The PAWN and the PUPPET!

tw // CSA, child abuse, transphobia, incest

2) The transphobic rep of a trans character named Charlotte. She is portrayed as a predator in a climate where the trans community is currently being attacked/harrassed becuz of claims like this.

The author posted an apology video on Instagram and Tiktok apologizing for the lack of tws and the trans character and said she will immediately be making changes to the story.

Lies and le scandalé!

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This part she talks about a beta reader who had read the book and didn't tell her there was offensive content.

I don't know who the Beta reader is but I have seen a video where the reader told the Booktokker they did tell the author.

The full, scandalous thread!

Don't read if you don't have any least six spoons left for today!

This book is INCREDIBLY VILE and should NOT have been published!

This review is great:

Disclaimer: before I start getting into the problems I have with this book, I am a transgender male with mental illnesses (but not DID or OCD which were in this book). So no one can tell me that my feelings and my thoughts on this book (the transphobia) are invalid because of my identity. Carry on reading, thank you. Also, I finished the ENTIRE book. It ends in a cliffhanger, but honestly, it's not that much of one???? I don't really care about what happens next to Skylenna and Dessin.

EDIT: I forgot to add a section, so the section "Writing style" is added. I have to speak about the way she writes.

If you have been on booktok in the past, oh, 4 weeks, you might have seen this book floating around. It is by a booktoker indie author. I believe this is her debut novel. I don't know, because she has me blocked! She blocked me a few months ago because of SJM things.

The Pawn and the Puppet is supposed to be this dark fantasy/thriller set in an asylum. The main character is supposed to help this ominous "Patient 13". Sounds cool, right? It's not a bad premise by any means. Yet, the author turns this into SUCH a problematic book. Other 1-star reviews sum it up nicely, but I will also be summing up everything wrong with this book.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN SOME OF THESE SECTIONS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

PLOT AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Going in, this book, I will admit, has an interesting premise. Set in an asylum? Sounds pretty f*cking neat. However, there is literally no plot to follow. We jump back and forth from plot point to plot point. There were instances where we went from one thing to another within literally 3 or 4 sentences. It just felt so flat in terms of plot compared to other books. Some characters also really have no development and really serve no purpose? Like I don't know why they were included. They added nothing to the story. I gave no sh!ts to any of the characters except Ruth. And we don't even MEET her until probably like 60% of the way through.

WRITING STYLE The writing style in this is clear it's a debut (at least to me). The overuse of similes and metaphors, to be frank, was annoying. In the first chapter ALONE there are six similes. I don't mind similes used, but when there are six used in a five-page chapter? That is overuse.

I also want to point out this paragraph in chapter 15 "The Mad Men's Muse".:

"This hallways curves like a spine plagued with scoliosis, walls creaking from the repercussions of patient trauma, and vents expelling a stench of dried sweat and ammonia."

I think the use of comparing a curved hallway like that of someone with scoliosis is gross. Why do you need to use this simile? It could have just been a curved hallway. There was no need to describe a building like that of a serious medical condition. Scoliosis is a serious condition, and to use it as a way to describe a building? No. Get out of here with that. It is gross for you to describe an inanimate object as a serious, life-threatening medical condition.

...

Lots of questions? About the content? And statements like this? This review needs a trigger warning of its own!

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PATIENT 13 AND SKYLENNA

This guy. He is SO flat. He seems like he's supposed to be this scary, large, and sexy man. Uh yeah, no. He's not. He is this tension-ridden man acting like a teenage boy around Skylenna. Their romance is so boring. I literally did not give a sh!t if they ended up together at the end. They have literally no chemistry. There is quite literally more chemistry between me and my phone.

As for Skylenna, oh man. She is such b!tch. I do not like her character at all. I was messaging friends while reading, and multiple times I was like, "awh man she was about to die and didn't. BUMMER I don't like her." She is the definition of a "pick me girl". She wanted to drop everything for Patient 13 and yet she hadn't even MET him yet. She is one of the most annoying protagonists I have ever read from. And that is saying a lot since I hated EGOTISTICAL PUCKBOY from earlier this year with 2 horrible protagonists.

WORLD BUILDING AND SOCIETY

Oh, man. This world-building on its own for a star rating is maybe a 2 (being generous). It felt so choppy. Is there electricity? I don't know. Do we have cars? They are described as buggys. And yet, probably about 70% of the way through, there is a random @ss motorcycle. So, this world has buggy cars, a motorcycle, and yet they use candles? What? Make it make sense bro. This is horrible.

The society. Oh, f*cking man. We are told right from the start that women are expected to be stick thin, skip multiple meals to keep their slim build and have long nightly routines. Their nightly routines can take anywhere from 1 hour and a half to 4 hours. Also on the roads, there are apparently comfy benches (maybe couches? IDK I don't remember the term specifically) meant for women to pass out because of exhaustion/hunger. Why do you need to have this society that is very fatphobic? It is a fantasy world. Why do you feel the need to fat shame the MC when Skylenna is not even a fat woman? She is described as being skinnier, but she is larger than the other woman because she was raised in the "woods" with her father and then with Aurick (a friend). Also, the f*cking RACISM in this society. Every single character is white except one of the patients in the asylum (whose name is also Chekiss). It is stated that women should have "porcelain skin", aka being white as f*ck. I get wanting to write characters that share your skin colour, but why make one character not white? Who is also a patient in the asylum?

More horrors! Y'ALLs!

MENTAL ILLNESS REPRESENTATION

I won't spend much time on this section because the illnesses represented here are not ones I have. There is OCD and DID as the main ones. There might have been ones I'm forgetting.

In the acknowledgments, Brandi states she had help from an individual who has DID. I don't know if this is true, but to me, it seems like it might be false. Brandi states in her author's note that she used DID rep as "a morally grey, dangerous character." And that it is "NOT an accurate representation of DID." The representation was definitely meant to be seen as dangerous. I don't know why it had to be someone with DID, to be honest. I won't add any speculations here but...I do have some.

(SPOILER FOR CHAPTER 9) As for the OCD, it was very brief, like one chapter and then she's gone. Sun Ravendi is the one who has OCD. She is shown in chapter 9. She is said to have been brought to the asylum because she would use bleach on her and her 3-year-old daughter to get rid of germs. But oh, that is not all. She is also said to have sodomized her daughter with objects soaked in bleach (found in the autopsy). I'm sorry, was this necessary? I don't think this was necessary to add. You could have just had that she used bleach to clean herself, and it was getting too bad for her. Why add the daughter? Oh right, shock value. Well, it's disgusting.

TRIGGER WARNINGS

Alright, y'all. One of the biggest things wrong with this book. The content warning list at the beginning of the book is INCOMPLETE. Brandi does not mention MAJOR trigger warnings. Here is the list that Brandi has in the beginning:

"This book contains: gratuitous violence, depression, suicide, torture, domestic violence, eating disorders, hallucinations, misogyny, poisoning, sexual assault, mention of pedophilia, romanticized mental illness, gore, death of a loved one, child abuse, decapitation, female oppression, hostage situation, body shaming, panic attacks."

Seems like a pretty extensive list, right? Well, let me tell you it is missing MAJOR trigger warnings. The ones missing are:

- rape of a minor

- child prostitution

- grooming of minors

- transphobia

- homophobia

- racism

- incest with a minor

- SA with inanimate objects (to a child)

- Childhood SA

- GRAPHIC scenes of torture (including hydrotherapy, chair binding, simulated drowning, scalding hot water treatment, hanging toe treatment, acid baths, genital dismemberment, and more) - and SO MANY MORE

Please please PLEASE proceed with caution if you still want to read this book. There are so many graphic scenes that are NOT on the content warning page. I'm not someone who gets triggered easily by things in books, but some of these scenes are so graphic it is disturbing the author wrote them.

Not even gotten to the rampant TRANSPHOBIA! It makes this reviewer very angry!

CHARLOTTE & TRANSPHOBIA

Now, onto the entire reason that this review is being written. I went into this book knowing there was transphobia in it. If I didn't? God this review would be a lot angrier. I am a transgender person living in Alberta, Canada. I deal with transphobia almost on the god damn daily when I am not at home. So when I pick up a book, I don't expect transphobia in it. This book? F*cking disgusting that this made it past editors and was published. Many people have said that beta readers for Brandi TOLD HER EXPLICITLY to not keep this part in. She did not listen, so I will NOT stay quiet about this. It is disgusting that Brandi did not think about deleting it from her book. It was clearly a plot point meant for shock value. And it is frankly f*cking disgusting and vile that she used it.

The transphobia in this story revolves around the past of Niles, one of the patients that Skylenna connects with. Niles is a sex worker and used the money he got to support his family after his father left them when Niles was young. When Niles is sixteen, he is requested for service by a woman named Charlotte. It is said Charlotte paid handsomely for Niles service and offered to leave some fine jewelry to take home to his mother. She is said to have been born a man. Niles says, and I quote, "I've seen many odd things in my time at that mansion. Many. At the time, this wasn't the strangest I'd seen, and so I was not bothered. Charlotte stayed in heavy make-up..." And in the next chapter, when it is revealed that Charlotte is actually Charles Offborth (from the necklace Charlotte gave Niles), Skylenna's first response is, "...Niles spending three days with a woman with male parts..." Skylenna is disgusted not with the fact that Charlotte is Niles' biological father, she is disgusted with the fact that Charlotte is transgender. She also misgenders Charlotte constantly in chapter 13 ("Cupid's Love").

The transphobia in this f*cking book. Transphobia is in multiple parts. First off, the way she is characterized and criminalized as a transgender woman. This is playing into the stereotype that all transgender women are predators and just want to r@pe cisgender women. That is NOT the case and to play into this stereotype, in simple words, is vile. And the comment about "male parts" is frankly f*cking gross. Why do you need to do that? Brandi tried to say in an Instagram post that the characterization was intentional. It was supposed to be a shock value in the plot. Brandi clearly made Skylenna's view IGNORANT and TRANSPHOBIC. She used the ONLY LGBTQ+ representation in her book as a predator because she is "a female with male parts." Also, why did you need to make her related to Niles? That was unnecessary.

Also, Niles story itself is not listed in the content warnings at the beginning of the book. Incest with a minor? Not there. Child prostitution? Not there. R@pe of a minor? Nope. There was absolutely no need to have Charlotte be Niles biological father. There could have been a different storyline that IS NOT transphobia.

like a trip to an annex class...

[quote]Unfortunately there were readers effected by this.

The correct verb is "Affected".

R10 tell that to the "BookTok" Twitter account! That's a direct quote.

R9 "I think you're a no-talent little shit!"

Team that woman!

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

Hilarious.

If only these teens were around in the TWILIGHT days. Or the VAMPIRE LESTAT days. Or better yet, the FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and GO ASK ALICE days.

Why do people write things like b!tch and f!ck? Seems infantile to me.

R15 they're trained on writing to bypass blunt force content filters on social media that either hide or reduce priority of text that might be offensive. It's ridiculous when it's brought out of social media, and annoying within it. Now I'm curious if they write college essays like this.

R14 the Y'ALLs would be deafening!

More!

I too demand more, OP!

Everyone portrayed in this thread seems to be a terrible writer: the “bookish” Twitter account, the author, and especially the verbose reviewer, who damn near wrote a book of his own.

Reading the disclaimer brought back memories of the Stefan's Weekend Update gay club reviews on SNL. This club had EVERYTHING...

It's very compelling literature!

r16 and the "FOLX" would be blinding