How did we end up here?
I really can’t remember how I came across EVIL?, whether it was from another blogger or something I saw on a passing website, I have no idea. I know I did get this one from PaperBackSwap (hooray for free!) but other than that I can’t remember how it came to fall into my lap. Only that I read that blurb and immediately knew I had to read it. When I finally got around to it. Seeing as how it’s been on my to-read list for a couple years now, I’ve finally decided to get around to it.
Okay, book. You've got 50 pages. Go!
Instantly the tone of voice, the sardonic sense of humor and the poking and prodding Carter does at religion in general really made me a little giddy. It unapologetically rips apart the mob mentality that the super serious can get and puts it into this hilarious, albeit somewhat terrifying, light that redefines one’s concept of evil and just how bastardized something like the bible can get. Who needs context when you’ve got fanatics? Since I have an unabashed interest in the psychology of religion I felt this would be a good foray into the minds of the irrationally intolerant without getting uncomfortably serious. The tone, despite the underlying topic, stayed light.
What worked . . .
I thought Carter’s poke at the rape of religion was excellent and so incredibly poignant in today’s world where context is what people make of it and only that. Stuart is a gay boy in a hyper-religious town but that’s okay. The fact that he was caught masturbating? Well now that’s worthy of tying him to a stake. Doesn’t make sense? It’s not supposed to. It’s about picking and choosing what’s good, what’s bad, what’s tolerable and worthy of patience and what needs to be eradicated now. Certain elements of the bible that would otherwise provide greater context for the “lessons” that it teaches are ignored to serve a purpose.
The sin of Onan, as the townspeople are so readily able to pounce on top of, is supposedly the sin of masturbation. Unless you listen to the reverend, you know, the dude that does this shit for a living, when he says that if you read more than just the one sentence it’s actually about greed and keeping familial wealth for oneself instead of “doing the right thing” and knocking up your dead brother’s wife so she can have an heir. I mean, you can totally see where masturbation came from that, right? O_o
This is the point and it snowballed to a terrifying effect that left Stuart and his friends ostracized from society and fearing for their lives. A bit ridiculous but I loved the POINT EVIL? kept trying to hit home.
What didn't work . . .
The voice and the “kitsch” wore thin on me after a while. It got me all amped up in the beginning but how Carter developed it I don’t think was sustainable in its current incarnation. Enter Chester and it became almost unbearable. He was supposed to be this uber dumb jock that Stuart had a crush on and at first his stupidity was almost kind of funny but the more the joke wore on, and the more Stuart kept having to drag his sorry ass out of problems because he tried to save his own skin, I just couldn’t take it anymore. And yet Stuart kept going back. Chester almost gets them caught and killed yet Stuart won’t leave him behind. Chester was constantly more concerned with himself and he never grew as a character as a result (except for his final admittance to himself and Stuart at the end). But Stuart still insisted on helping him time after time after time. I’m sorry, and maybe this makes me an awful person, but if someone causes me to get my ass toasted REPEATEDLY because they can’t be bothered to think of anyone but themselves, they’re getting left behind. Screw conscience and guilt. There are only so many times a person can reasonably try before their self-preservation kicks in.
And Carter had a bad habit of having Stuart think something and them immediately say that exact same thought out loud. For instance Stuart would think ‘that guy doesn’t get what I’m saying at all’ and then he would actually go and say to said person ‘you don’t get what I’m saying at all, do you?” Redundancies like that bother me and it looks like someone was struggling for word count with how often it happened.
And in the end . . .
It was an entertaining enough story but I’m glad it wasn’t longer than what it is. The voice just ended up grating and I kept wishing for Chester to just light himself on fire for all he was worth so I wouldn’t have been able to tolerable much more than what was already on the pages. I liked the allegory Carter set up with the misrepresentation of religion and how Stuart kept trying to find the truth in the world through a means many would otherwise find just a touch evil. What I liked even more was that EVIL? didn’t have a fairytale ending. The end was definitely conclusive but it wasn’t happy times for everyone so despite how unrealistic the plot was the ending grounded it a bit and ended up being just a little bit sad but it was satisfying. The story came full circle and ended where it needed to.
I didn’t feel preached to in the process. Even though Carter was sending an otherwise obvious message it was done in jest, with a light-hearted tone that merely begged to ask why? What is it about people that we let ourselves be manipulated by others instead of finding our own truths? Why do we give in to mob mentality instead of thinking for ourselves? I think if it weren’t for Chester I would have enjoyed the book much more but he was such a drain. I just wish authors would deal with those characters realistically instead of idealizing the situation and making their main character out to be a humanitarian (despite the fact that such altruistic moves would get someone killed faster than being struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark).
But yes, it was enjoyable enough without being something to really write home about. While EVIL? is a mock of Christianity it strikes some good poses and asked some good questions that really get you thinking.