The Postmortal by Drew Magary

 

I'll be honest, I haven't thought of Drew Magary in years, since reading his Deadspin columns kept me entertained at my first adult job. But I really enjoyed his writing then, so seeing that he had written some books made me curious to give them a try.

Warning: There will be spoilers I'm not blocking out or anything because I need to get this off my chest.

The premise itself is incredibly interesting: people are able to get The Cure and live forever. Well, at least not age. They'd forever stay the age they were when they got The Cure and wouldn't become elderly, but they could still die from gunshots, illnesses, etc. I think if he took it to a literary sci-fi place from there, it would have been fascinating. Or focused on a few key characters and had it turn out to be something like The Measure by Nikki Erlick. But he created the most unlikeable character and, in my opinion, shot his own idea in the foot.

I want to start with a disclaimer: it's okay for a character to be unlikeable. Humans are unlikeable. And it's possible many people (especially men, let's be honest) love John in this book.

I didn't dislike him initially. I was neutral until he became so whiny and narcissistic after his roommate died and he obsessed that HE was the whole reason she was dead. Which was true in a way, but get over it.

There was him knocking up a woman but not wanting to marry her because now "til death do us part" could mean hundreds of years, and he couldn't promise that. Which, I get. I'm not a marriage person either. But if you feel that way, wrap it up or get a vasectomy. Instead, he brought this kid David into the world and thought about him lovingly, very randomly, whenever he needed to feel like a good person. Or maybe whenever Magary wanted us to think the narrator was a good person. As someone raising a kid with an absent father, it was infuriating and made John incredibly unlikable for me. He seriously ONLY thought of his kid in moments when he was going to die or needed to pull out something emotional, and it got old. 

I guess the fact that it riles me so much shows that it's a realistic characteristic! But what made my eyes roll out of my head was the part after a near-death experience when he said "I counted my fingers, one through ten, as I did with David when he was born." (p249 Kindle edition).

EXCEPT!!! I remembered that scene and flipped back to find it because I was like, no way in hell is this deadbeat dad LYING about counting his own kid's fingers! BUT HE DID!

"I handed him to Nate. He counted all of the baby's fingers and toes." (p125 Kindle edition)

Nate was the man who married John's pregnant ex and raised David as though the boy was his own child. NATE was the one who was smart enough to count the baby's fingers and toes AFTER the sperm donor held the baby. Yet 125 pages later, this asshole character was convinced he was the one who had done it? Okay.

Then there was Alison, his middle school crush, coming back into his life. Cue paragraphs and paragraphs of how beautiful and perfect she was back then, and how much he loved her. How much he did for her hoping she'd like him instead of wanting to be friends. How much he asked her out even when she politely rejected him. Yeah, I get it, he was in middle school, he didn't know better. But then there's his daydream of wanting to save her from RAPE so she'd have to like him?

They get together, of course, because somehow this guy charms people. But he STILL wasn't sure he could marry her and stay with her for hundreds of years, because he's trash.

Then he's randomly trying to be incredibly macho but not realizing how he comes off? He chases a man and bashes his teeth in with a gun, and Alison sees what he does and is scared, clearly, because she's realizing he's insanely violent and she doesn't really know John at all, so John CHASES after her to reassure her everything is fine!!! And she runs into the path of a bus and dies.

At this point, I'm wishing someone would just take John out. Because now it's like when he lost his roommate and is moping over how regretful he is that he caused someone else to die. I was really wishing the evil "Greenies" in the book (who try to kill people who have gotten the Cure and therefore rarely naturally die) would just gang up on John and kill him to end all of our suffering.

There are also random instances of insane description. About a wound: "blood rose from the opening like the head of a small animal." WHAT? "The bulb of plasma broke like a bubble and ran down his side in thick streaks, like the legs inside an expensive glass of wine."

Then.... THEN!!! He gets lonely one night and contacts a hooker. Oh, but our narrator is a good guy! He just wants to talk! Until the hooker finds out John now has a job helping people with The Cure die if they want to die. She wants to die. He agrees to help her, but she insists they have sex first, so of course John does - it's her dying wish! And he kills her as she orgasms! WHAT?! I felt like I was reading some trashy Chad Kultgen/Bret Easton Ellis mashup and wanted to stop right there. But I was close to the end and felt like I had to see how things wrapped up.

I wish I had stopped there. The book just fell apart from there.

I don't want to rip it all apart, because I do genuinely like the concept and how it was done: told in blog entries and "headline roundups" and stuff that really gave a broad picture of what was going on throughout the expansive timeline of the book. I liked that storytelling style very much. And you know what? I used to blog and YES bloggers are full of themselves, so it makes sense that John is writing about his days and his emotions like that, so maybe I should lay off. But he's just insufferable. He tries to be macho and pithy at times but just comes off as clueless and ignorant, the type of creep most women (though clearly not a few in this book...) know to avoid. He's naive at best, but acts like he knows it all. One of those confidently incorrect dudes.

But if I ignore John, though he's the narrator and the main character, there are some great quotes here that really resonate. I think some of Magary's commentary on armies defecting after decades of service was interesting: "When you've served in the army for as long as I have, it becomes clear that you are not really serving your country, but that you are serving the very small group of men who control that country." That feels especially relevant today.

I also thought the Church of Man was interesting overall, and this comes from an atheist. "We believe that we can become better people if we recognize that the forces of good in this world---kindness, forgiveness, generosity, love---are inherently within us, within our control."

And there was a moment when I thought things might turn around, when a Church of Man representative literally called him on his bullshit and said "Any man who says he has no choice in life is just too lazy to make his own way." (AMEN!) But by the end of the book, John is forcing himself on yet another incredibly hot woman (did I mention that every woman he snagged in this book was unbelievably physically attractive? Did a 14-year-old write this?!), "I moved to her and began kissing her. Engulfing her. I wanted to squeeze her until her brain popped out of her head." 

Yikes. I'll give you that this book was written in 2011, but... yikes.

(He then tears open her shirt, kisses her nipples, and licks her belly. Wow, satisfying. Again, was this written by a 14-year-old?!)

It may be a long shot, but have you read this book? Did you used to like Drew Magary's column?! Sound off in the comments, because I clearly have a lot of thoughts!

Once Upon a Con Series by Ashley Poston

The Once Upon a Con series by Ashley Poston

Geekerella by Ashley Poston. I read this book back in 2016 when I was a teen librarian and was sent a copy to review. I loved it then and, since it’s been so long (and my memory sucks a bit) I wanted to re-read it before reading the others in the series for the first time. I didn’t remember much of the story so it was like reading it for the first time, and really pulled me in emotionally more than I remembered before. I love these characters and am excited to read the other books and see what else happens to them!

My original Geekerella review: I don't like scifi or the related conventions, and I'm not a fan of fairy tale retellings, therefore you'd think Geekerella is not the book for me. But it drew me in with the quirky cover, and when I started the first page, I was hooked. You kind of forget it's a Cinderella story because the plot is so interesting, and the characters are great. You're rooting for Elle from the beginning, hating her evil stepmother and stepsisters, and you also get sucked into the story of Starfield and the fandom surrounding the show. I totally loved this book and already want to re-read it! It's going to be a hit.

The Princess and the Fangirl by Ashley Poston. I wasn’t sure how I’d like a story centered on Jessica Stone after how she came across in Geekerella, but Poston did a great job making her more likeable. I liked that the story centered around the con again so we could “see” some characters from last time, but overall, I didn’t love this one as much. I think I had trouble with the identity swap, mostly in relation to Harper, Imogen’s online friend who met Jess instead of Imogen. If Harper was falling for Jess… wouldn’t some of that be because she thought she had a solid friendship with Imogen? And if Jess and Imogen look so much alike, would she also be in love with Imogen? I know Jess and Harper connected that weekend, too, but it just stuck out in my mind that the whole situation was pretty weird, and as petty as it may be, that kind of tainted my thoughts on the book.

Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston. Maybe reading this series back to back was too much for me, because I was pretty burned out on cons and Starfield by this point. Thankfully, the book isn't set at a convention, and Starfield is kind of minor despite the main character loving the show/books/movies and the love interest being an actor in the films. But there was much less Starfield overall. There were a few mentions of the previous characters and some appearances, so it was nice to see what they were up to, but overall, this one felt a bit phoned in for me. I initially thought it was just me reading them too close together, but I think Poston and the editors might have been feeling the same way, because there were so consistency issues that stuck out to me. One in particular was at the end of the book when Vance is worried about tabloids getting their text messages and call histories because he told her "so much--too much." Yet a few chapters before, Rosie told him that she lost her phone, and he said "Huh, so that's why you never asked for my number." So... how did they text and talk and share so much?

Overall, this was a fun series to read. I liked how one of the secondary characters in the first book became a main character in the second, and the same thing happened for the third. However, it got a bit tiring that each of the celebrities had these huge blocks about trusting someone even though they were falling in love so quickly. They always felt at risk of being exposed or taken advantage of, and while I get that's a real risk, it was tiresome after the second book.

There were also some other overused ideas (which I've noticed in Poston's other books, too), like unique birthmarks (often on the neck), scars (on the face or mouth area), and giving "finger-guns" (to express... quirkiness?). So while Poston books are fun escapes and quick reads, I think it's time to take a break and venture back to some other authors.

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Measure by Nikki Erlick is one of those books that really makes you stop and think. The premise is wild but fascinating—everyone in the world over the age of 22 gets a box with a string inside, and the length of that string tells them how long they have left to live. What would you do if you knew how much time you had left? Would you want to know?

The story follows different characters as they deal with the impact of this mystery, and I loved how their lives were all connected in some way, even if they didn’t know it. Some people open the box, others don’t, and the way each person handles the knowledge (or lack of it) is so interesting. The book dives into big ideas about fate, choice, and how we define our lives, but it also has this really human, emotional core that keeps it grounded.

For me, this book really got me thinking. It feels so relevant to everything going on in the world today, and I appreciated how it tackled society’s issues and those inevitable life events from so many different perspectives. And that ending—it felt so real and touching. It made me reflect on the story in a whole new way, just like how we can look at life and what’s happening in the world around us and see things differently with time. Honestly, it mirrors a lot of what’s going on in the country right now.

Ready Player One

I read Ready Player One in October 2016 because two librarian friends/coworkers recommended it to me. Honestly, based on the description, it's something I probably never would have picked up on my own. So I owe a huge thanks to those librarians because I LOVED the book.

My review:

I loved this book! It was recommended to me by a friend who said I’d like it even though I don’t like sci-fi. To clarify, I don’t like hard sci-fi. I like things that seem like they could happen, like dystopia and robots and establishing a life on other planets. This book was amazing because it could be read as a statement on what direction the world is going in - so much is done online, not face-to-face. Life seems so great on Facebook but it’s not in reality, etc. 
Wade basically lives in the OASIS, an online world that’s better than the real world, especially considering that people live in trailers stacked on each other. He squats in an abandoned van to log in to the OASIS and become Parzival, an avatar who is still in high school, but is searching for the egg the OASIS creator left encoded in the game before he died. I don’t want to give too much away, but this book totally sucked me in, and I already want to re-read it!

I saw the movie on opening weekend, in an IMAX theater - the first IMAX movie I've seen that wasn't an educational documentary at the Pink Palace! It was pretty cool to see on the big screen; I think that kind of fit with the movie overall, being such a blowout action-y movie based so much on technology.

The movie itself was pretty good... It could stand alone. If I hadn't read the book, I could still follow the movie. That's important to me - I remember seeing The Giver and feeling like I would be so lost if I hadn't read the book. But that movie was horrible, so let's move on before I go on an angry tangent.

Ready Player One told a story in the movie - to my memory, it was pretty different than the book, but I read it long enough ago where I can only remember snippets and the general feeling I felt about it. The CGI in the movie was pretty bad in my mind; it looked kind of 80ish, which might have been the point! I haven't read any reviews or book comparisons about it yet. But I thought it was kind of a ripoff that so much of the movie was just CGI characters doing stuff. Some of the scenes were pretty hokey, too, and the references were too much - not thrown in to be clever, but so in your face you know they wanted the audience to react. And the audience DID react, to let everyone know they got the joke, and that's one petty reason I hate going to the movie theater - people clapping for the movie, talking back to it, etc.

Bottom line: the book is always better than the movie, but I always love seeing the movie just so I can compare them!

Best Adult Fiction Read in 2016

I would say I typically read more young adult fiction than adult fiction, and the adult fiction I do read is mostly suspense and psychological thrillers. Surprisingly, the top 5 adult fiction books I picked for the year are pretty different across the board.

In order from most recently published to oldest:

Good as Gone by Amy Gentry (2016). Julie was kidnapped from her house when she was 13, but the circumstances were very suspicious. She was never found, but suddenly appeared on her parents’ doorstep eight years later. Except several people don’t believe that this is the real Julie, and they have evidence. This book jumped around between points of view, seemed to introduce random characters, and basically did a great job at making sure you didn’t know what to believe as truth. It was very well done and very interesting to read.

Paris for One by Jojo Moyes (2016). I love Jojo Moyes' characters because they're so well-developed, so realistic, and so... cozy. The title novella is great to immerse yourself in, and the following short stories are pretty quick, with interesting twists and some surprise endings. I read it in one sitting and loved it.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (2014). I read this because it was one of Oprah’s Book Club picks and I needed it for my Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. I was SO glad I picked this one, because it was amazing. I’ve read Sue Monk Kidd before and loved it, and this one was no exception. It is based on historical figure Sarah Grimke and how she fought for slaves’ and women’s rights. The narrative was told from her point of view, as well as the point of view of Handful, a slave the Grimke family owned. I’m usually not into historical fiction but this way beautifully done and inspired further research on my part.

Someday Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham (2013). I love Lauren Graham, mostly as Lorelai Gilmore, so I was worried I was going to imagine that character as the narrator in this book. Luckily the story is about Franny trying to make it as an actress in New York, and she’s silly and funny, so imagining Lauren Graham as the character totally fit. I love reading about people trying to make it as actors, so I loved this book. The overall resolution was a little obvious, but there were nods throughout the book that Graham knew what was going on, so it seemed a little less hokey. The ending itself was very well-written. I’d love to read more from her.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011).  I loved this book! It was recommended to me by a friend who said I’d like it even though I don’t like sci-fi. To clarify, I don’t like hard sci-fi. I like things that seem like they could happen, like dystopia and robots and establishing human life on other planets. This book was amazing because it could be read as a statement on the direction society is headed - so much is done online, not face-to-face. Life seems so great on Facebook but it’s not in reality, etc.

Wade basically lives in the OASIS, an online world that’s better than the real world, especially considering that, in the real world, people live in trailers stacked on top of each other. He squats in an abandoned van to log in to the OASIS and become Parzival, an avatar who is still in high school, but is searching for the egg the OASIS creator left encoded in the game before he died. I don’t want to give too much away, but this book totally sucked me in, and I already want to re-read it! I recommend it to everyone, especially people who don’t like sci-fi, because it will blow you away. With the movie version being released in 2018, you might as well read it now so you can see it when it comes out! If the adaptation is well done, I think the movie could be just as great as the book.