It's hot. I am bored. I'm unemployed. I have nothing else to do. Still. What the
hell is this? Someone posted this on
theaudiolibrary and in spite of better knowledge, I gave it a try. I'd like to believe that this is ironic, but I can't, because this is so close to similar nice-guy narratives. It'd make a good litmus test for feminist allies, though.
It's about a whiny-ass sleep-deprived misogynistic white ~nerdy~ socially inept bully victim finding his muse in a dark and ~edgy white gawth ("post-goth") girl. I don't even know where to start. I'm guessing it's supposed to be "ironic" in that hipster sense that makes me wonder if people are using the same kind of dictionary.

This hero's misogyny and racism is incredible, as is the female characters flatness and her tendency to try and be "one of the guys", and in spite of the hyperbolic tendencies I can't bring myself to believe that this is not an author writing from his own personal and completely unironic experience.
I especially enjoyed the main character's whining about being treated badly when he's walking around thinking of female bodies as decoration, and the casual ass-pats he gets from his Goth-muse for staring at women like pieces of meat, because it's "fine for him" to do that. Because he's still young. Also, it's important to note that his chest-baring muse chooses not to "flaunt" her breasts. Unlike those hussies, you know? She still shows him her boobs, because that's just what girls do instead of explaining about minimizers. With, you know, words.
Oh, or the hero being upset with his one friend and bringing up the fact that he is one of the few white guys who know why black history month exists! So how dare he be upset with the white hero!
Or the countless occasions when the storyline is twisted away from NG's obvious shortcomings in the human decency department at the moment where he's almost about to get called out on them, and get re-rendered as a pity party for the hero or morphed into a wish-fulfillment sequence. Like the scene in which the "nerd guy", when the "goth girl" calls him out on his obvious sexism, calls her out on her failed, attention-seeking suicide attempt. That'll show her. Or when the girl he lusts after without knowing anything about her just because she is beautiful tells her about how girls sometimes can be shallow, especially if they turn him down. And then makes out with him. Because's he's just that special.
He does seem to realise he's just as bad as the other guys, but the realisation is a mere blip of cognitive activity in a sea of self-centred ignorance, and while I wish readers are supposed to see that and point and laugh, I am not convinced. This appears to be a character honestly trying, and I am not sure whether this is book is someone cleverly telling the story of a privileged-as-fuck male teenager trying and failing to improve, or a failed attempt at writing a story about a quirky, yet relatable and most of all redeemable hero.
While it is
possible to read this as the story of an inept narrator with an incredibly ironic focalizer I find it hard, and that still does not mean this book is worth the paper it is printed on, because it is not less annoying than similar and completely unironic accounts. It is so over the top that I wish I could be certain it was meant to be a mental kick in the rear for the target audience, but since I find it hard to believe that an audience who'd find this character relatable or interesting would even be able to
see the irony I have my doubts about that working out. Maybe I'm underestimating people, but this book is still a waste of space unless you always desperately wanted to see the subtle workings of a privileged whiny white guys' mind and needed this book to come along to tell you about that, because you hadn't encountered any other sources on that so far.
For me, it's white noise and whining. It's whining about comic books, whining about not getting girls, whining about having a step father NG doesn't approve of, whining about having an unborn sibling, whining about not getting to go to a convention, and curiously enough, the fictional world always bending to his whiny will, which is annoying as hell, as by the middle you, or at least I started hoping for him to
finally get a comeuppance. Even though this character clearly is in need of some serious therapeutic help.
In this as in the comic books/graphic novels the hero enshrines, I really,
really don't manage to see the appeal.