Status Updates From Pete's Exhaustive Review of...

Oh, here’s a quote that succinctly reviews the entire Modeland book: “it’s crazy, but it’s slow, and it’s not all that fun.”

There’s a section in here about Dirk’s take on negative reviews. As someone who may have written one or two such things in the past, I appreciate his thoughts.

Apt quote and relatable experience that applies to trying to make sense of the specifics of most things in Modelland:

"I'm sorry this isn't something that I researched better, but there are NO other sources that describe the book in detail, and the book itself isn't exactly helpful. I'm relying on my own notes, and I get so angry at points that I can't see the paper, just a deep maroon color."

There are no page numbers so I’ll have to make up where I am as I go. But on page 3, now that I’ve read Modelland, I’m in agreement with Pete’s generalization about Modelland as bad media. What’s great about terrible books is laughing at how terrible they are and how clueless the creators must have been. Modelland is unfortunately competent enough to be merely dreary and weird.

AI image generation has come a long way since 2016, I have to admit.

Pete’s review contains way more bitterness than I’m feeling at the equivalent point in the text. Maybe when I’ve Modellanded deeper I’ll share it, but for now I’m going to set this aside.

"... now YOU can read Modelland without ACTUALLY reading Modelland. You're welcome."

I'm reading Modelland side-by-side with this. I don't think I'm doing it right.

Derk expresses some impatience with us not getting to Modelland right away. 30 pages in, I'm okay with having some scenes establishing the setting and characters, such as learning about Tookie's BFF. 150 pages before we see Modelland is probably too much ramp-up time, considering this is a YA, though.

He's right that the "serious stuff" is handled very poorly, as I also mentioned in my comment on M's ch. 2.

Ch. 1: the "beauties and uggos" part of this section was quite funny. I've never come across someone beautiful who claimed they were homely as a kid, myself. But that fits into the narrative that seems to be forming in Modelland, of a weird uggo kid who gets the golden ticket--er, SMIZE--and moves on to greater, more glamorous things.

Prologue: Derk goes on at length about a simile that doesn't work on a literal level because of Banks' use of the word "lift." A simile needn't be viable on a literal level as well as an evocative one, but the verb isn't this one's main sin, imo, but comparing fog to a bra. It's just clunky and silly.