I know, I know. Some of you are immediately scoffing and rolling your eyes at the idea of reading the second book in general. Others might already be sharpening your pitchforks and licking your snarky chops in anticipation of tearing the book apart.
I've been debating whether or not to order a copy of the book. I've hesitated due to the price and the knowledge that I'm very likely to not like Adapting Eden. Part of me does want to see if the series could improve and I'd like to think that I would go into it with the idea that Foyt could have taken in some of the criticism thrown at her from the previous book. I know some would tell me it's a hope in vain, given the snafu everything turned into, but I'm a fairly optimistic girl. It's part of why I stuck with Anita Blake for so long: I just kept hoping that eventually Hamilton would take the criticisms to heart.
Anywho, I wanted to drop this quick note to let any potential reviewers know that Foyt is soliciting for reviewers via Twitter. If you're interested, drop her a line. My only reservation would be that if you know that you are likely to give a negative review, be honest about it. You don't have to detail about how you're going to write a twelve page snark review, but at least let her know that you will be going into this with a handicap. I'm not saying that you shouldn't leave a negative review or maybe even post comments as you read, just be up front about everything. The last thing we want is for her to get upset because someone misrepresented themselves. If she reads this, I want to be clear: I did leave a negative review and I did post book snark, but I am willing to give the series a second chance. I do not promise that I will give a positive review or that I won't snark while I read, but I will promise to at least try to be open minded.
Here are the two tweets that Foyt posted:
*Status #1 via @SaveThePearls
*Status #2 via @SandDollarPress
I have to admit that I'm not exactly expecting a review copy.
A blog where I review a little bit of everything, especially urban fantasy, anthropological thrillers, mysteries, and anything along the lines of James Rollins.
Showing posts with label Revealing Eden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revealing Eden. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Save the Pearls 2: Adapting Eden
Yes, you heard me. Save the Pearls does indeed have a sequel.
I have to hand it to Foyt in that she decided to go ahead and publish the second book. Given the extreme backlash she received over the first book, you'd imagine that she would abstain from writing a sequel entirely. Even if you were to approach this from a snark standpoint, how exactly do you top the previous volume?
Well, we only have to wait until January 23, 2013 to find out. Until then, we have this plot synopsis from Amazon:
In the sequel to the award-winning, dystopian novel, Revealing Eden, Eden Newman must adapt into a hybrid human beast if she hopes to become Ronson Bramford's mate. She has no choice but to undergo her fathers adaptation experiment at his makeshift laboratory in the last patch of rainforest. But when the past rears its ugly head, Eden and Bramford must abandon camp along with their family and friends. Luckily, an Aztec tribe that has survived with the aid of a healing plant provides them with sanctuary or is it? Too late, Eden realizes she is at the center of an epic spiritual battle between love and war. To survive, she must face her deepest fears or lose everything, including the beastly man she loves.
Before you ask, apparently the award it won was the Eric Hoffer award. I've never really heard of that either, but given how clueless Foyt was over how some could see the book's contents as offensive, it's equally possible that there are enough equally clueless people out there that would give it an award.
I have to admit, I'll probably check it out if I can get my hands on a copy. While I did find the book unintentionally offensive, I'm willing to give this a shot to see if she's improved anything since the last book. Although considering that one of the things people previously cried foul on was the constant referral to Bramford as a "beast" and she refers to him as a "beastly man" in this plot synopsis, well... I'm fully aware that he's half-animal and that's what she's referring to, but part of what pissed off so many readers was that she used these phrases and terms without realizing that something that might seem inoccuous to her would come across as offensive to others because she herself has never actually had to deal with the negative stereotypes and images that they would. I admit that I've read things in some of the reviews that I didn't initially pick up on as offensive that came across as offensive to other readers.
In any case we only have about 5 days until the book becomes available. There's no word on whether or not there will be a Kindle version. I'm slightly curious enough to plunk down money if ARC aren't made available, so if I do fork over some of my own cold hard cash for review purposes then I'll either make it available for the review circuit afterwards or I'll hold a drawing on my page. Assuming I purchase it, that is.
Update:
I went searching to see if I could find any confirmation and Foyt's website gives the release date as Spring 2013, so I'm guessing that this is indeed going to release next week. The site also gives us the book's prologue. I'm giving you the link for you to follow at your leisure.
I have to hand it to Foyt in that she decided to go ahead and publish the second book. Given the extreme backlash she received over the first book, you'd imagine that she would abstain from writing a sequel entirely. Even if you were to approach this from a snark standpoint, how exactly do you top the previous volume?
Well, we only have to wait until January 23, 2013 to find out. Until then, we have this plot synopsis from Amazon:
In the sequel to the award-winning, dystopian novel, Revealing Eden, Eden Newman must adapt into a hybrid human beast if she hopes to become Ronson Bramford's mate. She has no choice but to undergo her fathers adaptation experiment at his makeshift laboratory in the last patch of rainforest. But when the past rears its ugly head, Eden and Bramford must abandon camp along with their family and friends. Luckily, an Aztec tribe that has survived with the aid of a healing plant provides them with sanctuary or is it? Too late, Eden realizes she is at the center of an epic spiritual battle between love and war. To survive, she must face her deepest fears or lose everything, including the beastly man she loves.
Before you ask, apparently the award it won was the Eric Hoffer award. I've never really heard of that either, but given how clueless Foyt was over how some could see the book's contents as offensive, it's equally possible that there are enough equally clueless people out there that would give it an award.
I have to admit, I'll probably check it out if I can get my hands on a copy. While I did find the book unintentionally offensive, I'm willing to give this a shot to see if she's improved anything since the last book. Although considering that one of the things people previously cried foul on was the constant referral to Bramford as a "beast" and she refers to him as a "beastly man" in this plot synopsis, well... I'm fully aware that he's half-animal and that's what she's referring to, but part of what pissed off so many readers was that she used these phrases and terms without realizing that something that might seem inoccuous to her would come across as offensive to others because she herself has never actually had to deal with the negative stereotypes and images that they would. I admit that I've read things in some of the reviews that I didn't initially pick up on as offensive that came across as offensive to other readers.
In any case we only have about 5 days until the book becomes available. There's no word on whether or not there will be a Kindle version. I'm slightly curious enough to plunk down money if ARC aren't made available, so if I do fork over some of my own cold hard cash for review purposes then I'll either make it available for the review circuit afterwards or I'll hold a drawing on my page. Assuming I purchase it, that is.
Update:
I went searching to see if I could find any confirmation and Foyt's website gives the release date as Spring 2013, so I'm guessing that this is indeed going to release next week. The site also gives us the book's prologue. I'm giving you the link for you to follow at your leisure.
OK. This certifies that I'll probably have to get the book and give Foyt my money just so I can read the WTF in all its glory. The series had previously had a distinctly dystopian flavor, but now elements of fantasy are getting mixed in? And Eden is the world's last hope for survival?
Oh wow... I can't even begin to go over how badly the idea of "white girl saves the world" will go over, considering some of the criticism over the last book. I know that tradition is that the main character of the book is the Chosen One, but why isn't it Bramford that is the Chosen One Who Will Save The World?
Update 2:
If you're curious about the first book, Revealing Eden, then I want to let you know that you can enter into a drawing for a copy via Goodreads. All you need is a membership on the site, which is free.
Update 2:
If you're curious about the first book, Revealing Eden, then I want to let you know that you can enter into a drawing for a copy via Goodreads. All you need is a membership on the site, which is free.
Enter to win Revealing Eden
On a side note, I'd really like to take this opportunity to ask people not to review the second book unless you've read it. Will the book stink? Dunno. Probably. Maybe. But until you've read more than a few paragraphs, it's really not fair to leave a starred review of Adapting Eden. If it's going to get negatively reviewed, let it gain those reviews fairly.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Save the Pearls and Weird Tales: Mixed reactions
Hi all! I recently discovered that Save the Pearls came up in the news again recently, although I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what I think of this turn of events.
If you're not familiar with the controversy surrounding the novel and Foyt, then I can sum it up in about 2-3 sentences: Foyt wrote a book she claimed was an anti-racist novel, yet its content came across as incredibly ignorant and racist to many readers. When faced with criticism over the novel and skepticism over the positive reviews, Foyt tried to defend her book by saying things such as that some of her critics were racist/close-minded, which didn't go over well considering that some of her critics were from various minorities. The result was that the literary world pretty much exploded with the sound of a million readers blogging/reviewing/tweeting their reactions, some defending Foyt and some condemning her.
This brings us to August 20th, when sci-fi pulp magazine Weird Tales announced that they were going to print the first chapter of Save the Pearls in one of their upcoming issues. This went over about as well with the internet about as well as announcing that you're going to be torching nuns on Easter, but one of the editors staunchly defended the book. The reaction: people were going to boycott the magazine, with some authors saying that they'd never publish with WT again if they printed the excerpt. As you'd expect, the blog defending the book was yanked and the magazine nuked their plans to print Foyt's chapter.
Don't get me wrong, I do think that the book read as unintentionally racist and incredibly entitled. (This is only one of many issues with the book though.) But part of me is slightly disappointed by the magazine back tracking and saying that they weren't going to publish the excerpt. I don't think that many would really like this excerpt but I'd really like for the readers to actually, y'know... read the excerpt and make up their own minds. Especially since the next editor that posted about the book ended up saying that they viewed the book as offensive... and hadn't read the novel at all, just looked at everything out there online about the book. This sort of bothers me since I'd rather that they had chosen to pull the excerpt based on their own personal reactions from reading the novel or chapter more so than because the internet threatened to stop buying or writing for the magazine if they decided to print Foyt's work.
I can't help but think that if the first editor hadn't said things like "Racism is an atrocity, and that is the backbone of this book. That is very clear to anyone with an appreciation for irony who reads it" then Weird Tales probably could've gotten away with running the piece as a way of exploring the controversy and allowing readers to make up their own minds. I'm not defending Foyt or the book, mind you, but I'm not sure what I think about the magazine making such a decision without at least having read the book. Do I think that they'd probably have come to the same conclusion? More than likely, but at least they'd have made up their own mind on the manner rather than just base it upon stuff that I or anyone else wrote. That just sort of bugs me in ways that I can't properly vocalize.
The more I think about it, the more I have to admit that I don't see anything 100% wrong with printing the first chapter of Foyt's dubious opus. Why not allow more people to read the book? If anything, perhaps the exposure to a wider audience would finally drive home to Foyt that she wrote a book that came across as racist, that her depictions hurt people, and that maybe, just maybe she's wrong in saying that she couldn't have written something people saw as offensive. I'm just afraid that the only thing this whole scenario will do is just enforce her idea of herself as a martyr since the judgement was entirely made based upon other people's reactions rather than if they'd read the reactions as well as a portion of the novel. I don't know if any of this ramble makes any sense, but hopefully so. If people choose not to print parts of her book, I want it to be their decision, not mine.
UPDATE:
I think I've pinpointed why I'm so disappointed. This is ultimately an empty "victory" because the decision ultimately came about because the publisher wanted to avoid bad press and caved into what they thought the internet wanted. I don't agree with the first editor's remarks or his decision to post a chapter, but I would have liked the decision to be made because they read the book, Foyt's comments, and watched her videos and then made the choice. I wouldn't have boycotted the magazine if they'd run the piece, but I have less respect for the magazine because they didn't do any research to begin with and made the decision based upon public reaction.
I also wanted to post that evidently author Jeff Vandermeer warned WT months ago that posting the chapter would be a terrible idea, yet the magazine went ahead with it anyway. I've posted the link to this at the bottom for you to look through. Evidently this was just one of several incredibly ill thought out decisions by the company lately.
Further reading:
*From Weird Tales and ‘Saving the Pearls’ to ‘All-American Muslim,’ Consume the Content, Not the Hype *Weird Tales Publisher Apologizes for Magazine’s Association with Controversial Novel
*Weird Tales Magazine faces a boycott after endorsing a “thoroughly non-racist book”
*Racism row over SF novel about black 'Coals' and white 'Pearls'
*Weird Tales Goes Back in Time
*Weird Tales Publisher Apologizes for Magazine’s Association with Controversial Novel
*Weird Tales, Ann VanderMeer, and Utter Stupidity
If you're not familiar with the controversy surrounding the novel and Foyt, then I can sum it up in about 2-3 sentences: Foyt wrote a book she claimed was an anti-racist novel, yet its content came across as incredibly ignorant and racist to many readers. When faced with criticism over the novel and skepticism over the positive reviews, Foyt tried to defend her book by saying things such as that some of her critics were racist/close-minded, which didn't go over well considering that some of her critics were from various minorities. The result was that the literary world pretty much exploded with the sound of a million readers blogging/reviewing/tweeting their reactions, some defending Foyt and some condemning her.
This brings us to August 20th, when sci-fi pulp magazine Weird Tales announced that they were going to print the first chapter of Save the Pearls in one of their upcoming issues. This went over about as well with the internet about as well as announcing that you're going to be torching nuns on Easter, but one of the editors staunchly defended the book. The reaction: people were going to boycott the magazine, with some authors saying that they'd never publish with WT again if they printed the excerpt. As you'd expect, the blog defending the book was yanked and the magazine nuked their plans to print Foyt's chapter.
Don't get me wrong, I do think that the book read as unintentionally racist and incredibly entitled. (This is only one of many issues with the book though.) But part of me is slightly disappointed by the magazine back tracking and saying that they weren't going to publish the excerpt. I don't think that many would really like this excerpt but I'd really like for the readers to actually, y'know... read the excerpt and make up their own minds. Especially since the next editor that posted about the book ended up saying that they viewed the book as offensive... and hadn't read the novel at all, just looked at everything out there online about the book. This sort of bothers me since I'd rather that they had chosen to pull the excerpt based on their own personal reactions from reading the novel or chapter more so than because the internet threatened to stop buying or writing for the magazine if they decided to print Foyt's work.
I can't help but think that if the first editor hadn't said things like "Racism is an atrocity, and that is the backbone of this book. That is very clear to anyone with an appreciation for irony who reads it" then Weird Tales probably could've gotten away with running the piece as a way of exploring the controversy and allowing readers to make up their own minds. I'm not defending Foyt or the book, mind you, but I'm not sure what I think about the magazine making such a decision without at least having read the book. Do I think that they'd probably have come to the same conclusion? More than likely, but at least they'd have made up their own mind on the manner rather than just base it upon stuff that I or anyone else wrote. That just sort of bugs me in ways that I can't properly vocalize.
The more I think about it, the more I have to admit that I don't see anything 100% wrong with printing the first chapter of Foyt's dubious opus. Why not allow more people to read the book? If anything, perhaps the exposure to a wider audience would finally drive home to Foyt that she wrote a book that came across as racist, that her depictions hurt people, and that maybe, just maybe she's wrong in saying that she couldn't have written something people saw as offensive. I'm just afraid that the only thing this whole scenario will do is just enforce her idea of herself as a martyr since the judgement was entirely made based upon other people's reactions rather than if they'd read the reactions as well as a portion of the novel. I don't know if any of this ramble makes any sense, but hopefully so. If people choose not to print parts of her book, I want it to be their decision, not mine.
UPDATE:
I think I've pinpointed why I'm so disappointed. This is ultimately an empty "victory" because the decision ultimately came about because the publisher wanted to avoid bad press and caved into what they thought the internet wanted. I don't agree with the first editor's remarks or his decision to post a chapter, but I would have liked the decision to be made because they read the book, Foyt's comments, and watched her videos and then made the choice. I wouldn't have boycotted the magazine if they'd run the piece, but I have less respect for the magazine because they didn't do any research to begin with and made the decision based upon public reaction.
I also wanted to post that evidently author Jeff Vandermeer warned WT months ago that posting the chapter would be a terrible idea, yet the magazine went ahead with it anyway. I've posted the link to this at the bottom for you to look through. Evidently this was just one of several incredibly ill thought out decisions by the company lately.
Further reading:
*From Weird Tales and ‘Saving the Pearls’ to ‘All-American Muslim,’ Consume the Content, Not the Hype *Weird Tales Publisher Apologizes for Magazine’s Association with Controversial Novel
*Weird Tales Magazine faces a boycott after endorsing a “thoroughly non-racist book”
*Racism row over SF novel about black 'Coals' and white 'Pearls'
*Weird Tales Goes Back in Time
*Weird Tales Publisher Apologizes for Magazine’s Association with Controversial Novel
*Weird Tales, Ann VanderMeer, and Utter Stupidity
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Win a copy of Victoria Foyt's infamous "Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden"
No, not from my blog. Sorry!
I know that there are those of you out there who are genuinely curious as to what this book is like and want to read it for yourselves, but don't want to pay to read it. So if you've been wanting a copy, now's your chance. The giveaway officially started today and Foyt's giving away one copy of her book.
Now don't worry- there's nothing wrong with being curious about this and opting in to get a free copy of her book isn't going to make you a bad person. I fully encourage people to read this book for themselves under their own terms and make up their own minds about everything. This is just an opportunity for a lot of you to do this without the guilt you might've felt at purchasing it.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Save the Pearls: Victoria Foyt still doesn't get it
If you've been following the Foyt drama lately, then you're probably up to speed on everything. If not, here's a quick rehash of what's going on:
Foyt tried to write an anti-racism book where the racial roles of blacks and whites were swapped, in an attempt to make it hit home more to clueless white kids. Unfortunately Foyt is incredibly clueless herself, so instead of her book being the next Noughts & Crosses, it came across as incredibly racist to pretty much every reader. Especially readers of color. Especially after uploading tons of videos with people wearing what resembled blackface to many. Unwilling to admit that she wrote a racist book (even if it wasn't on purpose), Foyt railed against her accusers, saying that they all misinterpreted her book, that she's not racist, hinting that the people calling the book racist are racist themselves... She pretty much alienated most of her readers by saying things on her Huffington Post blog such as "Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash. The first young African American reader who responded to me loved the book. But then, she's the kind of free spirit who would eschew limiting herself to a single category."
Why I'm posting all of this again and not letting it rest is that Foyt recently posted another Huffington Post blog where she tries yet again to defend herself against what everyone is saying.
In this blog she tries to defend the previous positive reviews she'd gotten (some of which have disappeared off the internet). Since pretty much every minority group that's heard of or read the book was aghast at the book, many were asking if the people who left the positive reviews were predominantly white. Foyt pretty much calls everyone racist for asking the race of the reviewers. I admit that it's conceivable that a black/Asian/Hispanic/etc could've reviewed the book and given it a positive rating, but given how widely condemned Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden has been among readers of these groups, it's easy to see how people would view it as unlikely.
Also in the blog she tries to defend the usage of the term "Coals" by saying the following:
The problem with her explanation is that she never ever explains any of this in the book at all. All we're given in the book is the explanation that various races are called different things and even then it's just a listing of what label is given to which race. At one point in the book Eden says the following, which goes against Foyt's attempts to explain everything away:
In the book the term "Coal" is used as a slur. It's never really explained as to how this term is supposed to be positive in the slightest.
Foyt goes on to say that the book couldn't possibly be racist since it won some awards, such as the Eric Hoffer Best Young Adult Novel. Well, a little bit of research brings up that it's an award program that you have to pay to enter and it's not really seen as that big of an award and pretty much most of the writers out there consider it to be a scam. (Click here) I'm going to guess that the rest of the awards are along the same lines, things that people come up with in order to get money out of unsuspecting writers or are awards that aren't really considered mainstream enough to get a ton of nominees. I could be wrong, I'm aware that there are perfectly legitimate small awards out there but I'm also aware that there's more awards out there that are less about awards and more about getting your money. If anyone can vouch for any of the awards the book has won, please do so. I don't want to besmirch an award, but having read how awful the book is (and I'm not talking about racism in the book, but that it was just mediocre at best) I find it hard to believe that it'd really win awards on its own merit.
Foyt tries to finish the blog up by saying that the book also has a message of "save the environment". Bull. The whole reason the world is messed up is because of a solar flare from the sun. Even if the planet had a full ozone layer, if you had a solar flare hit the earth that was so strong that people get cancer almost instantly then there's no preventing that. No amount of ecological preservation (aside from contributing to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault) is going to make a difference in keeping plants and such alive under such an extreme outside force. It's like trying to say that the dinosaurs totally could've survived the meteor (or whatever it was) that hit the earth if they'd recycled more. Science doesn't work that way.
What irritates me the most is that Foyt has this "I don't think I'm racist so I'm not racist, all of you guys must be racist or misguided" mentality to her. Much like how science doesn't work the way Foyt thinks it does, racism doesn't work that way either. If all it took to remove racism was to say that the person doing the act/book/whatever didn't mean for it to be racist, then there wouldn't be any racism at all nowadays. The thing about racism is that a lot of times the people performing the racist act doesn't realize it. It's just "how things have always been" mixed in with a healthy does of ignorance about how your actions are perceived by others. If someone sees a black teen with a nice jacket and assumes that he got it by stealing it or selling drugs, that's racist. Even if that person tries to explain it away by saying that the kid was in a poor neighborhood, it's still racist to assume that the only way the kid got the jacket was through illicit means. It doesn't matter if the person never makes any obvious racist gestures, donates to the NAACP, and has a ton of black friends. Things like that can still be perceived as racist. They're just not usually seen as such because it's the "everyday racism" that tends to fly under the radar. There's better analogies, but I'm not really sure how to type those out as eloquently as they would need to be. (Lesson there, Foyt: if you can't type it out properly to get your point across, then don't.) The point is that you can be racist without realizing it and that even though you don't think you're being racist, that doesn't mean that what you're doing isn't racist or couldn't be seen as such. And it certainly doesn't mean that the people saying "hey, this comes across as racist" are wrong or "misguided" or whatever Foyt wants to tell herself at the end of the day to keep from realizing that she made a huge mistake with this book. I just want to say that I don't think Foyt is racist or means to come across as racist, but the way she continues to talk just comes across as incredibly ignorant. It's just very arrogant of her to assume that all it takes to dispel claims of racism is for her to cry that she isn't racist. Sometimes you can be a person who isn't actually racist but still says things that come across as racist and misguided. When you have so many people telling you "hey, you're sounding really racist", maybe it's time to stop telling other people they're wrong and start looking at what you're saying.
I don't think that Foyt will ever realize that she's doing herself a huge disservice by being so closeminded about what people are trying to tell her. I don't even think she'd realize that if she'd said "huh, I didn't realize that, sorry!" from the beginning rather than lashing out at her critics, this never would've gotten as much attention. In the long run the only person that will be hurt by this will be Foyt, as I'm fairly certain that publishers will remember this public relations nightmare and will either avoid signing a contract with her or will use this to get her to sign a contract that isn't as good as she'd have wanted.
In any case, Foyt's best course of action would be to silently retreat from the internet and for God's sake, stop trying to defend herself because she only makes herself seem more inept in the process. I think that this will probably be the last post I make on Foyt because I'm just tired of her continuing to stick her foot in her mouth.
Further reading:
*Victoria Foyt: Judging a book by its cover
Foyt tried to write an anti-racism book where the racial roles of blacks and whites were swapped, in an attempt to make it hit home more to clueless white kids. Unfortunately Foyt is incredibly clueless herself, so instead of her book being the next Noughts & Crosses, it came across as incredibly racist to pretty much every reader. Especially readers of color. Especially after uploading tons of videos with people wearing what resembled blackface to many. Unwilling to admit that she wrote a racist book (even if it wasn't on purpose), Foyt railed against her accusers, saying that they all misinterpreted her book, that she's not racist, hinting that the people calling the book racist are racist themselves... She pretty much alienated most of her readers by saying things on her Huffington Post blog such as "Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash. The first young African American reader who responded to me loved the book. But then, she's the kind of free spirit who would eschew limiting herself to a single category."
Why I'm posting all of this again and not letting it rest is that Foyt recently posted another Huffington Post blog where she tries yet again to defend herself against what everyone is saying.
In this blog she tries to defend the previous positive reviews she'd gotten (some of which have disappeared off the internet). Since pretty much every minority group that's heard of or read the book was aghast at the book, many were asking if the people who left the positive reviews were predominantly white. Foyt pretty much calls everyone racist for asking the race of the reviewers. I admit that it's conceivable that a black/Asian/Hispanic/etc could've reviewed the book and given it a positive rating, but given how widely condemned Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden has been among readers of these groups, it's easy to see how people would view it as unlikely.
Also in the blog she tries to defend the usage of the term "Coals" by saying the following:
Why are whites called Pearls, while blacks are called Coals? Imagine a gritty, post-apocalyptic world where all that matters is survival. What good will a pearl do you when luxury items have no use? Coal has energy, fire, and real value. It is durable and strong, not easily crushed like a pearl. Pearl is a pejorative term here. Coals are admired. Coals oppress Pearls because they fear that those with light skin will add to a population unable to survive "The Heat," and drain meager resources.
Eden flinched. One of them was touching her. White-hot light exploded in her head. Before she knew it, she blurted out an incendiary racial slur.
“Get your hands off of me, you damn Coal!”
Foyt goes on to say that the book couldn't possibly be racist since it won some awards, such as the Eric Hoffer Best Young Adult Novel. Well, a little bit of research brings up that it's an award program that you have to pay to enter and it's not really seen as that big of an award and pretty much most of the writers out there consider it to be a scam. (Click here) I'm going to guess that the rest of the awards are along the same lines, things that people come up with in order to get money out of unsuspecting writers or are awards that aren't really considered mainstream enough to get a ton of nominees. I could be wrong, I'm aware that there are perfectly legitimate small awards out there but I'm also aware that there's more awards out there that are less about awards and more about getting your money. If anyone can vouch for any of the awards the book has won, please do so. I don't want to besmirch an award, but having read how awful the book is (and I'm not talking about racism in the book, but that it was just mediocre at best) I find it hard to believe that it'd really win awards on its own merit.
Foyt tries to finish the blog up by saying that the book also has a message of "save the environment". Bull. The whole reason the world is messed up is because of a solar flare from the sun. Even if the planet had a full ozone layer, if you had a solar flare hit the earth that was so strong that people get cancer almost instantly then there's no preventing that. No amount of ecological preservation (aside from contributing to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault) is going to make a difference in keeping plants and such alive under such an extreme outside force. It's like trying to say that the dinosaurs totally could've survived the meteor (or whatever it was) that hit the earth if they'd recycled more. Science doesn't work that way.
What irritates me the most is that Foyt has this "I don't think I'm racist so I'm not racist, all of you guys must be racist or misguided" mentality to her. Much like how science doesn't work the way Foyt thinks it does, racism doesn't work that way either. If all it took to remove racism was to say that the person doing the act/book/whatever didn't mean for it to be racist, then there wouldn't be any racism at all nowadays. The thing about racism is that a lot of times the people performing the racist act doesn't realize it. It's just "how things have always been" mixed in with a healthy does of ignorance about how your actions are perceived by others. If someone sees a black teen with a nice jacket and assumes that he got it by stealing it or selling drugs, that's racist. Even if that person tries to explain it away by saying that the kid was in a poor neighborhood, it's still racist to assume that the only way the kid got the jacket was through illicit means. It doesn't matter if the person never makes any obvious racist gestures, donates to the NAACP, and has a ton of black friends. Things like that can still be perceived as racist. They're just not usually seen as such because it's the "everyday racism" that tends to fly under the radar. There's better analogies, but I'm not really sure how to type those out as eloquently as they would need to be. (Lesson there, Foyt: if you can't type it out properly to get your point across, then don't.) The point is that you can be racist without realizing it and that even though you don't think you're being racist, that doesn't mean that what you're doing isn't racist or couldn't be seen as such. And it certainly doesn't mean that the people saying "hey, this comes across as racist" are wrong or "misguided" or whatever Foyt wants to tell herself at the end of the day to keep from realizing that she made a huge mistake with this book. I just want to say that I don't think Foyt is racist or means to come across as racist, but the way she continues to talk just comes across as incredibly ignorant. It's just very arrogant of her to assume that all it takes to dispel claims of racism is for her to cry that she isn't racist. Sometimes you can be a person who isn't actually racist but still says things that come across as racist and misguided. When you have so many people telling you "hey, you're sounding really racist", maybe it's time to stop telling other people they're wrong and start looking at what you're saying.
I don't think that Foyt will ever realize that she's doing herself a huge disservice by being so closeminded about what people are trying to tell her. I don't even think she'd realize that if she'd said "huh, I didn't realize that, sorry!" from the beginning rather than lashing out at her critics, this never would've gotten as much attention. In the long run the only person that will be hurt by this will be Foyt, as I'm fairly certain that publishers will remember this public relations nightmare and will either avoid signing a contract with her or will use this to get her to sign a contract that isn't as good as she'd have wanted.
In any case, Foyt's best course of action would be to silently retreat from the internet and for God's sake, stop trying to defend herself because she only makes herself seem more inept in the process. I think that this will probably be the last post I make on Foyt because I'm just tired of her continuing to stick her foot in her mouth.
Further reading:
*Victoria Foyt: Judging a book by its cover
Book Review: Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden by Victoria Foyt
Title: Revealing Eden (Save the Pearls #1)
Author: Victoria Foyt
Publisher: Sand Dollar Press
Release Date: 01/10/2012
ISBN: 0983650322
I think I know what you're wondering. Is this book as racist as people are making it out to be? In a word, yes. Yes it is. But do I think that Foyt set out to make her book this offensive? No. No, after having finished the book I think I can say that this is more an example of why authors should do their research and listen to their audience when covering real life problems (such as racism) that you yourself have never experienced. Despite Foyt's claims that she's been called a bad word during childhood, she has no true first hand experience of the type of racism she describes in this book. This doesn't mean that she couldn't potentially have written an apt description of racism, but it does mean that she should've done better research and spoken to people who have experienced it. Unfortunately that's not the only type of research she apparently didn't do, but more on that later.
Eden Newman must mate before her 18th birthday in six months or she'll be left outside to die in a burning world. But who will pick up her mate-option when she's cursed with white skin and a tragically low mate-rate of 15%? In a post-apocalyptic, totalitarian, underground world where class and beauty are defined by resistance to an overheated environment, Eden's coloring brands her as a member of the lowest class, a weak and ugly Pearl. If only she can mate with a dark-skinned Coal from the ruling class, she'll be safe. Just maybe one Coal sees the Real Eden and will be her salvation her co-worker Jamal has begun secretly dating her. But when Eden unwittingly compromises her father's secret biological experiment, she finds herself in the eye of a storm and thrown into the last area of rainforest, a strange and dangerous land. Eden must fight to save her father, who may be humanity's last hope, while standing up to a powerful beast-man she believes is her enemy, despite her overwhelming attraction. Eden must change to survive but only if she can redefine her ideas of beauty and of love, along with a little help from her "adopted aunt" Emily Dickinson.
First off, I have to say that this did have some entertainment value, although it definitely wasn't in the way that Foyt intended it. I kept reading this because it had this train wreck sense of fun to it, like how so many of us continuously look to see what Octomom or Snooki is doing now. Not because we particularly like them, but because we're so horrified by their actions that we can't help but keep watching. That's the biggest appeal of this book and if you're the type of person who likes that sort of book (this audience does exist- I'm one of them) then this is exactly up your alley.
But as far as the book itself goes? It's awful. There's so much unintended racism in this book that it fails to tell much of a message at all. It does have some educational value as a way of showing authors the value of research and what not to do, as well as warning people that stating that you don't see races (aka "colorblind") might just mean that you're only steps away from penning something like this and alienating a whole score of readers. (Seriously, did Foyt even put any thought into any of the things she has said so far?) One of the biggest signs that Foyt did no research into racism is that she really only focuses on the idea that someone has to be openly hostile and violent against someone to show racism. Yes, that's part of racism but that's barely the tip of the iceberg. Racism is also where people refuse to acknowledge you, move to the other side of the street because they think you're going to do something, avoiding talking to you, talking down to you... there's so many different forms of racism that aren't readily hostile. Sometimes you get racism in situations where people think they're being nice. Foyt never seems to grasp that concept here. I'm not going to list all of the various things in here that came across as racist since there's so many of them and they've been listed fairly well on various websites. All I will say is that Foyt does some serious stereotyping here without ever really thinking about it.
The lack of scientific research is fairly obvious in this book, as the amount of melanin in someone's skin won't matter much if you've got a solar ray blast that kills off almost all of the world's vegetation and leaves enough radiation/sunray gunk to where it'd practically melt an albino. Science doesn't work that way.
Where the book gets even more ludicrous is where Foyt begins to break and then outright ignore her own universe rules. We have the area around the cave system where everyone lives be a barren and scorched earth, yet there's abundant rainforest life elsewhere. At least I think it's supposed to be a rainforest. Since the Huaorani tribe is supposed to be in Ecuador for the most part, the rainforest in the book is most likely along the equator, which would be one of the places most hard hit by the solar blast. Rainforests are so insanely fragile that even the slightest change in sun, heat, or any number of factors would demolish it. Yet we have butterflies floating around. Again, science doesn't work that way just because you want to have your characters run through the rainforest. Another rule in the book that is broken quickly is the idea that Eden would quickly die in the sunlight. She doesn't and shows little to no signs of the Heat (aka really bad sunburn) for most of the book. Even an albino revealed later in the book gets exposed to the sun with no terrible repercussions. Now this might be a plot point but even if it is, this should've been mentioned at some point.
Another thing that sort of irked me with the book is that Foyt never seemed to know exactly which audience she was writing to. The interactions between Foyt and Bramford are devoid of chemistry, so we have lots of mentioning of lust and "tingly feelings" to make up for that. (I am still confused as to why Bramford was attracted to Eden at all, as she was completely unlikable and a jerk for most/all of the book.) The descriptions in the book aren't graphic, but at one point we have Eden grinding against Bramford's neck while she's riding on his shoulders. Granted, part of this was to urge him to run faster, but when you make mentions of the line "like sweet, dripping honey" from a Dickinson poem, you're going to get sexual connotations out of it. This might be tame in comparison to some of the other stuff out there in the romance section, but this is a teen book and you have to be careful about how you phrase things. Not all parents want stuff like this in their teens' novels, not because they want to teach kids that their bodies are dirty, but because they just feel like they should have books that don't include this. I've read more graphic stuff and I've read YA books where there's been sexual themes, but this just felt like it was stuff that was written more for adult readers than teens, if that makes any sense.
Overall I feel that one of the worst things about this book was that it had the potential to be more. Foyt isn't a great writer, but she's not a newbie making spelling and grammar errors left and right. She's clearly written before, which is what makes the research errors and plot holes all that much more glaring. It's also what makes so much of this book seem so racist: she's not really writing things she's fully aware of and it shows. If an 80 year old cloistered nun were to try to write a sex manual, I think it'd come across just as clueless as Foyt's writing does, which is the best comparison I can really make to this.
But should you read it? Well, there's some value to reading this for the reasons stated above. I just think that if the author was smart, she'd forego any further books in the series for right now and work on re-writing this one. (Although I admit that I'd probably check out the next book for the lulz.) All talk of racism aside, this book has some serious plot and character problems that need to be addressed. I've read worse, but that's no excuse for the universe inconsistencies and unlikable characters. I'm giving this a 1.5 for entertainment value, but it's just a mess.
1.5 out of 5 stars
(ARC provided by Netgalley)
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Initial Impressions: Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden
I was initially going to live blog this, but like others have said, there's just too much in here that's fucked up. I'm about halfway through this book at this point. It's a very short novel at about 250 pages, with the only reason I haven't completely finished it yet being that I have to put it down before I throw my ereader against the wall.
I did and still do want to give this book a chance to redeem itself and be the "anti-racism" book that Foyt claims it is, but it keeps shooting itself in the foot to the point where it's long since pulverized their feet and have started burrowing into the molten core of the Earth. What I'm going to discuss here is just the initial part of the book. A fuller review will be forthcoming soon, I promise.
First off, we're shown a society where solar radiation has killed off almost all of the white people. As you already know, they're called "Pearls". The only thing they rank above are Cottons (albinos) and the albino is now extinct. Yep, we have a group of people called Cottons. Seriously, why did Foyt have to make up cute little names for everything? The initial tone of the novel would've been a lot better if she'd just left off with this whole idea.
Secondly, I'm equally horrified by Foyt having a society where she has the black people (Coals) instantly decide to commit a slow and painful genocide of the remaining white people. You heard that right. Apparently in this world girls must be mated off by the time they're 18 or they're chucked out into the harsh radiation to die. Since Eden mentions that Coals (eyeroll) have little to no problem getting mates, you're pretty much left with the scenario that every year you have tons of white people being burnt to a crisp because they aren't pairing off with someone and reproducing. Yeah... no. I just don't see an entire race of people deciding "hey, you know what'd be a good idea? Instituting a 'sell-by' date for human beings and then discriminating against a whole race because they're white, even though there's no solar radiation down underground that would make them die more easily". That Foyt thinks that a whole race would give up their humanity so quickly once almost all the white people died off is pretty well, racist. For reasons I obviously don't have to go into further.
We're also given little snippets to where it's obvious that Foyt was trying to pull upon what she perceives as real life racism and aspects of African Americans. I really can't pull any specific thing out from the book because there's just so much that is so eye-boggling bad.
So we have a book that whether or not the author intended it to be racist, is definitely perceived to be as such. We have roughly three options here as to why this is so.
What infuriates so many people about all of this is that Foyt refuses to acknowledge that she perpetuated many racist stereotypes in her book. She might not have meant for it to come across as racist but it does and it's offended a good many people. Rather than admit that as a white woman she doesn't have the experience of racism that people of color do and as a result wrote a very flawed novel, Foyt tries to insist that she's in the right, that she couldn't have possibly have made a mistake because one time when she was very small she got called a bad name, that everyone is in the wrong. Some might call it standing by your book, but there's a difference between defending yourself and foolishly holding onto beliefs when you've been called out on many different aspects of your book where people go on at length about how some of the stuff in the book come off as racist. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you were naive or ignorant because while the previous acts/writings/whatever might have been unintentionally hurtful, part of being a bigger and better person is admitting that you made a mistake. There is something wrong with trying to deny this and telling thousands of African Americans and people of various ethnicities that they're wrong and you're right. It just bothers me that Foyt continously tries to say that she's not racist. Honey, you're in denial. As the Avenue Q song goes, "Everybody's a little bit racist" and "no one's really color blind". This is the type of thing that everyone is guilty of regardless of what race or ethnicity you are.
In any case, I'm leaning towards recommending this to authors and readers. Why? Because this teaches some pretty valuable lessons. It will teach authors that you must, must, must do proper research and listen to your readers when they point out flaws. What good is publishing your work if you alienate everyone? This would also be good to teach racism... by showing that it breeds through ignorance. This book just shows people how easy it is to wrap yourself in a blanket of smug satisfaction where you think that you're not racist just because you don't go around spitting on people or committing hate crimes. It's a warning to all of us that having such a level of ignorance and cluelessness can be harmful because while you might not otherwise notice it, that unintentional racism is still there and could result in something just as embarrassing as this book. It might teach about racism, but definitely not in the way that Foyt intended it to be. Now I know that I'm far from being a multicultural font of wisdom myself and it's fairly easy to pat myself on the back for not being as bad as this book is, but this book is reminding me that I might want to check myself to ensure that I don't become too complacent and end up saying or doing something that perpetuates a racist stereotype without even really being aware of it.
Further Reading:
*IS YA NOVEL “SAVE THE PEARLS” STRAIGHT-UP RACIST OR JUST MISGUIDED?
*Author of controversial 'Revealing Eden' hits back at critics
*Today In Racism: YA Series “Save The Pearls” Employs Offensive Blackface And Bizarre Racist Stereotypes Plot
*“Save The Pearls”: Eden Newman, White Privilege, & Interracial Dating
*Save the Pearls – A White Woman’s Worst Nightmare
*Young adult novel sparks controversy over racism
I did and still do want to give this book a chance to redeem itself and be the "anti-racism" book that Foyt claims it is, but it keeps shooting itself in the foot to the point where it's long since pulverized their feet and have started burrowing into the molten core of the Earth. What I'm going to discuss here is just the initial part of the book. A fuller review will be forthcoming soon, I promise.
First off, we're shown a society where solar radiation has killed off almost all of the white people. As you already know, they're called "Pearls". The only thing they rank above are Cottons (albinos) and the albino is now extinct. Yep, we have a group of people called Cottons. Seriously, why did Foyt have to make up cute little names for everything? The initial tone of the novel would've been a lot better if she'd just left off with this whole idea.
Secondly, I'm equally horrified by Foyt having a society where she has the black people (Coals) instantly decide to commit a slow and painful genocide of the remaining white people. You heard that right. Apparently in this world girls must be mated off by the time they're 18 or they're chucked out into the harsh radiation to die. Since Eden mentions that Coals (eyeroll) have little to no problem getting mates, you're pretty much left with the scenario that every year you have tons of white people being burnt to a crisp because they aren't pairing off with someone and reproducing. Yeah... no. I just don't see an entire race of people deciding "hey, you know what'd be a good idea? Instituting a 'sell-by' date for human beings and then discriminating against a whole race because they're white, even though there's no solar radiation down underground that would make them die more easily". That Foyt thinks that a whole race would give up their humanity so quickly once almost all the white people died off is pretty well, racist. For reasons I obviously don't have to go into further.
So we have a book that whether or not the author intended it to be racist, is definitely perceived to be as such. We have roughly three options here as to why this is so.
- The author is racist and knows it.
- The author is one of those people who is so naive and clueless that she thinks that the only racism out there is the type where other humans are forced to drink from separate water fountains and get hung from trees for whistling at looking at a white woman. This is actually a big form of racism in itself because some of the most prevalent forms of racism comes from the small and subtle acts that people don't even realize they're doing. It's the type of reaction that's akin to someone seeing a bad driver, noticing that it's a woman, then rolling their eyes and saying "Yeah, all women drivers suck". Or seeing a group of black teenagers waiting at the bus stop and pulling your purse tighter to your body and trying to be less noticeable because you think they're going to jump you. I could go on with the examples, but you get the point. This is the type of racism (and general -ism) that is the most prevalent because most people don't even realize they're doing it.
- Foyt is doing this all for publicity and sales.
I honestly think that it's probably a mixture of two and three. I don't think that Foyt is out and out racist to the point where she's practically an early George Wallace. If she really was this racist then she'd be owning up to it and wouldn't try to defend herself. I think it's mostly that she's just very naive, very protected, and very ignorant of some of the stereotypes that she holds in her head.
What infuriates so many people about all of this is that Foyt refuses to acknowledge that she perpetuated many racist stereotypes in her book. She might not have meant for it to come across as racist but it does and it's offended a good many people. Rather than admit that as a white woman she doesn't have the experience of racism that people of color do and as a result wrote a very flawed novel, Foyt tries to insist that she's in the right, that she couldn't have possibly have made a mistake because one time when she was very small she got called a bad name, that everyone is in the wrong. Some might call it standing by your book, but there's a difference between defending yourself and foolishly holding onto beliefs when you've been called out on many different aspects of your book where people go on at length about how some of the stuff in the book come off as racist. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you were naive or ignorant because while the previous acts/writings/whatever might have been unintentionally hurtful, part of being a bigger and better person is admitting that you made a mistake. There is something wrong with trying to deny this and telling thousands of African Americans and people of various ethnicities that they're wrong and you're right. It just bothers me that Foyt continously tries to say that she's not racist. Honey, you're in denial. As the Avenue Q song goes, "Everybody's a little bit racist" and "no one's really color blind". This is the type of thing that everyone is guilty of regardless of what race or ethnicity you are.
In any case, I'm leaning towards recommending this to authors and readers. Why? Because this teaches some pretty valuable lessons. It will teach authors that you must, must, must do proper research and listen to your readers when they point out flaws. What good is publishing your work if you alienate everyone? This would also be good to teach racism... by showing that it breeds through ignorance. This book just shows people how easy it is to wrap yourself in a blanket of smug satisfaction where you think that you're not racist just because you don't go around spitting on people or committing hate crimes. It's a warning to all of us that having such a level of ignorance and cluelessness can be harmful because while you might not otherwise notice it, that unintentional racism is still there and could result in something just as embarrassing as this book. It might teach about racism, but definitely not in the way that Foyt intended it to be. Now I know that I'm far from being a multicultural font of wisdom myself and it's fairly easy to pat myself on the back for not being as bad as this book is, but this book is reminding me that I might want to check myself to ensure that I don't become too complacent and end up saying or doing something that perpetuates a racist stereotype without even really being aware of it.
Further Reading:
*IS YA NOVEL “SAVE THE PEARLS” STRAIGHT-UP RACIST OR JUST MISGUIDED?
*Author of controversial 'Revealing Eden' hits back at critics
*Today In Racism: YA Series “Save The Pearls” Employs Offensive Blackface And Bizarre Racist Stereotypes Plot
*“Save The Pearls”: Eden Newman, White Privilege, & Interracial Dating
*Save the Pearls – A White Woman’s Worst Nightmare
*Young adult novel sparks controversy over racism
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