#girlypop i don't think i'm the only one with issues here

[frotting-corporations]

parents don't scream, sob, punch the table, rupture my eardrums challenge

[silvertws]

So, I will admit I have not watched all the episodes of KaboodleSMP, BUT.

HOLY FUCK THE LAST ONE.

So, this ofc has spoilers for the last KaboodleSMP episode, or at least what currently is the most recent one. So if you don't want to idk, have a spoiler or whatever.

Anyway.

WHAT WAS THAT K???? 2 IN ONE EPISODE???

ARE YOU-

and OFC they have the whole "oh we're gonna do so many things once this is over"! :D talk.

BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS LIKE THAT.

It ALWAYS happens before it goes bad.

It's either that, or happy flashbacks from the past.

Welp, guess I know what characters I'm gonna draw angst of next :)

I swear I'm ok.

I WASN'T EVEN ATTACHED TO THEM.

I BASICALLY DIDN'T CARE.

AND YET HERE I AM.

Like when girlypop died I was like, "oh fu- welp, bye to THE ONLY FUCKING WEAPON THAT COULD HAVE BEEN USED" because now IDEK if it's like, GONE??? does KYLE HAVE IT? DID IT TELEPORT TO THE FREAKING AFTERLIFE? Does girly even go to an afterlife?????

Oh but one wasn't enough nooo.

The funky yellow boy also had to go. Because he can't be happy ;-;

Dude just wanted to be happy man. :(

Like why does Kyle hate Kab so much actually??? Like what's the point??? Did their dad leave because of their existence??? Like, boy whatever motives you got, whatever grudges, it ain't worth it. Just go work on your issues, ask the firbolg looking girly and book an appointment with her.

Like idk who is making the scripts, because idk if it's every person just makes their own and they then just combine it together, or if it's one, or if it's a group effort.

But man.

Pain.

You all just, man. ;-;

I lied I'm definitely not ok.

How do I manage to just, be sad for characters that I didn't even like, care much about???

That's mean. ;-;

Dangit.

I swear if anything happens to characters I actually care about, I'm just.

No.

Nuh-uh

Imma be in denial if that happens.

*sighs* to think about this for the next idk, week or so I go.

[millylouedward]

The Very Worst Books of 2023

I've shared with the world my favorite books from this year, so it only feels fair for me to release my diss track and spit all over some of the worst literature my eyes have ever seen.

When you read more than 50 books in a single year, there are bound to be some baddies. And I don't mean the kind that slay. I'm talking about the kind you want to drop kick into a dumpster fire where it belongs.

Let's discuss my criteria for the title of Worst Book. I'm not one to shame a book without valid reason. I don't think that's fair to the author.

The prose is flat, one dimensional, or uncreative

The plot lacks good foundation, structure, or has unignorable holes

My suspension of disbelief was not held

I found myself disliking the author's portrayal and direction of the characters which went beyond them being unlikable or unreliable

Generally speaking, I'm a nice person. I like to praise writers for accomplishing something so huge rather than rip them apart because I didn't like their book. Frankly, it was kind of hard to pick 5 of the worst books I read simply because I don't dislike books that often. But alas, here I have the chosen ones.

5. School Spirits - Rachel Hawkins

I went on a Rachel Hawkins binge this year. I read her Hex Hall series in an effort to heal my inner child. I could distinctly recall being 12 years old and begging my mom to buy me the first Hex Hall book at Books A Million. I'd seen it on the back of a J-14 magazine and I just had to have it. But she said no. And for over 10 years, I wondered what I had missed out on.

As it turns out, not much. The story is mid. It's just another Harry Potter rip off that lacks creativity. I still had a good time reading it, but it had a lot of problems. And somehow, at the end of the series, I just couldn't let it go. Don't look at me like that, YA witch school stories are fun! So I moved on to School Spirits.

This book had Issues. First of all, it's a spinoff of the original Hex Hall books and the series got killed before Hawkins could finish it. So it ends with two major plot points completely unresolved. Along with that, there were many smaller plot holes and simple continuity errors which made me think this book as hastily thrown together after the success of the original books.

However, if I'd been 14 years old and reading this book, I probably would've ate it up and left no crumbs. It's funny at times and has a good story. The characters are likable and true to their nature. Unfortunately, it's just the unresolved ending that pushed this one to the bottom of the barrel for me.

4. The Half of It - Madison Beer

I know what you're thinking. Milly, you must be so evil to rate someone's life story so poorly. But that's just it. This ISN'T a life story. It's not a memoir in the slightest.

Most of the chapters go like this: Beer tells us something happened. She only half describes something and doesn't show us anything. Then she gets into her feelings about it for the rest of the chapter. Then the next chapter would be an "Ask Amy" style section where she offers advice to her reader. Then the next is a journal prompt for the reader. Girlypop, I'm sorry but that is not what a memoir is. The whole time I was reading this book I kept wanting so badly for her to give me something, ANYTHING. It wasn't until the very last chapter when she finally showed the reader a scene that was super well described and I realized this is what I've been wanting from her the whole time.

This "memoir" was written exclusively for her superfans who know everything about her life and just want more of her heart. That's fine. But for the casual memoir reader, this was not a good book. Miss Beer could've put all of this on a Tumblr blog and it would've sufficed.

For a young reader though, I could see some parts of this book being beneficial. She poses a lot of thought-provoking questions. She went through something really challenging that some girls would want to end their lives over, and I think her sharing how she handled it and felt about it is really powerful.

3. Magpie - Elizabeth Day

(spoilers ahead)

How would you feel if you read a book, and then half way through it you had to read it again but from a different perspective? Well, that's what Magpie is. In this book, you're following a woman (Marisa) who is pregnant and living with her husband when they invite another woman (Kate) to live in their house and pay them rent to help with pregnancy/baby costs.

Except half way through, we find out the narrator is unreliable. And then we go back in time and see everything that happened from the beginning up to the point when we learn about the unreliability from the perspective of Kate. And even then, we still don't know how the story is going to end or who the real villain is.

It really felt to me as if the author had had one idea, got half way through, and then thought, "what if I do something else instead?" and then created Magpie. I honestly would have been totally okay with an unreliable narrator if I hadn't had to see everything happen again from Kate's perspective. The story would have been a much better read to me had we not gone the route of Marisa being the crazy one and sent the plot in a different direction.

2. Girlfriend on Mars - Deborah Willis

We have taken the space shuttle past a number of dying stars, and here we arrive at the black hole.

Girlfriend on Mars was nothing like I thought it would be. I was expecting a fun, goofy reality show up on Mars. Sounds like a good enough time for me. But this book was in the same vein as My Year of Rest and Relaxation. It's about two mentally unstable people who need to go to therapy and maybe move somewhere with more sun.

Aside from the characters giving me absolutely no reason to root for them, the writing is downright atrocious. There were so many grammatical errors in the ebook version that I wanted to barf. Quotation marks are stylized differently from chapter to chapter and I couldn't find any reason for them being so. So many pop culture references are made, and I think putting pop culture in a work of literature is vile. It ages a book faster than parmigiano reggiano.

There is also a major plot hole at the end that I could not forgive.

But, I did like "Season 2" despite it only being the last 20% of the book. I liked how real shit got when the two contestants made it to Mars. I thought this was the best part of the book. It was poignant and it stuck with me. I finally felt like all that reading wasn't for nothing.

1. Ugly Love - Colleen Hoover

(spoilers ahead)

A lot of people will hate me for this but this was one of the worst books I ever read period. Like, everything that could go wrong went wrong for me.

Let me just do a bullet point list.

The writing of the characters is weak and unrealistic. No one really develops as a character and their stage direction is confusing at times. Dillon was unnecessary and so was Cap.

The male stereotypes made me cringe so hard. Colleen makes it seem like men only want sex, men feel no physical pain, men have to keep their emotions bottled up.

There was mild homophobia in Corbin repeatedly being like "Are you gay? No? I wish you were gay."

Miles' poetry-esque chapters also made me cringe and came across as creepy and weird

He did WHAT with his teen stepsister in the shower???

Tate is not a character I can root for. She has no self respect, no drive, no personality, no growth. She's immature and lets people walk all over her. She lies about what she wants and cannot be honest with herself. She needs THERAPY. Nothing about her made me like her or want to see her happy.

The biggest sin here is that Colleen chose the wrong people to write the story about. I did not care about Tate one bit, but I did think there was huge potential in the story of Miles and Rachel. If I'd seen this story in a writing workshop, I would've told her to toss Tate and keep writing their story instead. Had we been able to get into Rachel's head, witness her pain at the death of her newborn, and see her and Miles find love again after being apart and maybe even having another baby together (and NOT being step siblings, bc ew) would've been an infinitely better love story.

I almost, and I mean almost put Girlfriend on Mars as my worst book of 2023. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was absolutely nothing I liked about Ugly Love. Even the ending, which was somewhat romantic, stung for me because I didn't think these people belonged together. They're the kind of couple that will break up during a spat and then get back together 2 days later like nothing happened.

I will be giving Colleen Hoover a chance at redemption when I read Verity in 2024. Who knows, maybe she'll top the list of my Worst Books two years in a row.