Books I've Read: Fugly

This book was not what I expected at all.

The main character is Beth, a first-year university student, still living at home.  She's fat and from the very first page you understand how being fat makes her feel.  She's angry at herself for being fat, but also hates the way people look and act around her because she's fat.  She has an unhealthy relationship with food and no one is looking out for her at all.

Her father recently left and her mother is suffering from depression as a result.  Her younger brother is running wild and no one is doing anything about it.  The only thing that makes Beth feel better (other than chocolate) is going online and trolling girls whose feeds are full of themselves being happy and beautiful and thin.  When she gets someone to delete their account, she feels powerful.

While online, she meets Tori who is even more vicious when it comes to trolling.  She and Beth team up and find they make a great team, eviscerating beautiful people with abandon.  They chat and share and Beth soon realizes she's falling in love with this person who calls herself Tori.

But then there's the relentlessly perky girl at Uni who keeps talking to her too.  Never having had friends, Beth isn't sure how to react to this, but she likes it.

So, when Tori picks a target that's a little too close to home, Beth decides she needs to stop her trolling.  But, Tori doesn't want her to stop.

I have to say, rarely have I disliked a main character more than I disliked Beth.  From the very first page I thought she was whiny and all too ready to blame everyone else for her unhappiness.  Throughout the book she makes the absolute worst choices for herself and while I understand that the author was doing this to show the depths of her self-loathing, it didn't feel realistic.  I think even the most depressed person has some tiny well of hope in there somewhere.

So, reading the whole book and spending time with this awful person was hard.  Yes, se did learn some things about herself and made changes, but I feel like a lot of it was too little too late.. By the time she made those realizations, she was so deep in the mess she'd made for herself, I didn't feel like she really deserved any redemption or even a semi-happy ending.

So, unless you really want to spend time with someone who makes other people miserable, this is probably not the book for you.  I does offer some insights into a modern problem, but it isn't an enjoyable read at all.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A wrenchingly honest, thought-provoking exploration of a girl judged and dismissed by society who must break the cycle of shaming that traps her in her real life and comforts her in her online one.

In real life, eighteen-year-old Beth is overweight, shy, and geeky. She's been bullied all her life, and her only refuge is food. Online, though, she's a vicious troll who targets the beautiful, vain, oversharing It Girls of the internet. When she meets Tori, a fellow troll, she becomes her online girlfriend-slash-partner-in-crime.

But then Tori picks a target who's a little too close to home for Beth. Unsettled, Beth decides to quit their online bullying partnership. The only problem is, Tori is not willing to let her go.

Weekly Goals 15-6-26

 I just realized when I opened up my blog this morning, I missed last week's regular posts.  I was away for work, and it was busier than I anticipated.  I didn't have time to even think about my writing life, really!

But, since I got back late on Saturday, I have managed to write a new story for the anthology.  That leaves me two more to write before 30 June.  Doable, I think.  I'm just concerned I may not get much time to go back over them, to check if they actually work together and if they are actually any good!

On the plus side, with having been away and doing so many extra hours, I'm owed a lot of time off.  There's never a really good time to take it, but I may try and take a little each week for the next few weeks so I can have that editing time I need.  Starting with taking half of Friday off.  I'd take the whole day, but I remembered I'm teaching a lunchtime class in town, so it doesn't really make sense to do that.

So, my goals for this week are to catch up on the stuff I didn't manage to get done while I was away and to write at least one more story for the anthology.  I also need to catch up on reviews for the others in my crit group.

what are your goals this week?

Weekly Goals 8-6-26

 I'm away on tour for most of this week, so I'm not going to set myself a ton of goals - I probably wouldn't hit them.

I managed to write another story for the anthology over the weekend.  I'm not sure it's very good, but again, a place to start.  I have three more songs to write stories for, so I'm no track to finish by 30 June if I write one a week.  I think I'll try to take a day off during the last week of June to do some serious editorial work on these stories before the final due date.

So, this week's goal is to write another story.  I think this one is the one I've been looking forward to writing the most and I already know exactly what I'm going to write.  Most of the others haven't been planned at all and I've just gone with whatever my mind came up with at the time.  My mind is a dark and spooky place sometimes.

I may discover I have more time than I think on the road, and I may get more done than I think I will.  But I'm not counting on it.

I am looking forward to catching up with my bestie in Auckland on Friday though.  It's been far too long since we got to talk for more than a few minutes.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 5-6-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

Despite being a short week, it felt like a really long week, so I'm glad for the weekend.  Especially since I'm away on tour most of next week.  Which is always fun, but also a lot of work as you try and squeeze a full workday in around travel and concerts.  But it's a beautiful concert.  Prokofiev is my favorite composer, so I always enjoy concerts featuring his work.

No new rejections this week.  I think I'm going to wind down querying Stranger at the end of the month and dive into some revisions on Street Smarts so I can start querying that one.  I need to do some major shifting around of some of the entries, I think, to try and get the REAL inciting incident closer to the start of the book.  Even though I don't think doing that will really do the book any favors.  The reason that incident works as a catalyst is because by that point, you really understand Arlo's desperate loneliness, even if he doesn't acknowledge or even recognize it.

I have four more stories to write for my anthology and 24 days to do it.  Possible, I think, but it's going to be tight.  If I can get one written this weekend, I'll feel better about it.

I'm going to see my favorite Douglas Sirk film on Sunday as part of the Film Society's 80th birthday celebrations.  Very excited to see it again.  I don't think I've seen it since I wept my way through it in a university class about melodrama.

What are you celebrating this week?

IWSG - June

 It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Waters Support Group!

Thanks to this month's hosts, Victoria Marie Lees, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre and C. Lee McKenzie!

This month's question is a good one!

Do most of your story ideas come from one place (the news, dreams, etc.) or do they hit from all over the place?

My ideas come from all over the place.  Things I read, movies I see, stuff that happens in real life, music I listen to.  Anything and everything can be the inspiration for a story.  

For example, I watched a documentary about something that happened at the 1984 LA Olympics and that ended up sparking the idea for a novella I wrote for an anthology.

Another documentary, this one about a musician I used to know, ended up sparking The Sidewalk's Regrets.  Weirdly, it was one line someone said that set the whole idea into motion, but when I went back and watched the doco again, I couldn't find the line.

Stumped was inspired by a talk given by an Australian sex worker.  An Unstill Life came from a newspaper article about a boys' school that wouldn't allow same sex couples to attend a school dance.

Chasing the Taillights was supposed to be an adult book inspired by something that had recently happened in my life, but when I started writing it, I needed to understand how Lucy and Tony came to have the relationship they had at the beginning of that story.  And how they came to have that relationship ended up being Chasing the Taillights. 

My Murder Year was a response to the legalizing of same-sex marriage.  Standing Too Close was one last shot at trying to tell a story that's haunted me since I was twelve.  Turns out, all the other times I tried to write it, I was getting too close to what actually happened in real life.  I had to use a lot of the truth and move it sideways to be able to actually finish it.

A Stranger to Kindness came out of research I did for Standing Too Close. I talked to some people about foster care and while some of them had excellent foster parents and being in foster care was the best thing for them, others had less stellar experiences and I wanted to explore what that might look like.

My most recent book, Street Smarts, came from working with an organization that uses food waste to provide restaurant-quality meals for people who can't necessarily afford to eat out or to eat at all.

A lot of the time, the ideas aren't conscious decisions. It's like the characters move into my head and start telling me their story.  I often have to trace things back after I've written the book to find where it all began, but I can usually figure it out.

Where do your story ideas come from?

Weekly Goals 1-6-26

 How is it June already?  I swear it was only just Christmas...

It's a public holiday here today, so this week is a short work-week.  It's going to be a busy one because we have a concert on Friday and various other things going on as well.  Then, the following week, we're on tour, so I'll only get one day in the office before leaving for five days.

So, my goals this week are pretty small.  

I managed to write two stories for the anthology this weekend.  One is better than the other, but I think I can work on the one I don't like so much.  Assuming I get a little time to edit before these are due to be judged.  I hope to find time to write one more next weekend, which leaves three left to finish the anthology.  Do-able, I think, even if I don't find the time to take some of my time in lieu days.  You never know.  I may even find time to write one while I'm on the road.  But, I doubt it.

I have to learn a new ride class next weekend too, because I'm teaching ride for the next four Sundays.  I'm sure I could fall back on one I've taught a lot of times before and no one will notice, but it does feel a little like cheating.  I'd do the new one I learned a couple of weeks back, but we've been doing that the last three weeks and it's past its shelf life.  I'll see what's available in my arsenal...

And, that's about it for goals for me this week.  I like to keep them small when I know I'm busy.

Celebrate the Small Things 29-5-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!  And even better, it's a long weekend!

It's been a busy week, one of those weeks where I feel like I'm constantly rushing from one place to the next.  And unfortunately, the weekend feels like it's going to be a bit crammed with stuff to do too, so I don't foresee much time to rest.

I need to write a couple of stories for the anthology this weekend.  I have 4 weeks left and 6 stories to write, so I need to tray and knock a couple off this weekend.  I'm hoping to get one written on Saturday nd one on Sunday because I've got plans with my old team on Monday.

I got a rejection on one of the fulls I had out this week, which was disappointing.  I had such hopes that A Stranger to Kindness would be the book that broke out for me, but there just doesn't seem to be a market for that kind of book right now.  I'll keep trying for a little while longer though.  I love those characters too much to give up on them.  

Plus, I know the new book will be an even harder one to sell.

What are you celebrating this week?