Love Me Dead is love, Love Me Dead is life

“Oh, I’m fucking sorry. My bad, I totally forgot that my life revolves around you, that my entire life’s purpose is serving you. What the fuck was I doing ever making major life decisions centered around my own happiness and what I want - I should’ve been considering your feelings and what’s most convenient for you. Like I should’ve gone to university in Alberta in order to be more accessible for you, I should’ve gone into website design just in case you’d need me to make a website for your T-shirt company. How could I not have realized that all I am is a supporting character in your fucking life?

Especially after everything you’ve done for me like not being around during any of my graduations, prom, choosing schools, getting my first job, choosing my career. Like teaching me the feeling of being profoundly disappointed when someone doesn’t follow through on what they say - teaching me and my younger brother that the only time we can expect you to actually show up is when you fucking need something from us. Or how you constantly shift conversations about my feelings and misery to being about you and how it makes you feel and how you’ve got it so much fucking worse.

Fair Game currently has largely positive reviews – it’s not very many reviews, I doubt I’ve seen more than 10 either Goodreads or Google Play, but they’re not just positive, it’s 4.4/5s. This is initially confusing to me and anyone else who’s had to listen to me talk about how much I hate this book and its characters (especially Jade, seriously fuck her). But it makes some sense once you consider fanfiction.

This is not a knock on fanfiction, I’ve read many incredibly good fanfiction. Some of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read were fanfiction. I wrote fanfiction from the age of 12 to about 16/17 – I wasn’t mega popular but I had reviews blowing up my inbox at my peak. From experience, I can tell you that it’s not really difficult to write enjoyable fanfictions. It’s not hard to write fanfics that people will like. Because someone else has already done most of the heavy lifting for you – it’s not necessary to work especially hard to establish characters or develop relationships, most of your readers are already know all of it and, most importantly, most of them are already emotionally invested in them. I got by writing romances by just hitting a few beats; I didn’t need to know why Inuyasha and Kagome would fall for each other or think especially hard about what they like about each other, Rumiko Takahashi sorted that shit out and it’s just safe to assume it carried over somehow.

I don’t think this covers all of the positive reviews or all fans of Fair Game but, personally, I assume some of the emotional investment people have in Fair Game, its core “romance” and its characters are not a result of anything that’s actually in Fair Game. I’ll admit to you right now that there’s tons of manga, anime, books etc. that I have read and enjoyed because the characters hit on archetypes I was already invested in or because they reminded me of my characters, not because of the writing of the material itself because sometimes it was kind of garbage.

Another thing I will talk about is yaoi – I’ve recently gotten particularly into yaoi, especially reading it off the ebookrenta site. Most of them are pretty trashy – some of them are honestly, kind of garbage, some of them know what they are and know that engaging characters and romantic developments are absolutely not necessary. I can tell you I’ve read a lot of garbage, although I’ve read some really interesting, emotional and complex stories, most of it is just finding a way to get two hot guys to fuck each other. And, to be completely honest, that’s all I’m reading it for anyways. So it’s not particularly important that their relationship seems fairly shallow or contrived; that if I really thought about it, I couldn’t tell you what the characters like about each other or even much about them at all – the art is cute and the sex scenes are decently drawn. And maybe I would’ve felt that way about Fair Game if they’d spent less time talking about fucking and more time actually fucking and if they also spend less time thinking stupid, obnoxious and redundant stuff during the sex scenes so that I could focus on what they were doing and not how much I fucking hate Jade, how douche-y Shep is and what a misogynist Monica Murphy almost certainly is.

There’s also the likely fact that the other readers probably have a higher tolerance for all of the absolutely hokey sounding shit that’s in the book, a lack of well developed anything and MISOGYNY.

Let’s talk about the misogyny for a bit, actually. There’s nothing that’s out and out women are dumb stuff, there’s just little things like:

·       all the obnoxious, unnecessary moments of slut-shaming like:

o   Jade describing her roommate jumping from relationship to relationship while stressing that she wasn’t a slut

o   Shep remarking that the revealing top Jade wore to a party is revealing but not trashy

o   Shep lifting Jade about as a natural beauty by putting down all of his previous sexual partners as being fake or deceitful by wearing heavy makeup and dying their fucking hair

o   Jade’s use of the word skank

o   Jade’s roommate (Kelli) use of the word whore (which could be a sort of friendship thing if not for the rest of the fucking book)

o   the fact that Jade is adamant on not having sex with Shep purely because she seems to think she’ll lose something by just having a one-night stand with a guy she finds sexually attractive - up until they actually get to having sex, then she’s scared to catch feels

o   and the following aren’t centered around women but it’s actually slut-shaming all the same:

§  the use of the word man-whore to describe Shep

§  the pervasive idea that there’s anything inherently wrong with Shep being uninterested in pursuing romantic relationships – he’s hooking up with girls who are also only interested in hooking up, that doesn’t make him a fucking asshole or even a playboy so you fucked up your archetype here Monica

·       the way all the other girls interested in Shep are treated (which is probably also slut-shaming) and, in fact, the way any girl that is not Jade or Kelli is described in this story

·       the PMS stuff on both Jade and Shep’s part

·       the way Shep sexually objectifies Jade every time he talks about her and I mean literally every time

·       the way Shep just plain objectifies Jade and how the story doesn’t seem to think of it as problematic – he suggests that she be thrown into the pot during a poker game, he tries to use “winning” her in the bet as a way to get close to her at least twice which is two times too many, he calls her a fucking prize near the end

·       the fact that Shep “changing” just means he’ll tone down the misogyny and douchebaggery when it concerns Jade and only Jade

·       the fact that Jade suggests Shep should go and hook up with a drunk girl instead of with her

·       the fact that Shep thinks Jade being on her period is a test from God and this is allowed to continue without any hint whatsoever that it’s a disgustingly self-centred notion or douche-y thing to say

Additionally, there’s little bits of actual misandry because Jade is the fucking worst:

·       she says something to the affect of “you’re a man, of course all you think about is sex”

·       she literally says “men are so pathetic”

·       she’s disgusted by a toilet purely by thinking of all the specifically male butts that have been on it

And just as a bonus, here’s things I hate about Jade:

·       she’s not strong or defiant – she’s just rude for no reason and blatantly dishonest about her feelings throughout the whole story for also no reason really; it’s treated not like a major character flaw but it’s actually something Shepard likes about her

·       the way she thinks – just the way she phrases things sometimes just piss me off

·       she says repeatedly that “[Shep] confuses me” but Shepard is actually pretty straight-forward and honest about his feelings the entire story – he’s not confusing, you’re just insecure and projecting that onto him which is something you should be at least a little aware of, given that you’re a fucking psychology major

·       her insecurity feels like it’s there because of the clichés anyways

o   she’s had 2 boyfriends – 1 was pretty long-term and they only broke up because they didn’t want to do long distance once they picked different schools and the other one tries to get back together with her but apparently neither of them ever said she was beautiful

o   even though her performance anxiety is driven pretty hard before she has sexual intercourse with Shep, it’s barely there immediately before she has sex with Shepard, it’s almost as if she only has performance anxiety so that sex with Shepard is that much more special and unique

·       the story tries to act like she’s a strong character but she just does whatever she’s told after saying no maybe once or twice – and despite Shep saying “she doesn’t fall for my shit” every thing she does in the story, with few exception, is motivated by him in some part and she’d been taken with him since chapter one

·       even though she’s only had 2 boyfriends, she later talks as if she’s very experienced

·       it’s later strongly implied that the only reason she’s never successfully orgasmed during intercourse before is because she wasn’t willing to communicate her needs or wants with her previous sexual partners yet somehow it’s their fault – Shep doesn’t have “magic” fingers, he just asked what you liked and you actually fucking told him, it’s not hard you fucking dolt

·       Jade: "Has he been keeping tabs on me? I hope not, I'm infinitely boring, especially by Shep standards."

Jade, literally on the next page: "Not that I care what this man thinks of me anymore."

·       "I'm supposed to hate it when he calls me baby, but I don't." – who told you that Jade? Why are you supposed to hate it, JADE???

Things that annoy me about Shep (besides the stuff under the misogyny list):

·       every time he says or thinks something and then goes BOY AM I DOUCHEY or WOW EVEN I THINK I SOUND LIKE A RICH ASSHAT

·       the fact that he thought Jade being on her period was a test from G O  D

·       the fact that he didn’t immediately follow the “maybe she’s on her period because God is trying to make me fail to hook up with her” with one of those BOY AM I DOUCHEY moments

·       every time outside of a sex scene that he told us his dick was twitching

·       he’s not really funny

Yeah so this book is terrible. If I’d paid money for it, I would be furious. If I could give it negative stars, I actually would. Monica Murphy seems like she doesn’t know how to convey things subtly so whenever she can, she makes sure to spell it explicitly in some of the most obnoxious cases of telling instead of showing that I’ve seen in my entire life. Every time something about the characters, their feelings or their relationships are referenced, it is like it is the first time it’s ever been mentioned.

Also, there’s a superfluous “plot” point tacked on at the end about Jade’s mom selling their home and Jade needing a place to stay. It serves no real point and is wholly unnecessary as what little it does do could be done in literally any other way. In fact, Jade’s relationship with her mom is talked about a few times but it adds nothing to her character or the story so it’s also totally unnecessary.

I didn’t buy their romance – I don’t think these characters know much of anything about each other because I don’t know much of anything about either them besides what establishes their archetypes and their physical appearances. When they do start to learn about each other, aside from one scene, it’s all basically “off-camera” and we’re told about it after the fact. These are not two people falling in love with each other, these are two people who wanna fuck each other and love fucking each other. It was also extra annoying whenever the story acknowledged that these are two character who barely know each other falling for each other for apparently no reason.

Also stuff like this was actually written and (self-)published:

·       Guys like to watch. They're visual beings. Hello, porn.

·       I come face to penis within a few shocking seconds.

·       Damn he's so strong. I'd really like to see him naked.

·       God, look at me. Yes, me. Straight-laced, good girl Jade Frost is hanging out with a billionaire spoiled sexy brat who runs an illegal freaking casino in a house just off campus. What have I done? Who am I, for God's sake?

·       I need to be able to handle all of her moods. Is this some sort of test? Is God upstairs laughing at me, throwing me one obstacle after another in the hopes that I'd fail? (this is the PERIOD thing and no I’m not over it)

·       She slowly shakes her head, all those wayward strands of hair tickling her cheeks. Her hair is like fire. Vibrant and bright, wild and free - I sound like a fucking poet in my head. Jesus.