Print the Legend
This novel opens with a scene written entirely in dialogue in which some girls are discussing what is soon to become a legendary sexual experience which took place in hot tub of the house of a friend. The legend is rather more than simply risqué. The person at the center of the legend proceeds to narrate the truth about actually went down—er, that is, what actually happened:
“So, true story: Yes, we were in the downstairs bathroom at Hannah Ling’s party, and yes, I maybe kissed both of them, one after the other. Yeah, with tongue. And it was pretty hot. They were going to kiss each other next. But we all had our clothes on, and we weren’t going to strip down and have a threesome right there. I mean, we would have gone back to my place, or someone’s place or something.”
Dear Jack
The centerpiece of imagery in the novel is, arguably, the content of letters written to the protagonist’s advice to the lovelorn columnist. These are often explicit letters from fellow students asking the school’s most infamous gay stud for insight into what some might consider the darker side of sexuality:
“Dear Jack of Hearts,
I think I’m a bad person. I like girls. I mean, I like girls sexually, and I’ve had sex with a few of them, and I’ve liked it, but what I really want to do—what I really get turned on by—is the idea of hurting them…But I’m also a woman, and a feminist, and violence against women is wrong and awful…If someone hit me during sex, I would push them off and go to the police. But I want to do these things. Is this, like, the patriarchy inside my head? Am I just a sociopath? Should I just join a nunnery so that I never do any of these things? I feel like I’m a terrible, perverted person. I feel like I should be in jail. How do I fix this?
—Bad Feminist”
Being Gay
You know how some people—often of indeterminate intelligence, though that certainly is not a strict rule—when they really want to insult something but have not yet developed the critical thinking skills to come up with an adequate explanation for why it should be insulted will simply resort to majestically meaningless “that’s gay.” While the beauty of the English language is it fluidity in the way that words can change meaning over time, for the foreseeable future the term “gay” is mainly used to refer comprehensively to all things having to do with homosexuality. With that in mind, this book is very gay:
“He’s tall, fit, with pale skin and black hair, and as always, he is perfectly put together. Pink button-down, wavy hair that doesn’t frizz, skintight black jeans, black vest, and a tie with a Mondrian-style pattern on it that shouldn’t match the shirt but magically does. He runs his hand through his hair, which is the sort of move that would be sexy on other guys, but feels so practiced with him it turns me off.”
Stalker Talk
Part of the plot revolves around notes to the protagonist from an unknown secret admirer who manages to quite seamlessly and with disturbing rapidity make the transition first into creepy guy and then into outright stalker. The manner in which these notes are conveyed to the reader is literally visual imagery: they are little pictures of writing inserted into the text. But it is the text that is the real example of imagery: images of the psychology of stalker mentality, especially the adornments of capitalization to make a terrifying point:
“Jack,
I’m sorry. Maybe I’m coming on too strong for you. But I really like you, Jack, and I know we’re meant to Be Together. That’s why I need you to stop sleeping with other boys. To stop ignoring my request for photos of you…Please stop making me mad, and send me the photos. Then I can forgive you.
I CAN HEAR YOU.”
