#The plot is actually excellent and I like how Lori and Prettykin are foils to each other but [distant retching sounds]

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Ok so I just read chapter fourteen of The Rebuilt Man.

Why does every female character‘s breasts have to be immediately described within seconds of introducing them? Why does every lady with more dialogue than “Hello, and welcome to the Mauna Loa Holiday Inn! How may I help you?” have to get butt naked and instigate sex?

Fucking. Louisa. Vandenhoff’s step-niece. Does it. With Vandenhoff. “It’s okay because we’re not actually kin.” BRO YOU’VE KNOWN HER SINCE SHE WAS FOURTEEN and you’ve been fascinated with her “big ugly thighs” ever since. Yuck.

For the record I don’t mind graphic or disturbing depictions of… anything… in fiction, so long as it makes sense and is done with some level of delicacy; but every instance of a man and woman staying together in this book, no matter what the relation, has ended in sex. Every time. Lori and Don, I can understand; that makes sense. She’s pretending to be his wife for top-secret national security reasons. But this? Come on. No. “Louisa needed somewhere to stay for college. It took Louisa and Vandenhoff exactly ten weeks of them staying in the same house before the desire became unbearable.” I feel like I’m reading a story on confessionpost.com (don’t go to that website; it’s vile and full of just about everything in the average person’s DNI… and it’s allegedly all real).

AND! AND! It gets worse. Right before these two do the deed, the narrator goes on to explain how undesirable Louisa is. In fact, EVERYTHING about Louisa is undesirable except her voice (which is uncharacteristically sexy, of course). None of the boys her age would have her because of her looks (which, by the way, sound similar to a lady’s in classical painting); so Vandenhoff — HER FIFTY-YEAR-OLD STEP-UNCLE — is the only guy in the world who wants her. That’s the implication. Yuck.