(Seriously. Please. If you have an issue something I said, either correct me or please just leave me alone. I do not do shit on purpose. I am not healthy. I do not handle this shit very well.)
(Please. It's not fun anymore.)
SO. Where were we?
Right.
So after meeting with his
Reuben had felt an acute longing for them all, for the cozy house, for the convivial life he’d left behind, but other than that it had been perfect: too many people for an interrogation or an intervention.1. I am probably too inebriated to correctly untangle that sentence.
2. STOP CONFIRMING MY BIAS IN THE TEXT. If Ruben thinks that his family might be planning an intervention, it usually means he damn well needs one and he knows it on some level. WEREWOLVES SHOULD NOT BE A DRUG ALLEGORY. ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN THE WOLF/DRUG IS BEING PUSHED AS A GOOD THING.
I am imagining a drug addict reading this book and getting that kind of subconsious "ALL IS WELL" vibe this book is giving off, and I am cringing.
Oh, but we take time to establish that Celeste was relieved that Ruben has a new girlfriend already.
Because having Ruben dump her via infidelity and text message would be bad, blog readers. It might make Mr. Murder-you-in-your-sleep look a little amoral.
Rosy also makes her first technically onscreen apperance. I say technically because, while she throws her arms around the Pube Wolf's neck, she gets no description whatsoever. Her race is still unconfirmed.
Mom mentions that the Russian Paris Doctor will be by tonight, which gaurentees that Ruben will be out of here well before dessert and cognac. (Though I wish he'd stick around. I'd like to know what Rice considers to be upscale booze.)
It appears that this trip is just to get all of Ruben's things out of his parent's house.
Because he still lived with his parents before he got the World's Perfect Mansion.
...Ruben needs to die already.
Ah, but Dr. Russia Paris shows up anyway. Dr. Akim Jaska is, I assume, white, and very old, and imposingly sinister. Of course he hates Ruben on sight and makes no effort to make friends.
This bothers me. Evil is most effective when it is friendly. Con artists and predators will be your best friend immediately. You shouldn't be afraid of the people who are hostile. You should be afraid of the people who are actively friendly.
Apparently Dr. Jaska has been here often enough for Rosy to know his "Usual Drink".
I really hope Rosy has bartender training. Because unless that drink is "Scotch on the rocks", that thing is probably not going to be very good.
(You can't fuck up scotch on the rocks. You can, however, ruin a perfectly good martini. Usually by not making a real martini because most people think that means vodka shaken with ice, with a random olive thrown in because James Bond. That is not a real martini. And do not get me started on the Thousand Ways there are to royally fuck up an Old Fashioned.)
Apparently Dr. Jaska reeks of evil.
I'm telling you. It's Axe body spray. However, rather than having a potentially plot interesting confrontation, Ruben and Laura head off into the sunset. Literally.
And of course on the ride home Ruben finds random victims designed to pull at the heart strings and justify the horrific murders Ruben is about to commit. Because, you know, cracking open someone's skull and drinking their blood and brains is completely justified if they were just bad enough. It's not like we have laws against cruel and unusual punishment or anything....
So Ruben kills the attackers in the usual bloodbath and then realizes--OH NOES!--he has bitten the surviving victim, a sixteen year old boy. Now, why these boys were attacked, why these attackers were here, anything that could be actual character development is not established prior to right now. Meanwhile, lights are coming on and Ruben has to beat feat before he gets his ass handed to him by police.
I swear, the corner in this city must be really tired of cleaning up chewed up body parts.
He makes it back to the car with Laura and they drive off yet again. End of chapter.
So I guess the plot from now on will be "Dealing with Ruben's Fuck Ups" won't it?
Hey, I hope you're okay. Thanks for the new book flog!
ReplyDeleteI am certain Axe body spray is the smell of Evil. It's at the very least the smell of Poor Taste.
ReplyDeleteMy husband says he discovered the Smell of Evil when opening a pack of kipper snacks to find that while the plastic was sealed the tin within was not and the kippers had been exposed to the air inside the packet for who knows how long.
I think the scent of ultimate Smell of Evil is probably teenage boy feet.
DeleteMy brother spent most of his teen years as a walking Hazmat disaster zone. His shoes got so bad, my mother once flung them out of the car on a long distance trip. I'm pretty sure there was a mass bird die-off in that part of the country a couple days later...
LOL - oh dear. My brother is seven years older than me, so when he was in that stage I was too young to notice. Sounds like a dodged a bullet there :)
DeleteYeah, the doctors are eeeevil. I can't tell you how much that annoyed me. I think I figured out that kind of 'the good guy instantly has a bad feeling about them and also they're just mean!' stuff was bad writing when I was, like, 13.
ReplyDeleteI read James Patterson when I was sixteen (which is about the right age level) and I remember Alex Cross's storyline going from "Meh" to "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" when one of his best friends turned out to be THE bad guy who had been manipulating shit behind the scenes for years. He was all smiley and nice for the camera. You never even had a clue until the last three of four chapters of his big reveal.
DeleteIt also helps to remember that Hitler was a teetotaling vegetarian who loved his girlfriend and his dog very much, and that a very large number of people thought he was a very nice man. If that does not scare the shit out of you regarding our ability to detect and define evil, I don't know what will.