Chapter 17 -- Bratty and the Beast

For everyone's information, the Revealing Eden spork might be going on a mini-hiatus in the near future.  I know, the blog just came back from a hiatus over the summer, but at least I'm announcing this one.  And it won't mean the blog goes quiet -- it just means Revealing Eden will be briefly put on hold while I spork another book.  I have to get this one through inter-library loan, so it'll have to be done quickly so I can return it on time and not incur a hefty fine...

Don't worry, the book in question isn't terribly long -- only about a hundred pages or so according to Amazon.  It shouldn't take too long to breeze through it and get back to Eden.  As for the book in question... let's just say it's a terrible effort by a well-known and highly-respected (or at least highly-respected at one time) author, and one that created quite a bit of backlash when it was first published.  Stay tuned...

Anyhow, on to the next chapter of this train wreck!

Oldie but a goodie

Eden takes off into the jungle with her backpack, as sunlight "strafes" through the trees.  I'm now thinking of laser guns, but whatever...  We get a mention of "silvery specks" in the trees "as if dozens of eyes watched her."  For being a desolate wasteland destroyed by the heat, there's sure a lot of animals in this world.  Unless Eden's hallucinating, which is possible but hasn't been alluded to up to this point.

Off-topic but the hallucination thing makes me wonder -- if Eden's been using oxy all her life, why isn't she showing withdrawal symptoms?  Even benign or relatively harmless drugs will give you withdrawal symptoms if you stop using them after a long time of being on them -- ask anyone who's had to give up caffeine for whatever reason.  If oxy is short for "oxycontin," she should be suffering from nausea, sweating, rapid heartbeat, abdominal pain, and anxiety, among other things.  She's showing zilch -- and no, I don't count her freakouts as anxiety, she was doing that periodically long before this point.

Sorry, folks, but you can't make your character a drug addict and then expect to have them quit cold turkey without nasty side effects.  That's a cheat, pure and simple.

Anyhow... a monkey hoots at her, and we get a quick info-dump that includes the scientific name of the capuchin monkeys and that they're named after a type of monk.  We get it, you know how to use Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica or whatever, how is this important to the story?  The monkeys throw seed pods at her and she tries to chase them off.  Just be grateful they didn't conform to the old stereotype about monkeys, I guess?  

Meme not mine... and apologies for the language

Eden feels a bulge in the lining of her backpack and rips it open with her teeth  (???).  Lo and behold, Daisy left her a Life-Band.  I don't understand how Eden could have endeared herself to the flight attendant during the flight, she showed NO signs of civil, let alone charming, behavior during that whole time.  But hey, Eden is our precious special snowflake -- of COURSE everyone has to bow to her whims no matter how much of a spoiled brat she is...

Dr. Newman calls out for his "daught"  (I am sick of that nickname already), and Eden reaches for her backpack... only for a monkey to steal it.  Which leads to a sequence of Eden chasing the monkeys while Bramford chases her that goes on for about a page.  Um, yay?  I honestly can't tell if this bit is supposed to be played for laughs or drama...

Then the chase comes to its logical conclusion:

[The monkey] swung the stolen bag into the air and sent it sailing.  Eden had a sick feeling, as it spiraled over a steep cliff.  She skidded to a stop and looked over the edge. -- p. 115

I love how Foyt waxes eloquent when it comes to Eden getting all swoon-happy and hot and bothered over Bramford, but when it comes to seeing valuable supplies get lost it's "a sick feeling."  Could this be any blander?  If I'd have been writing this I'd have written it it out as "Eden felt as if she'd been punched in the gut" or "Eden stared in disbelief" or something.  Of course I'd have also nixed the furry romance and the racism, but then we wouldn't have much of the original plot left...

Just like in every movie and cartoon ever, the backpack is hanging off a convenient bush several yards down the cliff... and there's a rapid-filled river at the bottom of the cliff.  Eden knows if she falls she's either going to drown or go squish on the rocks, but is perfectly willing to risk her life to get the backpack and its Life-Band.  Is it me, or are a lot of YA heroines way too willing to risk their lives for stupid things?

Bramford catches up to her and gives a "throttled roar."  Um... "throttled" means either "forcibly choked" or "silenced," Foyt... I dunno what YOU thought it meant...

And of course, what everyone expected to happen happens -- Eden falls into the river.  Yay, protagonist dead, we can all go home now!

Oh, how I wish, Porky... how I wish...

Just kidding... Eden's swept downriver by the rapids as her heart hammers "like an anvil."  Um, it's not the anvil that does the hammering...  Something grabs her from behind, and at first she thinks it's an anaconda.  I was hoping for an alligator, but I doubt either of us is right...

Of course it's Bramford.  And of course he's putting his life on the line to save this spoiled brat of a main character.  This could be the most villainous thing he's done all book.

Ahead, Eden spied a series of large boulders.  She screamed as they hurtled toward the first one.

Just in time, Bramford twisted her out of harm's way by wedging himself between her and the rock.  He vaulted them past the danger with his powerful legs.  Over and over, he navigated the tortuous obstacle course.  Twice, his legs slipped, and he bashed against a huge rock.  And yet, he never let Eden slip from his grasp.  -- p. 116

I'm gonna guess that THIS is the turning point when Eden starts falling in love with Bramford.  It's so transparently obvious that I'm not even taking bets on it.  Nice to see that all it takes for a girl to stop hating a guy is for him to save her skin.  Am I the only one sick of the Rescue Romance trope?

Finally they get out of the river, and Bramford drags them into a palm grove.  There's an aside about how all Eden's dark coating has been washed away now, which is probably supposed to be all SYMBOLIC of something but I really don't care at this point.  Not that the author dwells much on it, because look, romance!

She collapsed onto the sand beside Bramford, her limbs intertwined with his.  Her head rested on his chest, rising and falling with each labored breath.  His warm chin brushed the top of her head.  the rapid drumming of his heartbeat in her ear reminded her of the risks he'd take.

Why on Blessed Earth had El Tigre saved her?  -- p. 117

This is why I don't read romance novels...

Despite the fact that she's done nothing but hate Bramford, trash-talk him, and outright try to get him KILLED up to this point, Eden actually snuggles with him on the beach.  And she thinks of him as a "ship's anchor," and that for the first time since leaving home "she didn't feel adrift in a rocky storm."  Foyt needs help with metaphors...

And now, the last few paragraphs of the chapter, for your reading "pleasure."

Eden brushed her cheek against Bramford's chest and he made a soft, vibrating sound.  Was he purring?  He tightened his arms around her, rolling her against him.  Her long golden hair fanned over his dark torso, the contrast startling her.  She never had felt more exposed in her life.

At the same time, a curious, buoyant feeling welled up inside of her.  Eden had experienced some pleasure with Jamal, although her sensors had manufactured it.  She always had been in control, never losing sight of her goal to be mated.

Now, she felt captive to the strange, pleasurable sensations that stampeded like wild horses up and down her body.  (Seriously, Foyt, ease up on the metaphors, they're not your strong point...)  She never wanted to leave Bramford's side.  amazingly, her abysmal circumstances and even the loss of her Life-Band suddenly seemed trivial.

Unpredictable, her father had called this beastly man.  But he hadn't warned her how unpredictable she would be.   -- p. 117-118

My default image for any of Foyt's attempts at writing

sexy/romantic scenes

Somehow, this last bit reminds me of a story by Anne McCaffrey -- the short story "A Meeting of Minds" from her anthology Get Off the Unicorn, which would later be expanded into a novel for her The Tower and the Hive series.  Said short story is about a powerful telepathic and telekinetic girl who hopes to find a husband who's an intellectual and psychic match for her, and so vows to only fall in love with someone as powerful as she is.  In the end, she ends up falling for a man much weaker psychically but who's handsome and physically muscular, and she reflects that it's only natural for a woman to be attracted to someone who can overpower her.  It's an uncomfortable read, and the fact that said man is quite a bit older than her (he was a friend of her mother's) makes it even squickier, albeit off the topic at hand.

McCaffrey's story, while cringe-worthy, was a product of its time (published in the '60s).  To read something similar written in the 2010s -- of a girl perfectly willing to relinquish her goals for a future mate simply because she's found a powerful and attractive man who turns her on -- is even harder to read with modern sensibilities in mind.  I don't like Eden as a character, but it's still saddening and sickening to see her drop her goal (even if it's a stupid one) in favor of a guy who makes her all giddy and emotional.  I know, I know, love is driven by emotions and not logic, that's the basis of just about every romance out there... but there comes a point where you need to use your head and not just think with your heart.  Or your hormones.

Now we're moving on to the furry romance segment of the book... Primus have mercy on our wretched souls...

Chapter 15 -- Still Alive!

Hey guys, what's happening?  Did I miss anything?

Sorry for the long silence -- I ended up packing up most of my books so I could paint my bedroom, and my copy of Revealing Eden ended up at the bottom of one of the boxes.  (Yes, multiple boxes -- I own a lot of books, okay?)  I'm still in the process of moving stuff back in, but I finally dug out the book and am back to shredding it.  Figuratively, of course, though there may be some literal shredding or even burning done once I'm done with this thing...

I do not advocate book-burning, but in this case

I might make an exception...

Brief recap -- Eden and company have fled into what used to be the Amazon and are among the Huaorani, a real-life indigenous tribe from Ecuador who happen to worship furry!Bramford as El Tigre, their jaguar god.  I've already gone into why this is idiotic and ridiculous last post, so if you want a recap you can re-read the last blog entry while I go bang my head against a desk and bemoan this bastardization of South American mythology.

Okay, I'm done...

Anyhow, Chapter 15 opens with Eden riding in a vehicle with the Huaroani, passing "mud-baked shanties and desolate fields with an occasional tree or small rodent scurrying past."  (p. 106)  I thought the upper world was lifeless -- why are there still trees and animals?  Unless by "small rodent" you mean "very large cockroach," seeing as those things are supposed to be able to survive just about anything, up to and including nuclear war, but maybe Foyt thinks any animal with fur is magically immune to The Heat.

We get a paragraph of Eden whining about how hot and dirty she is, and figuring she only has a week or two to survive in the upper world.  I'm feeling absolutely no tension or concern for this heroine, as she's not only completely unlikable, but apparently completely unkillable too.  She has an unfair amount of luck for how sociopathic she is, seriously.

She stared daggers at the back of Bramford's head.  The beast seemed to enjoy the ride.  His broad back and alert posture reminded her of a big cat attuned to subtle signs.  Signs Eden couldn't read without her Life-Band.  -- p. 106-107

Have I added "take a drink every time Bramford's referred to as a beast" to the drinking game rules yet?  If not I need to...

Eden's hands crawl "like spiders" to her backpack (awkward analogy GO!) in the hopes of finding a Life-Band in there, and thinks of contacting Shen.  There's an awkward aside about how Shen's name means "strong spirit" in Chinese, though according to Google it actually means "the spiritual element of a person's psyche," so again Foyt's did a crappy job at her research.  She hopes if Shen comes, then she can convince Bramford to send her and her father back home.  Sorry, Eden, you're still needed for the book's prerequisite "opposites attract" romance...

Eden also has a flashback to working in the lab with her father, and doing her first DNA analysis at age six.  This is probably meant to show just how BRILLIANT and SMART our "genius" heroine is, but considering Eden's shown no intelligence up until this point, it's pretty much there just to back up an Informed Attribute.  

Also during this flashback, we learn that apparently Eden's father goes by the philosophy of "wait and see."  Confused?  So's Eden, and frankly, so am I, so Dr. Newman gives us this story:

"Some of the biggest discoveries have come from plans gone awry.  Think of Albert Einstein unable to obtain a university job.  For two years he suffered odd jobs and even questioned his goal of becoming a physicist.  Imagine that.

"Forced to take a lowly position as a clerk at the patent office, Einstein found 'a kind of salvation,' as he put it.  The regular salary and stimulating work of evaluating patent claims freed him to think, even to dream.  He began to publish important physics papers and change the world.

"You see, Daught, we must be patient.  One door closes and another opens.  Wait and see."  -- p. 107-108

Not a bad philosophy, I suppose.  And for once, it looks like Foyt did her research -- Einstein did work at a patent office, and he enjoyed both the salary and the fact that it was intellectually undemanding enough to let his mind run free on scientific matters.  Which just makes the fact that she half-asses so much of her other research inexcusable in my mind.

Of course, it seems Eden only took this philosophy to mean "wait long enough and you'll find your dreamy dark-skinned prince who sees the Real Eden."  Typical.  

She spends the rest of the car ride analyzing everything Jamal ever said to her, wishing she'd listened to the dog's warning (oh, NOW you think about Austin) and that she was prettier.  You know, for all you've hyped Eden to be a strong, intelligent character, she sure only seems to care about finding a boy to mate with.  The fact that you've set up this society so that women have to be mated by age 18 or die only makes it worse in my mind.  

They end up at a small settlement by the river, with native women and children dressed in rags and covered in rashes -- because of course these people are primitive and so live in squalor, right?  No matter what your race is, this book treats you like crap, it seems... 

Also, we get descriptions of "patches of wild jungle."  Again, if The Heat is so destructive that it ruined the surface world and baked away all vegetation, how did the rainforest, one of the most delicate ecosystems out there, manage to survive?  This place should be a freaking desert!  There shouldn't be random patches of jungle anywhere!  Even if it is along the banks of a river -- you are aware there can still be rivers in a desert, right Foyt?

Oh hey look, more random lusting over Bramford!

Bramford's gaze raked over her as he passed her by.  She watched him head into a palm grove, mesmerized by the rippling of his muscled back and hips.  He moved with the simple grace and powerful confidence of a predator.  No wasted energy, no self-consciousness.  What must that be like?  -- p. 109

Still not sorry...

Suddenly Eden freaks out as the earth seems to move under her -- but it's just ants (and yes, we get the Latin name, because EDEN IS SO SMRT AMIRITE?).

Eden freaks again as the ants crawl all over her, runs, and trips in a mud puddle, which gets the native kids laughing at her.  She just thinks that at least the "pompous action hero" didn't see her fall, which I assume means Bramford.  Still not seeing how these two are supposed to get together, though I'm pretty sure they're going to be in TRUE LOVE FOREVER by the end...

She sits down by the "moribund" river -- that's the word used in the book, seriously.  "Moribund" means "dying" or "at the point of death," but the word doesn't seem to fit here.  Foyt seems to fall into the same trap of thesaurus abuse that Christopher Paolini did in his Inheritance books -- namely, using whatever word in the thesaurus catches her eye without stopping to think if it's an appropriate word choice.  

One of the natives sets Eden's father down on a giant banana leaf.  Instead of thanking them for not setting him on the ground, all she can think is that this place is so poor that their idea of comfort is "a leaf for a bed."  Would it kill you to show a bit of gratitude, Eden?  She at least shows enough human decency to ask if he's all right, since his leg is bleeding again, but he just says something about "the amazing variety of flora" and maybe discovering a new species here.  Shouldn't most animals be dead of The Heat by this point?  Oh wait, rainforests are apparently magically resilient to The Heat and animals are immune to it too... my bad... 

Someone brings them bowls of mashed yucca plant, which Eden refuses to eat.  Her father says "when you're starving you'll eat anything," and all she can think about is how much of a failure she is.  Of course.  *eyeroll*

The guy who brought them food -- Lorenzo (which is a Spanish and Italian name, so why a native from Ecuador would be called that I have no idea) -- also brings them coca leaves (yes, we get the Latin name for these too).  As in the same leaves used to make cocaine.  For a moment I thought Eden was going to scarf these up instead of the food, considering them a good substitute for oxy, but she refuses to.  Not because she's suddenly against drug use but because "they're dirty."  

Eden freaks out AGAIN when she finds they're going to be traveling by boat now.  Again, how is this supposed to be our strong protagonist?  And of course, "like any Pearl," she's scared of water.  What does being a Pearl have to do with being afraid of water?  

Eden takes off "for privacy" and goes to search the backpack, hoping to find a Life-Band.  And that's where the chapter ends.

Apparently Eden's gotten tired of making black people and Asians look terrible, so now we're moving on to trashing indigenous Americans.  No matter what your race is, you're going to be insulted reading this thing...