
Maybe the problem is that one person's comedy gold is another person's crass nightmare, because all of the books I'm about to discuss have earned glowing Amazon and Goodreads reviews that praise their wit and humor. But people, I'm just not seeing it. To me, the characters in the books below come off as either crude or immature — and often both. But maybe that's just me clutching my pearls. Read on to decide for yourself.
The problem started with Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry. The lead character, Amanda Feral, is horribly unlikable, and not only because she's a zombie who subsists on human flesh. She's a cruel, status-conscious fashionista whose disdain for pretty much everyone around her is toxic. She and her zombie chums regularly head to the local welfare office, where they round up the people in line with the promise of job interviews off site, then take them somewhere isolated, slaughter them all, and joke about it later. I think this book is supposed to be a satire of consumer culture and the invisible underclasses, but aren't satires supposed to be ... clever? This just comes off as shallow and mean-spirited. And the toilet humor. Oh, the toilet humor! You see, zombies can't digest food, which means if any of them eat anything solid, they have to wear adult diapers or position themselves over a convenient bucket. This scenario is described in loving detail more than once. It is as gross as it sounds.
Also, and there's no way I can say this without sounding prissy, but the dialogue is unrealistically crude and hard to stomach. Amanda frets about showing up for a date with "a bloody scalp and a pissy cooch." She then clarifies, "That's pissy cooch, not Prissy Koch. She's from Accounting and a real c---." (Full disclosure: I'm not super cool even using the c-word for example purposes, let alone dropping it in casual conversation or frequent internal monologues, the way Amanda and the rest of the characters I'm about to discuss do.)

(To be fair, both books in the Werewolf series rise above my concerns about the tone by the end; Duncan's writing is nimble, and Talulla's got a a series of killer action scenes that make slogging through the descriptions of her writhing around "ass in the air" in the grip of wolf's libido pretty much worthwhile.)

The book is exhausting in its juvenile sex and anatomy talk. All told, the word "vagina" is used 119 times in the book, which clocks in at 260 pages. That's basically one mention every other page. I'd bet there are OB-GYN textbooks with more lingual variety. Hell, even The Vagina Monologues probably contains fewer references. (If you're wondering about gender parity, "penis" logs a mere 74.)
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This is also how the Dowager Countess would react, isn't it? |
In the case of Cocktail Hour and Werewolf/Talulla, I chalked up some of the problems I had with the dialogue and the coarse tone to the fact that both were written by men. I thought maybe they just didn't have an innate ear for the language that women use to speak to one another or the world at large. I did feel sexist in pinning the problem to the gender of the author because I'd be up in arms if someone suggested that women can't pen dialogue for men, but I know of no women who regularly refer to their vaginas as cooches or twats or c---s or roast beef. That feels like a male affectation to me, and a demeaning one at that. Yet Snacks was written by a woman, and it's the worst offender of the bunch. No matter the gender of the author, Claire, Amanda and Talulla are all clearly putting out the message that they're one of the very few cool chicks, and not at all like those other women, who are sad and needy and meant to be mocked. I mean, bitches, amirite?
I then have to ask: Is it just me? Am I a pearl-clutching prig with no sense of humor? Snacks has a 4.6 star rating on Amazon after 800-plus reviews, Amanda Feral appears in a trio of books, and Duncan's been hailed in the mainstream media as a savior of quality genre fiction. When I read the reviewers who swoon over how hilarious and witty these books are, I start to question my taste and my sanity, particularly Henry's and Savic's. (Or perhaps I should approach this topic next week from a different angle: Pants on Fire, or Why You Should Never Trust the Internet for It Is Full of Lies.)
To summarize: Thanks to these books, I've learned that I'm not cool with zombie bucket diarrhea, welfare slaughter, foul-mouthed 4-year-olds, awkward wolf libido, pregnant body shaming, crass t-shirts, sex toy shops in small conservative towns, and using the c-word/twat/cooch/etc. conversationally.
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Available from The Misfit Penguin |
No, you're not a humorless prig. I wouldn't enjoy those books either. Cursing is a real part of the culture, but when overused in a book, it's like a classless neon sign--it distracts and isn't funny. It's like searching road signs for your turnoff and seeing nothing but "Stop and see the THING!!!" "What is the mysterious THING?" "Gifts! Rattlesnake charms!"
ReplyDeleteAs for "shock value" descriptions and words...well, it might work for some people, but it's just another distraction so far as I'm concerned. The protags don't have to be strictly likeable, but I'm not going to spend much time with them if they are gross and classless.
Thank you! And good point about the likable characters. There has to be something there for readers to root for, even when the characters are selfish or shallow or unkind. That's interesting fodder for another post someday. :)
DeleteI think it's funny that we both hated the same books for the same reasons - but drew different conclusions. Rather than wondering what was wrong with me, I just thought all those books were inexcusably bad.
ReplyDeleteHappy Hour of the Damned was dreadful on all fronts - too long, too stupid, too "zomg, I'm clever." The Glen Duncan stuff was written by someone who didn't even read the genre but was reinventing it To Save Us From Genre. Basically, fuck that guy. (Sacre Bleu! Ze 'F' word!)
I didn't get as far as Snacks and Seduction, because Romance, but it sounds like I dodged the bullet.
Also, please DO buy that shirt because it's totally awesome.
I think we can all agree that Glen Duncan can fuck right off. God, that man is so smug about his literature rising above *sniff* genre conventions. Like I wrote, he does have some clever turns of phrase, but it all boils down to the basic vamp vs. wolf issues.
DeleteNever, ever look up the comic Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose. To mix my metaphores, it makes Nic Cage look like Kristen Stewart.
ReplyDeleteYou ... you own that, don't you?
DeleteI haven't read any of these [thanking my lucky stars here] but they sound like garbage. I don't think you are a humorless prig, I think the two male authors were going for funny male oriented erotica and couldn't find their way out of the tiny box they put themselves in. As for the other one, gah, it doesn't sound in the least appealing. I peruse the humorous romance lists on GR all the time and I am so happy that you found it first and I am now warned.
ReplyDeleteBwahahahahahahaha...another awesome post!I needed the laugh after the conclusion of Spring Break, and you delivered :-D
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am not a fan of crude rumor and rotten language in literature (or life in general) either. I never find anything redeeming or relatable about one-dimensional "shock value" characters. Great article, thanks for taking one for the team and reading those books so we don't have to.
ReplyDelete