We are not amused

By Queen Be

I hear the clip clop of the horses’ hooves as they pull the tumbrel closer. The guillotine’s blade is shining brightly, ready to separate the next victim’s neck from her head in one clean and swift stroke. I do hope today’s splatter is kept to a minimum. Ah, here she is now…

Christina’s blog is thoughtful and well-written. It makes you think of overeducated people sitting around with tiny glasses of sherry discussing existentialism in the works of Camus. Or parallel feminism in Antigone and A Doll’s House. Or, watching C-Span.

So why in the name of holy fuck did she submit here?

Maybe she thought the name, Stacked, would be so attention-grabbing that we would award stars based on that alone. I will admit that it worked ever so briefly. Until I actually clicked onto the site.

Stacked is a book review blog. Not the kind of paperbacks you buy at the airport, but the kind of serious literature that I only pretend to read. But I won’t be reading about any of these because each and every entry held my admittedly short attention span for about 30 seconds.

Christina, please don’t despair though because this is clearly a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I’m a queen. I’m shallow. All my life people have done things for me…they work for me, they cook and clean for me and when someone asks me to do something that requires a few brain cells, well, I often bail.

You’re a nice person. It seems that the only rule you’ve ever broken is not returning a library book on time and your biggest secret is that you were in a sorority in college. And this one I actually liked.

Not so much this, though. I had to read nearly 600 words of this thousand-word review before you even got to the book at hand. That over-long intro describes your strolls through Brooklyn:

“Other days I prefer Prospect Park with its many paths leading to new discoveries and the calm or chaos that comes with different weather, people, a zoo, and fences that get in my way.”

I know that you can make that sentence more entertaining. Look at all the potential—zoo, chaos, fences—tell me about just one of them—in 200 words—and you’ve got me sucked into your review.

Here’s another way to do it—and I chose this example because it’s written by a woman in New York. She is part-time teacher and this is how she describes a few moments at Starbucks:

“So, there I was at Starbucks, grading papers and trying to ward off an Overused Comma coma with a Cranberry Bliss bar, when Tiny Bladder at the next table asked me to watch his stuff for the millionth time. I rolled my eyes, stuffed a chunk of Cranberry Bliss into my mouth and said, “Dude, I don’t care how cold it is outside, no one wants your dollar-store notebook and the ratty goddamn trench coat your mama obviously dressed you in.” Somehow, through the crumbly brown sugary goodness that fell from my mouth he heard, “Sure! No problem!” Then he dashed off.”

Dingo could’ve just as easily written “I went to Starbucks this morning, graded papers, ate some breakfast and chatted with the guy at the next table.” Instead she made me taste and see and care about what was going on.

If you make me care about what’s going on in your intros, I might care about the books. Otherwise I’m just going to shine my guillotine blade and mop up the blood splatter.

Christina, you’re obviously smart and you know how to write. However, just because a sentence is grammatical doesn’t make it interesting. Maybe you’re trying too hard to impress your readers. Maybe you’re trying to get a gig at a serious journal or newspaper. Just lighten up.

This is a blog—have some fun with it. Let your hair down. Eat a Cranberry Bliss.

Until then, the best I can do is: