Questionable Art
Not to yuck yums, but my recent reads were very dumb.
Onward!
I finally got the latest draft of my manuscript back from my editor. tl;dr I sent it to an editor last July, and it was just returned to me (for many complicated reasons).
But it is in final stages and with some beta readers, so I’m excited to put it on the next stage of the writing journey.
This book is very special to me, and I think it’s the best one I’ve ever written: It’s accessible, well-written, funny, and heartfelt. I’ve been working on a draft of it, in some form or another, for the last twenty years.
I’m going all in on traditional publication (which is the writer equivalent of saying, “I’m headed to Mount Doom.”). If you know of any agents interested in YA books, lemme know!!
Today’s long-form blog (below) is all about me hating stuff. Enjoy!
My Creative Stuff
This Week in Art
Quickie: I just needed to roast a book and a movie.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Boo-go
It’s been a rough week in my art intake. I returned two (TWO!) books to the library after trying to read them and getting so bored and/or upset in the first thirty pages, that I just couldn’t do it anymore.
One of them was by an up-and-coming writer, and I have no desire to drag them, but the other is a mega-successful book that had my flabbers gasted. Like, who enjoyed this?
That question is purely rhetorical. The point of this is not to yuck anyone’s yum. We all love different stuff for different reasons. Sonic 2 is one of my fave movies of the past decade. But I thought the first thirty pages of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo were unbearable.
[As a note, I don’t know if the below are actually spoilers because I figure this out before I got to chapter two…]
First… Oh man. So, rule #1 of writing a plot, don’t introduce a huge secret and and the solution in the first thirty pages. In this book, the narrator gets a call from the famous Evelyn Hugo to write her biography.
Narrator is like, “Wow. Why did this mysterious star ask me to write this biography? Could it have something to do with my father who worked in the film industry?”
Later conversation with Evelyn:
Narrator: “Yo, Evs. Is this about my dad?”
Evelyn: “I shall tell you in my time!”
This is all so lazy and dumb, I can’t even with it. OF COURSE IT’S ABOUT YOUR FATHER WHO INTERACTED WITH CELEBRITIES AT THE EXACT TIME EVELYN WAS FAMOUS.
And then to have the Evelyn basically say, “It is a secret that I’ll reveal later!”
I refuse. I put down the book and RAN to the library to return it.
I read the full book summary to see if I was right, and, while there is a twist on how the dad’s involved, it’s… yes, correct.
When all this went down on page 25, I flipped through the other 400 pages and just thought, “What reason is there to read this?”
The other thing that drove me nuts was the narration. It’s a classic oversharrator (I don’t know if that’s a real word, but I’m making it one—a combination of overshare + narrator). The narrator tells you every thought she’s thinking. Everything. This could be fine, but in this book it’s all contradictory.
The narrator, at her core, is really fascinating: divorced, down-on-her-luck, struggling at work.
That’s a great character.
But, for some reason, the author also layered a girlbossification schema on all that. So she somehow is smart, ambitious, and powerful, but also not? It leads to some very odd internal dialogue that just doesn’t make sense (and goes on and on and on). It’s okay to have a flawed female character who doesn’t take control of every situation. I promise! We call them humans!
The premise of this book is fabulous, but the execution was rough. If you enjoyed it, please let me know why in the comments. I’m sure it just takes more patience to get past page thirty.
The Devil’s Prada-matic Plot Structure
I actually enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada 2, but I also know it’s terrible. My buddy said it best, “It’s gay fanfiction of the first movie.”
I think a bulleted list is best to take on this one. [As a heads, there are nothing but spoilers below for the movie.]:
I feel like the first half of this movie was written by one person (or bot) and the second half was written by another (likely bot). The first half is basically a rehash of the first movie, then the second half becomes… I’m not even sure. It’s like a corporate comedy? They touch on some contemporary stuff: AI, space billionaires, McKinsey consultants, the enshittification of everything. In the end, though, it’s just about Andy saving the company via… another billionaire (but a good one!). The messaging is also really hilarious at the end (more on that later).
The love interest in this movie is maybe the least interesting character ever created. The actor actually does a phenomenal job with the nothing-burger human that is on the page. He mostly sits there while Andy espouses why she’s better than him (journalism!) and flirtatiously laughs. The one time he dares to challenge her worldview, she basically tells him to leave. I have no idea why this man is in the movie. In the words of Kiki Palmer, “Sorry to this man.”
The big mid-movie twist is the death of a billionaire. Not to bore you with plot structure concepts here, but that’s very weird. Dead bodies don’t show up in workplace comedies. It also causes the big problem mentioned in #1 where it’s basically two different movies sutured together. This could have worked, I think? But the death is so left field it feels like its writers (or bots) admitting that they had no idea what to do with the story from the first half of the movie. [As a side note: Dead bodies at the halfway point are GREAT in murder mysteries. But, again, not in rom coms.]
There’s a Lady Gaga concert 75% of the way through the movie. I loved it, but I have no idea why it is there.
I laughed out loud when Miranda comes to her “realization” that she’s, you know, exploited Nigel for forty years. All it took was Andy being like “Hey, give that speech to Nigel.” Miranda’s suddenly gets misty-eyed and goes over to Nigel to confess that she has faith in him. This is a complete ret-con of everything from the first movie, but, okay. Also, only Meryl Streep could have made this insane moment even kind of work. The I’ve-taken-advantage-of-you-and-abused-you-for-forty-years-but-now-for-no-reason-appreciate-you moment.
Related, I thought Nigel would get a great scene with the speech, but his speech is basically, “Hi everyone. I like fashion and Italy.” The end. WHY DID WE NOT LET NIGEL SHINE??
The ending is amazing. I have no idea what in the millennial hellscape it’s trying to say, but it’s basically like “working is great!” Andy and Miranda have their heart-to-heart in the car and it ends with Miranda saying, “I love working.” Then we cut to everyone working very late in a corporate tower and smiling. Then, the countercultural icon of our era, Lady Gaga, starts singing. You guys that’s hilarious. What does that even mean? Every philosophical and religious thinker of the last 6000 years is like “love and connection are all that matters.” Devil Wears Prada 2 says, “What if life is actually about working for abusive overlords in a cold, corporate environment? What if you give them everything until those same overseers eventually try to destroy your livelihood?”
All that being said, Devil’s Wear Prada 2/Lady Gaga Fashion Concert final score: 100/5 stars. Must see. Come for the banal love interest, stay for the themes of corporate subservience.
Conclusion
Have a great weekend, everyone!
This month’s song is a Noah Kahan jam I found this week. I’m seeing him this summer at Wrigley, and this one from his new album hit me in the feels.
Oversharrator! Love this. Stealing it...