Cockatiel X Chameleon

by Bavitz

Terminally bored office worker Harper Praise chats with random people online to stave off her desire to die. By chance, she meets Van Der Gramme, a brashly egotistical pornographic artist who quickly becomes the sole interesting facet of Harper's nothing life. Chasing after him, she plunges into his online underworld of depravity and degeneracy, over which he presides like a spiritual guru—or a cult leader. Sex and art are the saviors he peddles, his medicine, his opiates, and Harper is desperate to surrender to them. But the real world—no matter how banal it seems—refuses to loosen its death grip so easily. By the end, everything will burn.

Unknown Binding

Published March 12, 2022

Reviews

[Anna Rader · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this on ao3, and although the tags seemed intimidating at first blush, bavitz’s writing has always knocked it out of the park. turns out that cxc was worth the read and more (tbh i’ve shilled it to my friends ever since it got published)

for one, the prose rocks. my epub practically glows yellow with how many lines i have highlighted. it’s great if you have an interest in wordcraft, or just like seeing new ways to get a story across without obvious, pat declarations. example: annoying weeb-type gets to commandeer the narration and insert literal footnotes about pop culture. it’s more fun in context

also, the story has a LOT to say. like, a ton of social commentary. unironically a great thinkpiece on culture, at first the minutiae of internet drama/porn, and then IRL largescale shifts in culture à la riots. from twitter to meatspace, every character has something to say and contributes to the Theme of cxc.

small note: the characters. they’re funny. they’re tormented. i’d die for harper and her unambiguously fucked self-conception, or lack thereof.

bit of a sensitive section now: i don’t believe at all that the graphic/extreme/brutal nature of the erotica segments detracts from the story, or is just there for shock value. sure, someone other than myself would get randy from this stuff, but on an intellectual level, the porn is ESSENTIAL to understanding the relationships between the characters and their psychologies. that statement sounds obvious enough, but seriously. don’t skip the smut if you decide to read the R-rated web novel. not when it’s this meaningful and significant to the story

there’s some criticism/stuff i’d like to get off my chest after gushing an embarrassing amount, but it doesn’t really fit in this sort of recommendation-review. plot structure and the fleshing out of supporting characters is a ymmv thing. friend of mine DNFed; meanwhile, i’ve reread this novel threeish times.

anyway! cxc 5/5 stars or 9/10, if you value precision. read it and enjoy the embedded art before imgur starts imploding

[glambient · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know how I found this novel, I don’t know why I read it all the way through. Someone recommended it to me, or maybe it was related to some other book I read, I don’t remember…? But I read it, read it all the way to the end, not knowing what to expect, not seeing any of its multiple wild turns up ahead in the panorama. The prose that was grandiose without being purple, effluent without being base, disgusting without destroying. Trying to understand these outrageous people who don’t even fully understand themselves, getting lost in their monologuing as they try, try so hard to understand, themselves, each other, the world. The world around them collapsing, a real collapse that really happened, as an ambient horror but also a fascination as it looms up against them and their meaningless lives, and their meaningless stories, and their meaningless art. Something to define them, to define their lack. The people who are nobody, the people who are not themselves. This is the kind of story I always wanted, but never knew I needed, the kind of story that turns me into the kind of reader who enjoys it, who needs it more than anything else. Please, I’ll be whoever you want me to be.

[AN R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was something very special. I won’t say that I found no fault with it, but this text should be studied by other, bigger authors who have been trying (and, without exception, in their own self-satisfied and unoriginal ironic removal, completely failing) to replicate internet culture. This is so deeply a novel by someone From the Internet, someone Online, someone who actually GETS IT, but also clearly by someone who loves literature and loves their craft and loves their own dark corners that informed some of the happenings here. I’m blown away. This is what I wanted so many other books to be. This captures the spirit of what it’s like to be maladjusted on the computer like nothing I’ve ever read. Incredible.