Let's watch this stupid come to an end. The worst (or best) of it is long past us anyway, but there's still more to come in the final short chapter. I'll then follow that up with my final thoughts on the book.
A run-on sentence, followed by the characters finally acknowledging the obvious. They read about jewel thieves in the newspaper (because twelve-year-olds read the newspaper, right?), then encounter jewels, and don't put two and two together. I mean, even before the Amanda kidnapping incident, the utterly dead obvious was right there.
I don't follow. Three crooks are still at large, therefore the police are interested in the message that led to the combination for the lock being discovered?
Either way, they run a check on the name and find
That just makes the existence of the coded message (C - SOFIELD HEADSTONE - CORNER AVE. D & E for a refresher) even more stupid! Why? A bunch of reasons:
- Katherine B. Sofield was not just the person buried under the gravestone that had the combination to the lock written on it, but is also the mom of one of the jewel thieves. Therefore, he had no reason to write down that the combination was written on his mom's gravestone, and mention her by name in the note. Why mention her by name? She's his frigging mom! He knows his own mom's name; he wouldn't forget that he wrote the combination on his mom's grave!
- If the thief who wrote the combination there is a cemetery worker, then presumably he'd remember perfectly where his mom is buried. Thus, he wouldn't need to remind himself in a note where her grave is located. He should already know!
- Essentially, the note says "C - my mom, my mom's last name, where she's buried", but explicitly spelling all that out for any random twelve-year-old who digs it up. If the criminal was really afraid of forgetting the combination and where it was written, he could just have easily written down "combination on my mom's gravestone" or something, and our heroes would have been lost.
Yes, that massive amount of idiocy helped drive a big part of the Idiot Plot.
The police manage to catch the other three men at a police roadblock, which makes me wonder how they knew this particular car and these particular men were the ones to nab. The book doesn't even explain that way. It says that after "questioning and a search", they were discovered to be the jewel thieves and kidnappers. But what were they hiding onhand that would prove them to be the thieves or kidnappers? And how did the police know where to set up the roadblock? None of this makes sense!
The police later commend the boys for their bravery. I would too, actually, since they did do something very brave. In this world of fools and dullards, being ever so slightly smarter than their enemies allowed them to win.
It was a dumb mistake alright, but not because it helped the police capture them (how??), but instead because it made it very easy to find the combination for the lock and dig up the jewels.
That reading is just so dull.
And then get beat up by her older brother, Jeffrey, in retaliation for being such huge douches before.
THE END
Final thoughts
Oh my god, was that story full of lunacy, idiocy, stiff writing, dumb characters, characters with no personality, events that violate the laws of physics, inappropriate dialog, awkward descriptions, and more. If I were to rate this book based on quality, I'd rate it ★★ out of 5. Based on enjoyment, it easily gets ★★★★★. It was hilariously awful. Not Latawnya the Naughty Horse Learns to Say No to Drugs hilarious (that book had me laughing so hard I pulled a muscle that hurt for days), but amazing just the same. It truly is to kids' books was The Room is to movies - so consistently bad, while so constantly full of surprises as to how it will be bad next, that it continues to entertain. It's the sort of thing that can hold one's attention throughout simply to see what sheer epic fail will happen next.
Now, why would I rate its genuine quality two stars and not one? Because there is one big positive I can honestly say about this book. Its pacing. I have read too many books that take forever to get to the point, that take too long to have anything happen, that spend so much time establishing their characters that the book forgets to make them do anything until 1/3 or halfway through the book, that it's honestly refreshing to see a book that wastes no time getting started, and then keeps having things happen in almost every single chapter. For that alone, I will give it credit.
I also give it credit for combining Slice of Life with suburban adventure.
That said, pacing aside, the execution is godawful, the story nonsensical, the characters bland, the- I don't need to repeat myself.
Why did the story turn out so badly?
Why did the story turn out this way? I think I have an answer. Now I don't mean for this to be an insult, but I'm convinced the author is autistic, whether or not he knows it. I'm not one of those "so much autism" or "this is the height of autism" idiots who throws the word around to insult anything that's eccentric, random, immature, rigidly structured or dumb. I was diagnosed with autism when I was a toddler. (Course, my parents didn't tell me until after I'd discovered it on my own by reading things they'd written about me) Meeting other autistics online and learning more about the condition has helped me understand it better, to the point where I "know it when I see it", and have helped people who are unaware that they have autism discover for themselves and get diagnosed.
Anyway, let's look at the evidence for the author being autistic.
- His use of language is very matter-of-fact. It's common for autistics to have a matter-of-fact speaking style that oftentimes borders on the formal. Conversely, they sometimes tend to be informal all the time and/or in situations where it's inappropriate to be informal.
- He describes things in exact numbers. I did that a lot when I was a kid, and not just as a kid either. I would say that things happened 17 minutes ago or 9 years ago, and use other exact measurements. I hated how people tend to round things to nice round numbers that end in 0, and wished they would be more direct. Well, that shows up in this book's writing, with things being described in exact terms a lot.
- Some of the weird uses of time and other measurements used. While it's a common autistic obsession to measure things exactly, that doesn't mean all autistics do it right. In this case, characters hold celebrations that last minutes or even hours - hours - and it makes no sense at all. The author apparently combined an obsession with measuring things with a lack of understanding of how big or small they are, and the results are a mess.
- Lack of self-awareness and understanding of the world. I spent much of my life not knowing what other people really thought of me or having any idea how much of the world worked. The author has the same problem. We get utterly wrong portrayals of absolutely everything you can imagine, indicating both a lack of research and a lack of living in the world and doing the things the characters do. Simply using a squirt gun or living in suburbia should teach the author that squirting a couple of passing bees is just plain silly. Spending time with kids the age of the target audience, or having family members of that age, would teach him how kids actually talk (so would going online on websites shared by both kids and adults, such as YouTube). But the author did zero research. He also seems to have assumed the world didn't change since he was growing up, judging by the character dialog and the total lack of things such as television.
- Putting his apparent pet interest - tunnel construction - into the story in detail. It's very common for autistics to have obsessive interests or at the milder end, hobbies they are very interested in and read about a lot. I don't doubt the author knows what he's talking about when it comes to tunnel construction, which helped with the details in the scene where Archie and Billyhank enter the tunnel. He then put that knowledge in Archie's mouth, having Archie point out details that prove the tunnel was built recently and was being maintained. The author seemed to want to share his pet interest with the readers.
- Doing the same thing over and over again. Now, this is a problem with many authors, particularly if they're either inexperienced (and therefore have a lack of ideas) or prolific (and therefore have a lack of time to try new ideas in their busy schedule). But the whole "crushing something on someone's head" thing seems like the author came up with something he thought would be interesting, then he recycled it multiple times because he couldn't come up with anything else. But I will concede that this could very well be just an "amateur writer" mistake.
Not all of the bad writing in this book can be chalked up to autism, but certain very specific types of bad or weird writing can.
Now, autism can come in many forms, and it's possible in many (most?) cases for an autistic to realize their mistakes and learn from them, even if it takes longer than for most people. For example, I know that character and dialog are important. So I would at least have someone proofread my dialog or help out if I needed to write, say, characters from a subculture or way of life I was unfamiliar with. I know that the plot has to make sense, so I'd make sure to iron that out as well.
And I have, in fact, written some short stories (they're not published anywhere online), some of which are embarrassing, some of which aren't that bad. I made mistakes that I'm not proud of. I tried to compensate for what I didn't know. I have experienced anxiety at not knowing what to write next, and feeling pressure and fear of failure. I don't think I read enough prose to really be able to write it that well. But to quote Ole Golly in the Harriet the Spy movie, "Well, I want to sing opera. But I can't, so I don't." I wrote my short stories, crappy as they (mostly) were, and I decided that writing is not for me; at least not fiction, anyway.
What would have fixed this story?
I actually think the foundation for The Adventures of Archie Reynolds is sound, even if the structure built on it is a mess.
The core story - three boys deal with Slice of Life situations such as bullies and neighbor girls, while also discovering a jewel thief plot in the meantime - is sound. But here's what I think could have made it better:
- Have the boys stop referring to the route they take through backyards as "the secret passage", and instead have them just say that hopping fences is fun, so we should do it next time we hang out. Make it so that instead of calling Billy and Hank on the phone and tell them about his "secret passage", Archie simply brings up the idea of hopping fences and roaming backyards just for fun the next time they hang out.
- Have the bullies act more realistically. I actually have heard of storing snowballs in the refrigerator for use in the summer, and there are parents who are unaware what their kids are really up to, so a brief explanation of that would help that part be more believable. The pirate thing has to go, though. As does the soccer net.
- Have Archie already know what water balloons and squirt guns are. I can't believe that section. Just have Archie already own them and think about what effect they would have on the bullies. And show the realistic effects of getting soap in the eyes, while implying that the sheer amount of pain is actually something Archie desires the bullies to experience.
- Come up with a different way to defeat Ziggy and Huie.
- Replace "tackleball" with a game that would make more sense. Not really sure what it would be, though, since Amanda trying to get Archie to tackle her is a major part of that scene.
- Have Billy and Hank disagree with Archie, and not have Archie always be the leader. Show differences of opinion, different interests and different personality traits.
- Am I supposed to believe that twelve-year-old boys aren't interested in girls? Assuming they're not gay, have Archie, Billy and Hank react to Amanda, Janet and Cindy differently. They could still think the girls are crazy or weird or be confused by their behavior, but what they do would have to be different.
- Replace juggling rotten apples from an apple tree with something el-
I give up. This book is a mess. It would have to be nearly totally rewritten, keeping only the basic plot elements, in order to work. There's really no way to include, say, the scene of riding an inflatable boat down into a reservoir, or actually requiring it to enter the graveyard in the first place, or some of the other more insane scenes that are required for the story. And the Idiot Plot elements are so integral that I just can't imagine what to replace them with.
Any of you got any ideas?
Well, that's it. Leave your comments down below and let me know what you think. I'd love to have a conversation in the comments section.
Comments
- My language is often "matter of fact," and slightly "formal" (for example, one person took note of my using a salutation in a PM).
- I tend not to use exact time amounts, typically using "a few minutes," or "shortly after," among others.
- I try to be more self-aware, and have actually been told that Character Development and getting inside the heads of the characters I write are strong suits of mine.
- I tend to like to talk about interests of mine, and often make liveblogs for the purpose of discussing works that I find interesting for one reason or another.
- The bullies
- Amanda's big brother, Jeffrey
- The dangerous storm on the river while they ride the inflatable boat
- The actual bad guys
