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Book #53: The Hunger Gays
Dec. 24th, 2013 04:59 pmThe Hunger Gays by Nathan Alexander
(Book supplied free for review by Riverdale Avenue Books.)
There's no way for me to talk about this book without using NWS language, so I'm going to put it behind a cut just to be safe.
Warning for adult language and images.
There were so many amusingly bad quotes, I'm going to add them in in italics every few paragraphs.
"A sure way to lose the MvM is to have a limp dick," he explains to me. "So what we're going to do now is wrap [your ass] in seaweed that has been genetically laced with B vitamins and zinc."
If someone had said "I want to rewrite Hunger Games in the worst possible way, while adding in a bunch of very bad, totally unbelievable gay sex", the result would be this book. Another reviewer called it "some of the worst fanfic ever written". I'm wondering if it's something else. Could it have been written this badly on purpose? So badly that people want to read it just to see how very bad it is? (I don't recommend doing that, by the way.)
The first two-thirds of the book was a boring, really really really bad retelling of the Hunger Games plot, with genders reversed. Event by event, interaction by interaction, Gay brought nothing new to the story. There were a few typos, punctuation issues, and formatting issues (chapter titles were just another sentence in a paragraph).
[Two boys are going at it.] I had pierced him just as my arrow had pierced the turkey.
There were many, many inconsistencies in the story. At first there were only normal animals in the world ([A previous offering refused to take part in an orgy] and the MvM organizers sent a swarm of killer bees after him.), then in the last couple chapters mechanical animals started showing up:
There are black spider bots in [a nest]. We were told if we ever found their nest to leave it alone unless it was an emergency. The nest is extremely fragile and any little hit can wake the sleeping mechanical spiders within, which are trained to go for our bums and stimulate our prostate.
Everyone knows the Hunger Games plot, so let me cover how Gays differs. Or heck, we can let the book do it:
Each of us will engage in some sort of sexual activity with another offering before we murder them. "Erotic killing" is how it's usually billed for the media.
Basically it's the Hunger Games, but only males play. Each person has to register as a top or bottom before the drawing, and they can only play that role in the games. However, even though they choose by checking a box on a paper, and they stated outright that someone can switch their role from year to year, the book had lines like this:
But top and bottom, these positions are essential. They let you know where you stand in the world...
And:
"Bottoms," Ky says. "You're all so passive and weak. It's men like you that give our sex a bad name."
Hunger Gays was really big on saying top/bottom says everything about a man, and if a man bottoms once, he's suddenly a bottom.
The writing was just plain bad, too:
The machine that ventilates the air creates a humming noise that sounds more like the howls of tormented souls pleading for justice than the outside air being filtered.
Humming, howling of tormented souls, what's the difference!
A walrus-sized sex drive.
Our penises throb only for sex.
And dialogue:
"He's a virginity-robber, that one."
"You quick-ass bottom!"
"My P-spot!" Hyacinth shouts. "Oh my gods! You're hitting it!"
And oh the amusing sexual information:
And we all know the prostate is the number one source for all manly pleasures.
Our P-spot is the source of instant gratification.
Gotta love the tech of the world though?
"we'll also get your cock rings strapped on. They aren't like traditional cock rings; these will allow us to monitor your bodies and help with blood circulation to your penis."
Unsurprisingly, there was nothing subtle about this book. It was the 69th games, the main character came from the Gspot zone.
A couple amusing characters names: Ky, and the interview host was named Brutus Sparkleman.
In the book bag there is also a bottle of lubricant, a black dildo and some beads, items they think make up a good bottom warrior.
The inconsistencies were big and small. The main character's family was so poor that the only thing they could ever eat was mint soup (mint leaves tossed into water). Yet at the end of the book they had Internet access (Internet! After the entire world had been destroyed and rebuilt, the Internet survived!) and "social medial devices". There were SUVs, too...
So, even with all that, I can't say I hated the book. The last third was so bad it amused me, and I just can't believe this is a serious attempt at writing a good book.
That being said, I fully understand why Hunger Gays makes so many people so angry. It's full of misinformation about sexuality and gender roles, hateful and harmful if the author actually believes it (or if a reader stumbles onto Gays and believes it).
(Book supplied free for review by Riverdale Avenue Books.)
There's no way for me to talk about this book without using NWS language, so I'm going to put it behind a cut just to be safe.
Warning for adult language and images.
There were so many amusingly bad quotes, I'm going to add them in in italics every few paragraphs.
"A sure way to lose the MvM is to have a limp dick," he explains to me. "So what we're going to do now is wrap [your ass] in seaweed that has been genetically laced with B vitamins and zinc."
If someone had said "I want to rewrite Hunger Games in the worst possible way, while adding in a bunch of very bad, totally unbelievable gay sex", the result would be this book. Another reviewer called it "some of the worst fanfic ever written". I'm wondering if it's something else. Could it have been written this badly on purpose? So badly that people want to read it just to see how very bad it is? (I don't recommend doing that, by the way.)
The first two-thirds of the book was a boring, really really really bad retelling of the Hunger Games plot, with genders reversed. Event by event, interaction by interaction, Gay brought nothing new to the story. There were a few typos, punctuation issues, and formatting issues (chapter titles were just another sentence in a paragraph).
[Two boys are going at it.] I had pierced him just as my arrow had pierced the turkey.
There were many, many inconsistencies in the story. At first there were only normal animals in the world ([A previous offering refused to take part in an orgy] and the MvM organizers sent a swarm of killer bees after him.), then in the last couple chapters mechanical animals started showing up:
There are black spider bots in [a nest]. We were told if we ever found their nest to leave it alone unless it was an emergency. The nest is extremely fragile and any little hit can wake the sleeping mechanical spiders within, which are trained to go for our bums and stimulate our prostate.
Everyone knows the Hunger Games plot, so let me cover how Gays differs. Or heck, we can let the book do it:
Each of us will engage in some sort of sexual activity with another offering before we murder them. "Erotic killing" is how it's usually billed for the media.
Basically it's the Hunger Games, but only males play. Each person has to register as a top or bottom before the drawing, and they can only play that role in the games. However, even though they choose by checking a box on a paper, and they stated outright that someone can switch their role from year to year, the book had lines like this:
But top and bottom, these positions are essential. They let you know where you stand in the world...
And:
"Bottoms," Ky says. "You're all so passive and weak. It's men like you that give our sex a bad name."
Hunger Gays was really big on saying top/bottom says everything about a man, and if a man bottoms once, he's suddenly a bottom.
The writing was just plain bad, too:
The machine that ventilates the air creates a humming noise that sounds more like the howls of tormented souls pleading for justice than the outside air being filtered.
Humming, howling of tormented souls, what's the difference!
A walrus-sized sex drive.
Our penises throb only for sex.
And dialogue:
"He's a virginity-robber, that one."
"You quick-ass bottom!"
"My P-spot!" Hyacinth shouts. "Oh my gods! You're hitting it!"
And oh the amusing sexual information:
And we all know the prostate is the number one source for all manly pleasures.
Our P-spot is the source of instant gratification.
Gotta love the tech of the world though?
"we'll also get your cock rings strapped on. They aren't like traditional cock rings; these will allow us to monitor your bodies and help with blood circulation to your penis."
Unsurprisingly, there was nothing subtle about this book. It was the 69th games, the main character came from the G
A couple amusing characters names: Ky, and the interview host was named Brutus Sparkleman.
In the book bag there is also a bottle of lubricant, a black dildo and some beads, items they think make up a good bottom warrior.
The inconsistencies were big and small. The main character's family was so poor that the only thing they could ever eat was mint soup (mint leaves tossed into water). Yet at the end of the book they had Internet access (Internet! After the entire world had been destroyed and rebuilt, the Internet survived!) and "social medial devices". There were SUVs, too...
So, even with all that, I can't say I hated the book. The last third was so bad it amused me, and I just can't believe this is a serious attempt at writing a good book.
That being said, I fully understand why Hunger Gays makes so many people so angry. It's full of misinformation about sexuality and gender roles, hateful and harmful if the author actually believes it (or if a reader stumbles onto Gays and believes it).
