Book review: Troll or Derby by Red Tash
So, I finished Troll or Derby today, and then I slammed two double rum and cokes to stop my shaking. I also got out my tobacco and chain-smoked two ciggies in a row. It’s times like this when I wish I was sane, and that books didn’t have so much power over me. But I completely lost it over my feelings of betrayal for how badly this book turned out in the end.
I started off loving this story, praising it with every chapter update I did on Twitter. And then right around the 50% mark, it all went horribly, terribly pear-shaped. I kept reading, hoping that it was just a minor stumble, and the book would get back on track. But with each page, I got more and more upset. I started sighing with EVERY paragraph, and by the time I got done, I was grinding my dentures so hard, I gave myself blisters on my gums.
Troll or Derby starts off great, following two characters in first person POV, Deb and Harlow. Deb is a young fairy who thinks she’s human. After saving her drug addict sister from a fire in a drug dealer’s trailer, she quickly finds out her mother is a foster parent, and that she’s a protector who’s supposed to be assigned to watch her foster sister. Since her sister, Gennifer, gets kidnapped right at the start of the book, Deb is kicked out of the house and told she must save her sister, OR ELSE.
The other half of the book is told by Harlow, a troll who is bound to Deb. Harlow’s cousin Dave is the person who kidnapped Gennifer for his father Jagger, and Dave is also a drug dealer, a rapist, a murderer, and a child molester. He’s about as charming as he sounds, believe me. Dave is trying to capture Deb, and Harlow is trying to protect Deb, though he’s not really sure why at first.
The first 20 chapters, I was so hooked into this plot. The world building was great. The characters had my sympathy, and the dialogue was fantastic. Every little detail about the mystical world set in the Midwest felt fresh and exciting. But around the midway point, the whole thing falls apart. It starts with Harlow being completely incapable of answering simple questions, and his chapters start to feel like padding rather than advancing the story. Even when he says “I’ll answer your questions,” he fails to answer the two most important ones Deb kept asking. And there was never a valid reason given for his inability to play her straight.
But then Deb becomes hands down one of the stupidest characters I’ve ever read. At the midway point, she’s been told no less than five times that she isn’t human. She’s fought trolls, slid through teleportation spells, journeyed to a troll market, fought pixies, and knocked out a troll. (resulting in her getting iron poisoning, more signs of her inhuman nature. Oh, and she shrinks and grows during this same fight.) AND YET, despite all this evidence that she’s not human, she’s still going “Wait, what? Is this real? Am I really not human? Am I on drugs?” Despite being hunted by a villain she’s been told is pure evil, Deb abandons Harlow and goes directly to the villain alone. This is the point when I started shaking my head and asking, “But why? Even small children have more common sense than this.”
Deb is repeatedly told, “Don’t drink or eat anything offered by the fae.” She even gets told by the villain, “Drink this so I can control your mind.” And despite thinking, “I probably shouldn’t,” SHE STILL DOES ANYWAY.
Thing get worse. While Harlow’s padded chapters seem to take place in one day, Deb’s chapters speak of weeks of training for roller derby. Why roller derby? Because the author is a former roller girl, and she’s writing what she knows. It makes ZERO sense in the context of the story. This whole story could have been better served without the roller derby angle. It would be like me writing a book where a fairy must use their skills as a computer technician to save the world, just because I used to be a compute technician. This may actually be a case for forgetting what you know and just stick with making stuff up.
And, while I’m complaining, Deb abandons Harlow, her only ally, not because of any valid reasons, but because she “needs a skating fix.” Now folks, I’m addicted to writing. But if my sister were in danger and I was being hunted by half my town, I don’t believe I’d step out on my only ally so I could jot down notes for a new book. And I certainly wouldn’t go to the evil dude who owns half the town to ask him “Can you help me work on a new outline?” From here on out, because of her vapid decision making, I actively hated Deb.
The second half of the book has the time displacement issue I mentioned, but the dialogue falls apart as quickly as the world logic and the character consistency. The violent nature of the fae in this would have seemed more fitting for a big city full of fae gangs, where death and disappearances are taken for granted. But this is a small town, and I just didn’t buy it. At one point, Harlow mentions that Jagger runs the church, and that the people who go in never leave. But no one ever notices all these disappearances. Being that I have lived in small towns my whole life, where nothing is a secret for very long, the idea that these fae had been acting this violently for years without trouble…it just didn’t ring true.
I also didn’t buy how much of the town was trolls, fae, or some hybrid of the two. If there’s so much supernatural stuff living in town, why bother hiding at all? The story went from feeling realistic for the setting to being so over the top that I couldn’t help but sigh with every new character introduced who (shock of shocks) wasn’t human.
And then there’s a minor gripe about removed teeth. Harlow takes two of Deb’s wisdom teeth to make a marriage pact. That’s not the problem. The problem is, despite having two holes in her gums, Deb eats normal food right after. Deb has two gaping holes in her gums, but goes all out rollerskating. Deb spits a lot. “But why is this a big deal?” you say. Because after having wisdom teeth removed, you can’t eat solid food for a week or two. You can’t do heavy physical activity without risking rupturing the growing blood vessels in the sockets, and you’re advised by the dentist not to spit because doing so draws out the newly forming gum flesh and results in dry sockets. Now okay, maybe I’m only aware of this because I not only had my wisdom teeth pried out, but also had 23 extractions done in the same surgery. But the fact is, this is all online in dental surgery after-care pages. It’s basic research, information that would be easy to look up. And it’s just one more part of the story that irked me because the whole thing becomes so lazy in the second half.
When the book heads for a final confrontation, it’s a visually confusing mess made even worse by the villain, Jagger, talking “evil” but mostly coming off as a moron. I want to give bonus points for a Muppets reference late in the game, but only a few sentences later, I was screaming “WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS?” Not even the arrival of a badass black unicorn can save this ending.
I know people probably think I’m exaggerating, but after finishing this, I was so upset by how badly it turned out that I slammed two mixed drink drinks and cried while I shook and hugged myself. I’m pretty sure sane people don’t react to bad endings like this, and I’m relatively sure they wouldn’t have as many problems as I do with the inconsistencies in this story. I had to spend almost an hour telling myself “It’s only a book.” Out loud. Over and over. Pretty sure your mileage will vary.
The last time I felt this betrayed by a book was Shiver, and for much the same reason. It had a great introduction, great characters, and dialogue that cracks and made me laugh out loud. And for me, it’s a much bigger sin to have a book start out great only to end dismally than it is for a book to be consistently weak from start to finish. But I didn’t even get this upset over Shiver as I did at this, because it failed on all counts when it had all been going so great.
Despite loving the first half, I’m forced to give Troll or Derby 2 stars. I wish I could say something more positive, but I really haven’t felt this betrayed by a story in a long time.
