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

CAUGHT IN (Y)A MOSH

HEAVY METAL AND ME

It started at recess in 7th grade, when my closest friend would split ear buds with me and play Metallica tapes as we avoided social interaction with our peers. I stared at the skulls he painted on the Walkman and the image of Iron Maiden's Eddie taped into the player window, and thought, THIS IS REBELLION. At first it seemed like a wall of noise, because he usually got the bud channel with the guitar solos. After a few tries, metal started to make sense to me. I requested mix tapes, started pooling my pocket change to buy used tapes at the record store down the street from my house. By high school, I was a metal head at heart, and could talk for hours on end about the nuances of Steve Harris's bass tone or the stylistic shift in Metallica's music after Cliff Burton died, or plead with the more extreme dudes to accept Anthrax into the pantheon of greatness, because they deserve it, dammit. I'm just happy I didn't dress that way, because nothing says "please beat the crap out of me as I walk home through bad neighborhoods" like a Megadeth shirt, black jeans, spike bracelets, and stringy hair adorning your 120-pound gangling frame. I'd rush home every day to blast my favorites on the big stereo in the living room before my sister and her boyfriend came home and kicked me out so they could (shudder) "be together". Gross. 

Metal helped get me through the high school doldrums and long, hot summers. It helped me make friends at my age level and in the adult world when I worked in a restaurant kitchen, blasting Sepultura with the sous chef as we prepped the dinner specials. Hell, it even put me to sleep, as I'd throw in Pantera as I went to sleep, but at a low volume; somehow through his legendary, house-shaking snoring, my dad could hear music through walls that I could barely discern from five feet away. 

I still dig metal, and probably always will. It's been helpful in getting to know students who think they're unreachable because of their interests, and makes for debate material with these boys and girls, which I always win, until they get into the Scandinavian black metal stuff, which I just can't get behind. Sorry, my northern brethren. But hey, let's have some tea and discuss the finer points of Black Sabbath any time. 

These guys warped me, and I gave them lots of my money.

HEAVY METAL AND YOU

A guide to ruining your life

ANYHOO, I read the Heavy Metal & You by Christopher Krovatin, for which I had high hopes. In one sense, Krovatin delivers thoughtful analysis of metal music and translates the scary rage into something outsiders can understand. I have had to slowly introduce many a lady to metal, with mixed results, but I can identify with protagonist Sammy's passion for the genre. HOWEVER, I just can't get with Slayer and Deicide, his two favorite bands. I tried with Slayer, but after about four songs of yelling about blood and Satan and visceral accounts of how you are to be dismembered, I'm ready to move onto something more stimulating, like putting my head in C-clamp. So, the music part is good. My problem with this book? THE ACTUAL STORY.

Argh. It moves so slowly and seems empty. There is some revelation near the end that is deeper than I expected given the setup, and Sammy and Melissa learn a lot about themselves, and relationships. For that, this is a worthy read, but it takes a while to get there. Krovatin cleverly uses the play, pause, rewind, and fast forward button symbols to indicate time at page breaks, which assists in navigation and makes this feel like an audio book or movie, and the chapter titles are all recognizable songs. Sammy has some rage issues, which are explored between bouts of heavy petting, and while he is a stereotypical metalhead on the outside, at least he's well-read and somewhat intelligent, of which we in the metal world are not usually accused. 

Without giving away too much, this book is a mixed bag, but it's a promising first effort, and because he knows his metal so well, he has an authentic voice when rendering ideas about into a fictional context. He has subsequent books out there, which I'll eventually try. If the Goodreads page for this book is any indication, he's gotten through to many people, and that's what it's all about. 

HEAVY COMPLAINTS AND ME

In all, this book is fine, I guess. It just doesn't have the right oomph to make it to the upper echelon. And now for my list of SEVEN DEADLY COMPLAINTS:

1. I don't smoke, but I know enough that quitting smoking is extremely difficult. Yet, this guy Sammy seems to go cold turkey for his love interest without a problem. An angst-riddled metalhead who doesn't have a nicotine craving worth mentioning? As my boy Downtown Clay Davis would say: 

2. Sammy angrily stalks the streets of NYC with Slayer blasting in his ear holes, but somehow gets Anthrax lyrics stuck in his head and equates it to his situation. Me, being an authority on metal, can tell you that it's impossible to have a coherent thought while listening to Slayer. 

3. I know there exist young metal-loving men who go to expensive prep schools in Manhattan, but when you're trying to create a story for the extreme music set, most of whom probably don't have that upbringing, that's a classic case of misplaced setting. 

4. Rookie mistake: the standard classic book plant is executed poorly. The back of the book says Krovatin was an undergrad when he wrote Heavy Metal & You, so it stands to reason that he'd stumble when inserting references to The Catcher in the Rye. Instead of finding some kind of deep connection to Holden Caulfield, Sammy breaks some windows and realizes that he's acting JUST LIKE CAULFIELD. Does this mean I could put this book down and READ A BETTER VERSION OF THIS STORY? I guarantee no one will be clamoring to read Krovatin's sealed stories, decades after his death. 

5. Technology moves fast, and by spending so much time describing the finer points of creating a mix compilation (High Fidelity did it, and did it better*) on CD, Krovatin is already alienating his younger readers, who probably use them for coasters. If he'd checked his email using AOL I'd have chucked this book in the neighbor's burn pile. 

*I could go into the differing theories on creating a killer compilation here, but I'd have to start a new blog titled JB Yells About Your Crappy Mix. 

6. The protagonist's favorite band is Deicide. Deicide sucks. 

7. Krovatin gives such short shrift to Sammy alienating his friends that their eventual conflict and resolution feels forced, shoehorned in to give complete resolution to the boy + new girl = boy's friends are sad trope. This is the second most important part of the story and it receives about four rushed pages of treatment near the very end. 

8. I'm not fond of Sammy being a stereotypical high school metal dude who smokes, drinks, does drugs, and pukes all over his friends. I was a high school metal dude, and didn't do any of those things until college. Just as there are eight items on this promised list of seven, I'm the exception to the rule!

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

A book advertised as a bike trip murder mystery, but turns out to be a coming of age novel about acknowledging change. Let's just say this book has a great title of double meaning, and HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT!

BORING STUFF

Heavy Metal And You

Christopher Krovatin

2005 PUSH