undefined sexuality

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend

Posted on March 21, 2017 Updated on March 21, 2017

This week on Novel Ideas, we are discussing a listener suggested book, A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner. In this episode, we have a bit of a role reversal at the top of the episode due to an attempted technical workaround that didn’t end up working. Or perhaps it’s better if we don’t explain these things and you just chalk up it up to Ben’s idiocy. In fact, from now on assume that all issues you have with the show are related to Ben’s idiocy. Issues like repeatedly referencing The Hunger Games even though it has nothing to do with this book, or not knowing the proper terminology for ~~bike riders~~ cyclists. In this episode we will also delve into the YA teen death genre, shy survivor types, unusual treatments of sexuality, and shallow characterization. We also discuss why teen writing sucks, the dead girl is annoyingly perfect, the badassery of Quakers, and causes of YA death. We’ll also cover, though not specifically (nor in detail) what the acronym in the episode title stands for (it’s also in the tags.)

Administrative note: We said a bunch of stuff about the next episode that is not correct. For example, Cursed Child has already been posted. Next episode will be Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

The music bump is “Ninjas of the Night” from an Youtube video of ancient vintage, but is nonetheless perfectly in line with the depiction of ninjas in this book.

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend (AFBAADT)

Our Recommendation: Meh. It’s kind of two books trying to be one book.

Ben: 5/10. At various points I was pretty sure I disliked this book. And then when it was over, I still didn’t like it. But I didn’t dislike it enough to argue for or against. So it has that going for it.

Gabs: 8/10 for could have been with the bike trip story. 5/10 for what actually happened with mediocre ninjas.

This entry was posted in Episodes and tagged A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, age gaps, all white cast?, ambiguous character descriptions, Another Fucking Book About A Dead Teenager, BICYCLE ENTHUSIASTS ALL RIGHT, bike riders, cause of YA death, chronology issues, compressed storylines, cyclists, disregard technical difficulties, elaborate play sets, Emily Horner, friendship, grief, hike/ride PSA, informed ability, lesbian stereotypes, listener suggestion, not shipping, Quakers, references, role reversal, self-discovery, shallow characterization, shy survivor, split story, teen writing sucks, teen-adult flip, too perfect caricatures, undefined sexuality, unrelated to The Hunger Games, unusual coming out, YA teen death, YA themes.

Girl in the Road

Posted on October 8, 2015

Novel Ideas is back for another month of sibling book-related antics. This time with The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne. We chose this book as part of our ongoing campaign to read more fiction about and/or by non-white, non-male authors. In this episode we discuss women in science fiction, elements of good world building, travel narratives, and feminism. We also talk about partially digested (probably not) snakes, how not to share your Golden Meaning, give advice on whether to murder (hint: no), and strange personal belief systems.

The music bump is “The Road” by Tenacious D.

98 – Girl in the Road – Classic Cotagonists

Our rating:

A different spin on the travel narrative with an ending full of “wat.”

Ben: 7/10. Not knowing what was going on for at least half of the story did not prevent me from enjoying it.

Gabs: 7/10. Points for the concept, but deductions for the confusion.

This entry was posted in Episodes and tagged brown women, cotagonists, feminism, Girl in the Road, Golden Meaning, kreen, live episode, Monica Byrne, murder, naivete, nanotech, near future, obvious edit points, personal goddess, sex and violence, snakes, travel narrative, undefined sexuality, underage sex, weird spirituality, women in science fiction, world building.