Shitty YA Boy Toy: Linden - WITHER

Name: Linden

Dwells Within: Lauren DeStefano's CHEMICAL GARDEN Trilogy

At a glance: Passive-aggressively douchey but it's passed off as some demented form of kindness, seemingly ignorant of the goings-on under his very feet, had a love of his life but, well, she's dead so now it's time to round up them bitches and fuck 'em all, likes oranges

And I rant: No one deserves to be brought around back and shot like a baby fucker.  Linden?  He's one of them baby fuckers.  I mean one of his wives is only thirteen.  Perhaps in a better written and developed world that actually made sense Linden's actions could be nominally justified and the entire population could suffice under a cloak of indoctrination.  As it stands we're only a couple generations into the future, the world's given itself an enema and parents are watching their kids rape little girls for the sake of procreation.  And Linden, well, his actions are made to be not so bad.  I mean he has an orange grove for his first wife because he was in love with her.  Too bad he was willing to let his father round up girls for his dick-ly amusement to fuck at his beck and call.  Girls that he knew full well were rounded up at gunpoint and are being held against their will.  You don't keep them confined to a single floor without even the ability to open a window because they're WILLINGLY there.

And then there's his perceived ignorance of it all; the needless slaughter of all those girls he ultimately rejected (seriously, the world-building in WITHER, as I never made it beyond that, hurts my brain) that he didn't know about, the post-mortem autopsies being performed on the dead wives he's leaving in his wake that he doesn't know about, his evil daddy that he doesn't know about . . . Either he had the mental capacity of a six-year-old that pets bunnies too hard or HE'S WELL-GODDAMN-AWARE OF WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND HIM.  Which is it?  We don't know.  I'm going with the latter because, well, at the rate he disregards Jenna on her deathbed and wonders how Rhine could be so upset over her passing, that says something more akin to sociopath than cuddlebug.  No one can be standing knee deep in a pile of triceratops shit and not smell the stank.

The reality:

He's only good for:

Final thoughts:  Have I mentioned that he aides his father in locking up kidnapped girls in his super awesome mansion of rape where he forces himself on them for the sake of "saving humanity" while he donates their soon-to-be corpses to his daddy's science?  Linden needs a good round of Butt Fuck Bitch in the Maricopa prison system to see how he likes being held against his will and boned.  What's even worse is his actions are passed off as something appealing, his ignorance an excuse, his acquiescence to not force himself on Rhine like he does with the other two something other than a contrivance.  As if him letting them out into the yard like they're some free-range concubines is OMG appealing!  Yay!  Swimmies!  Go fuck yourself.  He's a rapist and a baby rapist, the two being mutually exclusive and thus compounding each other.  Why does this boy exist as a viable love interest in YA?  Why is all of this okay as long as the women come from less and are given pretty dresses and candies and a big gnarly house?  LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S 1859!  Bitches should be thankful.  They're getting all the pretties.  They are OBLIGATED to receive Linden's hot meat injection when and where he so desires.

Check the index for button meanings.

Shitty YA Boy Toy: Gideon - RUBY RED

What? It’s Donna’s blog, but it’s not Donna posting? Oh nay nay! It is I, her fabulous cohort in all vehemently emotional things, Nicole! (You know, from WORD for Teens.)

Today, I am here to talk about YA boys who make shitty toys. I consider myself a bit of an expert on the subject – after all, I am rather picky with my men – and I have to say, Gideon from the Edelstein Trilogie?  Well, he just didn’t make the cut.

The story: Gideon is our romantic male lead in Kierstin Gier’s Ruby Red and Sapphire Blue. (And, undoubtedly, Emerald Green, but that’s not out in English yet.) He’s Gwen’s time-traveling partner, her other half, the person a very serious prophecy links her to.

I’m not joking. It’s very serious. So serious that the entire first two books are spent trying to decipher what it means and to fulfill it in some way.

While Gwen tries to figure out what is actually going on within the giant secret society of time travelers – and why they want to use her – Gideon, um…

The good:

Well, Gideon spends a lot of the books looking ridiculously hot. It doesn’t matter what ridiculous period clothes he’s put in; Gideon is hot. If you put bread on him, it would rise. Eggs and bacon would fry for a tasty breakfast. If you put him in New York City, every woman and gay man within a twenty block radius would spontaneously explode from lust.

And without Gideon, Gwen might have died a few times, and he DOES spend the entire story doing whatever she does.

And when he acts like the asshole he is, he makes her best friend Lesley look even better. She comforts Gwen and talks Gwen through Gideon’s asinine ways while Gideon prances off to make out with Gwen’s cousin.

Speaking of Gideon’s asinine ways…

The bad and the ugly:

The only reason Gideon paid any attention to Gwen – we find this out at the end of Sapphire Blue - is because he was ordered to do so. Because it would make her, as a woman, weak and vulnerable and more submissive. He agreed to it and, when Gwen found out, claimed to have fallen in love with her in the process of doing this. (Mind you, they’ve only known each other two weeks.)

And while he had been doing everything he could to make her love him, he was still flirting with her cousin Charlotte behind her back. And when he wasn’t flirting with Charlotte, he was either completely ignoring Gwen or working with the secret society of time traveling nutcases to bring about what may be the second Apocalypse (and what may cost Gwen her life).

What the hell?


At a glance: Supremely attractive time traveler who manipulates the main character to love him while flirting with her cousin and possibly, you know, plotting her demise.

Conclusion: Gideon may not physically threaten Gwen, but between the mental abuse and his blatant disregard for her feelings – and, you know, the whole manipulating her thing – I think I can safely classify Gideon as a class one asshole.

Back to you, Donna.

Button index is here.

Wonderful YA Boys

Jana over at Milk & Cookies, Comfort Reading . . . has decided to do a counter to my Shitty YA Boy Toys feature called Wonderful YA Boys!  Basically she's pulling model YA boys from books and gushing about them.  Her basis for comparison?  Would she want her sons growing up to be like them? Pretty simple, right?  And totally spot on.  Her first wonderful YA boy is Sean Griswold.  Be sure to keep an eye on her blog.  For every shitty YA boy I post she'll be gushing about a wonderful one.

Shitty YA Boy Toy: Ford - DROUGHT

Name: Ford

Dwells within: Pam Bachorz's DROUGHT

At a glance: deceptively kind and accommodating, townie loser, religious zealot, potential member of Westboro Baptist Church, sexual maturity level of a thirteen-year-old boy in a big boy body

And I rant: Ford starts off nominally appealing, lending a helping hand to Ruby but when he starts becoming more involved beyond his overseer duties his colors start to shine.  Even with the knowledge that Ruby's been raised in what is rightly a cult, sequestered from the rest of the world, he starts hammering home the "Christianity is the only true religion" schtick, forcing it upon her as if she's simply misguided and not wholly brainwashed and way too old for him.  He is steadfast in his Jesus love until the end, attempting to guide Ruby to the light the entire way and completely disregarding her own beliefs and feelings in the process because they're just downright wrong.

On top of that he pulls the "but I thought you loved me" line when she doesn't want to get physical with him.  Talk about a failure that more than likely just blew his way through his female townie equivalents and had nothing else to slog onto within a twenty mile radius.  Who better than some brainwashed shut-in that doesn't know better?  Sounds like a steal to me.

The reality:

 He's only good for:

Final thoughts: Ford's a Grade A dick, narrow-minded and uncaring of anyone's feelings but his own.  Blood-letting is a more amenable hobby than getting jiggy in the back of this dude's pick-up.  Plus guys like this shouldn't be procreating anyway.  There are enough bigots in the world without spawning more in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot.

Check the index for button meanings.

YA Boys That Make Shitty Toys

So I had this epiphany fairly recently that I may just absolutely lose my shit if I come across any more irredeemable love interests in the YA I read.  We're talking full on, fecal-flinging madness here.  And if I pissed and moaned about it every time I came across it even my sieve hole of a brain would remember that repetition.

Here's my remedy: I'm going to make individual posts, with the help of some of my lady YAckers to fill in the gaps of douchiness that I haven't read, highlighting a shitty YA boy toy.  Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Patch, Ash AND SO MANY MORE that I don't have the mental capacity to remember them all at the moment.

I'm going to make this one sporadic just to mix it up.  I already have a lot of regular reoccurring posts, mainly because I'm a creature of habit and, well, my memory blows, if I haven't mentioned that already.  So keep your eye out.

What will these posts consist of?  The name of said shitty YA boy toy of the moment, the book from whence he dwells, his qualities at a glance, a longer rambling rant of his inherent dickbaggery, what his reality is (with visual supplementation) and what he's ultimately good for (also with visual supplementation).

So what are these visual supplements?  I think a key is required here.

The shitty YA boy toy's reality -

 An abuser, be it mentally or physically

 Asshole (yes, that is an ass in a hole)

 Total creeper

 Douche bag

 Quite possibly a kitten killer

Does NOT play well with others

 Possessive

Anger management issues





What the shitty YA boy toy is actually good for -

 The realization that you are FAR too awesome for him

 Birth control

 Eye candy

 Potential co-hero, if nothing else

 Life epiphanies aka the removal of rose-colored glasses

 Realizing just how amazing friends are

Realizing how much cooler hobbies, like knitting, are





Now you know and now you wait.  Who will the first shitty YA boy toy be?

Button image credits as follows, from top to bottom - fist, asshole, creeper, douchebag, kitten killer, doesn't play well with others, possessive, anger management, awesome, birth control, eye candy, co-hero, epiphanies, friends and hobbies.

The Shitty Toys

Ford - DROUGHT

Gideon - RUBY RED

Linden - WITHER