Postscript #3: The Kids Are All Wrong. And Stupid.

Matthew says: It’s time for our third installment of Postscript, because our readers tell us how much we make them laugh all the time, so it’s only fair that once a month we tell you all how much you make us laugh.

Ariel says: We probably still missed some amazing comments. Somehow there are just tons and tons of great ones to get through (we’re so lucky to have the best readers ever!), so some may slip through the cracks. JUST BE MORE AMAZING NEXT TIME.

(Comments may be edited for conciseness and clarity)

Beautiful/Walking Disaster

scummy48 has had it up to here with plot holes:

Was there any transition from Abby saying she couldn’t be with Travis without him changing but also didn’t want him to change to her deciding to date him? Great writing, McGuire. And what happened to all the condoms in the condom bowl? Even if he broke the bowl the condoms should have been fine? Did he just throw them all out after his breakdown. That seems wasteful.

Dana notices an even bigger plot hole that actually affects how much sense the story makes:

Seriously, who is paying for the fancy hotel room? Couldn’t they have just used that money to make up the extra 5K, or most of it at the very least?

Madeleine summarizes our reaction to Travis’s tattoo rather nicely:

I’M DYING OF LAUGHTER BECAUSE TRAVIS TATTOOED FUCKING “PIGEON” ON HIS WRIST THIS BOOK IS ABSOLUTE FUCKING GOLD

Kristin wonders how Travis has avoided getting into any trouble for his appalling behavior:

In all seriousness, how is Travis not expelled from this school? Breaking & entering in a dorm, trashing a classroom? At bare minimum the campus chapter of PETA should have him locked up for even owning poor plot puppy.

The gang goes to Vegas because Mick is in debt to the mob, which he explains by saying he needs “25”. Travis interprets this as “$2,500”. Mick means this as “$25,000”. Ariel’s mom interpreted it as something completely different:

When Abby asked how much her Dad needed, and he said 25, I thought it was $25 and couldn’t understand why that amount necessitated a trip to Vegas. LOL

A lot of people had some very well-written criticisms about the relationship presented in Beautiful/Walking Disaster and how it glorifies the abusive relationship with zero self-awareness. Way too many people to put them all here (you guys are good), but these are some that stood out to us the most:

“Add me to the list of those who are sick to death of ‘But I wuv you and want to marry you now!’-male leads and the faux-independent women who think they are pushing back, but are actually relenting to whatever the asshole guy wants, out of fear that is mistaken as love.” –Kristin

“It really scares me that, somehow in the romance genre, the middle ground between a cliche perfect portrayal of love and a portrayal of dependency and abuse has been lost. Suddenly this type of abusive behavior is seen as ok and realistic and desirable because ‘love isn’t perfect and these books are being realistic in showing that’. Love isn’t perfect. But flat out abuse is not the same as imperfect love. This book doesn’t show a couple that’s kind of unhealthy but in love; it shows actual assault, stalking, fear, and abuse.” –scummy48

Kara gets a lot of love and is generally regarded as the best character in this series:

The whole Kara situation is making me feel genuinely sad. She’s dealt with a flighty roommate and her asshole boyfriend and been in an unstable roommate situation (it sounds like Abby has been gone for long stretches of time and then just drops back in for a few days with no warning) all while struggling through her first semester at college. She has every right to hate Abby. And YET, in this chapter she’s been more kind, considerate, and loyal to Abby than her bff America has in the entire book. She covered for Abby while her psycho ex broke into their dorm room (which is a fucking horrifying situation), and is thoughtful enough to be aware of Abby’s feelings instead of gloating. I feel more emotions for her character than I do for anything Trabby has gone through. This girl is too good for this book. I hope she finds happiness away from these nutcases. – Jena

In all honesty, I downloaded my e-book copy of Beautiful Disaster for free, but I would pay full cover price on a novel that was written by a better writer than McGuire and told this entire story from Kara’s point of view. The scene in which Travis busts into her dorm room was so legitimately upsetting, not because I care at all about Trabby’s pseudo-heartbreak, but because I can’t imagine how traumatized I would’ve been if, during my first semester of college, my roommate’s psychotic boyfriend broke into our room, trashed it, and kept screaming at me to tell him where my roommate was. – Kate

House of Night: Marked

Zoey reveals her “colorful” dating history of “Heath the Jock, or Jordan the Sloth, or Jonathan the Stupid Band Kid”. Bellomy is underwhelmed:

She’s telling us she dated a jock, a lazy guy, and a dumb guy from band. Damn girl, you’re just a wild thing, aren’t you?

Ali just can’t:

I refuse to comment on this terrible book. So, my baby crawled today!

Dana realizes that Aphrodite actually has the most hellish existence of any character in a Bad Books, Good Times book ever:

So… Aphrodite has to live every day of her life having sudden visions of all these horrible tragedies, just seeing these random people dying in a variety of gruesome ways? I know that was supposed to make me think of Aphrodite as being TOTALLY EVULZ, but honestly? In my mind, that makes her substantially more sympathetic than Zoey will ever be. Could you imagine how traumatizing and emotionally exhausting that would be?

Shannon‘s grandmother texts the same way as the teens in this book:

What does it say about anything that my 68 year old mother texts in that exact same fashion?? Also, what does it say about me that I am constantly having to tell her that I cannot decipher what she is trying to say? She abbreviates every single word and uses NO punctuation. Her “Gr8 mt u thr” leaves me debating if she is enthusiastic to meet me somewhere or if she is enjoying her protein while wondering about my current location.

scummy48 becomes that which she hates:

Ok. I think I figured it out:
Kristen Cast was watching Mean Girls and PC cast happened to walk in. She kept commenting on how sinful the movie is and about what a bad influence it is. But then she realized that, if this is what kids like these days, why not trick them into learning morals by sneaking them into a plot that crazy teens already love. And they love that Twilight series, don’t they? So let’s add vampires! And of course everyone likes Harry Potter, so let’s add a tingling mark on her forehead to make this more universal! And I can’t connect to the younger generation without pop culture, so I’ll bring up Sarah Jessica Parker and Faith Hill and the likes of those folks the youngsters love! And I’ll have Kristen help me so that teens really feel this book speaking to them, and not DOWN to them! Why, I’m going to purify the next generation!! And thus this series was born.
…and I think I just wrote a fan fiction of PC Cast’s life. I should probably go to sleep now.

Kate‘s suspension of disbelief has been broken:

Wow, nope. I flat out refuse to believe that someone who says “poopie” with Zoey’s frankly alarming frequency is capable of using the word “reconnoitering” in a sentence.

Alexx knows what could have vastly improved this book:

More importantly, instead of writing this crap of a book, the Magikarp gif should have just been printed on every page.

Shannon criticizes both the pacing and the (meager) plot and the Twilight films. Win!

If you DID read them all, it would take you 5 years of actual reading to uncover like a month’s worth of plot. This is the slowest moving POS I have ever even heard of. Its slower than that ridiculous 4th Twilight movie with all the music and montages and twirling camera crap….or was that the third one…or the first one… oh wait…

The Room

So Bad Books, Good Times has now seen Tommy Wiseau’s ass:

“I often complain that whenever there is nudity in a movie it always seems to be the woman and that there are hardly even any butt shots of the man… Never again.” –E.H. Taylor

“May I ass you a question?” –Shannon