strange and random happenstance

The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward
Published by: Entangled: Gallery Books
Publication Date: July 11th, 2023
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

St. Ambrose School for Girls has two types of girls, the ones who play sports, and the ones who dress like getting a date is their sport even though there are no boys around to compete over. Sarah Taylor's black wardrobe and matte dyed black hair are tailor made to repel either type of girl. It's better to be the one who shuts the door than the one who gets the door shut in their face. But that doesn't mean she won't be subjected to petty pranks inflicted for fun by Queen Bee Greta Stanhope and her backup band of suck-ups. What looks like minor injuries to others have the potential to be bombs that do structural damage, creating ragged gaps in Sarah's ability to function that she doesn't have the resources to patch. Because Sarah is walking a tightrope. She's on lithium to keep herself regulated, to make sure she doesn't try to eat an entire bottle of Tylenol again. She has been diagnosed as bipolar with mania and when she crashes she crashes hard. So while St. Ambrose might be a fresh start it is also a proving ground. Thankfully she has an ally, her roommate, Ellen "Strots" Strotsberry, a superstar athlete whose parents' funds the school will do anything to keep flowing, even looking the other way as Strots smokes in her room while extinguishing the butts in her soda bottles. While Strots might be sporty, the fact that she is a lesbian makes her an outsider. Her and Sarah are different, there is no place for them in this world and that means that they must band together. And Strots has had her run-ins with Greta. But Greta will soon will be dethroned as her battered body is found on school grounds. Everyone had a reason to want Greta gone, but soon the Hot RA, Nick Hollis, becomes the prime suspect. Nick has helped Sarah and she doesn't want to believe that he is capable of this crime so she starts digging. The danger though is that it brings out the worst in her, sleuthing is food for the caged beast of her illness, the possibilities and permutations nothing but raw meat dangled just outside of the bars, enticing and somewhat necessary for its survival. She has to trust her instincts but what happens when your illness has taken away all your credibility?

This is a different kind of dark academia. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is about the stifling and deadly environment of a girls boarding school. And for those who doubt just how dangerous teenage girls are, well, you obviously weren't raised a girl. There is no group crueler or more deadly. Doubt me, watch Yellowjackets sometime, it's more documentary than drama. And thrust into this hive is poor Sarah. Sarah is compelling on so many levels. I can see why some people didn't like this book, being in Sarah's head is a lot to handle. But at the same time it's fascinating, there are parts of her that are like any teenage girl, the rambling intrusive thoughts we all get, the loves and lusts. Who amongst us hasn't fallen for a teacher or TA or RA? As a young student it's usually a safe crush, because the majority of humans aren't creeps willing to exploit that. But this is dark academia... So of course the Hot RA is going to be a creep. She really should have guessed though with him letting her read his copy of American Psycho. I mean. I think that's a red flag. Though it's Sarah's thought processes surrounding Nick that I so relate to, how she wants Greta to want him and never have him. How Nick had become a talisman that recalibrated her life. Haven't you gotten to class early or stayed late just to see the object of your affection? And then, when reality reasserts itself and it's not the object of your affection that you miss but the fantasies as much as if you had had a relationship. What you ascribe to said crush versus what they really are. The scales fall from your eyes and you see the truth. But for Sarah truth is hard. It's not just that she's an unreliable narrator because she wants to deceive, she's an unreliable narrator because her brain chemistry makes her so. The meds that keep her functional also take away something from her. It's a balancing act to find the real her, the her she wants to be, and what her meds will let her be. And it's the meds actually that I find the most unrealistic sticking point. This takes place in the early nineties, so Sarah is about two years older than me. While I didn't go to a boarding school we did have two overnight school trips. I had allergy medicine that I had to take as we were at an outdoor education center. The meds were kept under such tight control they had to be kept in a locked drawer in a locked room and you're telling me that Sarah was allowed to monitor and keep lithium on her person!?! Yeah. I don't buy. That would have been given to her daily by the school nurse. I buy everything else, but this? Nope. It's too much of a liability for the school. Slightly more dangerous than an RA with previous form.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: American Psycho, Bipolar, Boarding School, Dark Academia, Greta Stanhope, Hot RA, Jessica Ward, Medication, Murder, Queen Bee, Sarah Taylor, Summer School, The St. Ambrose School for Girls, Unreliable Narrator, Yellowjackets

I was a little late to Gossip Girl. I had a teenage cousin addicted to the show and my mom got her all the Cecily von Ziegesar books for her way back in 2007 right after the show premiered. So I wasn't ignorant, I just hadn't tuned in yet. Which happened about a year later and I was hooked. While many of the actors have gone onto bigger careers, I never really connected with anyone, but Penn Badgley's post Gossip Girl evolution just tickles me. But I connected to the stories. They were ape shit crazy. They were eighties soap operas on crack. They turned it up to eleven and I watched it all the way to the very end, miscarriages, stalkings, affairs, divorces, royals, incest, I could never get enough, even if the ending literally makes no sense. And Kristen Bell was the wry narrator throughout, and this was at the height of my Kristen Bell/Veronica Mars obsession which the revival destroyed. Therefore I was excited when HBO Max announced they were bringing it back. Who wouldn't want more over-the-top Upper East Siders? Especially given that Kristen Bell was returning. And seeing as it's a continuation not a reboot it's within the same universe so there were chances at many a cameo from the original cast. But the show premiered and it was lackluster to say the least. Or as my brother bluntly says, it was bad. The concept of the teachers running Gossip Girl was clever, but they needed to go darker, like Cecily von Siegsar when she turned her first Gossip Girl book into an American Psycho parody. No morals, go fully amoral. Plus the kids... Um, has a show been ever this badly cast? None of these actors have any charisma, which love or hate the original cast you couldn't deny they had IT! You don't like or care for a single one of these new characters, and as for the love triangle with Obie, he's actually a black hole of charisma. He sucks your will to live every time he's on screen. Oh and don't get me started on how unrealistic these teenagers are, seducing teachers, acting like stereotypes of old Jewish talent agents, behaving like married couples celebrating their silver wedding anniversary who have to spice up their marriage with a throuple? Yes, adding this all up makes me wonder why I kept watching, and the answer is I'm a completest and there were bright spots, Laura Benanti, Luke Kirby, Lucy Punch, and of course Kristen Bell. Though again, the way they underutilized the narrator feature and made it mushy with too much wallpaper music is a major flaw. But there was a spark on the horizon, as in Georgina Sparks! She kind of saved it for two episodes, but not really. Because Kate's motivation for running Gossip Girl shifted so dramatically in season two that the show literally stopped making sense. What's more I finally found the perfect analogy to describe this new iteration, it's a show made up entirely of Vanessas; AKA not just the worst character in the history OG Gossip Girl but in the history of TV for a multitude of sins. Thankfully this "continuation" has been discontinued.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: American Psycho, And the Emmy Goes To, Cecily von Ziegesar, Georgina Sparks, Gossip Girl, HBO Max, Kristen Bell, Laura Benanti, Lucy Punch, Luke Kirby, Michelle Trachtenberg, Penn Badgley, Vanessa Abrams

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: March 6th, 1991
Format: Paperback, 401 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Patrick Bateman and his friends are the epitome of yuppiedom. Young, highly successful investment bankers, they wear the right designer labels, they are seen at the right restaurants, and they drink the right bottled water. Bateman could be any one of them, only he harbors something darker behind the veneer that is the true depth of those around him. He satisfies a violent blood lust killing women and men. They might have offended him, they might have merely looked at him the wrong way, or they might have a better business card. As Bateman fuels this dark need his desire to kill comes sooner and sooner. But with everyone living in their own chemically aided hermetically sealed bubble who would even notice his crimes?

American Psycho is one of those books that everyone knows about. Like classics that people brag about reading, I'm not sure how many of those people have actually read this book. The bookseller at Barnes and Noble who checked me out and who has literally never said more then a few words to me ever (even more impressive when you think how often I go to the bookstore) got all gushy about this book and Bret Easton Ellis, but with the caveat that it is violent. He wasn't wrong. This book is not an easy read. The violence and culture of the time make it hard to swallow. Yet there's something about the underlying message lambasting our culture that calls to us and makes the book still relevant. Why else would there not only be a movie but a musical, which actually makes more sense then you'd think, and a contemporary television show about an older Bateman in the works? Because Patrick Bateman is the zeitgeist of the late 80s in New York, whose afterimage can sadly still be seen today.

There's a fine line between camp and horror that Ellis walks in this book. American Psycho succeeds when it's subtle. Before we witness Bateman kill firsthand it's scenes like the one at the laundromat when he's trying to explain through belligerence and a language barrier the importance of getting his sheets whiter than white. Of course the sheets bear the hallmarks of the previous night's killing, but having not seen the killing the interaction is laced with dark humor. Not to mention my favorite scene where he decides his colleague must be killed for having a nicer business card. Being suggestive works far more than being graphic, and it's not long before Ellis is graphic. This is when the book shifts, and in my mind, starts to fall apart. Our imagination can be pretty horrific with just implying what happened, but Ellis, he is one sick fellow for some of the imagery he conjures, especially what "happens" to Bateman's ex from college.

Yet one does wonder how deliberate this downward spiral is. It's clear that Bateman's killing spree is ramping up, and therefore it does make sense to go gorier and grosser as he unravels, but it makes for a less readable story. The unraveling also raises the question of how much of this is real? Was Bateman so sick that he hallucinated it all? How else would Paul Owen be seen after Bateman killed him? I have a theory about Paul, but that will hold for a minute. It's the questioning of Owen still being alive as well as Bateman's seeming ability to get away with it all that makes one think perhaps it didn't happen. With the amount of drugs Bateman takes and looking to scenes like the chase with the helicopter, one can see how the "it's all in his mind" theory is plausible. And is it any less horrific to know that these are just his thoughts? For my money, I think he was a murderer, but I do like the ambiguity.

Going back to the zeitgeist and Bateman's mindset, I think American Psycho is a scathing attack on our culture during the late 80s. It's a flawed attack, but it gets it's point across admirably. One of the reasons it's hard to get into this book is the sheer number of designer brands Bateman lists. Every article of clothing in the whole book from Bateman's own wardrobe to everyone else he encounters is stripped down to their socks and shoes. After awhile you think that perhaps Ellis could lighten it up because he's gotten the point across, but he doesn't. I think that the fact that he doesn't give it up shows even stronger the relentless consumerism in our society. But it's not just the buying of more and more designer labels, it's also the lifestyle that goes with the designer labels, the physique that must be maintained, the music you listen to, everything is detailed to the nth degree and it shows how vapid and shallow our culture can be at it's very worse.

But not only does American Psycho attack our habits, it attacks what these habits make of us. Throughout the book Bateman is again and again mistaken for other investment bankers. He is interchangeable with his colleagues. Indistinguishable. Hence Paul Owen also being interchangeable and being able to be seen from beyond the grave.  The only thing that really separates Bateman is his blood lust. He is just a cog in the machine that is our culture. When he finally confesses his crimes they are viewed as a joke. Not only that, but the man he confesses to doesn't even realize he is Bateman! Once again he could be anyone. Everyone is only concerned about themselves and their problems, nothing else is relevant or even absorbed into their consciousness. This anonymity gives Bateman great freedom in being able to commit his crimes, but reflected back on us, this interchangeability means that Bateman might not be the "American Psycho" of the title. What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: America, American Psycho, Brand Names, Bret Easton Ellis, Business Cards, Consumerism, Horror, Interchangeable, Killing, Murder, Patrick Bateman, Paul Owen, Yuppie

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer (Necromancer Book 1) by Lish McBride
Published by: Square Fish
Publication Date: May 8th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 343 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Sam is nothing much. He's a skateboarding slacker who wasn't cut out for college and eeks out a living at the local fast food joint with his friends, most of whom crash in his minuscule apartment. Everything changes when he breaks a tail light of a swanky car in the parking lot during a heated game of spud hockey, wherein potatoes can do serious damage to vintage cars if you're a crappy shot. The owner of the car, Douglas, is not pleased, but even more, shocked when he encounters Sam, who has more in common with Douglas then he could ever imagine. Sam might not know it yet, but he's a Necromancer, and so is Douglas. Necromancers don't really reside near each other or play well others, and Douglas is quick to make this point to Sam when he delivers the head of Sam's friend Brooke to his shitty apartment's door. Sam now has to figure out the truth that has been hidden from him his whole life and hope that he will survive his run in with Douglas, as well as other varieties of beasties he thought only lived in science fiction.

It's not a good sign when the best part of a book is an amusing title. But even the title loses a bit of it's luster when the song title gag is repeated at the start of every chapter. I had not heard of Lish McBride when I went to one of the tour stops of the Fierce Reads Tour back in 2012. I will admit I was solely there to stalk Marissa Meyer, she of the Lunar Chronicles, but all four of the authors present made a good impression, Lish was perhaps the most memorable. She was amusing, sarcastic, laid back, and had an obvious love of sleep, which she was needing desperately, and that's something I could seriously relate to at the time being in the middle of an amazingly busy time in my life, so much so that even taking the day off to go to an author signing resulted in me getting hives. The event had me wanting to read all the authors books instantly, but Lish's more then any of the others.

I thought to myself, if she could just capture part of herself on the page then it would be a truly awesome read. Sadly the only place I could sense Lish's personality was in the "Go Fish: Questions for the Author" extra at the back of the book. The book wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was just flat. It felt like the book had had the soul drained out of it. I'm not sure how it got to this state, perhaps through over editing as Lish's personality was systematically stripped out of the book so that it lacked anything recognizable from her. Sometimes too much editing can have this effect... but for such a memorable person she has written a very forgettable book that was Reaper meets Mercy Thompson with the head in the box from season two of Deadwood and the job prospects of Being Human with a little Kevin Smith and a few moments of unforgettable weirdness. Hello zombie panda!

The writing style of the book also really grated on me. I have issues when authors are being "cute" or "clever" with their narration. In other words, when they tend to waffle back and forth between 1st and 3rd person. For every instance that it works, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, there are hundreds of instances where it fails, I'm looking at you Scalzi and that crap ending to Redshirts! Here it fails. Not on the epicness of the Scalzi scale, but it still doesn't work. The only way for this technique to really work is for it to flow with the story, but Lish seemed to be forcing it. The switching up felt like it was a writing exercise, like homework, and seeing as this book started out as part of her thesis to graduate with an MFA in fiction... that's just what it is. Homework. Do you like reading other people's homework? I didn't think so.

Yet I think, seeing as this is a first book, I could have been forgiving, I could have overlooked a lot of the flaws if it weren't for Douglas. Every book does need an antagonist. They're the stock villain that our hero must fight and whose downfall we root for. But just because you're the bad guy doesn't mean that you can just skate through the book. Oh no! A bad guy has to be just as dynamic for a book to be balanced. And I don't think my hatred of Douglas is based on the fact that his sections of the book where the ones in third person... though that did annoy me. On second thought though, just the fact that the villain has his own chapters annoys the hell out of me because it takes away the mystery knowing what he's up to, knowing his motives, and knowing how he plans to mess with Sam. In fact that might be just a general issue with this book, not having mystery makes you not in a rush to get to that last page but slowly amble in a way that you could stop or start at any time.

But really, I meant to be talking about Douglas. He's unrepentant evil. There is nothing interesting about him. He is not compelling, he is not dynamic, he is just evil. Sometimes the most fun in a book is gotten in uncovering a back story, finding a grain of goodness, where good turned evil. But the only person that Douglas reminded me of was Patrick Bateman in American Psycho... a comparison that isn't in Douglas's favor. Because of the structure of American Psycho, by being in Bateman's mind we get a depth, even amongst the evil. Douglas was just flat, blah, evil. Evil for evils sake and nothing more. I just hated him outright. In fact, I hated him so much I didn't want to read any part of the book he was in. If you're reading a book the worst thing that could happen is to have a character that makes the book so unenjoyable that you would rather put the book down then read another line about them. While Sam was meh in my opinion, just a few lines in a Douglas chapter and I was begging for Sam's return! I just hope Douglas stays dead, but via horror conventions, I know he's not. Douglas is truly sapping my will to pick up Necromancing the Stone...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: American Psycho, Being Human, Deadwood, Fierce Reads, Hold Me Closer Necromancer, John Scalzi, Kevin Smith, Lish McBride, Marissa Meyer, Mercy Thompson, Necromancer, Necromancing the Stone, Reaper