Janel Brubaker's Blog, page 5

Movie Review – Poor Things

I haven’t done a movie review in a while. SPOILER ALERT. I give away so many things, so if you haven’t seen the film and you wish to, maybe wait to read this until you have.

I recently went to see Poor Things starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Defoe. It was directed by Yorgos Lathimos, the same director of the film The Favorite. I enjoyed The Favorite a lot when I watched it, and the trailers for Poor Things looked so interesting, so I decided to go to see the film. I went into it knowing that it would be strange and probably very weird. But I was intrigued by the storyline and the characters and, being a huge fan of Emma Stone’s work and wanting to support a film with Mark Ruffalo since he has been outspoken in supporting Palestine for years, I was excited to see it.

The movie was extremely weird, but not in a bad way. It was refreshing to see something that was not only a new and original idea and not just a reboot or a sequel or a Disney or Marvel film (no hate to those who love those movies but I am positively exhausted by them), but also it was refreshing to see a film take risks in its artistic expression. Lathimos doesn’t hold back. He takes the film to the very edge of weird and then barely pushed it over. And while some of the choices didn’t land very well for me, I still appreciate that Lathimos wasn’t scared to do something so different than what’s currently selling at the box office.

The things I loved:

This movie is stunning. The use of color is tremendously effective. The costume design is unique and makes the viewer feel as though they, too, like Bella, are thrust into a world that is both familiar and strange simultaneously. We know we’ve been here before, and yet we feel disjointed and caught off guard. And while something like this would normally make me feel too jumbled to really invest in the story, the sensation actually works to heighten the urgency of every scene and every conversation.

The acting is positively superb. Stone and Ruffalo have some outstanding chemistry on screen that is unmatched for me in recent films. So much of what these characters do and say is so very strange and odd and uncomfortable, and yet Stone and Ruffalo lean into them, commit themselves entirely to their respective roles, and deliver performances that are definitely worthy of Oscar nominations. Especially Ruffalo, who I have never seen in a film like this. And yet he fits in just as well as Stone.

The dialogue in this movie is strong. It’s funny, it’s clever, it’s stylish, it’s harsh, it’s raw, and it completes the aesthetic of the film which, in my opinion, is hard to accomplish successfully, but this film does it. There is so much philosophy written into these conversations that don’t come across as philosophical right away. It kind of builds a tension between what is and is not spoken, and it allows the viewer to place their own significance on what’s said and what’s not.

The things I struggled with:

The story is about a young woman called Bella Baxter who, after an event, loses her memory and her ability to function as an adult. Willem Defoe’s character, a man called Godwin, is her rehabilitation physician helping her learn to walk, talk, eat, and exist as an adult woman in a pseudo-Victorian England. Because Bella has no recollections of her life before the event, she longs to see the world, to learn, and to create experiences. She meets a lawyer called Duncan, Ruffalo’s character, and he takes her to see the world. His interest in her is entirely sexual, and as she has the mentality of a teenager by the time they leave London, pretty much all she wants to do is have sex, too.

There is, therefore, a tremendous amount of sex and nudity in this film. And while I appreciate the film’s acknowledgement that women are also sexual creatures capable of enjoying carnal pleasures, I was somewhat miffed by the film’s focus on her sexual exploits over every other interest she has. Sure, at times she’s seen reading and later in the film she’s learned to speak French and so we know that she has invested time in these other interests, but sex is the focus. No part of Bella’s character development exists outside of sex and sensuality. Not on screen, anyway. And that is something I take issue with.

There is another aspect of this film that was both intriguing and upsetting, and that was the ways in which men are portrayed. Almost every single man she encounters wants to possess her in some way. Godwin, Defoe’s character, is the doctor responsible for her rehabilitation and, out of a desire to keep her safe, he is extremely controlling and limiting with what she is allowed to do and where she is allowed to go. To the point that he actually manufactures a betrothal between Bella and one of his students, a young man named Max, whom Godwin knows is in love with Bella and is, therefore, easy to manipulate. Bella is not consulted about this. She is not given a choice.

This is Godwin’s attempt to keep tabs on Bella. He has his own medical research that he has to keep up on, meaning he can’t be with Bella all the time. Max can. Max is easy to manipulate. It is, essentially, a prison that is being offered to her and she begins to feel trapped. So much so that when she meets Duncan, Ruffalo’s character, she sees in him an opportunity to flee her captivity and see the world. And that is exactly what she does.

Duncan is the person with whom she first experiences actual intercourse. She has masturbated before and enjoys that, but she has not had intercourse with another person until Duncan. If I remember correctly, she calls it “angry jumping,” or something like that. And Duncan tells her once they’ve gone to Lisbon that she’s “not allowed to fall in love with him,” and indeed, it is unclear if Bella even knows what being in love is. And it’s irrelevant in any case because she is not the one in danger of catching feelings. It is, in fact, Duncan who falls in love with her and asks her to marry him.

She tells him that she doesn’t know how to answer his proposal considering that she is already betrothed to Max. This pisses Duncan off. It’s unclear if it’s the rejection of his proposal that enrages him, or if it’s the fact that her hand is spoken for by another man, but either way, he spends the rest of their time together sulking and pitying himself. This is yet another example of men attempting to take advantage of Bella’s naivete, her ignorance of the world and of what marriage means as an institution.

They end up in Paris where Duncan abandons her after stealing all of her money. She has no other recourse, and so she takes a job a sex worker in a Parisian pleasure house. Here she learns that not all men want their partners to enjoy sexual acts. And while this does nothing to temper her own sexual desires, it does show her how cruel and selfish people can be. These are men who, for however short or long, seek to possess her for their own gains, and she is genuinely not given a choice in who she beds, or who watches her while she beds them. There is one particular scene that is especially disturbing where a father brings his two sons and has them watch has he has sex with Bella. This is, he says, to teach them the ways of sexual love. The eldest boy cannot be any older than fourteen.

Bella receives word that Godwin is ill and dying, and so she returns to London to be with him in his last days. She decides that she has had enough adventures and wants to make a new life for herself. She wants to be a doctor and Godwin, thrilled, leavers her his surgery. She also is reintroduced to Max, the young man who is still in love with her, and they have an honest conversation about her life as a sex worker. She asks him if he can “forgive her whoring,” or if he, like Duncan, will be jealous and angry. Max tells her that her body is her own to do with as she likes and that he doesn’t feel jealous, but rather envies any man who gets to spend such intimate time with her. It is a sweet scene that results in Bella asking Max to marry her.

The day of the wedding arrives and before the ceremony can be completed, a new character is introduced. He is called the General and he is the man Bella was married to before the event that caused her to lose her memory. She does not remember anything about him at all, but it’s clear he will not let her go. She chooses to go with him back to his home (a choice that feels extremely against her character; we, the audience, are supposed to see this as her curiosity winning out; she has had a past life that she doesn’t remember and she wants to see what it is, but even that just doesn’t feel like a strong enough explanation for why she chooses to go with him) and quickly finds that he is a cruel, heartless sadist. He, believing her “sexual hysteria” to be a danger to their marriage, decides to hire a surgeon to remove her clitoris and the glands. She ends up telling him she won’t have the surgery and after a struggle, she overpowers him and gains her freedom.

The movie ends with Bella married to Max and living in Godwin’s house. And while this seems at first to be a satisfactory conclusion to this story, it smacks in the face of everything else in the film that is feminist and anti-misogyny. She wants to be a doctor and Max is helping her accomplish this, but at no point in the film does Bella express any desire to be married. She does not express any love for Max. She is never shown having sex with Max. And moreover, throughout the film all of her choices are rooted in her refusal to conform to convention and traditionalism. So to have the movie end with her in a traditional, conventional marriage is utterly disappointing.

And I am not saying that putting her in a marriage with Max is, in and of itself, misogynistic, but it does reek of this idea that, even the most independent of women, even those that never once express a desire for marriage or any kind of romantic relationship, can’t be really happy or fulfilled unless they have a husband at the end. And what the fuck kind of nonsense is that? And yes, I recognize the movie takes place in a kind of pseudo-Victorian period, but it is also very clearly not a historically accurate representation of that period, either. So using what would have been expected at that time as a justification for this creative choice is, in my opinion, an absolute cop-out.

Is it really so bad to portray an independent woman who genuinely has no desire for marriage or motherhood? Is it really the worst thing to show her happy on her own? For fuck’s sake, it is 2023. Almost 2024. No, there is nothing wrong with a woman wanting a more traditional life. The whole point of intersectional feminism is to acknowledge that women are complicated and multifaceted and they are capable of desire a myriad of things. And sure, one could argue that the fact she’s studying to be a doctor at the end of the film is a sign of women being shown to want a career and domesticity. And if Bella had, at any point in the film, expressed even the smallest interest in being a wife, I’d have no issue.

But she doesn’t. Ever. At all. The whole premise of the film is explicitly based on her fleeing this forced betrothal. So to have her go from making her life into exactly what she wants it to be without reference to anyone else to being a wife, even one pursuing a career in medicine, is aggravating. Because it still emphasizes the point that a woman cannot be happy unless she has a man. And what a load of absolute bullshit that is. Studies have shown that the women who are the happiest and have the longest life expectancy are those who are not married and do not have children.

And while I do love how the movie portrays different types of men (Godwin is the overprotective father figure who, however well meaning, perpetuates misogyny by trying to control his daughter; Max is the well meaning but misguided “nice guy” who, in a moment of selfishness, perpetuates misogyny by choosing a course that is best for him but not necessary best for her; Duncan is the typical “bad boy” who thinks he’s all that and then ends up falling in love with the naive young woman and then perpetuates misogyny in his jealousy and controlling behaviors, and the General is the typical abusive shitface who hates women but wants an heir and so needs a wife to make that happen), I also absolutely hate hate hate how, at no point, does Bella recognize that each and every one of these men has or is using her for their own gains.

This movie could have done so many fantastic things. But it falls so very, very short because, of course, it’s a woman’s story being told by men. Men can, and do, effectively write stories with women in them, and they even write effective stories with women leads. But telling a woman’s story — putting themselves in a woman’s shoes and writing about what it’s like to be a woman in the world — those stories men cannot tell. Bella is a compelling character and her journey is an incredible one. But when it comes down to it, she is constantly put in positions of servitude to the men around her. And even in the end, her choices are wrapped up in what the men in her life want. It is so stereotypical. Even the fucking Barbie movie, which is peak white woman feminism if I ever saw it, got this more right. Barbie doesn’t “end up” with a man, any man. Her self-actualization requires her to be her own person without input from any outside source, let alone a masculine one. Bella’s self-actualization is, for so much of the movie, her path to tread. She doesn’t go where she doesn’t wish to. She doesn’t do what she does not wish to.

So of course, it has to end with her married to a man.

I would give this movie two and a half stars. In quality, it deserves four, but the ending truly does ruin the rest of what is an otherwise stunning spectacle.

Writing With Mental Illness

It’s hard enough to be an author on its own, especially when you have a day job and other responsibilities that can get in the way of the creative process. But this is made even more difficult when you also have to juggle mental illness and its impact on the mind, the body, and creative expression.

I have struggled with mental illness for the vast majority of my life. Like many people, I masked my symptoms heavily. I was an avid attendee of church and whenever I broke down in the middle of praise and worship, or if I broke down at the altar, I assumed it was because I was being influenced and touched by the Holy Spirit. And, if I’m being completely honest, I miss the effectiveness of that. Prayer isn’t a “cure” for mental illness, despite what many evangelicals will try to tell you, but the placebo effect — the chemical release that occurs in the brain that makes you feel better because you think you’ve been given the medicine to treat your pain — is powerful. And prayer absolutely does cause the placebo effect; studies have shown that prayer/worship can release the feel good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine.

I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t believe in the Christian god anymore. I don’t really pray anymore. I meditate. I go into nature. I talk to animals and to myself and to the earth, but I don’t believe in a deity. So the placebo effect of prayer is no longer something I can benefit from, and because of that, the negative impact of my mental illnesses are even more profound.

I take medications. I try and keep myself hydrated and fed and I try to eat at least some fruits and vegetables everyday to fuel my body and my mind, but those things can only go so far. Maybe for some people, yoga is enough. Maybe for others, an all-natural diet is enough. But for some of us, we need the medications and the consistent therapy and the acknowledgement that, even on our good days, we are going to struggle.

There are times when I feel like people think I’m faking my mental illnesses because I can hold down a good paying, full time day job. The truth is that my working a full time job is part of how I treat my mental illnesses. If I’m not working, I spiral. If I can’t cover the costs of my living expenses, I spiral. And the only way that I can keep myself from those spirals is if I am working a full time job that covers my expenses, like my current job does. My job is stressful, but I enjoy the work. I enjoy my coworkers. I like the company I work for. And I get an immense amount of satisfaction from investing in my career.

But again, just because I can work a high-stress job without it depleting all of my energy and creative focus, doesn’t mean that I am not still battling depression and anxiety. I am depressed and anxious every single day. It just manifests differently.

Some people also think that because I write multiple books a year, it must mean I’m not that depressed. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Today, I have been battling an enormous amount of depression. I managed to get some writing done, but it was hard. I wasn’t happy with my work and I had to stop when the depressive spiral sent me into a tailspin of self-doubt. I’m revising my rough draft which means the writing of my sequel novel still needs a lot of work before I can call it polished. When my depression gets bad enough, it makes me notice the flaws in my writing. It makes me question my creative choices. It fills my mind with negativity and words about how I’ll never live up to the expectations I’ve set for myself, or to the expectations others have set for me.

Once those thoughts set in, I walked away from my computer. And, without the writing to distract me, I fell into a deep pit of depression. One I was able to (kind of) climb out of, but the residual effects are still there. So, I went online and looked at houses. I can’t afford to buy one yet and likely won’t be able to for many years, but it is something I’ve put on my five year plan. Staying committed to my career and to my writing are the two biggest things that will get me to this goal of being a home owner. I may not make enough with my writing to ever cover an entire mortgage payment, but I can, at least, work as hard as I can to get as close to that as possible.

Which means that this battle with depression and anxiety is going to be a forever and always commitment. Some people think that depression is just sadness with extra sadness on top. It’s not. Some people think anxiety is just attention seeking. It’s not. Some people think PTSD is something only military personnel can get. It really isn’t. And juggling all of these things while trying to live my life as productively as possible while not working myself into oblivion, is such a hard thing to do. I am exhausted all of the time. My own mind works against me, filling me with thoughts and feelings that I’m not good enough, that I’m a let down, that my personal goals and dreams are completely unattainable, that even if I work hard and push myself, I’ll never accomplish the things I’ve set out to do.

Those are the thoughts I battle on my good days.

So even though I do write consistently and I have been meeting my target goals, I always have to focus on making sure that I’m taking care of myself enough that I can keep writing and meeting my target goals. I have to make sure I’m eating, that I’m hydrating, that I’m getting enough sleep, that I’m resting when I need it, that I’m being social and spending time with the people who matter most, that I’m not working myself into exhaustion while also not giving myself too much leniency. I could go on. The point is that depression doesn’t ever go away and, even when I’m having good days, those days are good because I’m always juggling multiple needs for myself at once.

If you have people in your life who struggle with mental illness, check in on them. Ask them one thing that they could use that would make their life easier. Encourage them. Lift them up. Support their art. Share it with others. You don’t know how much you might keep them going and working on their passions rather than give up.

I hope you all have a happy holiday.

Sequels and Their Secrets

I recently finished drafting the sequel novel in my Hands of The Order series.

It took so much longer than I had anticipated, but the rough draft is now officially complete. It clocked in at 113,087 words and I have now been working on revising it for about four days. It’s already up to 115,00ish words, which means that this novel is definitely going to be longer than my debut novel, A Kiss of Glass. But, I’m okay with that. This story needed more details, more complexity, and that’s what I’m delivering.

One thing I think I’ve had to learn the hard way about writing is that one book cannot do all of the literary things. As I was writing the rough draft of the sequel, I continually got stuck and couldn’t figure out why the book was such a chore to work on. But then, after stepping away from it for a couple of months over the summer, I realized that I was trying to tell too much at once and it meant that none of the threads of plot were getting the development they needed. And even now as I’m going through and revising, I’m seeing how many scenes and even paragraphs weren’t really “completed.”

And that’s okay. That’s what revision is for, taking the thing that still needs work and polishing it to look as shiny and complete as possible.

But I will say that this draft was considerably harder to work on than my debut novel. I’m excited to see these kinds of struggles come up in my writing process because it means I’m stepping into new creative territory. My debut novel was the first full length work of fiction that I ever actually revised and edited through to completion. Now, this rough draft is the first ever sequel novel that I have completed the rough draft of. So already, I am making my own creative history, a new personal record. And that I will never stop celebrating.

There is a part of me that wonders if I can keep this going; can I really revise this sequel novel to be as polished and well done as the first? I want to say that the answer to that question is yes, and at some point I have to just believe in my instincts as I write these books, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. Despite my four college degrees focusing in writing and literature, despite the many individual pieces of mine that have been published online and in print, and despite the fact that I have already released a novel that has received incredible recognition for an independently published debut by an unknown author, I still struggle to see myself as a professional writer, as an expert in my field. So it’s been challenging to push myself, to keep moving, to keep writing even in the face of self-doubt.

But that’s also a huge part of the writing process. Learning to recognize your weaknesses as a writer and working on them to improve your craft, while also allowing yourself to be confident in your storytelling abilities, is a fine line to walk. In both my undergraduate and grad school experiences, I encountered a lot of other writers who had an abundance of confidence and no ability to recognize their own weaknesses as writers. And let’s be real: we all have weaknesses with our writing. Mine is dialogue. There are moments when I feel like I do well at dialogue, and there are others where I feel like I’m tumbling inside of a never-ending wave.

And this is why I make sure that when I’m in the editing phase, I take one solid round of edits to focus entirely on my dialogue and nothing else. When you’re honest with yourself about your writing, you give yourself more chances to improve, rather than insisting that you’re the shit. There was actually an author on TikTok a few months ago who believed that he was worthy of being a New York Times bestseller, and the ways that BookTokers took him down over his arrogance was incredible to watch. Because, of course, his book was absolutely horrible, according to those who read it. And when he started “asking for feedback,” readers started giving it to him in a respectful but honest way. His response? Nothing but defensiveness and resistance to any kind of willingness to learn and grow. He asked for feedback believing he would only receive praise, and then when people — constructively — tried to point out some glaring issues in his writing, he lashed out and started a huge battle on TikTok with other authors and literary content creators.

Some people genuinely think they’re the shit, and that attitude annoys me to no end. Yes, I think I’m a damn good writer (and my writing CV would support this assessment), but I never have and never will ignore or deny the ways in which my writing can improve. I will advertise and promote and market my work, I will submit my books for different literary awards (because you miss all the shots you don’t take), but I will also always look for the ways in which I can improve.

These are the thoughts I consider when I’m revising. My goal is to complete my second draft by the end of January, send it out to beta and sensitivity readers, get feedback from beta and sensitivity readers by the end of of February, finish my third draft by the end of March, finish the fourth draft by the end of April, do a reverse edit by the end of May, and then publish by the end of June. I am really hoping I can keep to this timeline, but we will see. I’m really motivated and now that I am done with my second master’s, I have a lot more time on my hands.

Today is a half day at work.
This weekend is a three day weekend.
And I am celebrating by relaxing and then taking a trip up to Seattle with my partner for Christmas.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Poetry Manuscripts and Contests

Over the summer, I worked on a new poetry manuscript. It’s a collection of sonnets that document in very nature-focused surrealism the first twelve months after I left my ex-husband. It’s a book that examines the journey of healing, growth, self-reflection, and the realization that the marriage I thought I had was something I had created in my own mind to make surviving it easier.

I have been submitting individual poems from this manuscript for a few months now and have had no luck in getting them published. And while I recognize that publishing is a numbers game as well as a timing game, it has been discouraging to receive so many rejection letters on poems that I genuinely believe are some of the best poems I have ever written. But, I’ve been pushing myself to keep submitting, to keep looking for the right publication to submit them to because the right homes for these poems exist. I just have to find them.

This morning I received an email from a publisher that I submitted a few of my sonnets to. They’re hosting a writing contest and, while I just received the lines of feedback I asked for, I was also told that they are still considering these poems for publication as well as for the content itself. They gave me incredibly encouraging feedback on my poems and made me feel much more motivated to keep pursuing publication of these sonnets. Even if they still need some work, even if I have another several months of editing that I have to do, knowing that someone sees their value is incredibly motivating.

I needed that this morning. I really did. My goal is to have this collection of sonnets either published next year, or at least accepted for publication next year. Poetry is the thing that feed my soul. It gives me life. It makes me feel the most like myself. As much as I love my fiction projects (and holy hell, do I love these fiction projects), poetry is the thing that pulls breath into my body. It truly is the way I process my life and the experiences that I have had. And I want my poetry to continue to be released into the world. I want people to read these poems, to see the magic that poetry weaves on the page.

Today, I am committed to this process again. Even if it continues to be discouraging, I will not allow myself to quit or walk away from these goals. I will get this and every other poetry manuscript that I work on traditionally published. I speak that truth and I receive it back to myself.

Finishing My Second Masters

Last week I completed the final assignment for my Masters of Arts in Literature!

The assignment was a presentation for a literary theory class. Essentially, we had to pick our best essay out of four essays we wrote over the course of the semester and submit it as a presentation to represent our best work in the course. This meant we had to write a short, reflective essay discussing why the paper we chose was our favorite, and how it reflected the course learning objectives. It was probably the easiest presentation assignment I’ve ever completed in my entire time in higher education, and that was refreshing considering I have been burnt out on school for a solid year.

But, now that this assignment is completed, all of the work for this final semester is done. The only thing I’m waiting on is the Dean’s feedback on my thesis to see if it’s approved and then my grades for the semester, and I will be officially done with this masters. It’s such a great feeling, having this completed and no longer on my plate. It’s not that I regret the program (far from it, actually), but it has been adding extra stress. And after being substitute teacher, I’ve been kind of desperate to reduce as much stress in my life as possible. Getting this new job as a Project Coordinator has helped, but getting through this masters is going to help enormously, too.

Because now I can focus entirely on my writing, and that’s a good thing because holy shit — I have so many things I want to write and get published. I have multiple fiction projects going, I have one poetry collection I’m actively working on, and I feel a second poetry collection coming to me which I will likely start drafting soon. That’s just a shit-ton of writing on my plate and, while I live for this kind of prolific artistic commitment and expression, it is also a lot to carry while working full time and being a full time student. So I am very much looking forward to no longer being in school.

I’m sure I will return to higher education at some point. I still want a PhD, perhaps two (I’d like to get a PhD in creative writing and one in literature), but I am giving myself at least three years to relax and focus on other things besides school. I will return for a PhD at the right time, and who knows — maybe I will decide I don’t need the PhD after all? One thing I won’t do is compromise my writing and my ability to complete these projects for anything, not even a PhD. My writing is the most important thing to me and I have worked extremely hard to get to this place.

I’m going to revel in it for now.

Indie Book Review – Lamb of God by Anthony Harrington & Wyatt Adams

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this book. I had never read comedic horror before and so I had no context going into this book and, therefore, no idea what to expect. But I can say that in terms of being a horror comedy, it absolutely delivers. I laughed a ton. I cringed a lot. I gasped and guffawed and ultimately found myself going along for the ride, much like the main characters are forced to do.

The story follows a group of people who both are and also are not friends (it’s complicated to explain and I don’t want to ruin the dynamics between the characters by attempting to explain it, but when you read it, you’ll know what I mean) who are thrust into a world-ending Book of Revelations brand of apocalypse that centers around a lamb named Steve.

Steve represents the religious figure of Christ, but he also takes on other symbolism as well, oscillating between a symbol for religion as a whole, a symbol of humanity’s best traits, a symbol of the contradictory themes and messages from the evangelical Christian Bible, and at times he’s even just a lamb, albeit one that can talk and has demons chasing after it. Steve is the character that the others need to try and protect, although he also is the one who typically gets all of them out of the shitty situations in which they find themselves.

When I say that this book made me laugh at loud, I mean full on guttural belly laughs. There are some scenes that are really fucking funny. I don’t know if it’s because I was raised deeply evangelical and I don’t consider myself to be a Christian any longer, and so the sometimes heretical and blasphemous things that Steve says and does just landed really strongly and humored me, or if it’s that Harrington and Adams are just extremely fucking clever in their writing (hint: it’s both), but there were some chapters where I didn’t stop laughing.

I don’t really have any criticisms of this book aside from its treatment of the only prominent women character. She is haphazardly thrust into a lot of stereotypes that border on misogynistic (and before you get upset, this is intentional and purposefully done by the authors — remember, this is an extremely heavy satire), and while I understand that this is who her character is supposed to represent to satirically poke fun at the horrible ways women tend to be represented in both horror and comedy, I still found myself cringing a lot whenever her character became the center of a scene. She’s not treated well by any members of the group, including Steve who often seems to forget she exists at all, and I think this was the only part of the book that was a struggle for me.

And to be clear, I don’t think the authors were wrong to portray her this way. She has a purpose in the story and the story requires her to be who she is. But as a woman who has seen these very stereotypes play out in films and books since I was born, it was a bit difficult to gnaw through at times. I don’t really enjoy coming to hate women characters because their vapid and vain and clueless and two-dimensional and stagnant, regardless of why they’re written that way.

BUT, that being said, the rest of the book is absolutely hilarious as fuck. I know that it won’t be everyone’s jam or cup of tea, but if you can go into it with a mentality that it is heavily satiric and, even in the moments where it seems like everything hangs in the balance, isn’t mean to be taken seriously, you’ll get through it and — hopefully — will enjoy it as much as I did.

Please go check it out here and give the book and the author some love.

Indie Book Review – Eddie by Stacey Dexter

I don’t even know where to begin with this incredibly emotional book. As an animal lover myself, I find reading books that center on the lives and experiences of animals tend to hit me really hard. And while this one is no different, there’s something magical in these pages that touched me deeply.

The story is about one family’s unexpected encounter with a stray dog, and how that one encounter became two, then ten, then hundreds. Through a linear recollection of absolutely vibrant and clear memories, the narrator creates a world that feels almost isolated from everything outside of Eddie, the stray dog, and the family that adopts him.

Through many veterinary visits, trips to the woods and the beach, and Eddie’s companionship with two other dogs, Wolfie and Ida Mae, the narrator shows how quickly animals and humans can develop strong emotional bonds. Eddie touches the lives of so many people through this book, and I cried hard more than once while reading. Because the central theme — the connections that can be built between canine and human — is one I am very familiar with. The narrator’s emotions are emotions I, too, have felt.

The writing is evocative. The imagery is clear and easily visualized. The story is absolutely beautiful. It’s a short read, but well worth it. If you love animals, read this book. You’ll feel as though Eddie changed your life, too.

Some Thoughts on Pride and Prejudice

I recently saw a theory in a Pride and Prejudice Facebook group that has not only frustrated and angered me, but definitely makes me wonder about the ways readers interpose their personal theories and conjectures over books for no other reason than to try and be clever.

The theory is regarding why Wickham chooses to elope with Lydia. This question has baffled readers for a long time because there does not seem to be a clearly defined motivation for Wickham to elope with a young woman who has no dowry. When Wickham elopes with Mr. Darcy’s younger sister, it is explicitly for money; Georgianna has an inheritance of 30,000 pounds and Wickham is horrible with money. (To give an idea of just how much money that is, by today’s standards with inflation, it would be the U.S. equivalent of nearly $3,000,000.00.) But Lydia has no such sum of inheritance and certainly, while her family is not poor, they are definitely not wealthy.

The woman who posted the theory said she believes Wickham eloped with Lydia because he knew that Darcy would rescue her reputation out of his love for Elizabeth; that it was a calculated moment of blackmail.

I want to start by saying that this theory is nothing more than conjecture — no matter how fiercely the woman wants to defend it — and that there is no basis or foundation from the text itself to even remotely confirm this as a possibility, let alone an actual fact. And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having fun with ideas like this (it’s how fanfiction ideas come about, after all), I think there is something wrong with making these theories and acting like the text supports them, which is what this woman said. She thinks this is a founded and substantiated theory with, at least, moments of subtext to support it.

She’s wrong.

I know I don’t typically write things so rigidly, but this is my favorite novel of all time and I just wrote a thesis on it. Moreover, my studies in my M.A. in Literature were specifically focused on 19th century British Literature, so this is my area of expertise.

Now that I’ve established that, I’m going to explain why this theory is wrong.

Firstly, for Wickham to effectively blackmail Darcy, he would have had to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that what he had on Darcy would work.

Wickham flees Brighton with Lydia and abandons his regiment — which is his sole source of income, by the way — to avoid his creditors. He has an enormous amount of debts in Meryton as well as in Brighton, and those debts are coming due. In that day, if you couldn’t/didn’t pay your debts, you went to jail. He flees to London to try and avoid his debtors so that he can, perhaps, salvage his financial situation, and he brings Lydia with him.

The theory of blackmail means that Wickham would have chosen Lydia intentionally to get to Darcy and exploit his weakness for Elizabeth, and yet Wickham has no reason to believe that any of the Bennets mean anything to Darcy. Wickham never once witnesses any interactions between Darcy and Elizabeth and, aside from one remark from Elizabeth when she returns from her stay with Charlotte and Mr. Collins where she says she believes that “Mr. Darcy improves on closer acquaintance,” he has no reason to believe that anything more than civility exists between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.

Why, then, would he ever see Lydia as any kind of connection to Mr. Darcy’s fortune? Why would he even suspect that Mr. Darcy would pay out any sum of money to restore Lydia’s good reputation by essentially bribing Mr. Wickham to marry Lydia?

Secondly, for this blackmail to even come about, Wickham would have to contact Mr. Darcy directly.

Blackmail can’t be blackmail without contact between the person committing the blackmail and the person whose money is being extorted. We know from the text that Wickham is intentionally hiding from everyone. He does not write to Darcy, he does not contact Darcy in any way because he knows doing so risks being discovered and, therefore, facing the consequences of his debts. Moreover, we know from Mrs. Gardener, Elizabeth’s aunt, that Mr. Darcy worked tirelessly to find Wickham and Lydia when even Mr. Bennet had all but given up hope of finding them himself.

How can it be blackmail when Mr. Darcy went looking for them of his own accord? Now, I recognize that here, things get a little blurry. We know from Mrs. Gardener’s account to Lizzie that Mr. Darcy insisted on doing everything he could to bring about the marriage, up to and including paying off Wickham’s debts. He tells Mrs. Gardener that he believes the elopement to be his fault because he felt it was beneath him to talk about his private affairs openly to the general public, which, according to him, is what allowed the elopement to take place at all. If he had exposed Wickham, Mr. Bennet would never have allowed Lydia to go to Brighton and Lydia would never have run away with Wickham.

But the specifics of what happens after Darcy finds Wickham and Lydia but before the wedding itself, is less clear. Could Wickham have refused to marry Lydia until Mr. Darcy pays off his debts? Certainly. This is actually quite likely considering that Wickham has no reason to marry Lydia without money, but it does not count as blackmail, especially when Mr. Darcy would 1) have already known of Wickham’s debts, and 2) would also already have suspected that he’d have to put down a great deal of money to bring the marriage about. Mr. Darcy was no fool. From the moment that he went looking for the two of them, he knew that it was going to cost him quite a lot of money to get them to marry. To say that this was blackmail is the same as saying that Darcy went into the whole situation with naivete and ignorance, which we know he didn’t. He knew what would be expected of him and, moreover, he took on that responsibility purposefully.

Thirdly, if this was blackmail, whether through a letter written to Mr. Darcy or through arguments with him after Darcy had uncovered them in London, it would mean that Mr. Darcy’s entire character arc throughout the novel is utterly pointless.

If Mr. Darcy only goes looking for Wickham because of blackmail, or if Mr. Darcy only pays of Wickham’s debts because of blackmail, then it means that Mr. Darcy’s motivations for bringing about the marriage are selfish. It means he doesn’t do any of it for Elizabeth, but rather for himself, restoring Lydia’s reputation so that if Elizabeth did agree to marry him, his family name would not be as tarnished. Which also means that he lies to Elizabeth at the end of the novel, making him just as manipulative as Wickham.

The whole reason that it’s such a big deal that he is the one who pays out the money necessary for Wickham to marry Lydia is specifically because he is, in no way, related to the Bennets. There isn’t an understanding of affection or a connection between Darcy and Elizabeth. He proposed to her and she rejected him. Whatever increased tenderness has arisen between them since she rejected him is of no real consequence because he has no pressed his suit a second time, and nor has she made any of her new feelings apparent to him or to anyone else. By all accounts, it’s only friendship and kindness that exists between them now, so for him to take on such a personally mortifying responsibility is the sign that he now deserves Elizabeth’s affection.

Making it blackmail changes all of that and reduces the greatest sign of his changed behaviors and attitudes to nothing more than a change of appearances. Whereas in the actual text, Mr. Darcy is not motivated by personal goals or desires; rather, he is motivated by a genuine desire to not only fix what he sees as a circumstance caused by himself, but also to restore Elizabeth’s family to proper standing in their community. He does this not for himself or his own advantage, for again, there is no understanding between himself and Elizabeth. For all he knows, she still does not wish to marry him. For all he knows, she could still reject him and go on to marry someone else.

But none of that matters to Darcy, which is why his growth as a character is so immense. If we are to believe it’s only blackmail, then his development is absolutely pointless. It means he lies to Elizabeth at the end of the novel just to trick her into marrying him, which we knew he does not do.

I understand that people like to have their hypotheticals. And there’s nothing wrong with posing these possibilities and theories so long as we recognize that unless something can be substantiated with the text itself, it remains nothing more than a theory. The woman who posited this idea called it a theory, and yet tried adamantly to deny that anything in the text disproves it, which is not only patently false, but it’s also a direct misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the story Austen gave us. This women also tried to act like she had more authority on the matter given her age and the number of times she’s read the book, but as someone whose focus in my second masters has been 19th century British Literature, and considering that my masters thesis is specifically about Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Darcy’s development as a character, I can say with absolute confidence that Mr. Darcy was not blackmailed by Mr. Wickham to marry Lydia. Bribed with money? Absolutely, but that was also by Mr. Darcy’s design.

I sometimes wonder if people are so desperate to land on some new revelation regarding Austen’s works just because they want to feel important, or if they genuinely misunderstand the characters and their choices. Either way, I was upset by this theory. No, not the theory itself, but the woman’s insistence that she was right, her refusal to accept when she had been definitively proven wrong, and the implication of Darcy’s character that her theory requires. I was upset by these things.

You might find this post a pointless rambling of a woman with nothing better to do. But I felt this was a necessary post to make in response so that I don’t have to sit and fume over it all for the next several hours while I’m at work.

Indie Book Review – Justified by Wendy Turner-Hargraves

I have not read many murder mysteries. I’ve read a couple of Agatha Christie novels and, while I enjoyed them, I can’t say that murder mysteries are my go-to if I’m sitting down to read. However, the cover of this book really fascinated me. I know we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, but when a cover is really well made, it piques my interest.

I didn’t know what to expect when I read this book, so I wasn’t really prepared for the many different emotions this novel would take me on. It really is a journey of emotion as well as a journey of the mind. The reader feels attached to some characters very quickly, while attachments to other ebb and flow, rise and fall as the story continues to reveal itself.

I am a very character driven reader, and so I need at least one grounding character that keeps me hooked and interested, and this book delivers that. And while the story itself was a little hard to follow at times, the characters really are what shines through the writing.

This is a very intriguing book. The beginning sets up the cast of characters well, and gives us the primary conflict. A murder mystery, where more than one person has a reason to have killed the victim. Which is, in my limited experience with this genre, one of my favorite tropes. It’s no fun reading a mystery book where you figure out who did it before the halfway point, and this book definitely kept me guessing. The dialogue is good, the character development strong.

If you like murder mysteries, I suggest this book. You can find it here and remember to give Wendy some love!

Thoughts On Drafting & Revision

As I approach the end of the rough draft of my sequel novel, I find myself thinking forward to what I’d like the final draft to look like.

This sequel novel has been complicated to write. Even more so than my debut novel, which I did not anticipate. Writing itself might grow easier with time, but that doesn’t mean each stage of the writing process will. I don’t know why this particular rough draft has resisted me so heavily, but instead of trying to strongarm it into submission, I’ve let it come to me. And it has. I am now in the 24th chapter which means, after this one, there will only be two chapters left to draft. And as I write these last scenes, the story is evolving and the overarching plot that connects these first six books is becoming more prominent, more noticeable.

In some of the reviews of my debut novel, readers have said there were scenes I included that were unnecessary. And while I understand which scenes they’re referring to, I definitely intended those scenes to be there. They are what hints to the overarching plot which, unfortunately, is going to take time to unravel and reveal. The prologues, interludes, and epilogues in these books are the scenes where I can be more overt with the development of the overarching plot. And in the debut novel, I have to acknowledge that the overarching plot really isn’t seen or hinted at beyond the prologue, interludes, and epilogue. Nasya’s journey just doesn’t give her the same breadth of knowledge as Scarlet’s.

Seeing this overarching plot take more of a sideseat instead of a backseat in this manuscript has been fun. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to connect all of these things, but that’s something I can worry about in another book. Foreshadowing is important. And while there is a lot of foreshadowing in the first book, I’m not sure how many people pick up on the foreshadowing. Hopefully their reception of the sequel will shine a brighter light on those things.

I will have the rough draft completed by the end of December. I do not know how quickly I will be able to get the first round of revisions done, but I am giving myself permission to let whatever needs to happen, happen. My other series is also coming along and, while it has a ways to go before it’s ready to be published, I don’t think it will need nearly as much revision as this one. I’m also not using beta readers for that new series, so I will be able to get through my revisions a lot faster.

Revision is where the real writing happens. You need a solid rough draft to successfully revise a manuscript, but the vision I have in my mind for how this novel will look when completed is going to heavily depend on how much time and energy I devote to my revision process. And if that means letting the release date for this novel slide back a month or two — or more — then I will gladly give it that time to be what it needs to be. And I know I’ve said this before, but I often have to remind myself that it’s okay if I don’t make the tentative summer deadline.

It will help when I no longer have classes to think about. I am currently down to one final assignment to complete and then I will be done with my second master’s, and I am honestly so fucking excited to say that. I’m sure I’ll get another degree in something else at some point. But right now, I have no plans for it and no real desire to dedicate myself to it. I’d like having the student loans come in, but even that I don’t need. It would just help me pay off some other debts and have extra spending money. So, for now, I will be keeping myself out of school.

I really do want my life to be filled with the excitement and rush of being an author. I love my job and have no intentions to quit. Not even if I could reasonably do so and become a full time writer because I do not want my ability to live to rest entirely on writing. There are no guarantees as authors that we will make any money from one month to the next. And even though this likelihood will increase as time goes on and I have more novels published and more episodes available to read on Kindle Vella, I still don’t think I will quit my day job. For a lot of people, when your livelihood depends entirely on the thing you enjoy doing the most, it can mean that you eventually lose your love for that thing. Or, I’ve seen other writers say that it was the stress of making ends meet that sucked the joy out of their art.

I refuse to put myself in a position where I potentially lose my love of writing for any reason. Plus, I genuinely love what I do. I have no intentions of leaving. I have a good paying job with health benefits that’s close to where I live and doesn’t suck the soul out of me. I don’t judge anyone else for their choices regarding working and being a writing; some people, their ultimate goal is to be a full time writer and I think that’s an outstanding goal. I may not have that specific goal, but I absolutely intend to earn money on my writing. It’ll take time before that amount adds up to anything really substantial, but I have goals that I want my writing to help me achieve.

I guess my point is that sometimes we have to prioritize the things that matter most to us. And that will mean that our individual journeys will look differently, even if we are all shooting for the same ultimate target.