Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook for Mortals Chapter 1 “The Magician” or “That’s not how any of this works.”

Before we get to the recap proper, I want to warn some readers about potentially sensitive content. That is, I want to warn you that if you’ve ever worked in the theater in any capacity, you will be fully outraged through this entire chapter, to the point that you might want to throw your phone or laptop or tablet or however else you’re reading this. So, read this only a soft surface to prevent damage to your device, and try not to fling it too hard.

In other news, Kayleigh Donaldson’s piece at Pajiba has been updated to include a response from Gill de Mace’s agent about the cover art controversy, as well as what might be the most bizarre aspect of this entire drama: the author of the infamous My Immortal has spoken. You can read her full statement at Pajiba, but this is the highlight:

Because I’ve received several messages asking this, and predict I may receive more, I’ll answer it here. No, I am not Lani Sarem. Really bad fiction simply tends to read the same.

Imagine if the writer of My Immortal, the most notoriously horrible fanfic of all time, called your work “bad fiction”? How could you ever possibly recover from that? You’d have to change your identity and start fresh with a new life. I mean, really, imagine that the author of My Immortal wanted to distance herself from your work.

I might not want to date him but I did like him immediately.

Good news! He didn’t ask you out on a date. Yet. We all know it’s going to happen and you’re going to revise that opinion, but whatever.

So, remember way up above where Charles tells Mac that Zade signed a waiver? Well, Sofia just caught up:

I heard Sofia’s voice as I walked away. I strained to hear her saying to Charles, “You remembered her name. You never remember names.”

Sofia, sweetheart, I have some real bad news to break to you. Zade is the most important person in your world. There’s no way that Charles isn’t going to end up dumping you for Zade, or at least making a pass at Zade, or at the very, very least, liking Zade more than he likes you. Everyone is going to like her more than they like you. Just go limp and wait for the misogyny to lose interest in batting you around.

I turned my eyes toward them and caught Charles’s reply,

You hear with your eyes?

“Most people’s names aren’t worth remembering.”

See, Sofia? Zade is more important than “most people.” I mean, she’s more important than ALL people, let’s keep that in perspective.

Next to Charles, I noticed a younger, mousy woman with glasses who looked to be an assistant of some kind. She looked focused and anxious. She had a note pad and seemed to be writing down everything Charles uttered.

“See, Jenny,” you might be saying. “It isn’t a case of internalized misogyny. There’s another woman, right there. The fact that she’s described as being mousy and wearing glasses and therefore will not be a threat to Zani in the reader’s mind is unimportant.”

Just kidding. I know you would never say that.

Charles starts talking about how he wants Zani’s illusion to be included in his show before she even performs it. So now, Lani has not only somehow gone from small town nobody to having an audition with the most famous magician of all time in the space of one chapter break, but the audition sounds like more of a formality than anything. Cam takes Zani up to the catwalks:

Heights make some people nervous, but not me. I love the feeling of being off the ground and as high up as possible.

Not. Like. Other. Girls.

I quickly realized I needed to check on where the prop I’d requested was.

You’re supposed to check your props before you go to places. Also, she was able to bring her own equipment, but not a rose? They had to supply that?

But don’t worry, Cam already set her prop for her.

The only thing that was running through my head was how any girl could ever date him, because he was prettier than all of us put together.

In case you weren’t picking up on how “pretty” Cam is, Zani is reminding you while she’s standing on a catwalk fifty feet above the stage, moments before performing a dangerous illusion. I’m expecting to hear about how focused she is, next. Oh, hey, look:

My mind drifted about in a way where it focused on everything and nothing at the same time while I waited for the cue from Cam to drop the rose to the ground.

That’s not focus. Your mind drifting and thinking about everything and nothing at the same time is the opposite of focus. That’s called distraction. Also, how is she “thinking of everything and nothing at the same time” while “the only thing” running through her head is how pretty Cam is?

Too pretty for his own good–and mine, I thought. Trying to focus on what I was doing, I climbed onto the top bar of the catwalk and turned around on my toes.

With no safety equipment. Totally cool to be doing that in a professional theater, nobody’s going to object.

Anyway, Cam gives her the go-ahead, and she throws the rose onto the stage, explaining that it’s meant to show the audience that the stage is solid.

A single rose.

In a theater that seats two-thousand people.

Yeah, that’s going to read.

Join me now in this glorious description of Zade’s illusion:

I took a deep breath and leaned slowly back over the bar, bending backward until I had flipped myself over the edge. Once my body had inverted into mid-air, I began to “fall” toward the stage, like a high diver would.

Except high divers don’t “fall”. They just fall.

I stretched and tensed so that my body was completely vertical as I flew toward the ground. I was falling fast, and there was nothing below me to break my fall.

That must be a typo. Let me fix it: I was “falling” fast, and there was nothing below me to break my “fall”.

The audience of cast and crew gasped. A regular audience might think “trapdoor” but this group knew better because they knew the theater so well.

As I plummeted toward the stage, brightly colored sparks began to shoot from my outstretched hands. The sparks fell and hit the ground ahead of me, becoming a roaring fire directly beneath me. The fire burned a brilliant red, spreading and glowing below me. As the fire burned, it changed color from bright red to a vibrant blue. I could hear the audience murmuring again, but I couldn’t get cocky yet. I was near the ground and still falling fast.

Obviously, not that fast, because this description is taking forever.

The ground beneath the flames seemed to pool as if it had become liquid, and the fire melted into waves that started to lap the stage, as if a pond had formed where the stage had been just a moment before.

Here’s a theme I’m picking up on. Zade describes things as they “seem” quite often, even when they’re actually happening. If I drive my car to the store, I don’t “seem” to be driving my car to the store. I’m just driving my car to the store. The flames don’t “seem” to pool as if they had become liquid. It actually does so right after the comma in that sentence.

In full Olympic-diving position with my fingers and toes pointed, I dove straight into what looked somewhat like “water”.

No, it doesn’t look somewhat like “water”, it looks somewhat like water. If you “dove straight into the ‘water’,” the quotation marks would be necessary. But they aren’t. And here I am, having to say this about a published novel.

It splashed as I made impact, but as the droplets of liquid came back down toward the Earth to meet the ground, the stage had become solid once again. The rose and I had disappeared within the lapping water.

God damnit, Lani! We talked about this! This is where you use the quotation marks around “water”. THIS IS WHERE YOU DO THAT! NOT UP THERE!

About twenty feet away fromt he site of my impact was an open area where there was actual, real water–basically a pool, which was used in several other illusions. I popped my head out of the water and pumped my left fist victoriously in the air as I used my right arm to grab onto the edge of the pool–the rose safely clenched between my teeth.

I guess this explains why she doesn’t have equipment for them to inspect.

As for her illusion, she dove off a catwalk, into a pool of fire that turned into water…right behind an already existing pool of water? This is her brilliant illusion? Because from our vantage point, and from the vantage point of the crew who knows the workings of the stage, it’s impressive. If you’re in the audience at one of the shows, you just assume the pool extends further under the stage. This illusion only works if the audience has a fucking schematic of the theater.

But that doesn’t matter to the cast and crew, who are stunned into silence.

My smile started to fade and I was beginning to panic when they all applauded thunderously, and the whole cast rose to their feet.

And the whole train applauded.

I grabbed the rose from my mouth and tossed it to Sofia, winking at her. I laughed as I said, “For the pretty lady.” Sofia glared in response and smiled with the fakest smile I had ever seen. She wasn’t amused–nor did she find me funny, in the least.

“She wasn’t hungry–nor did she want food in the least.”

“She wasn’t cold–nor did she find it freezing in the least.”

“She wasn’t angry–nor was she happy, in the least.”

“That was perfect! Just as I expected,” I overheard Charles say excitedly.

How did he expect it to be perfect? He just met her. I’m so fucking confused as to why anyone on the show offered her the audition, let alone had high expectations for it. She has been living in a small town, reading tarot cards her entire life. Does she have some reputation for being a world-class illusionist? NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE.

“Beth, let’s have her sign that contract. That goes into the show right away. Wait until Copperfield sees this one! […]”

Yo, he just did.

But of course, despite the fact that her illusion won’t look impressive or mystifying to anyone in the audience, Zade is now a part of the biggest show in Vegas. Someone should have told Elizabeth Berkley she didn’t have to grind on all of those dudes to get a job on the Strip. It would have saved us all two painful hours in the ’90s.

Now, if you remember correctly, Thomas Ian Nicholas from American Pie is attached to star in the movie version of this book, as “Tad.” This is Tad:

Tad was slightly stocker with dark brown wavy hair and brown jovial eyes. I woudl soon learn that Tad was Mac’s best friend, an all-around good guy who worked well with everyone. In theory, Mac was Tad’s boss, but they had been working together for a long time and had been friends for much longer. Tad was the kind of guy to always tell it like it is. He never believed in sugarcoating anything. He’d always tell us that his motto was, “Why take anything seriously? No one gets out alive anyway.” He said it often, and meant it. Very little got him worked up. He was the epitome of easy going. Tad was also one of those people who was naturally good at most of the things he tried. I often wonder if a lot of it had to do with his attitude. Iv’e condluded that it must be that, and being born under a lucky star. I’d probably envy him if I didn’t adore him so much.

The only characters who’ve had this much intense description devoted to them are Tad and Charles Spellman. My hunch here is that every character who receives this kind of attention to detail is someone that Lani Sarem knows in real life.

“Jesus! That was quite the magic trick,” Tad agreed. “Holy moly! No wonder C.S. gave her free rein of the theater. Mac, how in hell did she do that?”

WTF do you mean, “no wonder?” Help me out, because I’m still wondering my ass off over here. Charles had never met Zade before, she has no background as a professional, big time illusionist, he never saw her perform the trick, so yes! There are wonders! I have so many wonders!

Look, just having a character say that something makes sense doesn’t mean it actually makes sense. I went through this already with Fifty Shades of Grey and I am damn sure not letting this slide now.

Mac can’t figure out how the illusion was performed, and it troubles him to the point of aggressive staring.

It wouldn’t have made logical sense no matter how hard they tried to figure it out because it was beyond anything a mortal could do. Tarot cards weren’t the only unique skill that my mom had taught me–or that ran in the family. And for the first time, I was starting to realize that it was going to be harder to keep our secret from everyone. They were going to want to know, I was going to have to keep dodging questions. This was a problem I was going to have to work out when I had more time to think about it.

I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but it’s a question you should have worked out before you arrived to an audition at a Las Vegas theater and performed a death-defying illusion without bringing any equipment with you. Do you expect to continue to do the illusion without any stage hands or technicians noticing that you have no equipment and really, no illusion? And if it’s imperative that you keep your family’s secret under wraps, why would you use that secret on stage every night in front of sold out crowds of two-thousand people? Why not just use your magic to win a bunch of money at the casinos like normal witches do in Vegas?

Oh, but we don’t know that she’s a witch yet. I forgot. Keep your surprised faces stowed under the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartments.

Tad Fletcher, head of automation, rocked back on his heels as he talked. Calm, collected, sweet, kind and confident cascaded out of his being. I would slowly learn that Tad was all of those things through and through, which was why he was so well liked.

Why are we being reintroduced to Tad, as though we haven’t already met him just a page ago? And why does she keep talking about people like she’s Daniel Stern narrating The Wonder Years?

Tad introduces Lani to Riley, another male member of the crew who instantly likes her and tells her they should be friends, because of course. One thing I have to say for this book, it is definitely keeping me on my toes trying to guess which of these guys end up in the love triangle with Zani.

Zade notices that Mac is still staring angrily at her and she doesn’t know why.

I would have to look into that later, I decided, because I didn’t have time to concentrate on it at the moment.

Why is that italicized? Why is Zade walking around thinking in past perfect tense?

And why is Zade so busy? Because Beth (apparently this is the mousy glasses-wearer from before, though it’s not specified) has to talk to Zade about the contract:

She also basically told me what Charles was willing to offer me with regards to the show. It was quite generous and even Beth commented that while I should retain an attorney to look my contract over she doubted an attorney would find issue with anything it said. Beth even confided in me it was the best offer she had ever seen Charles make to anyone.

To recap: Zani has now received an audition with the cast and crew of a major Las Vegas production on the strength of her magic skills (which no one has ever seen before because they have to be a secret) and is getting handed heaps of money and a place in the show, despite the fact that her amazing illusion is only impressive if you know how it’s done.

I wasn’t really concerned with it that much. I already had what I wanted; I had made myself a new life.

A somewhat normal life.

That’s right. It’s perfectly normal to appear in the biggest show in Las Vegas every night after getting an audition based on the strength of skills no one has ever seen before. Just your average, every day, ho hum, normal life.

Ouch. My disbelief.