Pete's Exhaustive Review of Modelland

by Peter Derk

My first attempt to read Tyra Banks’ Modelland started in 2012. It also ended in 2012, somewhere about 20% into the book. I couldn’t take any more. There were so many other things I could enjoy, why spend time on Modelland? There were birds…trees…

Then, in 2015, I decided “screw birds and trees.”

I threw up a Kickstarter. Pete’s Exhaustive Review of Modelland. And with that, I answered the question, “How much would money would convince me to read Modelland?”

A hundo, it turns out. A well-earned hundo.

I read the damn book, and as part of the deal, I wrote a long, detailed, exhaustive review.

And here it is.

Now, full disclosure, this gets long. About 50,000 words long, if numbers matter to you. There was just so much to say, so much to outline, and so many dead ends and wrong turns that made reviewing the book a true challenge. Which details are significant, and which will be dropped almost immediately and without fanfare? Which characters will return, and which will be left to the wayside as completely unimportant? It’s impossible to say.

But I’ll say this: the book itself clocks in at over 500 pages, and I counted exactly ONE decent joke in those pages. So if you want to experience the crazy of Modelland without the pain, or at least without ALL of the pain, then this is the way to go.

Think about this like the MST3K of book reviews. Frame by frame, page by page, we’ll go through this mother.

Crack a beer. Maybe five. Hundred. And enjoy Pete’s Exhaustive Review of Modelland

Genres: Nonfiction

157 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 15, 2016

About the author

Peter Derk doesn't understand why they've never sold a Twix called "Twick" that's just one long bar made of the two bars mashed together.

Reviews

[Miranda Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if this was made up by Tyra at the end or planned all along, and I can't decide which is worse.I have never 5-starred a book review so fast...though, to be fair, I've never reviewed a review before either.

If you've ever seen the later seasons of America's Next Top Model, you will have seen some references to Modelland (anybody else still wildy confused by the cycle 17 promo)?

Modelland is the first book in a trilogy (of which the second and third books are VERY unlikely to see the light of day) written by Tyra Banks.

Tyra Banks is (without a doubt) known worldwide for her stunning good looks, her smizing and her knack at being wildly offensive, yet somehow able to get away with it.

But her books? Ehhh...they've become somewhat a black hole in her life.

But why was this book such a flop?

In the times where we could not sneeze without a celebrity memoir or a YA series written by a celeb being thrown at us...why didn't Modelland stick? (Glad you asked!).

One brave man, by the name of Pete Derk, sought out that reason in the name of SCIENCE (okay, okay, he set up a go-fund-me and someone chipped in a hundred bucks).

I've been reading Tyra's Modelland now for 2 months and I'm honestly blown away by how awful it is.

This man deserves a round of applause and a stiff drink. Cause the level of nonsense in this book is truly stunning.

I'm reading Modelland...I think it's level of suck is kind of astonishing considering the available resources and options that could have improved it.

Derk wrote a fifty THOUSAND word review on Tyra Banks' book - and let me tell you, every word was worth it.

In Chapter 6 we meet the 7Seven.
And already, goddamn it...How does a person say this? "Seven-seven"? "Suh-seven"? "Guh-fuch-yah-selv"?

Cause, let me assure you, as I am reading Tyra's book I am constantly and consistently overwhelmed. The sheer opulence and ridiculousness - the completely UNNECESSARY word choice and Naming of Things.

And Derk's review? A godsend.

Cause every time I am about to give up on Tyra's book, I remember something that he wrote:

Evanjalinda, with the power of Chameeleone. There's supposed to be an accent on that last letter, but I'm not going to dignify this ridiculousness with that many extra pixels.

And that gives me the strength to go on.

Now, while this short-story-slash-review might seem over the top to some, I really want to assure you all that it is worth it.

He has a knack for picking apart the stuff in this book and giving them such a hilarious twist that literally had me laughing out loud.

Of course, the runaway plan doesn't work. What foils it all? What could possibly stop this juggernaught of a genius plan which consisted of "wake up 20 minutes early and walk out the front door"? Tookie's parents are awake.

I just...I couldn't handle how hilarious this review was.

Curses. It's like a goddamn Ocean's 11 movie, everything was in place just so, and one little oversight ruined it all.

And one thing that I really appreciated about this was that it never felt mean or vindictive.

He definitely called Tyra out on things-that-did-not-belong-in-books or ridiculously-over-the-top-stuff, but he does it in a surprisingly light-hearted way.

...Ci~L...we're told how to pronounce this name, and the tilde has NO effect. "See-ell." Good. Good thing that happened. I guess that shit's not getting much use on the keyboard.
...Do I think Tyra just looked at the keyboard and said, "Hey, THIS thing!" Yes. Yes I do.

He doesn't let her get away with annnnything either.

...tongue reading is the ability to look at someone's tongue and determine their favorite food. Which is kind of a worthless superpower because
A) You have to grab someone's tongue, and
B) You can just ask.

Also, I just love his philosophy on reviewing in general.

And it's something that I've applied to my own reviews - when someone is doing the best they can with their resources and ability, don't be a jerk and tear them down.

But, if they did have all that and more at their disposal and they just...didn't bother...then by all means, put in your two cents.

When someone says that an artist spent a lot of time on something and therefore it can't be criticized, I take issue....Commercially viable art isn't just about dumping the contents of your head into or onto a medium.

All in all, this review was so totally worth it. I loved it. I'd actually recommend reading it BEFORE you read Tyra's book - so that way when you're forcing your way through yet another clown car worth of characters, you have fond memories to look back on.

Q: Do you really think Tyra wrote this herself?

A: I do, 100%.
...why? Because it's too freaking crazy...If you were a ghostwriter, and you turned in this 550 pages of balls-out crazy, you would be fired. Correctly.

P.s. Dear Pete Derk,

I'm sorry my review is only 1,000 words, I can only hope I have done your book justice. If you are willing to toss me a hundred bucks, I could attempt a 50k review of your book :)

[Peter Derk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never rated any of my own books 5 stars before! But I'm feeling generous today.

Look, this is available for free on my web site. www.helpfulsnowman.com You can read the whole thing there for free.

But if you wanna read it on your desktop or phone or Kindle or whatever, now you can.

I'd recommend it!

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this blog-turned-book (also available free on Peter Derk's website; see his own review for links) works best for someone who has not read Modelland and has no intention of reading Modelland, but would like to see someone else's head explode over the experience.

I read Modelland before reading this. I tried to do them side by side, but the Exhaustive Review only roughly sticks to chapter delineations, at least in the beginning, and it wasn't the experience I was hoping for so I left the Review for after I finished the book. I found very little to argue with. Derk's account conveys probably more bitterness than I felt at first. In the early chapters, sure there was plenty of weirdness and nonsensical things happening, but I felt it was appropriately establishing its foundation and the wait to actually reach Modelland proper in the book was appropriate, I thought. Whether that foundation proved solid (it did not) couldn't be confirmed until later in the book, although Derk's instincts generally proved correct.

I caught up to Derk's level of bitterness eventually.

I think if I had let more time elapse between reading the book and reading the Exhaustive Review, I would have found it more amusing. As it was, it was like, "yes, you're right, that thing was terrible," rather than laughing at it like, "ha ha, now you will suffer as I have suffered, just 10 years before I suffered if I consider the actual publication date." More time and space would have allowed the humor to sink in rather than just the memory of misery.

All that said, there are many statements in Pete's review that are undeniably true and apply broadly to all parts of Modelland:

This thing, it's taking me so long to get through each chapter. I pick it up, I mean to read like a hundred pages, and then I can't go three pages without saying, "Oaky, that's just fucking stupid." And then I have to put he book down and eat an entire Freschetta pizza by myself and use the diarrhea time to think about my life and what it's become.
[. . .]
Kids, I just want to say, do not read this book if you want to learn anything about equality, beauty, songs, architecture, love, family relationships, plotting, storytelling, makeup, dorm life, butts, people with hands for faces...the only thing that one walks away from this book with is a peek inside Tyra's head, which is what I can only assume is what's in that puzzle box from Hellraiser, and complete bafflement when it comes to the state of American book publishing.
[. . .]
This is a struggle, so don't be a dick about it. I'm confused too. If there's one thing Tyra is bad at, it's description of objects and people, and if there's another thing, it's drawing a word picture that sets up where those objects and people are in space, and if there's another thing, it's describing action.

My only contrary take is that I feel partially more generous towards Banks' expressed experience as seen in Modelland's main character, Tookie de la Creme. Yes, Banks's looks took her to Milan at age 15. Yes, her family was wealthy enough to send her to private school. Yes, she took expensive courses at Harvard that exist to allow rich people to say they went to Harvard. Yes, her life experience is completely removed from regular people's life experience. But I'm willing to accept that even with all that, she is allowed to have genuinely felt insecure about her looks, to feel funny-looking especially about specific body parts, to want to be acknowledged as a worthy person outside of her looks. Despite all her advantages, I'm sure it wasn't easy being a POC in the global fashion industry. Derk didn't deny these things, but that's my reaction to some of things he did express about her (always followed by punching down on himself, to be fair). Does any of this mean that Modelland has more value or accomplished anything it set out to any better? It does not.

I heartily recommend Derk's fiction, by the way. They're stuffed with hilarity without the deserved bitterness and horror that comes from reading a terrible book. Try The Heist-est Heist Ever Heisted: A Heist Story of a Heist: Special Editor’s Edition, why don't you?

And while we're on the topic of bad books: let's compare Modelland and Maradonia (Maradonia and the Seven Bridges. One is a widely-lambasted book by a well-known celebrity, traditionally published. The other is a widely-lambasted book by an unknown child author, self-published. Both had aspirations of sequels, screen adaptations, and theme parks. How did these turn out?

Modelland
Sequels: NO
Feature Film: NO
Theme Park: NO (but kind of; there was briefly a "ModelLand" indoor experience in Santa Monica https://modellandexperience.com/ but it doesn't specifically reference the Modelland book/IP)

Maradonia
Sequels: YES
Feature Film: YES
Theme Park: NO

So who did it better?

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me just under a month to read. I worked on it during lunch breaks, those last seven minutes of the work day in which you've cleared your desk and don't want to start a new task, server crash times, etc. I plugged away at this review of which I'd already read scattered pieces and I survived without spewing liquid through my nose (I have a terrible habit of taking a drink right before something makes me laugh) or cracker crumbs onto my keyboard (I wasn't actually ever eating crackers during my reading of this tome)

To make things easier on you, which Dear Pete probably does not want me to do because of blog hits or litigation or loss of income or some reason, here is the direct link to the direct review on the website he mostly-generously shares in his own review of this very same thing.
I thought there was a PayPal link somewhere on the site, too. Peter, isn't there a "Throw money at me" link? Cuz I totally feel I should pay you for this, maybe after I pay my therapist to undo some of what happened to me here. Anyway, if it turns out such a thing exists, I'll put it here: [LINK]

You will notice I intentionally withheld that fifth star because even though I appreciate Darling Peter's intense effort in finishing this nightmare of a book, keeping track of the so-called storyline, and sharing his findings, and while I understand how insanely difficult going back to give it a full edit (on his website) (I don't know about the Kindle copy) would have been due to sanity issues, well...I think it's safe to say I'm a bitch because that's what it boils down to. However, regardless of typos and sentence structure that may have come from Modelland, itself, the content herein is phenomenal. It is, indeed, exhaustive, as the title of the piece indicates. It is also delightful and hilarious. It is not for the faint of heart nor the short of patience, but it is well worth the read for those who can plow through because, seriously, this guy totally took one for the team and not only lived to tell his story but tells it with aplomb and also some snarky bitterness (that's always a favorite of mine)

If you've always wanted to read Modelland but are daunted by the many, many pages, this interpreted-abridgement-as-review will bring you far more joy than that book ever would.
Enjoy!

[Melly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man has provided a valuable service to mankind by summarizing over 500 pages of bugfuck insanity, as well as analyzing it from a literary standpoint in such a way as to be a pretty good resource for writers.

Many, many times, I was halfway convinced that he was making it all up, okay, when I heard that Tyra Banks had written a novel called Modelland I imagined that it was a thinly veiled autobiography, but no: every step of the way, it seems, her book is loaded to the nuts with Weird Stuff. All night long, all night strong. So weird that I'd be worried about her, if she wasn't worth $90,000,000, which she is.

Hilarious, bizarre, informative. You need this exhaustive review in your life.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5
This is some hilarious stuff right here. Pete read Modelland so I didn't have to. Honestly, I don't know how I found this, but one time I was reading the reviews of a goodreads peep and I could not stop laughing because she gives the best burns. And she burned this book. And then I proceeded to read the other reviews.

And then I found this.

So, I guess I do know how I found it.

Anyway, there's some language and a few, somewhat inappropriate similes, but I could not stop laughing. I do not want to read the actual Modelland, but I also kind of do. But only with friends. This ain't no journey to take alone, it sounds like.

[#ReadAllTheBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was hilarious and honestly, I'm kind of morbidly curious about the source material now.

Also I'm calling it: Ci~L is Lizzie, because if you pronounce her name backwards it's sort of like the name Lizzie sound-wise. And it's stupid and inexplicable enough to be something in Modelland.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly my favorite review of a trash book ever. Worth the read if you're ever curious about the Tyra Banks novel Modelland. The review made it entertaining and I'm just glad I don't have to read the dang thing now.

[Alex H · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars. +/- .25 star deduction depending on whether or not I actually paid money to have an inconsistently funny straight man explain the plot of this book to me. I'm already willing to wager that this will be the most obscure "book" shelved in my 2023 Year In Books.

This is incredibly niche content that I could really only recommend to a certain micro-portion of the population. With that being said, I've been meaning to read this since watching the absolute batshit season finale of an ANTM cycle where Tyra made the models shoot an absurd motion editorial for this book that made it seem like some cool circa 2010 dystopian novel. A cursory Goodreads search full of one-star ratings for her 500+ page monstrosity quickly re-routed me to this, seemingly, much more manageable review.

In an almost meta-reading experience, I had to repeatedly take breaks from this review of Modelland, similar to Pete's own journey through the source material. I don't want to rag too much on him when the title and intro expressly state that this is an exhaustive review of a book that was 350 pages too long to begin with, so yes, I definitely understand that actually crafting a half-sensical review requires quite a bit of summary but my god can this man beat dead horses. And mostly they're his own jokes that are too often middle school boy humor or page long pop culture references where he loosely relates them back to Modelland 1,000 words and a couple dick jokes later.

That being said, I actually did quite enjoy some of his observations and a good portion of his wittier commentary. Also, while tangential, if I was familiar with his references I often found them quite funny. One of my favorite pass times is exposing sane people to Tyra Banks and watching how long it takes them to pull up the Human Rights Watch website to see if she's on it. She is without a doubt one of the most unhinged human beings to emerge from the early 2000s and it does not surprise me in the slightest that her writing and compulsive need to re-name things generated one of the worst books to ever exist. As a result, the most entertaining parts of this review were definitely his digs at Tyra. For example:

"If I had to create a subtitle for this book, the full title on the book's cover would be Modelland: The Time Nobody Told Tyra No."

Based on this review, if I had to write an essay for an adjunct professor's ENGL-340 class, I'd probably title it: "Modelland: How Pretty Privilege and Sheer Delusion Created The Anti-Chekhov's Gun."

And that's about all I really learned from this multi-hour excursion into literary criticism. I think some stones are meant to be left unturned.

[Steve Bal4 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Peter Derk, you sweet, irreverent bastard -- your gleeful, Tasmanian Devilish audaciousness holds no equal.

It's been exactly 1 year since I read a full book, and I was curious to see what Derk had to been up to in my absence, but it appears there has been nothing forthcoming, so I decided to treat myself for my birthday, and nab what has proved to be his most popular & best-selling title: Pete's Exhaustive Review of Modelland. (It was also on sale on Amazon for $7.)

Laugh out loud funny, as always! I don't know if this sorta thing has been done before (and it likely has), but writing an entire book to review another entire book -- both of which are bat-shit crazy (in much different ways) -- is just something I'm glad I lived to experience as a reader.

Now, I have no idea if Derk has ADHD (the highly functional kind), but it would make every bit of sense as you take the rollercoaster of thoughts, observations & detours that this book offers on every page. Personal connections to experiences, likes & dislikes, and the ephemera of life that tumble out of Pete's head throughout. And thank God he does, because if this were an actual literary critique of Tyra Banks' insane & unfathomable uber-novel, Modelland, it would be drier than toast in a nun's underwear. But Pete is a cacophony of both intellect & absurdity that never fails to both impress & entertain me on every level.

Derk read Modelland so we wouldn't have to; then he whittles away at the content, highlights, summarizes (often with much acuity), and digests a 550 page tome to bad-writing: bless him. Where the real magic happens in the pages of his "Exhaustive Review" (and believe me, it is), is in his hilarious asides throughout. Derk has a few screws loose -- in all the best ways. He never fails to disappoint.

I'd like to imagine that in the decade+ that his book about her book has been available, that maybe, just maybe (fingers-crossed), Tyra Banks, or at least one of her "people," has been made aware of, and read, or at least summarized this book for her. I would KILL to be a fly on the wall to witness her reaction. Doubtful, I know, but one can dream.

The fact that I have not read Banks' Modelland bares zero weight on my enjoyment of Derk's tribute to her dustbin masterpiece. It is a glorious takedown & love letter to unfortunate writing, and another solid offering of the exact opposite. Sooo much fun!

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a long critical piece--over 150 pages' worth!--about Tyra Banks' not-very-well-received first novel, Modelland. I listened to the "372 Pages We'll Never Get Back" podcast episodes while I was reading Banks' book, and the basic approach is similar. Derk briefly summarizes the events in the novel, then makes humorous commentary about what he read. In Derk's case, he sometimes goes into long asides about literary technique, such as the dreaded "show, don't tell" mantra*.

* dreaded by me, anyhow.

I don't hate Tyra as a person--in so far as I know much about her at all, even on a parasocial level--but didn't think she tried hard enough to make her messages come across effectively. I had a sense of squandered potential while reading Modelland, and that sense was corroborated in this essay.

In the end, I like 372 Pages' approach to books better than Derk's. In many cases, the podcast, Derk's and my responses to Modelland are in line with each other's. My preference mostly comes down to sense of humor, and I'm not as fond of the edgy, cynical kind of humor I associate with young online white men from the 10s (which I'm almost 100% sure Derk was, at the time he wrote this*), as I am of the more good-naturedly comedic and extrapolative approach that Conor and Mike take. Tastes differ, and all that.

* I'm not saying his race might have changed in the meantime, though that would be funny.

I made a good number of highlights and notes for this piece, and you can check those out if you like. Derk did have a number of insightful things to say about Modelland, though how he missed the idea of "third-person limited point of view" is rather baffling to me.

[Gianluca Cameron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly made Modelland sound somewhat interesting. A lot of it simply consisted of the guy getting annoyed whenever something strange or incomprehensible happened. Not that it seems like a good book, however. Reading this, I began thinking that Modelland sounded like it was crying out for a film adaptation. I think maybe Korine or Jodorowsky. Essentially a book-length Nostalgia Critic review. Coming from a very entertainment-focused perspective. Which I guess makes sense for this project as I doubt Modelland was striving for high art. I liked the part where he deconstructed the common moral of everyone being beautiful on the inside. However, I disagree with him that letting loose the floodgates regarding distribution has had a bad effect on culture. Sure, there's a lot more crap but a fair amount of it is interesting crap made by passionate individuals with a unique sensibility rather than box-checking crap. It has always been the job of the consumer to sift through a mountain of crap. I do, of course, agree that selling your work for money opens you up to harsh criticism, however. Also, there were a couple spelling mistakes. Overall, I probably shouldn't have read this as it was incredibly unlikely to be my thing and so my perspective is likely entirely useless. The impression this review gives of Modelland is of a book that utilises surrealism to ultimately very tacky ends. I didn't really relate to the way this guy approached the book nor did I share his sense of humour. However, if you enjoy the Nostalgia Critic style, then I suggest you check this out.

[Felipe P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great way to finish this year. Gotta be honest, I not only didn’t know about the existence of Modelland, but I also had no idea who Tyra Banks was. Apparently, she is a big deal. Now I know a lot more with this extensive review, which seems way more fun and interesting than the novel itself.
This review does a good job at trying to explain what the hell is happening in the novel, and why nothing makes sense, people have stupid names, and everything is just a mess. This is what happens when a celebrity gets the chance to write freely what they want, but they have almost no clue of how to tackle such an endeavor. So they just write gibberish. Not fun to read gibberish (like watching a bad/fun movie like The Room), but frustrating trash.
For being a review, this book is quite insightful and offers more than complaining about Modelland. Glad I check it out.

[☆brooklyn☆]

The review was certainly exhaustive, and I wouldn't recommend for anyone actually trying to read a book, because it's a essentially a long review of a book you wouldn't want to read anyway, but I had fun.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

God bless. Pete deserves the world for this.

[Valentia D'Ambroise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way Peter writes about this book of utter nonsense... and not even the fun kind.

[Shyr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. And the only way to read Modelland. Instead of the original, read this. Infinitely better.

[O LCB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had more fun than I thought reading this, the best quarantine afternoon 😂