The kind of review that makes me feel ill
Of Red Spikes, from over here (caps theirs, bolding mine):
The, um, 'graphically depicted evils of drug taking'? A girl's boyfriend injects himself. His eyes roll back into his head. She gets bored and leaves.
Oh, okay, the monkey rape scene was pretty violent. But they were monkeys. And I didn't put in anything I hadn't seen on television. And I don't recall there being a warning on the nature documentary about the graphic violence. There you go, though, books are clearly more powerful than television.
READ BEFORE USE WITH STUDENTS—Contains graphic descriptions of violence and drug use.
This book appears to be aimed at a wider demographic than the young adult market targeted by earlier titles such as Black Juice. It employs a similar crossover of genres in the ten short stories included. The stories contain dark themes and challenge readers to interpret language that is skilled and poetic. Appropriate for Senior English and Senior English Extension (Literature).
Words are used more for suggestion than clarification and the intense imagery provokes disturbing ambiguities that will stimulate analysis. A variety of vernacular adds to the interest. Plots vary, but have in common the author’s hallmark quirky ideas. Stories range from one about a woman who is cruelly gagged and punched about the head because of her witch-like ability to make mice and a frightening bogeyman in the manner of Wee Willy Winkie, to the bleaker stories of the machinations of ‘Hell and Heaven’, and the god-like budgie who tenderly provides a simulacrum to protect a family member from the graphically depicted evils of drug taking. [And then, oh my gawd:] Appropriate for investigating the roles of author, reader, text and world while developing an 'understanding of the influence of various contexts on the production of texts and on the reading practices through which readers make meaning' [Just as I always dreamed!].
The, um, 'graphically depicted evils of drug taking'? A girl's boyfriend injects himself. His eyes roll back into his head. She gets bored and leaves.
Oh, okay, the monkey rape scene was pretty violent. But they were monkeys. And I didn't put in anything I hadn't seen on television. And I don't recall there being a warning on the nature documentary about the graphic violence. There you go, though, books are clearly more powerful than television.
posted by Among Amid While at 9:24 pm
3 Comments:
Yee-hah! When I grow up, I want reviews like yours!
When my daughter was in year 8, she was given Blackrock as an official reading book, about the rape and murder of a girl at a beach party. It was based on the true story of the 12-year-old murdered at Newcastle in 1991. Full of explicit language, sex and violence. But apparently appropriate for 13 year olds to read, I think because the morality police were hoping they'd be put off trying to have any fun during their teens.
I loved dark stories as a child and teenager and still do. They grip me in a way the crap they handed us at school never did.
Your reviewer is an idiot who seems to think reading is just something you do, rather than something you experience with all of your senses.
Keep writing!
Thank you, Anon - and Laura, too! It's not just the enemy-of-darkness-and-bleakness-and-ambiguity thing that gets up my nose, it's the idea that anyone would write a book (or read it, or use it) hoping that it would be 'appropriate for investigating the roles of author, reader, text and world while developing an understanding of the influence of various contexts on the production of texts and on the reading practices through which readers make meaning'. Gives me the shudders, that kind of language.
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