Save the Pearls

by Victoria Foyt

[clementine]

For those of you who don't know the premise of this book, it is an allegedly dystopian/sci-fi/post-apoc YA novel where the ruling class is black and the oppressed, underprivileged class is white. This is due to vague science that essentially says that if you have a lot of melanin the scorching hot sun won't burn you to death. Therefore, most white people died when the sun got too hot or whatever, and black people are now the evil oppressors, and, yeah, IT'S PRETTY FUCKING BAD.

I mean, if you're going to do this whole reverse-racism thing, there has to be an element of subversion, right? Wait, let me rephrase: you have to subvert the shit out of it. And Victoria Foyt did not do that. In fact, she just perpetuated racist stereotypes, and it was awful and bad and just, no. No, guys.

I have a lot to say here, but I'll start with all the racist shit, in convenient list form.

- Pearls and Coals. The name for the ~*~omg so oppressed~*~ white people is "Pearls". Like, that is their derogatory, racist term for white people. PEARLS. Y'know, because we all know pearls are so ugly and gross. And the slang term for black people is "Coals". So, ONCE AGAIN, PEOPLE, "Pearls" - a rare, pure, beautiful, and precious stone - is used as a SLUR for white people, and "Coals" - dirty!!! - is the term for black people. Oh my fuckin' god, y'all.
- The names. Dude, the main character's name is Eden. As in, the ~*beautiful place created by God himself*~. The black girl she hates is named Ashina. Like... ashes, because she's black, get it? HA HA. THAT'S NOT RACIST AT ALL.
- The way Victoria Foyt describes skin colour. Ashina is described as having "raisin-colored" skin, which is like... uh. Okay? That rubbed me the wrong way, but then Bramford (Eden's boss) is described as having "skin the color of storm clouds", and it's like, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING? No. You can't do that. That's not a way you describe a person's skin tone, especially if you want to suggest that they are the BEAUTIFUL, ATTRACTIVE RULING CLASS. Jesus.
- The way Eden refers to Ashina and Bramford. Eden almost exclusively calls Ashina "that bitch", and refers to Bramford as an "arrogant bastard" a whole bunch of times, which just dehumanizes them. Like, she refuses to call them by their names. They are just "that bitch" and "that arrogant bastard". Ughhhhhhhhh.
- Blackface. Blackface is, like, an important plot device, because all the white people need to look black, and, oh, they made a promotional trailer for this book WITH A GIRL IN BLACKFACE. FOR REAL. Oh, also, the black people do plays in "whiteface"!!!!!!! Totes racist.
- The fact that Bramford turns into a beast and is referred to as "savage" all the time. Because that's not tying back to colonial constructions of PoC at all.
- The fact that Eden is constantly referring to the Coals as them, yes, complete with italics. Just, I mean, how is this SUBVERTING anything? People do that right now. People have been doing that for centuries. If you're gonna subvert things, make the Coals think of the Pearls that way.
- Evidence of white culture in the black characters. Like, they straighten their hair. Some of them have Whitey McWhiterson names. Either white oppression has actually stuck around in subtle ways, therefore never allowing the Coals to fully rise above their history, or Foyt is just a dumbass. I'm going for the latter.
- The portrayal of "Indians". The Indians in this book are mystical people who believe in magic. They are also "fierce warriors" and they wear weird clothes. They are so different from Eden and her perfect white beauty!!! They are mysterious!!!!! Okay, whatever, go ahead and other them, Foyt, it's not like we've been doing that for centuries.

Okay, NOW, I am going to talk about all the other ways in which this book sucks.

First of all, I suppose, I have to touch on the barely lucid plot. It was just so incredibly scattered. To be fair, I did skim it, because that was the only way I could force myself to get through it, but it was REALLY BAD. There were all these barely-connected events, and they were missioning off the rainforest, and I didn't really understand why, and then they were going to find these mystical plants from a place where you have to die to get to except it didn't even seem to be a trial at all, and they had to save Eden's dad because he's the potential saviour of society, apparently, even though THAT was also never really explained? I don't know, guys.

The characters were really awful, and I think I will just quote my own status updates here. "Eden's, like, the worst protagonist in the history of awful protagonists. Jesus." and "This book is just so non-compelling, filled with archetypes and tropes and predictability." The characters are so cardboard it's painful. Eden is stupid, annoying, and lacking in any discernible personality whatsoever. Bramford's personality is kind of existent, in that he's an overbearing dick and not much else. The romance was also awful and unbelievable and I just didn't care. I also didn't understand why they liked each other, because there didn't seem to be any chemistry or any reason why they would be attracted to one another, since Eden is an idiotic amorphous blob and Bramford is an evil, paternalistic beast who Eden seems to hate most of the time, in between talking about how attractive he is.

One of the most hilarious things about this book was Eden's constant referencing of her "Aunt Emily", aka Emily Dickinson, in an effort to make her seem intelligent. It didn't work, of course, and every time she randomly recalled one of Dickinson's poems it was just... weird? And out of place? And I didn't like it one bit.

About halfway through this book, I realized that it reminded me of really bad fanfiction. But then I realized that wasn't even it, and it was as if somebody had written really bad fanfiction ON PURPOSE, as a joke, except that Victoria Foyt is apparently serious about this book. Her writing style really just is "overdramatic, weirdly described, bad fanfiction-like crap".

And here are some particularly lol-worthy quotes I highlighted in my Kobo.

She glanced around the room, her keen mind puzzling together a plan.
I don't think you can use "puzzling" as a verb like that, first of all. Second of all, lol at "keen mind". All Eden ever does is act dimwitted, get people into trouble because she IS dimwitted, and not understand things that are clearly broadcast by Foyt's shitty writing and heavyhanded "foreshadowing".

"Shen," Bramford called his bodyguard, a mixed Asian, or Amber, as the racist term went.
This sentence was the worst. I just wanted to point that out. Also, Shen, the ASIAN!!!!11, has a DRAGON TATTOO!!!!!!1111

She felt more violated than if she'd been raped.
I, uh, actually forgot this was a thing until I was going through my highlights, because it made me so fucking angry that I guess I blocked it out of my memory. Bramford took out Eden's Life-Band, which is this thing that allows her to view holographic images and that monitors her blood pressure and shit, and this is how Foyt chooses to describe her feelings about this. Just. Jesus Christ. JESUS MOTHEREFFING CHRIST.

She sunk her fingers into his long silky hair, like reins on a horse. As if she controlled the beast.
Uh-huh. Side-eyeing you so hard, Victoria Foyt. Are you, like, not aware of the history of racism? Or history in general, since history inevitably includes a lot of racism and race relations?

Her insides twisted, like a strand of DNA.
This is an acceptable metaphor to Foyt.

"Hurry, he said. "We must leave at once or wait until the next day."
"Why?"
"Elementary. There are no lights here."
I could pick from, like, eight hundred different quotes that demonstrate how badly Foyt writes dialogue. This is the one I happened to highlight. This is just painful. Who talks like this? Who talks even a BIT like this?

"Good, you're angry," Bramford said. "You can't survive in the jungle without anger."
I was reading this on the subway, and I laughed out loud, because this feeble attempt at a deep, philosophical thought is just pathetic.

Long ago, God had died, and nature would soon follow.
Uh-huh. Okay there, Victoria Nietzsche.

Now, she felt captive to the strange, pleasurable sensations that stampeded like wild horses up and down her body.
Okay, uh, first of all, that the hell is this metaphor? Second of all, she feels this way because she hears Bramford purring. FUCKIN. WHAT. ARE YOU DOIFGNM.S/.JLFDFKOP[L;]

Bramford grunted. He didn't even pry. The selfish beast simply dropped the subject and ignored her.
Bramford asks Eden why she is laughing (answer: she is laughing at him because he is a BEAST), and she says he wouldn't understand, he he doesn't press the issue, presumably because Eden basically tells him not to, and she gets all pissy because he doesn't want to know her thoughts about how FUNNY!!!! he is because he's a half jaguar half man savage beast.

Eden bucked against his weight. "You don't understand."
"That you would get us killed?"
"That I love you, you bastard?"
First of all, this came out of fucking nowhere, and second of all, WHAT. IS. THIS. WRITING.

"Did our kiss frighten you?" Bramford waved a hand over his body. "Did this?"
I know she's supposed to be afraid of his body because he's a jaguar man or whatever, but all I could imagine was some big bodybuilder human dude saying that and I laughed.

The wounded leader fell back, his death rattle filling the stunned silence. And brave, young Logan stood by, trembling.
These are actual sentences from this book.

"I love him," she said, her eyes on Bramford.
Jamal slapped her face. "Pearl bitch!"
I don't know, man, this just struck me as so... unbelievable. It just ties back to the whole "this reads like deliberately bad fanfiction" theory I have.

"Don't you understand?" he said. "You'll be even more beautiful to me because you'll be mine."
"Oh," Eden said, melting into his embrace.
TOTES ROMANTIC GUYZ!!!!! (Eden is going to turn into a jaguar too so she can live in the wild with Bramford and his secret albino son Logan, who he had with a Pearl named Rebecca who looked EXACTLY LIKE EDEN and was part of some government conspiracy, idk, I skimmed, but she's nervous that SHE WILL BE UGLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

"Jaguars love to swim. And I'm going to teach you how. Let's begin with a kiss."
Whoa, there, Bramford, that's, like, kind of a massive non-sequitur. Oh, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to laugh at this stupid collection of sentences.