Depressed? Want to be MORE depressed? Read this book.

AMATEUR HOUR AT THE Y.A. CORRAL

Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, said in some interview that making a television show in which the characters actually undergo profound change was a challenge and a blessing for him, as it is uncommon in television. It takes but a cursory examination of the content of scripted TV to see that it is a rare undertaking. Some shows take small steps with characters, which can be believable and satisfying, but often the changes are forced by a deus ex, often in response to ratings or a race to the finish of a season or series. Breaking Bad was able to draw out the changes in its characters and thoroughly examine them, which was brilliant, wrenching, and sometimes frustrating; the end result, however, is worth the time. 

Not so with this latest book. One imagines that the novel is the perfect medium for recording the process of transformation in protagonists and their perceptions and relationships. In A More Deserving Blackness (I thought at first it was by Malcolm X), Anglea Wolbert's two main characters circle around their personal tragedies and dysfunctionally come together through manufactured arguments and misunderstandings.

tl:dr - I made the mistake of dumpster diving in the free YA books on the Kindle.

Plot: Bree, a 19-year old rape victim, moves a couple towns over to live with her sister and start senior year of high school. Oh, and she doesn't speak, as she's been emotionally trapped in her rape experience for two years. She meets Logan, the hunky social outcast with a mysterious past. He yells a lot and has anger issues stemming from his own personal tragedy, yet Bree feels safe and comfortable with him. CAN SHE SUMMON THE COURAGE TO DROP HER DEFENSES AND ACCEPT HIS LOVE??????? 

Not him.

Answer: Sort of. It starts with the old new-girl-in-town trope, which leads to a sexual assault and Logan heroically swooping in. From there, it's dozens of pages of what could have been a fascinating meditation on the psychology of rape victims and what they experience afterwards. Wolbert ALMOST gets us there at times with Bree blaming herself, the persistent nightmares, self-harm, and some discussion of the selective mutism, but she's more concerned about getting to the intercourse, of which there is a lot, making the book's cover image all the more disturbing. From there it's all downhill into standard erotica/romance of two "broken" people finding comfort in one another, and any hopes for character development is gone. I suppose what's most irritating is that these people allow their tragedies to define them, and as a result do not become dynamic characters, but rather, caricatures of rape and abuse victims who are perpetually stuck in the second stage of grief. (Anger. It's ANGER. HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT?! AAAARRRGGHHH). So, between bouts of sex in which the author was too bashful to write "penis," "vagina," or "lumpy," we get Logan, who is up front about his past and how it affects him (yelling, throwing things, force feeding Bree), and Bree, who can't - emotionally or physically - tell Logan what happened to her. We get bits and pieces of it throughout the narrative and it's easy to fill in the blanks, no matter how far-fetched. Now, I know that the act itself is about power over another person, and the helplessness the victim experiences, but the statistics don't bear out the commonality of being raped by a stranger, at gunpoint, near Ferris wheel. So, when Bree finds that Logan has a gun, and later when he takes Bree to a carnival, these are triggers (tee hee) for her, which is the among the best the book has to offer in the aforementioned area of psychological consequences. Then, Wolbert ruins it by making them have sex right after the gun thing, and then having Logan beaten to death at the carnival. 

Somehow, I'm making this book sound way more eventful than it actually is. There's so much angst and manufactured conflict that this descends quickly into melodrama. My reading experience for this book went something like this:

1. Read half a chapter

2. Moan in boredom

3. Check my overall percentage of book read: 5%.

4. Read half of the remaining half of the chapter

5. Slam head against wall

6. Check overall percentage: 6%

7. Notice editing errors that should have been caught, like "you're shirt," and a botched reference to Bree's own personality as "Mr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde." I stared at that for an hour in disbelief. MISTER Jekyll and DOCTOR Hyde? How do you mess that up? 

Another note: Despite the YA designation, none of the sex is well-thought out; the characters fall right into it without any explicit permission being granted. Not that you should have to formally request to sensually smooch someone,* but it would be nice to see consent. I don't recall anything about them using protection, either, which isn't surprising considering they spend their time in health class eyeballing each other instead of paying attention. Replace the Young Adult label with young ADULT XXX and you might get somewhere. 

*My attorney always advises me to get a double-notarized document before pursuing such shenanigans.  

I'm truly astounded by the glut of 4-5 star ratings for this book on Amazon and Goodreads, which is now $2.99; I'M SO LUCKY I FOUND IT FREE (SARCASM!!!1!!). I suppose in comparison to the utter garbage peddled for free on the Kindle store, this is a masterpiece. I have a much more rigorous basis for rating, you know, like, does this make any sense whatsoever. One reviewer wrote in glowing terms of the character development (WRONG), another praised Wolbert from keeping the drama from being soapy (WRONGER), and that inside this dark tale there is plenty of optimism (ON THE VERY LAST PAGE). Some more astute reviewers, WHO STILL GAVE THIS BOOK FOUR STARS, noted that there are so many loose ends to this book, and they're absolutely right. Plot points that go nowhere. Characters who appear once or twice for no apparent reason. Some vague references to a kind of telepathic bond Logan and Bree share, as their tragedies occurred on the same date. Hell, I don't know. By that point I was reading the backs of cereal boxes that were more entertaining. 

Have a I learned my lesson? Will I stop reading the free YA books from the Kindle store? Will I probably soon upload video of me dramatically reciting some of the most hideous prose I find? Will I stop asking myself questions with easy answers? Last one: Should you read this book? HAHAHAHA NO.

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

A graphic novel that's sat on my shelf, waiting for four years to be read. Sorry book, let's just say if I said I WAS SORRY, I'D BE LION!

BORING STUFF

A More Deserving Blackness

Angela Wolbert

2014 Some company dumb enough to publish it