can’t recommend this book to anyone. It was horrible, and there are much better ways to get the same message. Actually, I could be wrong, as I’m not even sure what the message IS. The anvil hit me so hard I have a concussion.

Final verdict: waste of a tree’s life. If you must subject yourself to this mound of tripe, buy the ebook or go to the library.

Cover via Amazon

I just finished The Hunger Games Trilogy. I’d read The Hunger Games a few months back, and between Sunday and Tuesday I read Catching Fire and Mockingjay (thanks to mom’s Kindle, which I will blog about later).

I really enjoyed both books. I think they’re well-written, have a compelling plot and characters, and make several good points. That said, they are all written in first person POV. Reading them has made me realize quite clearly why people hate first person stories so much.

1. With first person POV your character must be unaccountably dense to not get all the clues leading up to the end. Furthermore, the clues must not be as well hinted or revealed as they can be in third person POV, wherein the reader reaches the obvious conclusion before the character does. This effect makes the reader feel stupid, which is not something people like. (That said, characters in third person POV can be unaccountably dense as well — however, this does not hit you over the head as it does with first-person, where your only perspective is inside the character’s head.)

2. The big reveal at the end has a tendency to fall into monologuing. As the entire story is necessarily monologuing, it’s hard to show the reveal rather than telling it. This is most clearly seen at the end of Catching Fire [highlight for spoilers] wherein Katniss explains everything regarding the end of the Games and the rebel rescue in one short paragraph, almost monotone. It felt like one of those “The Least You Need to Know” sections at the end of a chapter in a Complete Idiot’s Guide To….

3. Your message can get anvilicious. You are no longer hiding this message within layers of interaction among characters from a third-person perspective or within setting; your main character is stating quite clearly what your message is. You are unable to let the horrifying truth of the events ring through without your main character commenting on them; otherwise your MC becomes a heartless automaton. This means walking the line between subtlety and anvil-dropping becomes more than a tightrope; it’s a veritable nightmare.

Flaws now addressed: I think Collins did a very good job with first person POV and I think she had to. I can’t imagine Katniss’ story being told in any other way. It’s a good trilogy and I do highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good dystopian story of the rise of the proletariat against tyrannical oppression. Or if you need a good cry. (Yeah, it’ll make you cry.)

Coming up: Friday Five about my trip so far and a post about ebook readers.

This is not the rape I'm talking about. (Image by jimmedia via Flickr.)

“Fat girls should be happy for any attention.”

“Oh, come on, she’s too fat to be raped!”

How many times have you heard or seen the above sentiments, or ones similar to them? How many times have you uttered them, either because you truly believe they’re true or because you’ve internalized hatred of yourself, or both?

I’ve heard and seen these sentiments a lot. I wish I had a quarter for each time, because then I’d have enough quarters for several rolls of quarters, and then I’d use them to beat people. Namely misogynistic fatphobic rape apologists.

Which, by the way, the people who utter these sentiments are.

I get it if you’ve internalized the hatred of yourself. I do. I was there for a long time. But darlin, you’ve got to pull yourself out of that trench. Please believe me when I say that a) rape has nothing to do sex and everything to do with power and b) you are beautiful regardless. And please believe me when I say that continuing to utter those sentiments contributes to rape culture and fat hatred.

This is the insidious thing about oppression: we are trained to be complicit in our own degradation. From birth we are put into this culture that tells us these sentiments, these vicious lies, and parades them about as truth. And with so many years of this being drilled into our heads, it’s understandable we may believe these things about ourselves.

So we utter these same statements and make it easier for the oppressor to keep his great big boot on our faces. We have been well-trained to hate ourselves. We have been well-trained to hate others like ourselves, to question their every move.

We have been well-trained to question if a fat girl was really raped, or if she’s just begging for attention with an outrageous story. We have been trained to believe that fat people are harder to abuse, to violate, because they’re icky or too heavy. We have been trained into thinking that if fat people get raped, they should be happy for the attention.

My personal experience begs to fucking differ.

There is nothing awesome about being raped. I’ve been through it twice, and because I am CAFAB, present as femme, and live in this society, I have already accepted that it may very well happen again. I can only hope that if it does happen to me again, that I am not so shell-shocked, so brutalized into silence that by the time I am even able to admit to myself what happened it is not too late to put the rapist behind bars.

The first time it took me 10 years to even be able to talk about it as something I was still ashamed of. It took telling someone else to even discover that it was rape.

The second time took only a year to accept it for what it was. Thank the gods for small miracles, I suppose.

News flash: I was fat both times. Both times had nothing to do with desire. Both times had to do with the rapist wanting to show me who was in charge/to break me.

Too bad for him, I’m not broken. And if he ever shows his face to me again, he better have good running shoes on because I will not hesitate in destroying him.

Too fat to be raped? Happy for any attention?

How about the notion that fat people deserve love, good relationships, and to have their boundaries respected, just like everyone else does. How about that.

THIS IS HOGWARTS. I WILL BE THERE.

Five random things I need to mention:

1. Bellica‘s distribution is going to be wider than I thought. Not only am I doing a Kindle ebook for 9.99, but I am also going to be using CreateSpace to make a paperback to sell on Amazon. More news on that as it develops.
2. I am traveling this week to Orlando so I can learn Spanish in four days (true!). I will also be going to the Wizarding World. I’m so excited about this I could pee.
3. I will have my computer while traveling but I’m not sure how much internet time I’ll have, so I may not post three times this week. I will post when I get back, however. With pictures of the Wizarding World.
4. School has started and is already eating my brain. I am taking two directed studies on top of my two regular classes, and this may not seem like a full load but trust me IT IS.
5. I lied. There were only four.

This is not what I do it for. Image via Wikipedia

I get asked sometimes why I write. Or how I choose what stories to tell. The answer is a simple one but it doesn’t seem to be easily graspable by most.

I do it because I can’t not do it. I tell the stories that need to be told. How do I know which ones those are? Simple. I don’t let the idea of deadlines or money distract me from the storytelling. As soon as you make writing about the bottom dollar, you cheapen it.

Yes, it’s important to get paid. I’m hoping to sell a million copies of Bellica, truth be told — as much because as I want people to read it as because I’m a student and money sounds like a nice thing that I’ve never really had.

But if Bellica were my only major financial success, if all my other books only did moderately well or not well at all — whatever. If in my lifetime they’re not read, they will be later. Or not at all.

What’s important is that I wrote them. What’s important is the stories got told. Maybe two people read them — those are the people who need to read those stories.

Fact is, I’m not going to let my future success or unsuccess with Bellica distract me from the most important part: writing the stories.

There are authors who do this. Authors who let the idea of money become more important than the story. And it shows in their work, whether they write fiction or non. Books written by that sort of author are loved by their creators only for the amount of money they bring in.

It’s as if your parents decided to love you only if you got good grades. Or became a star football player. Or a good dancer. Or a famous actor. One C, one injury, one fumbled pirouette, one moment out of character…too bad, buddy. You weren’t good enough for your progenitor.

I’m sure there are people out there who don’t have to imagine what that feels like.

My books — my stories — deserve more than that. I will continue to love Bellica no matter how much money she brings me. She’s a good story, a good book. I’m proud of her for that.

Why do I write?

Because it’s what I do. Because these stories need to be told, and they need me to tell them. Because it’s about the process.

1. Finish Dead Transgressions.
2. Finish The Jade Star of Athering.
3. Make some headway on the Clio table for parthenon.
4. Blogging: 3 entries a week. On anything.
5. Finish either The Man of Bronze or Islands of Fire and Water.
6. Publish two more books.
7. Attend a writing festival or something similar as a guest.

End of semester stress relief: on.

Yes. This incredibly sexy and smart character right here. UNF. (Image via Wikipedia)

I have to work tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and everyday between now and New Year’s, of course, and studying will re-commence before the 14th and my last final, but it’s good to have a few days off where I can just watch X-Files and knit a scarf for a friend. (Ahh, X-Files. All the sexual tension among Mulder, Scully, and Skinner. DELICIOUS. Also, watching X-Files while growing up was how I knew that I was not heterosexual. Dear gods, Scully. So gorgeous and smart and just. RAWR.)

Everyone needs relaxing time. I think that’s something that people forget.

Too bad it’s really difficult to do so in today’s current economic climate. My generation will be working until the day we all drop dead from exhaustion. True story.

Anyway. Happy weekend, all.

I tried to write a post that had merit in the shitstorm that is life today.

Somewhere along the way my words ran away from me. They’re tired of working in an oppressive regime, they said. They’re on strike, they said. The machine that they built is no longer working for them, they said. And so they left, until I can write something else.

I’m not sure what that something is.

Regarding Availability of the Paperback

The first print run will be very small. Twenty copies; three of which are going out in the giveaway (which, by the way, you only have until midnight tonight to enter). I am selling the copies directly so you will have to talk to me if you want one. Once I run out of the first print run I’ll do another run; the size of it will be determined by how fast I sell the first 17 copies.

At this time I am not shipping outside Canada and the US. I wish I could but unfortunately shipping costs to other countries are prohibitively expensive and it’s a heavy book.

However I am looking into the possibility of permission-ing Bellica through EspressNet, which is the global network of Espresso Book Machines. What that means: you can go to a bookstore local to you that has an EBM and order a copy of my book. It will be printed within a matter of minutes; you pay for it; a royalty gets sent back to me and we’re both happy.

Once I decipher the literature out there referring to how to do it it will be done and Bellica (and all my other books, when they’re published) will be available worldwide. (A list of EBM locations worldwide.)

I don’t yet have a solid price for Bellica but it’s hovering at $26.99 CAD. I realize it’s a lot to spend on a new author and people have tight wallets these days, which is why I am bringing up the second option.

E-books

I am also releasing Bellica as an ebook for Kindle and e-readers that use the ePub format. The files should be uploaded on Friday and then Gods know how long it’ll take for them to show up for sale on Amazon and GoodReads. I anticipate it will be available in both locations no later than December 1st.

Currently those will be the two places one can buy Bellica. I am looking into Kobo and Nook stores but they’re complex and terrifying.

The price for the ebook will be $9.99 CAD.

So those are your two current options; I hope more will open up in the future. I also really hope that you consider picking up a copy of my book. I’ve worked really hard on it and I want people to read it.

If you live outside the US or Canada and cannot, for whatever reason, pick up an ebook version but still really want a copy…I am working on the answer for this. You may have to wait for a bit but I will find a way to get a copy of Bellica to you.

This is not a person. Got it?

You’re probably reading this post because you think I’m going to blog about how immoral it is for uterus-bearing people to have any sort of determination over their own lives, because I think that a fetus’ life matters more than a grown person’s.

I’m not. That’s not what pro-life means. That’s what people in the anti-choice movement, who have co-opted the term pro-life, mean when they rant about abortion being “murder” and hold up their signs with the pictures of the dead fetuses in an effort to scare people to their way of thinking.

I’m pro-life because I believe that every person has the right to a healthy life. I believe that having a right to a healthy life includes the right to determine one’s own reproductive health.

This doesn’t just mean that I believe that abortions should be offered free and on demand without apology. I do believe that abortions should be offered free and on demand, without apology. But that’s not all I believe.

The “right to choose” isn’t much of a right if you don’t have the ability. It’s very easy to talk about it as “pro-choice” if you’re middle-class, white, or Canadian (with all the free health care, I mean). But, you know, the legal right to get an abortion isn’t going to stop a 13 year old from stabbing herself in the uterus with a pencil if she doesn’t know abortions are available, or if they indeed, are not available anywhere near her.

I see this argument a lot. “Feminists shouldn’t complain because abortion is a legal right, and that has nothing to do with this 13 year old’s choice to stab herself with a pencil!”

This argument is fucking bullshit.

Still not a person.

The right to choose doesn’t just stop at the legislation that allows abortion. It includes the amount of abortion clinics in a given area, the coverage of abortion costs by insurance providers, availability of aftercare services for people who have just had an abortion, and availability of information regarding abortion services to people who might not know otherwise (poor people, teenagers, etc). The right to choose includes pre- and post-natal care for mothers* of all income and age brackets, information on the risks of both carrying a child to term and abortion, funding for pregnancy and childcare medical services, daycare, and a comprehensive system for adoption that doesn’t let kids fall through the cracks. The legal right to choose means precisely jack and shit if abortion options and abortion funding are not in place across the board. The legal right to choose means precisely jack and shit if pregnancy and childcare services and funding are not in place across the board.

And they’re not.

Not here, not in the States. North America does not give its uterus-bearing people the right to choose how to handle their own reproductive health.

If only it were this simple!

So when I say I’m pro-life, I mean I’m pro having enough options and funding that abortion is free and legal for everyone, across the board, in Canada and the States and any other countries where that’s not already the case. I mean I’m pro having enough funding for pregnancy and childcare services for people of every age and income brackets, so that the right to choose really is a right.

When I say I’m pro-life, I mean I find it unconscionable that we live in a world where “pro-life” means “anti-choice”, and where you have to distinguish yourself as pro-choice because there are people who believe that you shouldn’t have that choice. I mean I find it absolutely disgusting that these self-righteous assholes have the gall to say they’re pro-life when they show no regard for the life of the mother after xe brings the unwanted pregnancy to term, nor any regard for the child that’s been born in a world that’s already over-populated, with over-taxed resources.

When I say pro-life, I mean exactly that — because you can’t be pro-life without being pro-choice. If you do not support a person’s right to choose how hir own health is taken care of, then you do not support that person’s life — and taking the moniker pro-life is a lie at best, and a heinous act of anus-facery at worst.

I’m pro-life because I believe that everyone should have the right to determine hir own health.**

*You may notice that throughout this blog post I don’t use terms like women to refer to people who can have birth, but I use the term mothers, which is arguably a gendered word. I do this because while it is not just women who can go through pregnancy, but people of any gender who have a uterus, I do see the people who bear children as mothers. I see the word mother as a role-definition, not a gender-definition. I will be a mother when I bear children, but I am not a woman. It will just be my role.

This is a personal definition of the word. You are free to disagree with me.

**Fetuses are parasites. I won’t argue this with anyone. They are parasites, until they’re born, at which point, well, they’re still parasites because they require more nutrients from the host. Human reproduction is parasitical within our own species. Yes, yes, children are magical and our future, but it doesn’t change the fact that when they start out they are parasites.

Parasites are not people. Fetuses are not people. This is not up for debate.