Mind Fuck by Manna Francis (The Administration #1)

Synopsis:
There are no bad guys or good guys. There are only better guys and worse guys. One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world in which torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division, where his colleagues can be more dangerous than the criminals he investigates. One of the better guys is Keir Warrick. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a "sim" system that places users in a fully immersive virtual reality. A minnow in a murky and dangerous pond, he is only beginning to discover how many compromises may be required for success. 

Their home is the dark future dystopia of New London. A totalitarian bureaucracy controls the European Administration, sharing political power with the corporations. The government uses violence and the many divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain control and crush resistance. The corporations fight among themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of "corporate sabotage," uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its influence over them. Toreth and Warrick are more natural enemies than allies. But mutual attraction and the fight for survival can create unlikely bonds

I thought about giving this book five stars.

As the days and weeks went by and I failed to write a proper review, I realised I’d made the right decision. Mind Fuck is a really good book but it’s not extraordinary.

In the dystopic future there’s the Administration. There aren’t really any nations, just regional Administrations and corporations that control people’s lives. This is a world where everything is monitored unless it’s not—to protect business secrets—and where torture is legalised.

That’s where Toreth works: In Investigation and Interrogation, I&I. He goes through mountains of paperwork, adjusts drug dosages and on an occasion handles the more precise tools of the trade. He also has irregular one-night stands under assumed names in hotel rooms he charges his employer for.

All in all, it’s a good life. Then he meets Warrick.

Just as Toreth has sold his life to the Administration, Warrick has tied himself to the corporations. He’s brilliant and just as emotionally challenged as Toreth is, albeit in his own way. These two men, they get under each other’s skin and can’t quite get rid of one another. Logic and life experience dictates that they must, but a convenient murder mystery ensures they can’t.

Mind Fuck is as light on the erotica and BDSM as it is on the world building. Still, I got the feeling everything had been thought through and that the author is asking the reader to trust her while she properly introduces the characters. Looking at the long list of The Administration series novellas and novels there’s a lot left to explore. Still, I wouldn’t recommend this to the fans of pure dystopia as much as to the fans of slow-burn m/m. The world and the predictable mystery only serve as a pale background to the characters.

And the characters are wonderful. They’re neither perfectly healthy, normal, or anyone I’d want to know in real life, but they are interesting. Their relationship is interesting. Their struggle to discern reality from the artificial and will to survive their circumstances is interesting. This story is interesting

If you don’t mind a narrative where the third person limited voice occasionally slips into first or that the story draggs from time to time, this is a book worth reading.

Reviewing a Classic, Quotes and Notes: The Sheik by E.M. Hull

Form: e-book
Genre: misogynist romantic drama from the previous century ;p
Target audience: women masochists

Introduction: 

Lady Diana Mayo and her older brother, Sir Aubrey Mayo are two perfect examples of British upper class - people with too much money, too much time and too little brains between them. I would call them a Mayo salad gone wrong: completely green (her), rather heavy to digest (him), very pleased with themselves, all form no substance (both of them).

You see, everything is nicely explained in big, stinky infodumps at the beginning: Diana was brought up by Aubrey after the death of their mother during the birth followed by the suicide of her father. Poor Aubrey had no idea how to raise a girl, being a 19-year-old boy at that time and apparently not very bright, so he brought her up as if she was his younger brother. Surprise surprise, the result was such that the girl became spoiled rotten – she smoked, she wore men’s clothes, she did only what she wanted and when she wanted, she was arrogant and she knew everything best. A marriage proposal from a young, kind, conventional gentleman, deeply in love and full of best intentions? Preposterous! Silly! Why would she want to get married at all? Such an attitude, according to Ms. Hull, begs for punishment and punished it will be.


Quotes and Notes:



Let me start with a scene when the siblings are quarreling about Diana’s latest plans how to spend a month without being bored to death by the polite society and its restrictions – she intends to travel alone across the desert with a caravan of Arabs for the whole company. A very foolish idea which doesn't prove Diane's independence but her complete lack of brain and imagination. Still it is her idea so it must be good. She announces:

“I will do what I choose when and how I choose, and I will never obey any will but my own."
Sir Aubrey's eyes narrowed suddenly.
"Then I hope to Heaven that one day you will fall into the hands of a man who will make you obey," he cried wrathfully. Her scornful mouth curled still more scornfully. "Then Heaven help him!" she retorted scathingly, and turned away to her tent.„

As you see Diana is a spoiled, stupid girl – very strong-minded, completely persuaded about her own worth, almost foolishly green. It seems she is emulating her namesake goddess, Diana or Artemis, and here comes her Orion. However, as Diana is no real deity, just a spoiled brat, she has no chance against him.

"She writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him in a sudden access of possessive passion. His head bent slowly down to her, his eyes burned deeper, and, held immovable, she endured the first kiss she had ever received.”

Yes, the time of comeuppance has come: according to Aubrey's brotherly wishes a brutally handsome sheik kidnapped our intrepid heroine as soon as she was left alone in the desert and decided to help her understand what women are really created for. Welcome to Middle Ages, ladies and gentlemen, prepare your whips, chastity belts and proceed. Things will turn ugly very soon.

“Her body was aching with the grip of his powerful arms, her mouth was bruised with his savage kisses. She clenched her hands in anguish. "Oh, God!" she sobbed, with scalding tears that scorched her cheeks. "Curse him! Curse him!"”



Indeed. As you can guess Diana had no other option than to endure the rape and feel bad afterwards but at least she was also offered a bath, a friendly Arab servant girl and a meal. Which made it almost ok, right? Ahmed ben Hassan was not a total beast or a caveman after all. You see, he could read and write and had an artistic soul - go figure...

“She was utterly in his power and at his mercy—the mercy of an Arab who was merciless.”

Ha! That’s the fate which, according to our authoress, befalls arrogant little fools who, being born just lowly girls, want to pretend they can be like boys or even like men who are, of course, the peak of creation, the epitome of all perfection and finesse! Read and learn, foolish creatures!

“She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet over.“

Here was Diane's problem - it was all her fault to begin with, for being too avant-garde. Of course her punishment wasn’t over. She sinned too much, cutting her hair short and going around in breeches, on her own day and night, smoking those cigarettes, bad, bad girl. Our authoress, showing a really cruel streak, decided to torment her victim further.



“And, according to his mood, he noticed or ignored her. He demanded implicit obedience to his lightest whim with the unconscious tyranny of one who had always been accustomed to command. (…)She was physically afraid of him, and she hated him and loathed herself for the fear he inspired. And her fear was legitimate. His strength was abnormal, and behind it was the lawlessness and absolutism that allowed free rein to his savage impulses. He held life and death in his hand.”

If you are bigger and stronger you can do everything and anything! Hell yeah, male dominance forever and sieg heil! Err… I mean, of course, how horrible! But it was her fault, she had it coming, right? All her fault! She provoked him!

“ With a start of recollection she realized fully whose arm was round her, and whose breast her head was resting on. Her heart beat with sudden violence. What was the matter with her? Why did she not shrink from the pressure of his arm and the contact of his warm, strong body? What had happened to her? Quite suddenly she knew—knew that she loved him, that she had loved him for a long time, even when she thought she hated him and when she had fled from him. She knew now why his face had haunted her in the little oasis at midday —that it was love calling to her subconsciously.”

Sigh and groan…why I am not surprised? Of course she had to fall in love with him – who wouldn’t? After the ruthless kidnapping, humiliations, imprisonment and a series of rapes she was being dragged endlessly through a desert; she had to love her torturer, right? He shot her horse before her own eyes and was flogging different men to show that when it came to punishment, girls and boys, Ahmed always meant business. Who wouldn’t fall in love with such a man?

“ He was a brute, but she loved him, loved him for his very brutality and superb animal strength. And he was an Arab! A man of different race and colour, a native; Aubrey would indiscriminately class him as a "damned nigger." She did not care. It made no difference.”

Moral elevation of a female mind through complete submission and a series of rapes. Please let me puke for a moment or two.

" He was an Arab, and to him a woman was a slave, and as a slave she must give everything and ask for nothing.”


Honestly, who needs emetics or purgatives with quotes like that?

And here comes the educated second opinion from a completely civilized French gentleman, a close friend of our Arab, who came for a visit and shared with Diane such a pearl of wisdom:

"Beautiful women, Madame," he said slowly, "unfortunately provoke in some men all that is basest and vilest in their natures. No man knows to what depths of infamy he may stoop under the stress of a sudden temptation."

It might be a favourite quote of, I believe, every heterosexual rapist on Earth. It conveys more or less their favourite message: women, the victims, are the real source of the evil. Without women men would be like a bunch of angels. Banish all women, especially those beautiful and young - no temptation, no crime, the world is a paradise.

“Sex had supervened to overthrow all her preconceived notions. The womanly instincts that under Aubrey's training had been suppressed and undeveloped had, in contact with the Sheik's vivid masculinity and compelling personality, risen to the surface with startling completeness.”

I beg your pardon? Since when a rapist and an aggressive control freak has a compelling personality? Since when forced sex can make you understand anything better? Now let me mourn Diana and this novel in silence. Such a big pile of stinking rubbish should rest in peace.

“Diane, Diane, my sunshine. The tent is cold and dark without you….Ibraheim Omair! That devil and Diane! Oh, Allah! Grant me time to get to her….How the jackals are howling….”

Typical. Only when she is abducted by another skeik and no longer available, her beloved Ahmed finally finds something nice to say to her and shows that he cares at all. Yawn. And of course since Lawrence of Arabia no sheik is a real sheik if he doesn’t have some British aristocratic blood in his veins hahaha. Nice touch about the jackals btw. Let them howl some more. I might join them out of sheer frustration.

Final verdict:

Heavens help me it is a 1919 book. It depicts an immature, bratty heroine being 'tamed' by a man who rapes her repeatedly and generally treats her like an object. This is exacerbated by the fact that she falls in love with her rapist, head over heels, and never wants to leave him – the fully fledged Stockholm syndrome with a dash of good old masochism. I would call this novel an ugly mother of the worst Harlequin romances. I don’t know much about psychology but it seems to me Ms. Hull really hated strong, independent women, I wonder why. Still she got her revenge no problem.

Was it worth reading? Hell, yes. It made me understand so many things. But look, madam, what you have done to the literature at large. Only look at this mess. You should be so ashamed of yourself.

All stills are taken from The Sheik, a 1921 American silent romantic drama film directed by George Melford and starring Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres, and Adolphe Menjou.

ETA: check also the awesome discussion Heidenkind and I had some time ago

Rameau's Review Archive: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Rameau's ramblings: I went looking for the first negative review I wanted to post here and I could only think of one. There are many books I've read and hated but there are a very few reviews I'm almost proud of. This is one of them. 

Originally posted on Goodreads on August 26th 2012.


Synopsis:
Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.
  



Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire


This review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.

Sometimes you just have to...
———


I feel dead inside. That’s what reading this book has done to me. I. feel. dead. inside.


Background information:
Earlier this year, I stumbled upon an incident—I lie, there were several—that inspired me to create such shelves as not-for-me and authors-behaving-badly and add this book with all the other books accredited to Jamie McGuire on them. This explains the first comment on this review thread.

I was angry and I rated the book poorly. Then I got over it and removed the rating, and for a while, forgot this book existed.

Ah, those were the happy days.

Then came summer and Simon & Schuster announced their massive brain fart of acquiring this novel and reprinting it. They made the choice to enhance their marketing campaign by allowing free review copies distributed through NetGalley. This was my one chance to read the novel for free and rate it in exchange for this simple tag:

I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

In this case, the Advanced Readers Copy means the superficially edited self-published version.


Actual review:
I hated it. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t want to hate it. I don’t enjoy reading bad books for fun—I don’t like tormenting myself with bad literature—but neither do I start a book expecting to find something positive or other redeemable qualities. I don’t artificially skew my perception just so I can lie about what a good book this is.

It’s not.

Though McGuire seems incapable of using simple he said/she said dialogue tags, there were moments, bits of dialogue, and a set up most promising that in the hands of any other talented or even a competent author could have been solid gold. It could have been the the story of two flawed people falling in love and perhaps changing for the better even if not transforming utterly normal people instead of romanticised description of abuse and misogyny. There were things Travis said or did that in any other setting and context would have been touching, sweet, deliciously heart-rending—but this was Travis and those things were anything but.

“Coupled with the alcohol in my system, when he pulled my body against his, things came to mind that were anything but friendly.”

McGuire’s simplistic writing is readable, even likeable at times, but it’s also uneven. There are good bits and then there are horribly bad bits. There were times when I’d forget to stop and think what made sense and what didn’t, and I’d just plough through pages without even realising it. Then the only recollection I’d have was having felt something. If I wasn’t paying attention to what it made me feel, I would—could, possibly, perhaps—understand why some people would think this a good book.

But I didn’t just plough through the pages. I read them slowly, carefully taking notes and always thinking of what made sense and what didn’t—very little, as it turns out.

Can a story be character driven without characterisations?

Apart from Travis’ tattoos—those tattoos are mighty important since they define what he can study and what his future career is going to be—not a single character in this book is given a proper, layered, characterisation. Not all characters are given physical descriptions, even Shepley, who as Travis’ cousin-slash-roommate and America’s boyfriend is prominently portrayed secondary character, is never given a physical description. To this day I don’t have a clue as to what he looks like. I know Abby and America are both blonds, I know Travis is tattooed all over and has hazel eyes, I even have a vague impression of Parker, but other than that I do not know. It’s never revealed.

What I do know is that Shepley is the lapdog enabler. He exists to be America’s boyfriend and provide a link between Travis and Abby. He exists to among others to make excuses for Travis’ behaviour. He doesn’t have any other function in this story.

America-Alice is Abby’s best friend the Weathervane. Depending on the scene she’s either trying to keep Abby and Travis apart or trying to get them together. She’s always dreamt of her and Abby dating brothers or cousins, so they could become real family or something other. America exists to drive Abby around and to scold her either for resisting Travis or not resisting him enough.

Parker is the token third wheel, a secondary love interest option paper doll. He’s rich and a hardworking student, but ultimately he’s just another jerk and not a viable third corner of a triangle—and that honour he has to share with Jesse, the ex-boyfriend. Parker exists to flirt with Abby and to make Travis jealous when the mood strikes. He also exists to prompt a casual date rape scenario.

Finch is the token gay guy. He exists to provide Abby with alcohol and a shoulder to cry on whenever America is lip-locked with Shepley and too busy to notice.

Kara is the roommate who we never see. She exists to make a handful of accurate comments and remains the sole remotely likeable character in the book.

Abby giggles. She studies high school level biology in college and sucks at it. She apparently likes numbers but hardly ever talks about those classes. She has a dark, dark past that’s never talked about until it’s all that’s talked about. She likes to drink and plays a mean game of poker. All these details and I still don’t know what drives her. I don’t know what her inner passions are or how she thinks and the book is written from her perspective in the first person limited voice.

“This is hard for me, ya know. I feel like any second you’re going to figure out what a piece of shit I am and leave me. When you were dancing last night, I saw a dozen different guys watching you. You go to the bar, and I see you thank that guy for your drink. Then that douchebag on the dance floor grabs you.”

Travis prizefights for money. He’s a genius and he doesn’t need to study. Travis has a short temper, cocky attitude, a dead mother, four brothers and a father who taught him everything he knows about beating other people up. Travis has tattoos. Travis has a six pack—such a shame it’s not a twelve pack—and he’s never met a speed limit he couldn’t break. Drunk or sober.

“I wouldn’t have swung if I thought I could have hit you. You know that, right?”

Travis doesn’t hit Abby. He comes into the bathroom when she’s in the shower. He comes up with a bet to keep her in the house with her. He talks her into sleeping in the same bed as him, because he’s never brought a girl he’s fucked there. He forces her to change her clothes when she dresses up too sexy. He grabs her to keep her safe. He stalks her. He buys her a puppy to stop her from leaving. He scares her when she is in the car kissing another man. He trashes the house the morning after they have sex because she leaves and refuses to talk to him. He beats up several guys for simply touching her.

And she lets him.

”Travis’s behavior piqued their curiosity, and I subdued a smile at being the only girl they had seen him insist on sitting with.”

”It wasn’t Parker I was trying to impress. I wasn’t in a position to be insulted when Travis accused me of playing games, after all.”

Worse, she’s manipulating him right back. On one occasion Abby tells Travis to teach someone manners, and he beats the guy to a pulp. There aren’t any repercussions or a fallout. Several of these unprovoked attacks happen outside the illegal prizefighting circles with plenty of eyewitnesses around. Yet, Travis is never detained, arrested, or even confronted by his friends. They’re all making excuses for him.

Abby’s reactions to Travis’ behaviour make no sense. She’s either blaming herself or acting irrationally and manipulating the situation to her end. She’s playing with Travis just as much he’s playing with her as evidenced by the events of the night they first sleep together. She tells him he’s a virgin, he tells her he likes it rough, they have sex—one of the few times condoms were used—and in the morning, she leaves. He trashes the house. America the worst friend who ever lived, comes to get Abby to talk Travis down. Not to make sure that Abby is safe and sound and far away from the psycho as possible, but to fetch her to the house so she can talk to Travis and calm him. So she can understand him.

The abuse, the antifeminism, the misogyny, the casual slut shaming, rape threads, girl-on-girl hate, it’s all omnipresent. You can’t avoid it.

Character driven stories rely on one essential idea: That the main character learns something. That all the pain and heartache, all the adventures that they experience within the story enrich them as a human being and make them grow as a person. Not necessarily for the better, but simply more aware. On some level the characters do need to be conscious of their actions and choices they make in the end of the book in a way they weren’t at the start of it.

In this, Beautiful Disaster fails.

Travis does forsake all others but he isn’t any better taking into account Abby’s feelings in the end of the book than he is in the beginning of it. As for Abby, life is still a huge poker game she’ll bluff her way through like it was before she met Travis. Well, maybe not bluff, but she’s always had a talent of manipulating the cards in her favour.

Instead of bare boned characters who apparently learn nothing within the four hundred and twenty odd ebook pages, I could be talking about the overall plot of the book. Except, there isn’t one:

A girl goes to see a fight. A girl meets a boy. They skip time and become friends. They make a bet and end up living under the same roof. They dance around each other and a girl tries dating another guy. The boy gets jealous and they sleep together. The bet has ended and the girl leaves. Boy gets angry. Girl comes back. They fight and the girl tries to leave. The boy gets her a puppy to make her stay—

This isn’t a plot. This is a list of consecutive events describing a dysfunctional codependent relationship. Of course, we could call it a relationship drama, but we’d also have to redefine words relationship and drama. There’s no internal conflict. Nothing is addressed and nothing is learned. All obstacles are external ones and easily cast aside.

But this is a romance novel about two people finding love together, you say.

No. It’s not.

This is as mislabelled as a romance as it was mislabelled as a young adult novel. There is absolutely nothing romantic about this book. It’s the author’s ode to Edward Travis’ character. A controlling, abusive, stalker is in the centre of everything and the reader can’t escape him even when Abby is on a date with another man. The conversation always quickly returns to Travis and stays there.


By now the strikethroughs have become obvious; I’m bringing up the Twilight connection:

This book reads like a Twilight fanfiction or work heavily inspired by Twilight.

America behaves as bipolar as Alice, and Travis is set upon a pedestal and worshipped just like Edward was. Travis shares Edward’s penchant for speeding. Travis and Abby’s first date is in a restaurant where the waiter flirts with him and he starts questioning him over the food. The biology lessons and the absent parent figures. Abby likes to bite her lip almost as much as Kristen Steward in her portrayal of Bella Swan. Parker Hayes reads like a distorted Mike Newton. etc. etc.

There isn’t any proof that I’m aware of to show that this ever was posted and labelled as a Twilight fanfiction. I’m going to have to go with the “inspired” by Twilight theory and keep my opinions to myself…

It looks like I failed too.