You probably know Tyra Banks best as a model; it was what propelled her into stardom and paved the way for her to appear in several television shows, most notably hosting The Tyra Banks Show and America’s Next Top Model.

In May of 2010, Tyra Banks annouced that she would write a novel, which eventually turned into a planned trilogy. The first book of this trilogy, Modelland, was published in September of 2011 to a rather mixed reception—its current average ratings are 2.86 on Goodreads and 3.1 on Amazon (both out of five stars). Criticisms were made based on poor writing, contrived and nonsensical elements in the story, the characterization of the protagonists, and questionable themes within the story.

I have read the book already, and there really isn’t a way around it: Modelland is not a good book. It’s a pretty bad book. But Modelland is not a horrible book; it is not irredeemable like the Maradonia series. I do not believe that Tyra Banks should give up on writing—I would describe her as an amateur writer. She’s inexperienced and makes many amateur mistakes, but the potential does shine through and I think that, if she takes the criticisms of her first book to heart, she could make the later books in the series into worthwhile reads.

This sporking will go through Modelland one chapter at a time, pointing out issues with the story and writing. It won’t be entirely negative, though—unlike many works I’ve see sporked, Modelland does in fact have some redeeming qualities. It has some things that I liked, several of which are wasted opportunies, and I hope for this sporking to provide insight and advice for other aspiring writers who might end up falling into the same holes that Modelland stumbles into. So without further ado, we shall start on the prologue of Modelland.

The prologue is our first introduction to our narrator, who sounds like a stereotypical fashionista. Our narrator wastes no time telling us what we want.

“You’re obsessed with being chosen. Everyone is.”

We’ll soon see that no, not everyone is obsessed with being chosen.

We get some prose about how “you and every young girl in the world” anticipate The Day of Discovery, particularly about a golden light that shines from Modelland and how a “single lick” of the “naughty tease” “inflames your obsession, increasing your desire a hundredfold”, causing you to “ache to be a 7Seven.”

First off, what if the reader is a boy? The narrator has just called him a girl. Secondly, how do you pronouce “7Seven”? “Seven-seven”?

Making the delirium even more intense, the Land sends seven talismans called SMIZEs into the world. (What an arcane word! Who thought of such a thing?)

As it turns out, “smize” is a word coined by Tyra Banks to refer to smiling with your eyes. Personally, I think it looks odd, but to each their own. Regardless, it doesn’t exactly make me optimistic to see the author bragging about a word they came up with.

We’re told that SMIZEs increase your chance of being chosen on The Day of Discovery by 91% and are distributed through the waterways. The narrator continues to insist that the reader’s only concern is wanting to go to Modelland, mentioning several locations: Metopia, PitterPatter, Shivera, and Peppertown. You may want to keep these names in mind for later. They also hint at darker rumours regarding Modelland—harsh discipline, human sacrifices. And then they make a joke about a literal bloodbath.

We’re then introduced to a recurring element of Modelland: alliteration. (Dun dun dunnnn!) The narrator tells us of the “Pilgram Plague”, an obsession that drives girls to “embark dadless” to Modelland.

And the trek through the dangerous Diabolical Divide always ends in dismembering death.

Ouch.

But despite having been told earlier that every girl wants to go to Modelland, the narrator mentions how there is one girl who doesn’t obsess over Modelland, doesn’t think she’ll be chosen. And it should come as no surprise that that one girl is Tookie De La Crème—our protagonist.

Yes. Tookie De La Crème.

And with the revelation that our protagonist is Speshul and has a stupid name, the prologue ends.

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“Have you ever seen her?

The girl whose face not even the meanest person you know would describe as yuck but who you’d never in a million—no, a trillion years describe as alluring either.”

What follows the introduction of the first chapter is a pretty detailed list of everything that’s wrong with Tookie, the girl whose: – “eyes are three centimeters too far apart” – “mouth is four centimeters too wide” – “hair has multiple personality disorder” – “body is a contradiction of itself” with “a slightly hunched back”, “feet the size of snowshoes”, “stick-figure arms and legs”, “humongous, punch-bowl-sized head”, “forehead that goes on and on and on”, and “one green eye and one brown one” – “clothing [is] painfully mismatched”

That’s every description of her—none are positive in the slightest. According to the narrator’s own words, that makes the narrator herself an awful person.

The narrator calls Tookie a “Forgetta-Girl”; a girl who no one ever remembers.

“But maybe not for long.”

Real subtle, narrator.

The story proper begins with Tookie lying on the floor of her school, “commonly called” the B3—the Bangle, Bauble, and Bead Institute. We’re given no indication as to whether fashion is the only concern at this school. The narrator takes even more shots at Tookie’s appearance as she count down time by the second, pigging out on whipped cream.

Strangely, despite the abundance of description of Tookie, including how ugly her hair is, we don’t know what Tookie’s hair colour is.

Tookie gets whipped cream on her neck, blouse, and hair. I’m not sure how that happens when she’s lying on her back; maybe she has really bad hand-eye co-ordination, or just a huge pile of whipped cream already in her mouth? We’re told about how she’s the best “skipper” in the school, and that her teachers never notice her disappearing from class. It still begs the question of how no one finds her just lying on the floor outside of class.

As Tookie counts down, we get a bit of angsting from her. Just great. When she reaches zero, the class bells rings—and a horrible-smelling green gas starts coming out of the vents. The gas is a byproduct from B3’s past as a factory. You have to wonder how there’s still gas when B3 is no longer a factory. A quip from a random student refers to the school as B4, which stands for “Bile, Barf, Belches, and Butt Bombs.” Erm…I count five B’s. Also, the narration says that everyone calls it that—yet said earlier that the school is “commonly called” B3.

Several girls talk about how much they want to be chosen on The Day of Discovery, which we’re given “T-DOD” as a shortened form of. That’s another recurring element of Modelland: silly abbreviations. One student mentions that one SMIZE has been found, and the girl who found it burned her hands grabbing it out of a pot of boiled potatoes. I guess a SMIZE outweighs horribly-burned hands.

Tookie begins to angst as a crowd of students begin walking around her, feeling as if she’s being ignored because no one seems to be acknowledging her…except that all of those people haven’t stepped on her. She even angsts about not being hurt by someone:

“Just a simple kick in the ribs or a sneaker sole that squished her hand or a textbook that slipped from a student’s grip and fell on her large forehead. She wasn’t picky.”

Now, if no one was really paying attention to Tookie, how come no one has stepped on her? Wouldn’t someone stepping on her and not noticing be a better indication of how no one is noticing her? Doesn’t this imply that people are taking care not to step on the weird girl who skips class and lies in the middle of the hallway?

…Let’s move on. Someone does notice Tookie—her sister, Myrracle. Yes, Myrracle. Myrracle dances as she mocks Tookie, mispronouncing “DNA”. We get quite a bit on how dense Tookie thinks Myrracle is, even though we’re told how Myrracle has memorized “The Shivera Shuffle” and understands the concept of DNA. Myrracle doesn’t really seem all that stupid to me, and Tookie just comes off as a little insensitive.

Now that we’ve established that Tookie has a sister, Myrracle hurries off. Tookie then pulls out a book she calls the “T-Mail Jail” (oh heavens, now we’re rhyming! DX), also known as the TMJ. The book has numerous phrases trying to get people to read it, but no one does. Given that it’s basically a diary and that (as we’ll learn shortly) she writes in different languages, most people wouldn’t read it. But alas, it just gives a reason for angst.

She picks one of her pens; as it is blue, she writes her entry in English. Yes, Tookie knows a lot of languages. Yes, little reason is given for that. Will it prove helpful in the course of the story? We’ll have to wait and see. Tookie writes a letter addressed to her friend Lizzie, who has been missing for six weeks. She writes about her SPLD campaign—“Silent Protest by Lying Down”—which has been going on for thirty-nine days.

Wait, what?!

This girl lies in the hallway doing nothing and saying nothing for thirty-nine days? The more we learn about Tookie, the more reason we see to ignore her.

At the end of her letter, we’re told about how Tookie can speak almost every language in the world. Why can she do so? Why did she bother to learn so many languages when (as she angsts about) no one speaks to her?

But forget that, because a certain someone is coming: Theophilus Lovelaces, the boy Tookie has a crush on. We learn of how Theophilus is such an awesome guy who wanted to be “among the regular people” instead of going to a private school, how he had tried to help Tookie when she had fallen down a staircase a year before, and how Tookie had made a complete loser out of herself when it had happened. As Theophilus walks towards her, he trips and drops his “VOTE FOR LOVE” button on Tookie. But before she can grab it, a field-hockey stick comes out of nowhere and sends the button flying!

I’m not kidding. That’s exactly what happens.

Tookie chases after the button, during which we get our first glimpse of Abigail Goode, a girl with super-thick and super-long black hair, even from her armpits. This is a character who I suggest you keep in mind—we’re going to be seeing more of her later in the story.

The button ends up in a trash can, and Tookie shoves her hands into the garbage. When she grabs it, she sees that the “VOTE FOR LOVE” button now looks as if it says “T O OKE”. Tookie gushes over this, and becomes even more excited when Theophilus talks to her— “The second sentence Theophilus had ever said to her.”

Except that the earlier part about Theophilus offering to help her off the floor actually has Theophilus saying three sentences:

“Are you okay?”

“That was quite a spill.”

“Okay. Um…sorry.”

Tookie thinks that the damaged button is a sign that they’re meant to be together, but Zarpessa Zarionneaux—Theophilus’s girlfriend—comes along. Tookie stares at them while they kiss, fantasizing about Theophilus dumping Zarpessa and giving Tookie her first kiss. Yes, Tookie has a crush on someone who’s already in a relationship.

As Theophilus and Zarpessa walk away, the chapter comes to a close with more angsting from Tookie.

…Whew, that was a doozy. And sadly, this is not the most contrived moment of stupidity we will see in the book.

It’s obvious that we’re meant to feel sympathetic for Tookie’s plight. She’s depressed and she longs for company. But when making a character you want readers to identify with and sympathesize for, you have to make them likeable. Tookie does nothing to improve her condition, and what she does do in response to her isolation only makes her come off as an antisocial freak who no one would want to be around. Tookie’s actions do not attempt to reach out to others but only serve to isolate herself. The scene in which we’re supposed to be shown how no one cares about Tookie doesn’t work because it’s evident that she would have been stepped on if no one really was paying attention to her. The fix would be simple: have Tookie actively reach out to people, rather than acting antisocial and then angsting about how she has no social life.

So Modelland doesn’t exactly start off with a character a reader would want to care about. Will this book have anyone the reader will care about?

The answer to that question, and more stupidity, awaits in the next chapter: Exodus.

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Chapter Two: Exodus

We start off the second chapter with our “dahling” narrator.

Oh, the smell! The dreadful smell! Poor Tookie, covered in the wretched decay of other people’s refuse.

OH, POOR TOOKIE! Even though it’s entirely her fault, being so obsessed with a boy who’s already in a relationship that she’ll shove her hands into a garbage can for a button.

How I wish I could hand her a pair of loofah mitts or offer her a scalding bath with the essential oils of eucalyptus, beragmot and ylang-ylang with three boxes of baking soda, a gallon of laundry detergent, twelve capfuls of all-purpose bleach, two squirts of antibacterial hand soap, and a dash of ammonia.

Isn’t mixing bleach and ammonia a bad idea?

I would also like to point your attention to how the list before the “with” doesn’t use an Oxford comma while the list after the with does. It is a small thing, but the inconsistency irks me—it just reeks of lazy editing.

Oh, dahling, I can feel the burn now. But you know what they say…no pain, no removal of funk stain.

I’d also like to point out that Tookie stuck just her hands into the garbage can.

After those three paragraphs, we return to Tookie and some extremely unenthusiastic onomatopoeia.

Screech.

Said screech is from the PA speaker above her. The principal’s words randomly omit the first letter from random words. It does it four times in the first (six-word) sentence; the last two sentences only have three words like this in a total of 35 words. I mean, wouldn’t it be ‘nnoying if I ‘ust ‘andomly removed the ‘irst letters from ‘andom ‘ords? Doesn’t that ‘eem ‘inda ‘ointless?

Anyway, the principal’s announcement is that, because of the misuse of water due to girls looking for SMIZEs (they’re implied to travel through the waterways), all of the water in the school has been shut off.

OH, POOR TOOKIE!

Tookie heads for her locker—well, she passes by a bunch of old, ugly lockers and comes to a dumbwaiter which serves as her “locker”, since all of the real lockers had been taken on the first day of school. OH, POOR TOOKIE!

It’s not all bad, since she happens to have a cooler installed in the dumbwaiter and stocked with all kinds of food (but mostly condiments)! We get a little tale about why Tookie doesn’t care for chocolate: she had eaten so much at a chocolate festival in LaDorno that she ended up getting sick and throwing up in the car because her mother wouldn’t pull over.

For punishment her mother had grounded her. Literally. Tookie had been forced to sit and sleep on the floor for one month solid.

Okay, I laughed a bit at that.

After deciding on strawberry whipped cream, she overhears a girl talking about the mayor’s predictions for the upcoming T-DOD (that’s the Day of Discovery, for you people who don’t memorize abbreviations). Tookie gives an angsty thought as she steps outside.

Now we get to learn about Metopia, where our heroine lives! It’s split into four quadrants: Shivera, which is cold; Pitter-Patter, which is “tempestuous”; LaDorno, the home of the elite and T-DOD; and sweltering Peppertown. These quadrants are right up close to each other, and the way it’s written, it’s like the weather is completely different on opposite sides of Metopia’s borders—that totally makes sense. Because of the vastly different environments and abundant natural resources, Metopia became the center of the fashion and beauty industy, with the majority of its people working in harsh assembly lines.

Also, if you remember back to the prologue, Pitter-Patter was written without the hyphen. This is sloppy editing.

And due to the heat, Tookie’s hair immediately puffs up to massive proportions, accompanied by more energetic onomatopoeia:

Whoosh.

We get another glimpse of Abigail Goode, waving a picket sign with the words “DOWN WITH RAZORS!” Okay, then…

We hear more about Peppertown’s heat: a woman walks out of a toe-ring factory, and before she can put on a sun hat, her skin’s already red. If the sun burns that quickly, I fail to see how any human being can survive in Peppertown. (Maybe they’re not human beings. It would explain a lot.) A newspaper held by a random guy fanning his face makes mention of a baroness who bankrupted other people with poor investments in a “Yonzi scheme”. Now, doesn’t that sound familiar…? Granted, it’s not the same thing, but you think Banks would have come up with a word that’s different by more than just one single letter. There’s also two girls at a spraying fire hydrant (who are presumably burnt to a crisp at this point) who remark that a second SMIZE has been found, and perhaps if they cut a SMIZE in half both would receive a 45.5% increase to their chances of being chosen on T-DOD.

At that moment, all eyes turn to the top of a mountain, where the fog has parted to reveal a bright eye in the sky for a short time. As we learn from Zarpessa (Theophilus’s actual girlfriend), the revealed eye is just to drum up anticipation for T-DOD. One of Zarpessa’s friends offers to drive her home, but Zarpessa gives a shifty excuse and hurries off.

As Tookie walks home, she sees messages on the street, inquiring as to the whereabouts of a “Ci~L”. Thankfully, the novel tells us how to pronounce the name (“see-el”). We’re told that Ci~L is “the most magnificent 7Seven ever to grace the earth, a Triple7,” which would probably mean more if we had any clue what either of those words meant. Once the face of fashion everywhere, Ci~L’s advertisements suddenly vanished one day and an announcement came out that Ci~L was no longer accepting work, with no explanation.

Tookie passes by several factories, noticing small children in oversized uniforms. These children are referred to as Factory Dependents, children without parents who live as slaves to the factories. Tookie feels sorry for these children, which is nice to see. Then she passes by reflective glass and we’re reminded of how ugly she is. Joy.

Eventually, Tookie comes to an old oak tree with a treehouse. This is the home of her friend, Lizzie; we’re told that the day that they met, “the nervous red-haired girl had been fleeing an invisible assailant and had dragged Tookie up this very tree with her.” As Tookie approaches, she notices a branch moving, and sees Lizzie’s red hair in the tree. Tookie is filled with joy as she and Lizzie reunite.

The girl darted down the makeshift ladder that hung from the tree cottage, grabbed Tookie’s hand, and pulled her upward.

When they reached the top, the girls extended their palms out, pointed to the sky with both hands, sniffed each armpit, and then curtsied. This was their silent expression of their secret greeting, What’s up, Hot Queen?

Erm…okay. At least it’s not abbreviated. (Your assignment: Show how you would pronounce “WuHQ”.)

Lizzie asks if anyone is with Tookie, and Tookie calls herself a Forgetta-Girl. Lizzie dismisses the label, then she looks down at the ground, terror visible in her eyes. After Tookie assures her that no one else is around, Lizzie happily hugs Tookie.

[Tookie] pulled away and stared at her friend. Lizzie’s skin was oddly smooth, nothing like its normal acne-prone, pockmarked, sunburned state, and she wore a blue hospital gown tied at the back and a pair of doctor’s scrub pants that bagged at the ankles. SHIVERA COUNTY HOSPITAL was stitched on the gown. This always happened when Lizzie returned after a long period.

Lizzie asks what’s been going on with Tookie, and Tookie shows her the T O OKE button and how Theophilus spoke to her. Lizzie remarks on how it must be a sign as well, and Tookie mentions of how Zarpessa came along.

“That girl has everything—gorgeousness, money, Theophilus. Every time Zarpessa touches my Theophilus, it digs at my heart.”

Wait, what?! Your Theophilus? Nice to see that Tookie believes that a boy in a relationship with someone else belongs to her. No wonder no one wants to be around her.

Lizzie then leads Tookie to a Dumpster behind a fancy restaurant, and points out a group of people digging for food in the Dumpster, among them a woman wearing a familiar handbag—Zarpessa. Lizzie suggests that they must have lost their fortune. Zarpessa’s family notices the two girls, and they hurry away. Lizzie tells Tooke about how Zarpessa and her fought over a yellow dress that morning, but after she is done talking about Zarpessa:

Suddenly, midsentence, Lizzie’s expression changed, clouding and contorting into a look Tookie knew all too well. Something else had overtaken Lizzie’s mind. Her body twitched. The muscles in her face stretched and contracted. She glared blankly into Tookie’s eyes.

“Tell them to stop,” Lizzie pleaded in a strange, garbled voice. “They always say it won’t hurt, but it does.”

Tookie tries to bring Lizzie back to reality. Lizzie mentions a “Robyn”, but when Tookie asks her who Robyn is, Lizzie rolls up her sleeve to reveal several scars and burns. Lizzie then grabs a sharp rock and cuts her own arm, despite Tookie’s protests. Tookie asks about what drives Lizzie to hurt herself, suspecting the “Melancholia Ward”, rumoured to be an horrible, merciless place.

We learn about everything that Lizzie has taught Tookie, among them the location of “the undiscovered Peppertown platinum mine.” If it’s undiscovered, how is it a mine? Is it an old, abandoned mine?

Lizzie tells Tookie to not think about where Lizzie goes off to, but Exodus—their plan to escape Metopia together. (There is an abbreviation of sorts for Exodus: X-O-2, the symbol that Tookie would write on her front door when it was time to go.) They fantasize about the factories they would own, such as a grilled-cheese-dipped-in-strawberry-jelly factory for Lizzie. I guess the novel’s trying to tell us that Lizzie is crazy…?

“And there’d be no sharp objects anywhere near our factories,” Tookie said strongly, forcing Lizzie to look into her eyes. “Right?”

One good thing about this chapter is that we’re seeing that Tookie does have compassion for others. To a degree, at least. That puts her leagues above many other Mary-Sue protagonists.

Tookie asks if Lizzie will tell the truth about what happens to her once they leave, but Lizzie tells her that it would put Tookie’s life in danger. Fearing that “they” are getting close, Lizzie says goodbye to Tookie and hurries off.

[Tookie’s] last view of her troubled friend was of Lizzie stooping to pick something up from the ground. Tookie shut her eyes, devastated, when she realized what it was.

Another sharp rock.

I have said that Modelland is not completely awful, that it has its redeeming qualities. Even after the pitiful first chapter and the first half of this chapter, I still stand by that stance.

Chapter 2 presents us with the first major redeeming quality: Lizzie. Lizzie is a character who evokes genuine interest, genuine sympathy. She’s paranoid and afraid, implied to be a victim of horrible experiments. Her fear comes off very well, and as a bonus we get to see some admirable behaviour from our protagonist. Lizzie makes you want to know what is happening to her, makes you wonder how she ties in to the dark rumours surrounding Modelland.

Lizzie makes you want to hear her story. And in a way, this is a bad thing…because it reminds you just how little you care about Tookie’s story.

Next time, we tackle Chapter 3: Da-tahhhh!

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As Chapters Three and Four are quite short (only slightly longer together than Chapter Two), this installment of the Modelland sporking shall be a double feature!

Chapter Three: Da-tahhhh!

We welcome back our dahling narrator for the beginning of the third chapter, as she describes the elegance of the De La Crème residence. I’ll be nice and only subject you to one of the five paragraphs from the dahling narrator.

But be careful what you wish for, dahling. All that glitters is sometimes gold-plated.

Erm, what? I’m pretty sure something that’s gold-plated is still pretty valuable.

As it turns out, the De La Crème residence isn’t in the best shape, with cracks and falling pieces of slate. And as we return to Tookie, a piece of slate “nearly [slices] her skull in two.” That’s a real nice image. She decides to tell her parents about the murderous roof.

Tookie hesistates before entering, and once she does, she trips over a box. Her house is air conditioned to almost zero degrees (probably Celsius) to combat the ridiculous Peppertown heat and because Tookie’s mother believes that people look “fresher” when cold. All of the taps and faucets are on, since the SMIZEs travel through waterways.

Hearing her mother complaining about brown spots, Tookie heads into the kitchen, which is filled with unused appliances.

But if one were to go around the room with a not-very-strong magnifying glass, it would soon become clear that duct tape, electrical tape, caulk, industrial-strength glue, and other binding agents held the walls uptight.

That is some really strong tape. Don’t know why you’d need a magnifying glass to see duct tape, though…

Here we’re introduced to Tookie’s mother, whose name is Creamy De La Crème. Yeah. She’s freaking out over brown spots on bananas, dressed in a pantsuit and holding onto a baby doll named Bellissima, her favourite from her doll collection. Creamy works as a regional manager for a beauty department store and, based on her description, her face hasn’t been treated well by the years.

Creamy (the book refers to her as “Mrs. De La Crème” but I’m not typing that out over and over again) has Tookie grab a pickle out of a jar with her baby fingers. Tookie notices that the garbage is filled with all kinds of edible fruit which doesn’t meet Creamy’s high standards.

After scolding Tookie for trying to turn off the sink, a news report “coincidentally” reports that four SMIZEs have been found, with a group of hooligans having found and fought over one found in a condemned swimming pool. So yes, having a SMIZE is better than being not scarred and disfigured. The news then changes to a report on Ci~L and how there’s no information about her disappearance. Creamy expresses her dislike of Ci~L.

And enter Tookie’s sister Myrracle, accompanied by her friend Brian. The two of them come dancing in, concluding with Myrracle exclaiming the chapter title.

It may just be me, but I can’t help but to picture Derpy Hooves as Myrracle.

Creamy corrects Myrracle and tells her that she should be practising her runway walk instead of dancing.

“But I love dancing.” Myrracle pouted.

“Yes, honey. I know. But you don’t love it better than becoming an Intoxibella, do you?” Mrs. De La Crème shrieked.

Myrracle looked torn, like she didn’t know how to answer.

It’s the bratty sister’s second scene and she’s already more sympathetic than the main character.

Myrracle goes off on a wild rhyming ramble, which leads to the introduction of Mr. De La Crème, his sagging muscles, and his tight black unitard. Also:

He closed his left eye, which was made of glass, an unfortunate souvenir of an acrobatic performance gone awry many years ago when he was The Incredible Chris-Crème-Crobat and not just Christopher De La Crème.

Chris-Crème-Crobat.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Well, it could be worse. He could have been a Zubat…?

Chris asks if Myrracle is excited.

Myrracle lowered her eyes. “I guess. But I’m frightening too.”

Given Myrracle’s characterization, I’m not sure if this is the character being derpy or the editor being derpy.

Brian insults Myrracle’s intelligence, and Chris brings up how, at thirteen years old, Myrracle is participating in The Day of Discovery for the first time—not because of an official minimum age, but because the chosen girls were always thirteen or older.

Chris tells Myrracle to relax, which starts up an argument between Chris and Creamy where Chris accuses Creamy of cheating on him with a staff member of a salon.

“Stop it!” Myrracle whined, and both parents froze. “Back to me, everyone! I’m the most important girl in the room, ‘member?” Her voice and face were so adorable that the tension was momentarily forgotten.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this scene was intended as Myrracle being vain, but I like to think that Myrracle doesn’t like seeing her parents fighting and tugs on their obsession with their daughter in order to calm them down.

Our Forgetta-Girl eats a baby gherkin and grabs a newpaper, which Creamy immediately snatches from her hands. OH, POOR TOOKIE! An article in the newspaper is about the previously-mentioned Yonzi scheme baroness, who turns out to have stolen most of the De La Crèmes’ savings. Then she sees an ad for kettles, Chris reminds her than they have an unused kettle, and Creamy tells Tookie to make some tea. Tookie is revealed to have a serious stammering problem whenever and only when she is talking to her mother, which Creamy tried to fix to no avail.

As Tookie makes the tea, she notices a tiny yellow bubble come out of the faucet. The bubble expands to fill the sink, changing colours. Tookie picks up the bubbles, and it transforms before her eyes “into cellophane-thin, golden cat’s-eye sunglasses without the frames.”

Who didn’t see this coming, raise your hands.

Now, everyone with their hands raised, give yourself a slap in the face.

Chapter Four: 91% Chance

Creamy and Chris immediately tell Tookie to hand over the SMIZE. Chris tries to calm down Creamy, who then insults his butt and takes the SMIZE from Tookie.

Yes, she literally insults Chris’s butt.

“Excuse me!” Mrs. De La Crème shot him a look. “I cannot believe your flabby coach-potato ass has the audacity to tell my hardworking firm one that everything will be okay!”

I believe the phrase is “couch-potato”.

The SMIZE starts shaking and emitting yellow waves. Words appear in the air, telling the De La Crèmes that they hold the seventh and last SMIZE.

“’… The wearer of this SMIZE has a ninety-one-percent chance of being discovered on The Day of Discovery…’”

Wait. Everywhere else, we were told that the SMIZE improves your chances by 91%. Now, having the SMIZE gives you a 91% chance? Consistency? What’s that?

The SMIZE tells them that the wearer should wear something that doesn’t clash with the SMIZE and lists the rules for the SMIZE: only wear it in the Day of Discovery Square, females only, don’t tell others about it, don’t get it wet (“Although the SMIZE comes from water”).

“‘Violation of these rules may cause serious side effects: face-aches, nausea, vomiting, blurry vision, visions of fashion-police brutality, designer knockoffs knocking you upside the head, stinging bees in your hair bonnet, biting wolves in cheap clothing.’”

While most of the worldbuilding in Modelland is stupid rather than interesting or quirky, there still is the occasional laugh to be had.

Thus ends the SMIZE’s message, and Tookie reflects on how her parents had been training Myrracle for T-DOD and all of the dancing trophies that she had won…and how Myrracle is almost certain to go to Modelland.

Creamy tells Tookie that she’ll be coming on T-DOD…to button and zip up Myrracle’s dress and get pickles out of jars. Myrracle calls Tookie “Dookie” and states that she’s on her “periodical”; we learn that Myrracle enjoys mocking Tookie over having gotten her period before Tookie, even though Tookie is two years older.

If Myrracle thinks that not having periods is a bad thing, then she truly is an idiot.

Myrracle reveals the dress she wanted to wear, which Creamy dislikes and passes off to Tookie, saying that they’ll go to LaDorno to find Myrracle a new dress. The rest of the De La Crèmes leave the kitchen, leaving Tookie alone—who now realizes that she forgot to tell her mother about the piece of slate that had nearly split her head in half.

Tookie dejectedly walked to her room, sadly realizing that the Forgetta-Girl had actually forgotten about her own forgettable self.

OH, POOR TOOKIE! Seriously, don’t you feel so sorry for our protagonist who does nothing?

That brings this installment to a close. Stay tuned for Chapter Five: Smacking into Mirrors, where we learn more about Tookie’s dad and what an imbecile he was in the past!

Comment [22]

Chapter Five: Smacking into Mirrors

This chapter, thankfully, does not start off with our dahling narrator. Instead, we’re told about how Tookie and Myrracle’s room is split in half with a line of duct tape, but Myrracle’s stuff ends up on Tookie’s side anyway.

After tossing away Myrracle’s stuff, Tookie sits down and thinks about how Myrracle will have a SMIZE on The Day of Discovery. Her thoughts then turn to Zarpessa and Theophilus, angsting over how Zarpessa had interrupted Tookie’s moment with Theophilus and thinking about her T O OKE button.

Theophilus, oh, Theophilus. Tookie swooned. She closed her eyes and licked her lips.

Your salted-caramel eyes, Theophilus…

She imagined Theophilus right in front of her. She leaned toward him, her eyes closed, her lips caressing the air.

We can call our boy Tookophilus and our girl Thoodie!

She puckered and her lips connected with a solid, cold surface.

Theophilus, she thought. Oh, yes, baby. I’m so happy you’re giving me my very first kiss.

I’m sorry that I had to expose you all to that, but it really must be seen to be believed. Why are we supposed to support Tookie? Why should we care about a girl obsessed with a boy who’s already in a relationship?

Tookie’s makeout session with what turns out to be Myrracle’s mirror is interrupted by Myrracle, asking who Tookie wants to kiss. Myrracle says that kissing “feels like a little wormy man is crawling in your mouth, anyway.”

Because the only kind of kisses are those which involve tongues. Myrracle, you are truly an idiot.

The novel then jumps to Tookie waking up all of a sudden, standing between the kitchen and the living room. So Tookie is a sleepwalker. I wonder if this will get her into any kooky and awkward situations?

In the living room, she sees her father (The Incredible Chris-Crème-Crobat!) balancing on one hand, drunk on TaterMash imported from Kremlingrad. Y’know, Tyra, you could just say “vodka”…

Tookie reminisces about her father’s performances while working with the Circo del Soul troupe and his accident. Circo del Soul. That’s subtle. Chris-Crème-Crobat was to execute a new stunt, one said to be an unparalleled feat.

However, as he reached the seventh-story landing on the stage, his wife Creamy pulled out a mirror to apply makeup. A beam of light happened to reflect straight into Chris-Crème-Crobat’s eyes, causing him to fall. Fortunately, he “landed smoothly on his upper back, propelling himself forward into a smooth tumble.” So he did some sort of roll to negate fall damage, just like in Ocarina of Time?

And as the audience started cheering for him, Chris-Crème-Crobat gave a bow, immediately stabbing his eye into one of the swords around the stage.

…

(numerous self-inflicted injuries to my face)

…

Okay, I’m fine now.

After a mention of Tookie seeing her father’s eye on the tip of the sword, we’re told about how Tookie feared he would die—and how Creamy felt that he was now “defective” and told Tookie not to mention that she was the cause of the beam of light.

At that moment, Chris-Crème-Crobat notices Tookie standing there. She apologizes for scaring him and compliments his routine. Chris-Crème-Crobat asks for Tookie to spot him, and watches him do a handstand. He falls over, then snaps at Tookie for not paying attention. Chris-Crème-Crobat gives Tookie a disgusted look, then says:

“Just go. For all of us,” he said, waving her away.

Tookie, sad about being rejected by her father, goes back to bed without a word. Poor Tookie, she got scolded for agreeing to do something and then daydreaming instead of doing what she said she would do.

This chapter, like the previous two, was fairly short. But the next chapter, Chapter Six, is quite long…and has more than its fair share of very stupid moments.

However, I’m not going to give the name of Chapter Six, because the name of the chapter is the answer to a question that I’m sure has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds since the prologue. (Also because the name of the next chapter is really long.)

That question, and the answer to that question, shall be revealed…next time.

(And no, I have no intention of calling Christopher De La Crème by any name other than “Chris-Crème-Crobat”.)

Comment [52]

It’s time, people, to reveal the answer to a question that I’m sure has been eating at you from ever since the prologue.

Chapter Six: Stunning, Statuesque, Strobotronic Stars with Stupefying Stratospheric Struts

Yes, that is what “7Seven” stands for. And according to my computer’s dictionary, “strobotronic” isn’t a word.

To help you get your mind off of that, let’s turn to our dahling narrator dishing about LaDorno, “the most desirable quadrant in all of Metopia.” The temperature is always pleasant, the humidity is low, and the air is clean. However, to get in, the quadrant’s council will probe through your bank accounts, interview every person you interact with, and check your belongings for any knockoffs or less-than-perfect-pedigree pets. Except for one group of people:

I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but let me clue you in: the names of these sacred souls begin with I and end with -ella. And guess what.

We’re just about to sneak a peek at a few of them.

7Seven of them, to be exact.

7(7) = 49. So there’s forty-nine of these people?

We then go to the De La Crème ladies arriving at the Sapphire Esplanada, the premier mall of LaDorno. Tookie thinks about how Myrracle “was so beautiful it was difficult to look at her for too long”, her mother’s “tanned-skinned, nubile body [with] the face of a pretty monster”, and how she herself is a “gangly girl with gargantuan hair and googly, mismatched eyes.” She thinks of it as all of her parents’ subpar DNA going to her.

The Esplanade is full of The Day of Discovery stuff. As the De La Crème ladies enter, Tookie takes a deep whiff of the smells in the mall and thinks about how she’d prefer to sample barbeque sauces rather than dress shopping with Creamy and Myrracle. She has a bit of an eccentric thing for condiments (her cooler in the first chapter was stocked mostly with condiments).

The De La Crème ladies head up to the top floor to the Jurk store, with dresses designed by Jeremy Jurk. Incidentially, everyone in the store is acting like jurks. After a scene of a girl and her mother who have different opinions on the perfect dress, Tookie feels some longing towards “Normal mothers helping their normal, single-color-eyed daughters.”

Myrracle and Creamy looks for dresses, while Tookie tries to be helpful. Creamy eventually decides on a nude-coloured strapless gown for Myrracle, and despite it having a “Vintage” label, decides that it is perfect.

After they leave the Jurk store, they come upon vendors selling souvenirs for T-DOD. One vendor is selling stuff with the “WHERE THE HELL IS Ci~L?” slogan, and here we get a bit of exposition about Ci~L: green eyes, only Intoxibella to be on the cover of Modelland magazine every month for one year, had contracts with the six top cosmetic brands, had been the only model one season for LaDorno fashion week.

Tookie turns down a souvenir from the vendor, then notices a familiar man she had seen walking home from school. Tookie thinks of him as “Wingtip” because he holds onto the laces of an enormous wingtip shoe slung over his shoulder. He looks at Tookie, and Creamy tells Tookie off for making eye contact with the “demented”. Tookie finds the fact that Wingtip talks to himself a little off-putting, despite how Lizzie does the same at times.

Then Wingtip speaks to her, asking if she is alright. Before she can answer, a loud boom sounds and a heavy wind causes Tookie’s hair to explode. She looks up and sees golden clouds, followed by the fog around the mountain in the center of the town clearing. A glowing eye with a SMIZE appears over the mountain, with smoke spelling out the word “Modelland”.

As everyone stops to watch, a “Gowdee’an-accented voice” speaks from the sky. The voice belongs to the BellaDonna, the ruler of Modelland.

BellaDonna reveals that The Day of Discovery is coming soon, and presents the 7Seven:

“As you all know, only seven girls graduate from Modelland each year, and those talented seven join the ranks of the only famous people, known throughout the world. The Intoxibellas.”

…

The voice grew louder and louder. “Without further ado, I present the Stunning, Statuesque, Strobotronic Stars with Stupefying Stratospheric Struts! The 7Seven! Please worship them as the Intoxibellas they have now become!”

An image of a copper-haired girl appears, along with an explanation of the Sentura: a belt made of gold fabric that allegedly lets Intoxibellas use their powers.

We’re going to get a presentation of the 7Seven now, and while there is a lot of quote-worthy material here, I don’t want to go overboard. So I will describe each of the 7Seven and their power, quoting the most amusing parts.

And I assure you all that all of these spellings are exactly as they appear in the book.

The copper-haired girl is named Evanjalinda, and her power is Chameeleoné. Evanjalinda’s hair colour and physical appearance rapidly changes before the people.

“If I had her, I’d have a different girl every night!” a man next to Tookie cried. “I could stop cheating!”

Then comes Simone, who has the power of Multiplicity. Which makes copies of herself. Ooh-la-la. Poor Simone, she easily has the most lackluster power. Although if I were her, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Next up is Bev Jo. The description of her power merits a quoting:

“Bev Jo’s power? ThirtyNever. When Bev Jo ages to twenty-nine, she will begin her next year looking again like she is seventeen until she reaches twenty-nine again. That cycle will continue until she perishes!”

Because the moment a girl enters the third decade of her life, she is unattractive and undesirable.

Intoxibella #4 is Leemora, with the power of Excite-to-Buy. Yes, Leemora is the ultimate object for marketing. Everyone in the crowd suddenly wants to buy stuff, including Tookie, who wants some CheveuxMal.

The fifth girl is Sinndeesi who has the power of…wait for it…Seeduksheeon!

…

…as one of those weird people who finds the idea of magical seduction fascinating, please excuse me while I slam my face into a table several times.

…all right, all better.

Anyway, the guys in the crowd all start staring.

“I’m ready to sin with Sinndeesi, right here, right now!” one of them yelled.

Next comes Katoocha, who is mentioned to be wearing a quite unfashionable outfit. This ties into her power, SixxSensa. Along with enhanced normal senses, Katoocha also has the power to see into the future of fashion—the outfit she is wearing will be all the rage next year.

“Wow,” Tookie murmured. She wouldn’t have minded having all those powers.

Hey, remember in the beginning of the story when we were told that Tookie was the only girl in the world who didn’t want to go to Modelland?

Finally, we come to the last 7Seven. The BellaDonna states that once again, Modelland did not graduate a Triple7—an Intoxibella with all seven powers. (Where exactly does the “Triple” part come in?) And this Intoxibella is special, because the BellaDonna reveals her power, Teleportaling, before her name: Exodus.

Tookie shot up. Exodus? Was that a sign?

Maybe it is, Tookie. It just might be, considering how: a) you remarking on how it might be a sign is a pretty clear indication that the reader should wonder if it’s a sign; and b) whereas the rest of the 7Seven’s powers were related to modelling and fashion, Teleportaling has nothing to do with modelling.

Exodus falls into a hole that quickly disappears, prompting Myrracle to remark:

“Creamy, she banished right before our eyes!”

Derp.

The ground splits in front of Tookie, and out comes Exodus, who asks Tookie her name. Before Tookie can answer, Myrracle steps in front of her and introduces herself. Exodus leaves without another word, followed by a final proclamation from the BellaDonna:

“Every. Girl. In. The. World. Has. The. Power. Within. Her. To. Become. A. 7. Seven. Is. It. You?”

Well. What. About. All. Of. The. Ugly. Girls? And. It. Is. Annoying. Is. It. To. Talk. Like. This.

I need a break, I need to get away from all of this stupidity. Please book, have mercy on me!

Then Tookie sees someone in familiar attire. Could it be…?

It’s Lizzie! (jumps for joy)

Tookie hurries over to Lizzie, whose body is twitching and whose eyes are rolling back. We get a remark on how unusual it is for Lizzie to be in such a crowded public place.

Lizzie talks about someone taking “her” and pouring liquid metal into “her” veins. She then reveals her feet, disfigured and covered with incisions. Tookie wants to bring Lizzie to a hospital, but Lizzie refuses, saying that they’ll kill her and that there’s another option she wants: Exodus, tomorrow.

Before Tookie can answer, she hears her mother calling for her. In the time that she looks towards Creamy and looks back, Lizzie has vanished. Tookie cries, realizing how dire the situation must be if Lizzie had dared to come into such a place.

And then Wingtip asks her if she is alright again. Tookie insists that she’s fine and that she’s not supposed to talk to him, then asks why he talks to himself.

But Wingtip didn’t look bothered. “Little lady, when your world has been ripped right from under you, you tend to not trust much of what anybody says. Anybody but yourself, that is. And I do a good job of keeping myself company.”

Tookie admits that she speaks to herself as well, and Wingtip says it’ll keep her from going crazy. Wingtip encourages her, tells her to go for her dreams, before leaving. Once he’s gone, Creamy shows up, yelling at Tookie for dropping Myrracle’s dress. Although she would have otherwise backed down from Creamy, she doesn’t, remembering the plan for Exodus and Wingtip’s words:

Everyone’s entitled to dream, you know. Even you.

Despite the stupidness of the 7Seven presentation, this chapter isn’t all that bad. We actually have Tookie motivated to work towards a goal, rather than doing nothing and whining all the time. We get a bit of foreshadowing and intrigue from Exodus the Intoxibella and Wingtip. And best of all, more Lizzie!

And we’ll soon get to see how Tookie and Lizzie’s plan plays out in the next chapter, X-O-2.

Comment [20]

Chapter Seven: X-O-2

Tookie wakes up, having gone to bed immediately after returning home from shopping, to the sound of Creamy and Chris-Crème-Crobat arguing about how Creamy returned late from the mall. Creamy tells Chris-Crème-Crobat about the 7Seven ceremony, which the drunk Chris-Crème-Crobat passes off as an excuse.

Tookie sneaks a look into her mother’s office. We get a bit of description about the dolls and a bit of angsting from Tookie about how her mother doesn’t love her.

Chris-Crème-Crobat retorts that Creamy could have watched the 7Seven ceremony with him, believing that she was instead watching it with her “man friend”. Creamy mocks him for this belief, but Chris-Crème-Crobat continues on this line of thought.

“… Sometimes I think you wish that sword had killed me. So that you could continue your life with her father!”

Creamy asks what Chris-Crème-Crobat means, and he states that he is referring to Creamy’s daughter’s father. When Creamy asks if he means Myrracle, he states that he knows Myrracle is his daughter and that he’ll share in her fortunes…and that he is referring to Creamy’s other daughter.

What perfect timing for them to get into this argument! And what a coincidence that Tookie is awake to hear that Chris-Crème-Crobat may not be her father! (Then again, don’t Pokemon babies take on the breed of their mother?)

Creamy mentions Tookie’s one green eye, but Chris-Crème-Crobat denies it means anything, calling Tookie a “circus freak” and “uncoordinated, unattractive, and unmemorable.” Creamy says that Chris-Crème-Crobat doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but because Creamy doesn’t explicitly say that Tookie isn’t any of those things, Tookie takes it as a sign that her mother doesn’t love her. Because no one can like a person that they think is clumsy, ugly, and forgettable.

Chris-Crème-Crobat continues to express his belief that Tookie is not his daughter, mentioning that Creamy gave birth to Tookie while he was away performing. He mentions that the doctors believed that Creamy wouldn’t be able to have any more children, though they ended up having Myrracle two years later, whom Chris-Crème-Crobat appreciates because of her resemblance to her father.

Creamy insists he is out of his mind, and Chris-Crème-Crobat punches through a wall as if proving the fact. Chris-Crème-Crobat reveals his plan: to have a paternity test done for Tookie, using her toothbrush. If—or, as Chris-Crème-Crobat believes, when—it turns out that Tookie is not his daughter, he’ll have her sent away to the factories.

Tookie thinks back to the Factory Dependents she saw (back in Chapter Two) and accidentally makes a noise. Chris-Crème-Crobat hears it, notices her, and tells her off with the same words he used previously:

“Just go,” he said gruffly, staring at her with his good eye. “For all of us.”

Tookie hurries out of the house, reflecting on what her father said about her. She decides that she has to leave, and knows what to do: Exodus.

The next morning, Tookie packs her bag. Knowing it might be the last time she ever sees Myrracle, Tookie whispers some words of encouragement to her, saying that she hopes Myrracle will be happy at Modelland.

It’s revealed that the night before, Tookie painted “X-O-2” on the front door of her house—the sign to Lizzie for Exodus—and that Lizzie had replied with the time that they would leave. Tookie thinks about the possibilities, away from Peppertown, and counts down the steps to the door—

And Creamy spots her. Creamy is sporting a top that reads “Modelland needs a Myrracle!” and thinks that Tookie’s bag is extra supplies for Myrracle. Tookie tries to get outside, but Creamy stops her and forces her to go. Chris-Crème-Crobat and Brian (Myrracle’s friend who regularly insults her intelligence) are waiting by the car. Chris-Crème-Crobat is dressed in the same costume that he had lost his eye in, complete with bloodstains.

…ew.

Tookie tries to resist, but her parents grab hold of her and drag her to the car, where she gets shoved in the back. All Tookie can think about is how scared Lizzie was and if her life was really in danger.

And as the car starts, Tookie lays eyes on Lizzie. The rest of the De La Crèmes and Brian glare at Lizzie’s unseemly appearance.

Lizzie’s eyes popped wide, as if she’d just seen something that terrified her. She took a couple of wheeling backward steps, her hands trembling. And then Lizzie let out a shrill, window-shattering, eardrum-piercing scream, a sound that sent tremors through Tookie’s limbs. A sound Tookie would never forget as long as she lived.

“I’m so so so sorry!” Tookie called. Lizzie’s screaming was intensifying as Tookie moved away from her. Lizzie, I’ll be back for you tonight! I promise!”

The car made a sweeping left turn onto the street, moving farther and farther away from the small red-headed girl. Lizzie’s screams persisted. Tookie could hear those loud, shrill, betrayed wails for blocks and blocks, reverberating over and over as the De La Crèmes drove down the wide avenue full of cars, all on their way to The Day of Discovery.

Poor Lizzie. And oh, poor Tookie.

And I’m not saying this sarcastically. Tyra has finally made me feel sympathetic for Tookie, even though she’s been trying to do so heavy-handedly for the entire book. All it took was giving the protagonist some sort of motivation and presenting them with real problems that stood as a serious threat to their aspirations.

This chapter was not bad at all, and it’s chapters like this one and the latter half of the second chapter that make Modelland a not-entirely-awful book. But it still makes you wish that all of it was up to the same level of quality.

Chapter Eight: Welcome to T-DOD

And who better to welcome us than our dahling narrator? Surprisingly, among the stupid things the dahling narrator says, there is actually one thing of note here, something mentioned in the prologue, so let’s get started!

Our dahling narrator tells us that The Day of Discovery has arrived, and all around the world, from “the sexy beaches of Terra BossaNova” to “the strip of Striptown” and “the Taj Gardens in Chakra”, although Metopia is the best place to experience T-DOD due to its proximity to Modelland.

I don’t think you could come up with a stupider name for your version of India than “Chakra”.

But our dahling narrator reveals a darker side of T-DOD: some who are not selected to go to Modelland cannot accept the decision, and become determined to reach Modelland by any means necessary. These girls who decide to embark across the Diabolical Divide are referred to as “Pilgrims” suffering from a “Plague”.

This plague is worse than the one you might already be familiar with—the B one. Bubonic, that is. That plague induces seizures, fevers, chills, gland swelling, the upchucking of blood, and the decomposition of skin while one is still alive. But I will take the bubonic plague any day—for if it’s caught in time, it can be ousted from the body with a simple swallow of one of the two “mycins”: genta or strepto. The Pilgrim Plague, however, is terminal, dahling. And I am not referring to an airline departure lounge. None who have journeyed up the mountain have ever made it to Modelland. And none have returned to Metopia alive.

Now, doesn’t that send Shivera shivers all the way down to your sky-high stilettos?

Remember how I said that the dahling narrator would say plenty of stupid things?

Also, hmmm I wonder why the narrator decided to bring that up. It couldn’t possibly come up later in the story could it…?

We return to the story, where the Chris-Crème-Crobat-Mobile (the De La Crèmes’ car) are arriving in LaDorno. There’s plenty of T-DOD merchandise, adorned with the “WHERE THE HELL IS Ci~L?” slogan, as well as protesters with signs claiming that T-DOD is a sham. Tookie sees shoulder bags with photos of Exodus the Intoxibella and thinks of Exodus the plan, feeling horrible about Lizzie.

There’s also plenty of girls who show confidence, even though—as Tookie thinks—not all of them are “exactly Intoxibella quality.” Then she angsts about having to help Myrracle. Creamy tells Myrracle not to dance as she applies makeup to Myrracle.

Chris-Crème-Crobat finds a parking space for the Crobatmobile, and Tookie ends up carrying the bag she packed for Exodus as they head into town square. We get a description of three mysterious obelisks, known as the Obscure Obelisks, at the base of the Modelland mountain which are sacred to some people and a tourist attraction to others. Creamy voices her disgust towards the obelisks, but Tookie has a different view of them:

I don’t think they’re ugly. Tookie gazed at them with wonder. I think they’re architecturally interesting.
Unique. A mystery.

Well, la-di-da.

The De La Crèmes set up on a patch of grass, where all around them other girls are changing their clothes in the open. They’re explicitly described as being naked.

Now, remember that girls as young as thirteen participate in The Day of Discovery.

However, Chris-Crème-Crobat declares “Not my Myrracle!” to apparently no one at all and sets up a blow-up tent for Myrracle. Creamy has Myrracle’s friend Brian go into Tookie’s bag, where they find flashlights, pillows, and green bananas to Creamy’s delight.

Myrracle puts on her dress inside of the tent; ironically, the dress is the same colour as her own skin. Tookie buttons the bodice with her baby fingers while Creamy does Myrracle’s hair. Tookie asks her mother if anything is going to change, and to Tookie’s horror, Creamy replies that she will honour Chris-Crème-Crobat’s decisions.

Myrracle puts on the SMIZE, causing everyone to stare and compliment her. Tookie even thinks that Myrracle with her SMIZE looks even more beautiful than the 7Sevens.

The mayor of Metopia, Devin Rump the Sixth, arrives and gives an introduction to The Day of Discovery. He muses about what look will attract the eyes of Modelland this season.

Tookie used to watch the mayor every year on television on The Day of Discovery, wishing, hoping he’d utter, Will it be girls with one brown and one green eye?
But it had never happened.

So much for Tookie being the only person who doesn’t want to go to Modelland.

Mayor Rump also states that the losers can get themselves a job in the factories. No one applauds.

Myrracle asks Tookie if she looks alright, and Tookie feels some empathy towards Myrracle, knowing it might be the last time she ever sees Myrracle. Tookie compliments her appearance, followed by Chris-Crème-Crobat giving words of encouragement to Myrracle. Or rather, saying, “This is our destiny.”

You do have to feel a little sympathy for Myrracle. Even though she is a brat, she’s become little more than a tool for fame and fortune to Creamy and Chris-Crème-Crobat.

And shortly afterwards, Mayor Rump says the word:

“Begin.”

Next time…Bzzz!

(Bzzz?)

Comment [38]

Chapter Nine: Bzzz

All of the girls start walking to the music of T-DOD, heading down invisible walkways. We learn that while violence isn’t encouraged, it isn’t condemned either. Shortly after we’re told this, fighting and hysterics break out as girls trip over each other, rip each others’ dresses, and even fall onto the De La Crèmes’ tent.

Two girls got into a fight at the end of their makeshift catwalk, rolling to the ground. “Kenya, use the Gyaku Zuki move!” her mother screamed. “Reverse-punch the hairy hag! But watch your hair, sweetie!”

Gyaku Zuki move — Down, down-forward, forward, away, strong punch

That hairy hag naturally happens to be Abigail Goode, still unshaved and still toting the DOWN WITH RAZORS! sign. Tookie is surprised that even Abigail is competing in T-DOD.

Well, isn’t it nice that Abigail is happy with her own body image?

Abigail isn’t the only unusual walker: there’s also an old man on a power scooter, two homeless women in trash bags and sweat suits, and a bunch of drunk boys.

The rest of the De La Crèmes give words of encouragement to Myrracle, telling her to “‘Dance in your spirit, but not with your body.’” Myrracle starts walking, and her mother threatens her with physical harm if Myrracle sways too much. When she reaches the end of her imaginary catwalk, Myrracle comes face-to-face with Abigail Goode, whom she promptly shoves out of the way, causing Abigail to hit her head on the old man’s scooter and lose consciousness.

You always have to be careful for old people in scooters and random field hockey sticks in Metopia.

As Myrracle continues walking, Tookie hears the voice of Theophilus Lovelaces, who asks if Tookie isn’t participating.

Tookie opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. She was dying to say, Really? Me? Have you lost your mind? But instead a cross between a yelp, a sneeze, and a burp came out.

And this is why you have no friends except for Lizzie, Tookie.

Theophilus says that he thinks T-DOD is crazy, and we get a mention of Zarpessa Zarionneaux walking over an open manhole which has already claimed three girls. Metopia, the stupidest country in the world. Tookie makes a remark about trash, which Theophilus almost catches onto. He asks her her name, but before Tookie can tell her, Zarpessa calls for him and he hurries away “toward his beloved.” Well, at least the book acknowledges that he’s in a relationship with someone else.

Suddenly, the sun and clouds vanish in a yellow flash. Someone shouts “‘The Scouts!’” A nearby lamppost turns into one of these Scouts, who takes the hand of a girl and vanishes without a word. The girl’s mother promptly hugs the lamppost, which has reappeared where the Scout had appeared. Another Scout emerges from an asteroid that smashes into the ground. The girl she chooses seems hesistant of being chosen, so other girls start telling the Scout to pick them instead, but the Scout disappears with her original pick after the girl’s mother tells the Scout that she doesn’t have any money to feed the girl.

Next comes one of the homeless women’s carts going out of control and falling over, spawning a third Scout. The mother of the girl this Scout chooses cheers at first, but has “the tiniest look of disappointment on [her] face” as the Scout and her daughter disappear.

All the while, Mayor Rump announces the time left for T-DOD, which is steadily ticking away. Chris-Crème-Crobat tells Tookie to join him and Brian on the top of a blinged-out low-rider. Creamy looks worried, but believes that Myrracle will be chosen.

Then, Tookie feels a vibration at her feet, accompanied by the sound of “Bzzz.” Well, I guess that explains the chapter title. Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen?

With more “Bzzz“s, the roof of the low-rider turns into a layer of fabric. Creamy realizes that it must be a Scout appearing, and calls for Myrracle to hurry over. Many girls start to form a circle around the low-rider, trying to get the Scout’s attention. Tookie notices Theophilus with an amused look, staring at Tookie. Creamy tells her to get off of the car, but Tookie sees no way to get off with all of the girls surrounding the car. Instead, she helps Myrracle up onto the hood of the low-rider. Myrracle promptly pushes Tookie over, almost knocking her off of the car.

“I’m here!” Myrracle cried. She stood in the center of the hood, hands in the air, her chin thrust high. “Da-tahhhh!”

Creamy screams at Tookie to move, but Tookie wants to watch. The fabric splits in the middle, sending Myrracle flying off of the car. Hmm, I wonder where this is going…

Creamy and Chris-Crème-Crobat push Myrracle back up onto the hood, just in time for the Scout to appear. Fireworks in the sky show the time of T-DOD counting down, slowly drawing towards zero. With Tookie and Myrracle marvelling at the beauty of the Scout, the De La Crème parents gush with excitement of the Scout taking their daughter.

And then the Scout reached out her long, slender, radiantly decorated hand and beckoned.

For Tookie.

Who did not see that one coming?

Next time on Modelland, a three-chapter bonanza where we travel to Bou-Big-Tique Nation, Canne Del Abra, and SansColor to meet the three twits who will become Tookie’s friends. Trust me, these chapters shall be…“cuh-ray-zee!”

Let this video set the mood for the next installment.

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Strap in people, because we’re about to meet the people who shall be Tookie’s friends! Fear not, for the fail is strong with these chapters.

Chapter Ten: Bou-Big-Tique Nation

(You have no idea how annoying that is to type; every time I went to type it, I typed “Big-Bou-Tique Nation”.)

The De La Crèmes are in disbelief at the Scout’s decision to choose Tookie. Creamy even pushes Myrracle in front of the Scout, but the Scout stays focused on Tookie. As Myrracle tries to grab a list from the Scout’s hand, the Scout jerks away, causing one of her necklaces to hit Myrracle in the face. Creamy protests, but changes her tune immediately as soon as the Scout seems irritated, begging the Scout to choose Myrracle.

Myrracle pointed accusingly at Tookie. “She’s the one you should be smacking! She doesn’t even care about Modelland!”

“Yes I do,” Tookie said softly. “Not that any of you have ever asked.”

And not like the book said that you weren’t interested in Modelland. Oh, wait…

Creamy pushes Tookie off of the car again, but Chris-Crème-Crobat of all people protests—in his mind, it’s good enough that the Scout wants one of their daughters, no matter who it is. Creamy calls him out on his hypocrisy, given what he said about believing that Tookie wasn’t his daughter. Chris-Crème-Crobat tells Tookie not to listen, calling her “Daddy’s special baby girl.” This is followed up by his recurring phrase:

“Just go,” Mr. De La Crème told Tookie. “For all of us.”

Well, on the bright side of these chapters, time to say goodbye to this scumbag!

Tookie isn’t sure whether her father is truly being affectionate towards her, or just likes her now that she has been chosen. We’re told about how Tookie’s face appears on numerous screens all over the world, while girls scream to their mothers about how some ugly girl gets to go to Modelland and they don’t. Remembering Wingtip’s words to her, she takes the Scout’s hand. A fabric pouch forms around her, and the Scout carries her off, with Myrracle screaming on top of the car.

As Tookie is carried off in the Scout’s pouch, she sees a bunch of parties—and then a certain redhead. Tookie screams to Lizzie, fearing that Lizzie might think that Tookie abandoned Exodus (their plan) for Modelland. Lizzie can’t hear Tookie, and runs off into the shadows, to Tookie’s sorrow.

The Scout dives towards the sidewalk, but instead of crashing horribly as Tookie fears, the Scout goes right into the sidewalk, reappearing in some sort of store. Just as Tookie realizes that she is in Bou-Big-Tique Nation, a man over the PA annouces the name of the location. Bou-Big-Tique Nation, as we’re told, is more than just a massive store—people live inside of the store, in large houses on the upper level and motor homes. Since it is in a different time zone, T-DOD is still on in Bou-Big-Tique Nation.

We get some description of a few girls, then we’re told about the Scout looking around. She spots a girl, with a name tag that reads “Dylan”. She’s described as being “shaped like a bottle of Bou-Big-Tique cola”, because all cola bottles are shaped exactly the same. We get some more description of her, along with a little girl asking why she can’t join the walk. And let me give you the first taste of dialogue from Dylan:

“DeeDee, you know you can’t walk today, babycakes. You’re only five years old. Plus, Mama would go cuh-ray-zee on me if she saw you anywhere near that loony-bin farm of desperate chicks.”

…I’m already optimistic about Dylan.

Dylan has the little girl walk around her, while a fight breaks out over a girl claiming that another girl stole her walking style. Dylan goes over to the source of the fight, and we’re told that she “looked graceful and very sexy even as she slid in the oil spill.” She scolds the girls, telling them to stop fighting and get back to walking, despite their ruffled appearances.

“Cuz whoo chile, y’all look cuh-ray-zee.”

The Scout heads over to Dylan, who realizes what the Scout wants from her. Dylan mentions her four brothers and four sisters and how she has to take care of them, but then her mother tells her not to worry and to go. To which Dylan says:

“Maybe a little—or should I say a lot—of some Bou-Big-Tique booty is just what Miss Modelland needs!”

And then she promptly faints.

I hate Dylan already.

The Scout shoves Dylan into the pouch with Tookie, as if the whole “pouch” thing wasn’t awkward enough. Dylan introduces herself and remarks that she finds Tookie’s eyes to be “interestin’.” That’s a good indication that we’re supposed to like Dylan, right? After Tookie introduces herself, the Scout takes off with the pouch.

Chapter Eleven: Shiraz Shiraz

The pouch starts filling up with thick white goo.

…

…

After the goo solidifies around them, it cracks open, and Tookie and Dylan fall out of a broken candle. Dylan, being an idiot, asks the Scout if they “for real just pop out of a candle?” The Scout doesn’t give an answer.

It turns out they’ve arrived in the land of candles, judging by how the darkened town is lit by candles. There’s even candles on each house, instead of chimneys. I don’t want to ask how or why. The candles even relight themselves. Tookie realizes where they are: Canne Del Abra, the world’s center of candle-making. After Tookie says this, Dylan asks, “For real for real?” She asks Tookie if she loves fudge, and when Tookie grimaces, Dylan says that she must be “cuh-ray-zee!”

New drinking game (which I shall be playing with ginger ale): a drink for every time Dylan says “for real” or “cuh-ray-zee”. It shall be called the FiveD, short for the Death by Drinking Due to Dylan Derpiness.

The Scout goes off, and Tookie overhears a teenage girl talking. And I’m going to reproduce the arcane language of Labrian, according to Banks, right here:

“Aéï ëì æîï áùáéì ììëú, éååùåüøååî ëì æîï.”

Tookie knows the language, because as we learned in the first chapter, Tookie knows a bunch of languages despite being a chronic class-skipper and having no friends. How convenient, huh?

A petite, muscular girl comes along, singing a song in Labrian. The song translated into English just happens to rhyme and flow properly. What a coincidence! You’d think that the words in English wouldn’t flow so well!

The singing girl gives a dress to the teenage girl, then takes off. The father of the teenage girl calls the singing girl “Shiraz”. Hmm, I wonder if Shiraz will be joining Tookie and Dylan? Dylan remarks on how “that chick is quick”. I’ll try to avoid over-quoting Dylan in future installments, but I really want you all to get a feel for just how much stupidity comes out of Dylan’s mouth.

The Scout swoops down, landing in Shiraz’s path. Shiraz seems unsurprised and quickly realizes that the Scout has come for her, voicing her realization first in Labrian and then in English so the Scout can understand. Extending her hand, the Scout takes Shiraz and shoves her into the pouch with Tookie and Dylan. Shiraz is surprised that Tookie and Dylan have been chosen as well, in poor English. And this prompts an extremely stupid shouting match between Shiraz and Dylan:

“But you two, you are not the beauty exceptional like Shiraz.”

Dylan pursed her lips. “Ex-cuh-yuse ME! You may be all cute and little and can run as fast as an exotic feline in the plains, but hold up a sec, Miss Thang, cuz Miss Modelland, or should I say the Modelland“—Dylan mocked Shiraz—“don’t have girls lookin’ like you up in there either! And besides, you weren’t even tryin’ out, honey! Me and her saw you!”

Shiraz sniffed huffily. “The jealousies in your big body are burning like big dripless candle. I blow you out now.” She puckered her lips and blew in Dylan’s face.

Dylan’s nostrils flared. “Oh no, this little dot-faced thang did NOT just bl—”

Tookie interrupts them, thankfully putting an end to their idiotic attacks on each other. She reminds them that none of them look like typical Modelland girls, speaking in Labrian for Shiraz, and this calms the two girls down. Dylan asks if Tookie has any idea as to why they were chosen, but Tookie is clueless.

Well, that shouldn’t be too surprising.

Chapter Twelve: First Princess of Sans Color

Next thing you know, the Scout and the pouch come out of a woman’s ear. The woman isn’t too pleased about that.

We’re told about a dome-covered, high-tech-looking city in the distance. The Scout flies through the city, and when she arrives at the city square, we’re told about a group of girls, all with white hair and pale, nearly-translucent skin.

Oh no.

Hereditary albinism!

Tookie realizes that they are in SansColor.

“Sans-cuh-what?” Dylan asked.

“Um, SansColor,” Tookie mumbled, unaccustomed to people asking her direct questions.

Because we needed another reminder that a) Tookie is socially-awkward and b) Dylan is a moron.

The albino girls march in various shades of blue, a display that fascinates Tookie. On the other hand, Dylan is less impressed:

“How do they stand out, for goodness’ sakes? It’s the battle of the blands!”

Because we needed to reinforce how Dylan is an insensitive jerk.

Shiraz asks if everyone in SansColor is sick, given that even the birds are albinos. Tookie points out that everyone has hereditary albinism. The people of SansColor are heard making strange popping and sucking sounds, which is actually their language, Colorian, which Tookie also happens to understand.

A woman on a throne—the prime minister of SansColor—makes an announcement about how a girl chosen from Modelland could make a good ambassador, and that the Scout can choose whoever she wishes as long as she guarantees their safety.

A tall, bored-looking albino girl steps out from behind the throne. We get a comment about how the people in SansColor are supposed to be extremely intelligent, which I’m now wondering if it is a stereotype of albino people.

The Scout lands in front of the bored-looking girl. The prime minister says that they cannot take the girl, but the girl— “Piper, First Princess of SansColor” (no space)—tells the Scout not to listen to her “ridiculous mother the queen” and accepts the invitation to Modelland.

Piper gets stuffed in the pouch, and the Scout flies off, being fired upon by the SansColor soldiers. The pouch falls into a ruined concrete jungle, where thousands of spears wielded by “demonic yellow-eyed jungle inhabitants” start pointing towards the pouch.

One wrong move and the pouch would be ripped to shreds.

I suppose that this is a perfect cliffhanger to leave Tookie and her new soon-to-be-friends! (Oh, who am I kidding? Like anyone really thinks something bad will happen to them.) What lies in store for these four unusual new models? What will they discover within Modelland? What kind of stupid stuff will come out of Dylan’s mouth next?

Join us next time for the next two chapters, where we learn the answer to a question that’s been popping up throughout the book so far and finally arrive at Modelland!

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Chapter Thirteen: The Express Lane

“What in the name of wombat milk are those thangs?”

If you need to ask who said that, then clearly you haven’t read the previous updates.

Piper tries to speak the name of the creatures, but can’t manage to say it. Tookie says it—the LeGizzârds. What are they? We don’t get any description of them

Tookie calms Piper down by talking in Colorian. Dylan introduces Tookie to Piper, and Shiraz correctly infers that the bubble around SansColor is to keep the LeGizzârds out. Piper exposits about how many Colorians, including her father, have been killed by the LeGizzârds, although her mother claims that Piper’s father died from a “deadly dermal disease.” No, I think he was really killed by bad alliteration.

Shiraz and Dylan also reveal that their fathers are dead, and Tookie is asked about her own father. She says that she lost her father as well, noting that it’s not entirely the same thing as the other three. What a great way to start off a friendship—misleading your soon-to-be friends!

Piper notices Dylan staring, and explains her albinism. She also mentions that her mother isn’t really a queen and she isn’t really a princess; she just uses those words to annoy her mother.

The pouch then arrives over a thick cloud of fog, with heavy drumbeats and what they suspect to be the gates to Modelland in the distance. Shiraz begins to fear that they were chosen to be sacrificed, and starts singing a song. The song is quite eloquent for someone who apparently isn’t the best at English as established earlier. Dylan also mentions sacrifice rumours, faints, then reiterates that she has four brothers and four sisters. Tookie is also fearful, having heard of sacrifice rumours in Metopia as well, and begins to think that this is all too good to be true.

They pass over the Diabolical Divide, where they see various articles of clothing.

“Those items must be from the expired Pilgrims who caught the Plague,” Piper said quietly.

“Expired?” Dylan shook her head. “The princess of SansColor is also the princess of understatement! Those Pilgrims aren’t just expired, honey—they’re dead!”

I’d really like Dylan to go expire in a hole now.

The Gates of Modelland come into view, and after a description, the walls of the pouch start dripping liquid. Dylan fears that they’re going to be electrocuted with the liquid, and the girls all hold hands. The pouch crashes into the ground, spilling the girls out. It also produces an umbrella out of nowhere for Piper to shield herself from the sun.

The drumming stops, and a strange being approaches with a head shaped like a human hand, with eyes, nostrils, and lips in the palm of the hand, but an ordinary human body.

With a heavy Très Jolie (French) accent and numerous French words, the creature introduces itself as Guru Applaussez, a name which I look forward to typing more times. He takes them for being seamstresses.

Yellow smoke starts rising around them. The girls start fearing that they are being sacrificed, but the smoke flies away and forms a door. A nude figure steps out, shoots fabric out of its fingers which turns into underwear that flies around the girls’ heads (?), and chooses a pair of blue bloomers. A necklace appears, which causes Tookie to recognize the figure as the Scout that had chosen the four girls. She produces more clothes that she puts on, then her necklace turns into a belt of yellow fabric around the Scout’s waist—her Sentura.

The Scout lifts a veil off of her face, and guess who the hell it is? It’s Ci~L! We get a long-winded description of her beauty, followed by Ci~L complaining about her armpit sweat.

Lovely.

Ci~L looks at the girls, then after her expression turns dark suddenly, she puts her ear to Dylan’s mouth, “[moves] to Shiraz and [places] her fingers on her wrist” (Whose fingers? Whose wrist?), then touches Piper’s chest. Then she simply extends her hand towards Tookie.

Guru Applaussez says that he will take the seamstresses, but Ci~L tells him that they “are not dressmakers, they are tastemakers—of tomorrow. Bellas of Modelland.”

As they know that “Bellas” are students at Modelland, the girls realize that they must not be sacrifices. Guru Applaussez goes off, and Ci~L mentions that he’s just frustrated that the rest of his family has four hands while he only has three. I’m not sure if I want to know how that works.

We get more exposition on how awesome Ci~L is: she’s a poetry-slam champion and gave speeches at college graduations. Tookie wonders if Ci~L had been demoted, given that Scouts are the girls who almost reached 7Seven status but didn’t quite make it. The girls then shout out a cheer for Ci~L, who asks them not to worship her. Ci~L unenthusiastically starts the “welcome crap”, but cuts it short, given that they’ll be hearing it shortly “from a stone bitch”. Dylan asks her to recite a poem, to which Ci~L refuses; Piper asks her to show off her powers, which gets us this lovely remark:

“Honey chile, you’ve already seen the powers at work,” Ci~L said nonchalantly. “How do you think we got to Modelland? In a bus?”

Well, Ci~L is probably the most interesting character so far. After Lizzie, of course.

Ci~L says that she’ll be seeing them if they pass the torture tests, leading Tookie to wonder what Ci~L meant. More Scouts and their picks arrive, and Tookie’s group is led to a strange face where they are told that they register. We get a few more names and countries from the other new students: Veekay of NorDenSwee, Franca of Cappuccina, Kamalini of Chakra, Bibiana of Terra BossaNova, and…Zarpessa of Metopia. Tookie is surprised to see Zarpessa there, and after blurting out Zarpessa’s name, knows from the look on Zarpessa’s face that the girl knows that Tookie saw her at the Dumpsters.

Finally, Tookie’s turn to get registered comes. After she says her name, the face announces, “Sub—um…substantiated.” Ci~L pushes Tookie on through, then seemingly whispers something to the face. Rather, one of her necklace-“tentacles” send sparks into the painting, seemingly scrambling the face. When Tookie’s three friends approach the face, they are verified before they even finish saying their home country’s names. No one else seemingly notices anything out of the ordinary, and Ci~L describes the process as the “express lane”. Her almost-bipolar demeanour leaves Tookie wondering whose side Ci~L is on. As the gates open, Ci~L describes Modelland as a torture chamber and makes a mention of some sort of mess she is in. She then falls into a hole in the ground, without giving any answer to Tookie asking what she meant.

The new Bellas watch the gates open, and Tookie squints to look at Modelland.

Through the still-narrow slit, she saw that it was like nothing she could ever have imagined.

Chapter Fourteen: Arancia Rossa di Sicilia

The girls walk down a path lined with statues of beautiful women. Fireworks form the word “welcome” in other languages. A citrus scent wafts towards them, which Piper identifies as arancia rossa di Sicilia —or, as Tookie puts it, blood orange. Yes, this chapter is fancily-named after a scent that briefly appears in the chapter. After a bit of stupid dialogue from Dylan, they come upon ten similar-looking girls, each wearing a badge that identifies them as Modelland Bella Tour Guides. All of them seem confused about our four heroines.

The Tour Guides form golden copies of themselves, which they use as mirrors to fix their appearance before telling the girls to step onto the gold surface they were on. As the new Bellas do so, golden copies of each girl appear—except for Tookie, Dylan, Shiraz, and Piper, for whom giant question marks appear. Zarpessa makes an insulting comment towards them. You’d think that, given Zarpessa’s apparent fear of having her Dumpster-dive outed, she wouldn’t potentially provoke Tookie. But that would make sense for a better character, not the stereotypical “mean girl”.

One of the Tour Guides asks for Tookie; based on her description, she’s from an Eastern country and has a “BayJingle” accent.

I wondered what “BayJingle” was supposed to mean, until I said it aloud. “BayJingle…Beijing.” And then promptly slapped myself in the face. Such creativity!

It makes you wonder though—is this supposed to be in our world? You’d think so, given the obvious connections in the names (Striptown = Las Vegas, BayJingle = Beijing), but then again, our world doesn’t have countries with four completely different climates or countries full of albino people. All it does for me is to leave me confused and my opinion of this book slightly lower.

The Tour Guide introduces herself as ZhenZhen, who swapped out the group she was supposed to lead for Tookie’s merely because they were brought in by Ci~L. It even turns out that she changed her hair colour to reddish-brown, as Guru Applaussez tells her to change it back to its black colour.

Dylan was eyeing ZhenZhen like she should be locked up in a mental facility.

Heavens, did Dylan just express something that was actually smart?

We then get ZhenZhen gushing about Ci~L, even mentioning that she wanted to change her name to Zhen~L. When she notices that only Tookie’s name is on her list, Ci~L pops up and magics her friends’ names onto the list. Now that actually seems like a useful power, rather than something stupid like “Excite-to-Buy” or “Seeduksheeon”. Tookie wonders if Ci~L had anything to do with her friends’ names popping up on ZhenZhen’s list. It’s surely a mystery, given that her friends’ names seemingly appeared by magic when Ci~L was doing a gesture that she had done earlier, where she had made it quite clear that she was tampering with something.

They’re led over to another group of recruits, who immediately start whispering amongst each other over our four heroines. ZhenZhen takes Zarpessa’s group of new Bellas as well, telling them that she doesn’t want them getting clawed on their first day. She takes the new students around the buildings, first to the M building where the BellaDonna and administration staff are. ZhenZhen tells them that they cannot enter the M building without an invitation.

Next, she takes them to the O building, which stands for Opera. She tells them that the BellaDonna is part of the royal line which commands the school, and leads them to a circle showing images of the most famous Intoxibellas. Tookie recognizes the 7Sevens from the demonstration before T-DOD, and is reminded of Lizzie when she sees Exodus’s name. Shiraz notices that one of the images is fuzzy, and ZhenZhen reveals that the image is Ci~L’s.

Zarpessa then tells them that she heard that Ci~L was “off message” and is back at Modelland as a punishment. The girls in the group start gossipping, in languages that Tookie recognizes: the languages of Kwaito (“the land of safaris and tribal dance”) and TooLip (“the land of windmills”), along with Pyramidian. I’m not sure which of these are the stupidest.

ZhenZhen tells the group to stop gossiping, then leads them to Beautification Boulevard, where their classes will be—if they survive “THBC”. Tookie asks what “THBC” is, but is told that it is a secret. Ci~L gets more praising, as ZhenZhen tells the group that Ci~L mastered all of her classes and that no one has ever surpassed her skill. I’m starting to get Sue-insert vibes here…

Next we get a look at an egg-shaped structure called the OrbArena, where boys and girls play ManAttack—the boys coming from Modelland’s brother modelling academy, Bestosterone. Doesn’t Modelland sound like a really good name right about now?

ZhenZhen describes the boys as nothing more than accessories at Modelland, simply there to do work and provide eye candy. Wow, the male models do stuff other than being eye candy? And there are male models in a world where not every guy is obsessed with being a model? There’s plenty of unfortunate implications here, folks.

Passing a ship that serves as the “CaraCaraCara” classroom, they come to an obstacle course which includes swinging ropes, flamethrowers, and spinning dance floors. ZhenZhen explains that the obstacle course is where final-year Bellas train for the 7Seven Tournament. Modelling is very serious business in this world.

Dylan says that she just assumed that it was all about who was the prettiest, and after a snide comment from Zarpessa, ZhenZhen says that every girl is easily exchangeable. She uses the word “equation”, which prompts Piper to blurt out a comment about how S-M-A-R-T she is.

ZhenZhen then spills the beans about something she isn’t supposed to tell the girls (but does so because Ci~L warned girls about it when she was a Tour Guide): the Catwalk Corridor. She also mentions the Ugly Room and how fireballs shoot out of the Diabolical Divide every few years upon Modelland; one such incident resulted in some of the girls dying in a stadium fire.

Suddenly, an alarm rings! ZhenZhen tells the girls to start running to the O building, and we get insightful descriptions of how Tookie’s friends run.

Shiraz took off instantly in a cheetahlike sprint. Piper was close behind her, her gallop precise and efficient, like she was speeding forward but barely moving at the same time. Dylan followed, her run a sexy swagger.

So Shiraz is very athletic, Piper is smart, and Dylan is an idiot. Aren’t you glad that Banks shows us how each character’s personality is reflected in how they run?

Tookie, on the other hand, stands still, thinking about how she doesn’t fit in and how Myrracle should be there instead of her. Then a girl wearing a SMIZE and some sort of headphones tells Tookie to run. Tookie starts running, and then trips over her own feet. Because we needed Tookie’s running to tell us that she’s an awkward twit.

That brings a close to this chapter. Join us next time, where we learn more about these mysterious headphones and get some pretty awful homophone usage in The BellaDonna’s Burden and The THBC Tamasha.

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Chapter Fifteen: The Bella Donna’s Burden

When we last left our protagonist, Tookie De La Crème, she had just tripped over her own feet. But wait! She resolves to not crumble, and regains her balance!

While it is nice to see Tookie not being an apathetic and inactive protagonist…so much for that little cliffhanger last chapter.

Tookie looks for a thorn bush to run through, and after running into one that only hurts her, she sees the right bush and runs through it, thanking it after she runs through.

Running towards the M building, Tookie suddenly ends up surrounded by walls covered with all kinds of zippers. As she starts to fear that she is trapped forever, Ci~L pops out of one of the zippers and tells her to get moving. Ci~L starts climbing up the wall using the zippers as footholds, and Tookie follows behind her, eventually entering into one zipper and falling into a pitch-black area. Ci~L scolds her for screaming and tells her that they’re in the “ZipZap” just before they fall out of another zipper right in front of the O plaza with the rest of the Modelland student body.

Well, that was really convenient and really stupid at the same time.

Tookie hears Zarpessa snicker, and Ci~L gives her a few words of encouragement before shackles appear on Ci~L’s wrists and ankles, pulling her back into the ZipZap. On the stage is a massive waterfall, showing water images of past and present Intoxibellas—save for Ci~L. Tookie looks around, noticing several groups of Sentura-wearing students, Bellas, and naked women who appear to be living mannequins. Tookie joins the group of new girls and is immediately noticed by Dylan, Shiraz, and Piper. All of them are happy to see Tookie, and Tookie realizes that for the first time in her life, she can actually use the word “friends” instead of “friend”.

She made a mental note to herself to start spelling friends with four S’s, friendssss, in her T-Mail Jail. One s for each of the four friends she now had: Dylan, Shiraz, Piper…and, of course, Lizzie.

If Lizzie still considered Tookie her friend.

While it is nice that Lizzie doesn’t get forgotten, it’s not nice to be reminded of Tookie’s idiocy and prior lack of a social life (almost certainly due to her refusal to not act in an anti-social manner).

The music rises, and a female voice announces:

“WELCOME OUR PROTECTORS, OUR MASONS, AND THE BEST ACCESSORIES SINCE THE TONGUE STUD, OUR BRETHEREN FROM…BESTOSTERONE!”

So in addition to doing things other than modelling unlike the female models in this world, the male models also have to be “protectors”, because it’s not like the female models could use their 7Seven powers or whatever to defend themselves from danger.

When the boys come on down, Chaste (a girl who was hanging around with Zarpessa throughout their appearances in Modelland) expresses her desire to claim all of the Bestosterone boys. Because the Alpha Bitch’s clique has to have equally one-dimensional and negative personality, like being a slut.

Next, a female announcer introduces the Bored.

Yes, “Bored”. Not “Board”, “Bored”. Because the members of this board always look bored, hence they’re the “Bored”. We get a description of each oddball member of the Bored: our old friend Guru Applaussez (hand-head), “an ancient-looking troll of a man” with moving tattoos all over his body, a transforming lizard person (on whom Tookie remarks, “That thing makes me feel normal!” because she’s a freak, get it?), and someone “that looked like it was three-quarters man, one-quarter woman” with a strange gash under their right eye and a strange look on its face when it notices Tookie and company.

Then the music changes and everyone starts dancing. Piper even does “a unique robotlike bop, every movement precise.” You see, because she’s the smart one, therefore her precise and intelligent nature has to be reflected in every action she does. Tookie thinks about how Myrracle would have loved this, and feels sad about how she wasn’t chosen.

The waterfall then vanishes, revealing an ten-story-tall diamond statue. Almost as if they had practised, Piper, Dylan, Shiraz, and Tookie in order each say one part of “It’s the BellaDonna!” One of the plastic women steps forwards, and ZhenZhen tells Tookie that the mannequin woman is Persimmon, “the BellaDonna’s chief Mannecant.” ZhenZhen explains what Mannecants are: failed Bellas who serve at Modelland in exchange for never having to leave. Because even if they fail, there’s nothing a girl would want more than to still be at Modelland. ZhenZhen warns Tookie and her friends that Persimmon often adds her own spin when she brings messages to the BellaDonna.

Persimmon introduces the BellaDonna, and everyone drops to one knee. ZhenZhen explains that the BellaDonna is only seen in person once a year, at the 7Seven Tournament. Tookie then notices the BellaDonna statue looking right at her.

Then the BellaDonna statue starts singing!

I won’t quote it all, but the first verse includes the word “No-Sees”, which ZhenZhen explains are new girls. And then comes the sing-along part!

“Modelland is your new HOME…”
“Home…home,” the older Bellas sang.
“Welcome to this superDOME…”
“Dome, Dome,” sang the older Bellas.
“For you XX-chromoSOMED…”
“Somed, somed,” the older Bellas echoed.
“Modelland is your new HOME.”

Next comes the part of the song where the BellaDonna starts listing off all of the products that the models will learn to advertise. Because they’re nothing more than marketing tools and eye candy. Doesn’t every girl reading this spork want to be just like that?

Eventually, Ci~L appears, wearing a “sateen couture” straitjacket, in a cage that rises out of the ground. The BellaDonna sings:

“Regard this renegade, this rowdy rabble-rouser.
This shameless charlatan, this skank scalawag.
A troublemaking malady, a traitor, defective.
While we all zig, this pest must zag…”

…

“You’ve all grown up dreaming, hoping to be her,
Now this Triple 7Seven is inferior to you.
So learn from her missteps, hello to your futures,
To Ci~L’s: au revoir, adios, and adieu.”

Intriguing!

ZhenZhen whimpers for Ci~L, while Zarpessa jeers the fallen Triple7:

“How the mighty have fallen! Maybe if Ci~L had a famous boyfriend, she wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Because we need another reminder of what a shallow twit Zarpessa is.

The music lowers to a lone violin, as the BellaDonna starts listing the five possible fates for students of Modelland, with the older Bellas shouting out numbers in Gowdee’an (they use “Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro, Cinco” so “Gowdee’an” is Spanish). I’ll quote all of the lines about the fates and give an explanation.

“The foolish, moronic, the feeble, the mindless
Will risk all and regift their coveted youth…”

If you leave Modelland without permission, you suddenly grow old. Although there’s nothing in the song that really points to leaving without permission, is there?

“The meek and misguided muckety-muck flunkies
Will ride senso unico through farewell tollbooths.”

“Senso unico” means “one-way” as Tookie helpfully points out, and the verse means that if you constantly do poorly, you get kicked out.

“Other castaways’ll opt for Mannecant memoirs,
Perhaps better to pitiful pre-Modelland pursuits.”

This refers to failed Bellas becoming Mannecants, as mentioned earlier.

“Second-string Bellas will opt for the silver screen,
Miming in the multiplex, so trite, so uncouth.”

I don’t think I have to explain this one, but this is the first of the actress-bashing we will see at Modelland. And finally:

“Prime few’ll emerge 7Seven ‘toxibellas.
For this reward, pathetics would sell their eyetooths.”

While we’re here, I might as well mention that I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between a “7Seven” and an “Intoxibella”. The terms are frequently used interchangeably, and while I had suspected that 7Sevens were the current or previous year’s graduated Intoxibellas, Ci~L’s status as a longtime Triple7 doesn’t fit into that logic.

We get one last verse to finish off the chapter:

“Your premature merriment has come much too fast.
Disparity ‘tween good and bad will be very vast.
THBC separates the punks from the class.
For some No-Sees, Discovery Day will be your…last.”

Could this be tension? It’s a little ruined by the knowledge that if Tookie fails, the book would be pretty short.

Maybe Dylan will fail. (crosses fingers)

Chapter Sixteen: The THBC Tamasha

I find it quite ironic that “THBC” is one letter away from THC.

There’s not a sound from the new Bellas…except for Shiraz singing happily as we’re told at the end of the first paragraph. Tookie suddenly notices someone else humming, recognizing her as the girl who had helped her earlier. The girl is wearing a SMIZE and a Headbangor, which is “a newfangled invention from the far southeast that delivered music directly to a wearer’s brainwaves”. The girl, who Tookie recognizes as a Chakran (Indian), makes a lame joke about being named “nervous” and then introduces herself as Kamalini Dara. Tookie introduces herself, expecting Kamalini to comment on her appearance, but Kamalini simply says that she likes Tookie’s name. Clearly, Kamalini is a Good Person.

Kamalini gets called away by her guide and climbs through a ZipZap. Tookie and Dylan then notice four almost-identical girls in identical outfits. Dylan asks who they are, and they introduce themselves as SheLikee, HerLikee, ILikee, and MeLikee.

“We’re“—“from“—“Mini“—“Paul!” Each said a different word in the sentece.

Synchronized twins to the power of two. Fantastic.

We also get a mention of an “Angelîka from Icylann” who exclaims, “Yay, yay, yay! Isn’t dis great?” I don’t know what is worse, the stupid country names or the stupid stereotypes.

ZhenZhen tells Tookie that they have to go on without her and that she should be worried about what comes next, reminding her that there’s strength in numbers. Then along comes Zarpessa, who remarks on Tookie and her friends being animals. Tookie approaches Zarpessa and tells her that she won’t tell anyone about how she saw Zarpessa digging for food in a Dumpster. Zarpessa insists that Tookie doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and tells Tookie to shut up as she leaps into the ZipZap.

Tookie and her friends are the last ones to jump through the ZipZap, and they end up in a room lit by a dim lightbulb. Piper yells out “hello” and deduces that they must be in a large space based on the resonance of her shouts.

The ZipZap opens up again, and a bunch of girls fall onto Tookie. Dylan pulls the girls off of Tookie, which makes Tookie feel good about being cared about. Unlike those previous chapters where Theophilus seems to like her, or at the very least have some concern for her. Or in the first chapter, where no one steps on her when she’s lying in the middle of a hallway.

Suddenly, a girl screams out that another girl died in the ZipZap. The girl turns out to be Angelîka (from Icylann), who is bleeding from the head. Tookie asks if she’s really dead, at which point Angelîka springs up and terrifies everyone. So much for that tension, I suppose.

A voice announces that the girls have arrived in THBC—Thigh-High Boot Camp. The voice is coming from the three-quarters man, one-quarter woman Guru that had appeared during the presentation of the Bored. Standing on a platform surrounded by coloured fireflies, the Guru introduces itself as Gunnero Narzz, head of Modelland security, Run-a-Way Intensive class, and the THBC, making him the second most powerful person in Modelland. At which point Chaste makes a quip towards Guru Gunnero’s gender, because we need to be constantly reminded that Zarpessa’s group are all jerks.

As Guru Gunnero explains, the THBC is a fashion show. Along the way, the Bellas have the choice to going through a door marked Home, which will take them away from Modelland forever.

The first of the five phases starts: measurements. With a kick of Gunnero’s boot, the room transforms in a round white room with one door marked “Home”. Mannecants enter the room, forcefully measuring the girls and making comments about their appearance. One measures Tookie, criticizing the space between her eyes, the length of her arm, and her “ostrichy” neck. It waves a comb-shaped device over Tookie’s hair, at which point we’re told a short list of contradictory traits such as “oily and dry” along with a final diagnosis of “completely uncomable, uncurlable, and unstyleable.”

Once the Mannecants disappear, Gunnero states that the entire class has near-perfect beauty…except for four of them. And no, you don’t get any points for guessing who those four are. He states that phase two is beginning, at which point Zarpessa blurts out asking if they’re getting their thigh-high boots now.

Gunnero’s eyes widened at her outburst. His lips curled into a smirk. “Well, my mother’s youngest and only son said that he heard you were a wannabe, kiss-ass, brownnosing Bella and that he wants me to tell all the girls here to tell you to shut the heck up!” He whipped around at the girls. “Well? Tell her!”

Yeah, take that, Alpha Bitch!

All of the girls, Tookie included, tell Zarpessa to shut up. A hundred chairs drop down from above, and the girls are instructed to sit down in the chair with their name on it. Next, a cart falls from the ceiling, filled with makeup and beauty supplies. Among the stuff on the cart are “False eyelashes made from deceased daddy longlegs.” Is that a real thing? Please tell me that’s not a real thing. There’s also “LP WAX: RECYCLED FROM VINYL ALBUMS OF YESTERYEAR.” Next drops in a hundred Mannecants. The Mannecant in front of Tookie’s chair reminds her of her mother, Creamy, and how her parents had wanted to get rid of her.

On Gunnero’s word, the Mannecants start grabbing and applying makeup at superhuman speed. Tookie feels happy about being pampered and fawned over, remembering how Creamy had taken her to a doctor about how her forehead was growing more than the rest of her face.

Tookie was loving Thigh-High Boot Camp. She thought the name was especially fitting because she felt like she was flying on a natural Thigh High.

What in the world is a “Thigh High”? Is she being fed really, really good chicken thighs? Or did she see some girl’s thigh and realize that she was totally into ladies’ thighs? (The latter, I wish. As for the former, there are no good chicken thighs.)

Once the Mannecants are finished, the lights go off and back on again. The Mannecants have disappeared, allowing all of the girls to look at their beautiful reflections. Tookie even thinks that she looks good, and notes that “Shiraz’s berry-stained lips looked edible.” More lesbian undertones.

But suddenly, Shiraz freaks out. Tookie looks in the mirror to see a boil growing on the nose of the person in front of her, with a foul-smelling smoke coming out of it. Its hair looks as if most of it had fallen out, and it bears bruised eyes and swollen ears.

Then Tookie realizes that the creature in front of her…is her reflection!

Dun dun dunnnn!

Chapter Seventeen: Home, Sour Home

As it turns out, everyone has become twisted and grotesque. Dylan’s ponytails and nose have fallen off, Shiraz’s eyes are bulging out of her head, Piper almost looks like a skeleton, and there’s a gaping hole in Kamalini’s head that you can see her brain through. Angelîka’s head is split open all the way to the base of her neck, and Zarpessa and Chaste have their noses falling off and their lips turning into slugs.

Naturally, Tookie figures out that it’s a trick and tells her friends not to go running out the Home door. Only thirteen girls run out of the door, all of them exclaiming that they are no longer hideous.

Gunnero is disappointed that so few ran, and states that this was a lesson for the girls— “shared utensils give you creepy conjunctivitis, gory gangrene, bubonic boils, atrocious abscesses, styes, and staphylococcus!” That seems like a good lesson, definitely one that you had to mentally scar the girls about rather than explaining it to them in a rational manner.

Bright searchlights shine upon their faces, instantly reverting their twisted appearances. Gunnero annonuces phase three: embellishments. Mannecants appear with carts full of jewelry which they place on the girls. Shiraz takes a moment to shill Tookie for realizing the previous phase was a trick. The Mannecants then hand out purses and backpacks, with Tookie happening to end up with a Dream Bag, the same kind of bag that Zarpessa had been wearing at B3.

And then the jewelry starts strangling and weighing down everyone. Tookie’s necklace even turns scalding hot and starts strangling her. For this phase, eleven girls run out the Home door. Gunnero makes a comment about Tookie and her three friends surviving, then reveals that the phase was about phony jewelry and accessories, and how it is basically theft from the real fashion designers. Because again, they have to have a torturous test rather than simply say “make sure you don’t wear knockoffs, okay?” After Shiraz spouts out the moral of the phase, Gunnero makes a comment about her being a Lilliputian, a word which Shiraz doesn’t understand.

“Oh, excuse me for being prêt-a-politically-incorrect,” Gunnero simpered. “I believe the acceptable phrase is Five P: Puny Pocket-sized Petite Particle of a Person.”

Ah, the alliteration! It burns!

Tookie considers defending Shiraz, but decides it’s not the time and that she wouldn’t know how anyway. Gunnero introduces phase four: the fashion show. Ten Home doors appear, followed by a giant sewing machine from the ceiling. The sewing machine starts stabbing right through the girls, piercing their skulls and going right through their bodies. And then they disappear. One of the girls who gets stabbed is Desperada, a girl Tookie recognizes from LaDorno Square. Angelîka (from Icylann), however, dodges the needle and runs out of a Home door. The needle draws closer to Tookie, and when she waits for a sharp pain, she suddenly feels like she is upside down, having her clothes torn off (wow, there’s a lot of nudity in this book) and fabric wrapped over her body.

She then finds herself in a giant room, seeing orbs with faces floating about—Kamalini, Zarpessa, Chaste, and eventually Dylan, Piper, and Shiraz. A door then appears, pulsing to the beat of music. Tookie draws closer to the door, and then letters appear one by one near the door: THIS WAY HOME. She watches with glee as Zarpessa and Chaste float away, as they’re jerks and don’t deserve to be in Modelland because Tookie doesn’t like them. Then she watches her friends’ bubbles float through the door, and can’t stop her own from going towards the door. Tookie thinks of her friends as she passes through the door, “[bidding] a silent goodbye to Modelland.”

Will Tookie really be going home? Is this the last of Zarpessa and Chaste? What the hell happened to phase five? These questions, and more questions, will be answered in the next installment.

(Then again, if you don’t know the answer to that first question, you’ve probably forgotten what book this is.)

Comment [16]

…or, The Return of OH, POOR TOOKIE!

Chapter Eighteen: La Lumière

When we last left Tookie, she was foolishly thinking that she was being sent home when anyone would suspect that the story wouldn’t actually go in that direction. And as it happens, Tookie suddenly starts smelling blood oranges and opens her eyes to find herself in the Modelland campus. ZhenZhen comes up behind Tookie and hugs her, then Tookie sees her three friends walking towards her in slow-motion. She suspects that she’s dreaming, until she sees Chaste and Zarpessa, then she thinks it’s a nightmare. Because if our protagonist doesn’t like them, they’re not allowed to be at Modelland.

ZhenZhen tells them that Thigh-High Boot Camp is over and that they’ve all passed. Including Dylan, sadly. Piper comments on how there was no fashion show, and ZhenZhen states that it’s because Guru Gunnero doesn’t want new Bellas to do fashion shows before the Bellas get lessons from him. Which is reasonable; you wouldn’t want preschools requiring new applicants to already know what’s being taught in order to be enrolled.

Zarpessa makes a smug comment, giving Dylan the opportunity to roll her eyes. Because we need to make it clear that we shouldn’t like the Alpha Bitch and that everything she does and says is Wrong. ZhenZhen reveals that fifty-four students made it through THBC, and tells them to follow her into the D building.

Dylan planted her feet. “Honey chile, I just been invaded by bacteria, sliced and diced by earrings, stabbed by a monster needle, and had my head imprisoned inside a bubble. I’m not goin’ in there until I know what that whacked-out place is.”

Just to remind you of how Dylan talks. Also, funny she didn’t speak up in between the bacteria, earrings, needle, and bubble, but does speak up now when they’re simply going into a building. I guess she was fine with the first three things, but the fourth was just too much.

ZhenZhen says that it’s where they’ll be living, and leads them inside. The first room is a living room—no wait, it’s an “UnCommon Room”, because we need stupid names for everything. Tookie realizes that the “D” stands for “Dorms” at this moment. Six Mannecants enter, carrying Senturas—the strips of fabric that give the models their power. As ZhenZhen explains:

“The Senturas are very, very special. The more you wear them, the stronger your pow-pow-powers become.” ZhenZhen accented the pows with a pointed finger, like she was shooting a pistol.

…why is she doing that? As we’ve already seen, the model powers revolve entirely around being a marketing tool. I think I’m going to have to make a regular feature of “why in the world is this happening?”

The Mannecants toss the Senturas into the air, and the Senturas fit themselves around the girls’ waists. ZhenZhen tells them to keep an eye on their Senturas and to go up to the second floor.

When Tookie and her group go upstairs, they find that the names of who is in what room appear like graffiti out of nowhere on the doors. Piper and Dylan are together in one room, while Tookie and Shiraz are in a different room along with Kamalini. I can’t decide whether Shiraz or Piper is worse, but Dylan is definitely beneath them both and I’m glad that our protagonist will be in a different room than her. Kamalini wonders where the beds are, until Shiraz discovers that they were merely invisible when she stumbles into and falls onto one. Tookie and Kamalini find their beds, and on the white comforters, abstract images of the three girls appear. And yes, the image on Tookie’s comforter is ugly and has differently-coloured eyes.

Kamalini falls onto her bed as if depressed, talking about how nervous she is and how she didn’t try very hard to get into Modelland even before she found a SMIZE. Kamalini admits that her parents are worried about her addiction to her Headbangor. She tells them that her father—an inventor and dean of Chakra’s most prestigious university—invented it. And that her mother is a Chakrawood actress, director, and singer.

Chakrawood.

Um, excuse me? Ms. Banks. They don’t call it “Indiawood”.

Now that I’m done banging my head against a wall, let’s get back to Kamalini’s Headbangor. She explains that “something…happened” and that she uses her Headbangor to “[ease] the pain” and “[help her] forget” She even suffers withdrawal without it. Hooray for cliches.

Kamalini lets Tookie listen to the Headbangor. The song is by Kamalini’s mother, a song about forbidden love. Kamalini realizes that Tookie knows her language, and Shiraz blurts out how Tookie knows every language.

“Magical, Tookie is.”

Nah, just a Sue. To Banks’s credit, Tookie really wasn’t a Mary Sue in the early chapters; a boring and annoying protagonist, yes, but not a Sue. Sadly, that’s going to change in the coming chapters, especially now that Tookie’s mastery of languages is benefitting her and earning her praise.

Anyway, who should turn out to be their fourth roommate but Zarpessa! Zarpessa struts in, acting like a typical Alpha Bitch, even making fun of the picture of Tookie’s face on the bed Tookie chose before stealing Tookie’s bed. Tookie finds another bed, and naturally “it was smaller than the others, and the sheets were the teensiest bit scratchy.”

It’s been a while since I’ve said these words, but here we go again: OH, POOR TOOKIE.

ZhenZhen walks in and tells them that their clothes are in burlap sacks, they can only keep two things from home, and that Modelland tells time not by numbers but by colours. Let’s file that under “why in the world is this happening?”, shall we?

ZhenZhen leaves, then four nightstands appear with nightgowns and toiletry bags. After the girls change into their night clothes, Zarpessa complains about only getting to keep two things from home. Tookie has no problem with it, as she knows what she wants to keep: her T-Mail Jail and her T O OKE button. We’re also told that Shiraz puts a piece of paper into her own drawer.

Zarpessa asks what the “beat-up thing” is that Tookie is holding is. Tookie, afraid that Zarpessa might recognize the button, goes running around the room to grab a large flower to pin over the button. Because Tookie has to do something bizarre in order to cover up her obsession with Theophilus. Is anyone still wondering why Tookie didn’t have friends back in Metopia?

An annoucement comes on, saying that “It is now time for the Lumière.” The lights turn off, and just as everyone is about to go to sleep, a light suddenly appears. The light is shining on Zarpessa’s face, and as Zarpessa explains, the light is her Lumière—a magical light that shines on Bellas at night, with the properties of whatever light they look most flattering in. Apparently, it also makes you look better. This happens because…because, and as Kamalini—whose Lumière also appears—points out, being unable to sleep because you have a light shining in your face because…because would probably negatively affect your appearance.

Shiraz and Tookie don’t have Lumières. Shiraz suspects her light is “broken”, and Zarpessa says that it’s probably because they don’t belong in Modelland. Because of her use of the word “sacrificed”, Tookie and Shiraz wonder about the sacrifice rumours before falling asleep.

And then Tookie wakes up, having sleepwalked out of the D building and ended up in some random location. She sees a passage and hopes that it leads back to the D building.

Then she hears a whack (and surprisingly, it’s “Whack!” instead of the usual bored onomateopia) and a voice mumbling “It’smyfault” over and over. She sees a person beating themselves with a wooden plank and a picture of the Obscure Obelisks. The person reaches for the picture, wailing “SORRY!” over and over, and Tookie finally realizes who this person is.

Ci~L.

So we close off the chapter with another plot-relevant scene that Tookie just happens to stumble upon through sleepwalking. (Earlier in the book, we had Tookie waking up while her father was doing gymnastics in the middle of the night.) So Tookie’s sleepwalking is just a convenient way for her to figure out things.

I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s not good writing.

Chapter Nineteen: CaraCaraCara and the Dormitory Effect

And then Tookie wakes up in her bed, wondering if what she had seen was really a dream. Well, that’s just great. I’m not sure whether it being a dream would be stupider than having her conveniently sleepwalk upon Ci~L or not.

And it turns out that Tookie is sick. OH, POOR TOOKIE!

Tookie goes into the bathroom, where all of the girls inside appear to be nauseous as well. There’s graffiti in one of the bathroom stalls; one of the samples we get is “PERSEQUESHON: NEVER FORGET, NEVER RETURN.” It’s written in the book in this really stupid font that I really doubt anyone would take the time to draw on the wall of a bathroom stall.

Tookie sees Piper, who has her toiletries all arranged neatly and is playing with a puzzle. Piper asks Tookie to mess up the puzzle so she can do it again, and Tookie thinks about how all of the people in SansColor are smart, because that’s how countries work in real life. It turns out that Dylan and Piper are rooming with Chaste (Zarpessa’s friend, because the protagonist’s friends need to suffer through the Alpha Bitch’s friend) and the Likee sisters from MiniPaul (who all share the same bed).¹

Tookie winces again, and complains to Piper.

Piper shrugged. “Join the club, Tookie. Every new Bella started menstruating at the exact same time this morning.”

“Wait. What?”

That “Wait. What?” is in the book itself, but that’s exactly what I would have said myself anyway.

Piper tells Tookie about menstrual synchrony, also called the dormitory effect—the theory that the menstrual cycles of women who cohabitate synchronize over time. At Modelland, it apparently happens near-instaneously.

Why in the world is this happening?

Tookie says that she never had her period before, to which Piper says that she’s now a woman. Then Tookie looks at Piper’s toothbrush, causing her to remember Chris-Crème-Crobat’s words about his belief that Tookie is not his daughter. She starts angsting about this, looking in the mirror to see if she can find any similarities. She realizes that she looks nothing like Chris-Crème-Crobat. Tearing up, Tookie tries to comb her hair, causing the comb to break. OH, POOR TOOKIE.

A bit later, Tookie hurries out of the D building, wearing her Modelland uniform and Sentura. We’re told about a bottle of perfume that appeared on her nightstand that, when she depressed it, released a mist that formed into a piece of paper with her “quadmester” schedule. I’m still wondering why things like this have to happen. Tookie’s schedule consists of CaraCaraCara at Midnight-Blue, Run-a-Way Intensive at Kelly Green, and Mastication at Goldenrod. Remember, Modelland uses colours instead of numbers for time because…because.

Tookie heads off to the right, and we get a comment about how “CaraCaraCara” means “FaceFaceFace” in Gowdee’an. She comes upon a half-finished stadium, where male models from Bestosterone are working on construction. It’s great that models in this world do so much more than simply modelling.

One Bestostero asks if she’s lost, and introduces himself as Bravo. Tookie is completely unable to speak, even as he talks about the fireball that burned down the previous stadium. One of his fellow male models asks Bravo “what” he is talking to, but Tookie just turns and walks away.

Eventually, Tookie ends up at the CaraCaraCara building, the massive ship she had seen on the orientation tour. Piper, Shiraz, and Dylan are already there, each of them bearing “achy, period-stricken looks”. After looking at the bust of the BellaDonna on the ship’s bow, they enter a room which Piper immediately deduces as being the inside of a shark. The teacher appears, a tall man with “poochy lips, a button nose, bushy eyebrows, and twinkly, saucer-shaped eyes” whose “features flapped and twisted as if they were made of something much more flexible than flesh and bone.” Saying “¡Hola!” several times, the teacher introduces himself as Guru Pacifico Cruz, from Texicoco. And yes, he frequently and randomly uses Spanish words in his dialogue. He explains that the class is inside of a great white shark to warn them of the “sharks” in the real world, and mentions the cramps that all of the girls are suffering from and the dormitory effect. The point of CaraCaraCara class, as Guru Pacifico explains, is not to mirror expressions but to mask them, to make the opposite expression of what they see or feel.

“But fail, and you may be relegated to spending your life as, heaven forbid, an actress.” The Guru said this last word in a low, disgusted whisper. “Actresses are incapable of ‘opposite performing.’ They must think about sad times in their lives to project sadness on the silver screen. Nonsense! We mustn’t let that pitiful fate happen to you.”

More actress-bashing. Because every actress acts in the exact same way, and thus that way of acting is Bad.

Pacifico has the girls wrap their Senturas around their heads, telling them that the Senturas will help them show the opposite expressions.

With the sound of a shark bite, an image appears before all of the girls of a two-headed vulture picking at a child’s eyes. Most of the Bellas freak out over the image. Zarpessa has no problem smiling at the image and bragging about it.

Next, the image turns into a feather that tries to tickle the girls. While Tookie’s friends and Chaste are able to prevent the feather from tickling them with their Senturas (and Chaste’s Sentura is described as “[shimmying] sexily” because she’s a slut; I’m going to touch upon this at the end), Tookie’s Sentura does nothing. Pacifico calls her out on her failure, and she feels bad that the first time that she has been called out in class ever was for something negative. OH, POOR TOOKIE!

The next few pictures are of rotting food and “an earless baby rabbit abandoned by its mother.” Piper is doing well at showing opposite expressions. Next comes a bunch of boys mooning and a hooded Death-like figure. Tookie continues to fail and be called out by Pacifico.

The only girl he corrrected almost as much was dead-faced Bo, who didn’t even freak over a photo of a dead cat giving birth to an octopus on an abandoned road.

…excuse me while I throw up.

And as it would happen, the movement of the ship causes Tookie to throw up. This causes Bo to throw up as well, which relieves Tookie for some odd reason.

Pacifico tells the girls to remove their Senturas from their heads, then after considering calling out Piper on her good work, praises Zarpessa instead. Zarpessa brags that she was trained, while she and Tookie glance at each other, knowing that her claims are false. Tookie feels a little sorry and envious for Zarpessa, which probably won’t change how Tookie treats Zarpessa like scum.

Pacifico explains that the girls have two gifts for finishing their first CaraCaraCara class, and the wall opens up to reveal the masthead of the BellaDonna. The BellaDonna masthead speaks to the girls, explaining the first gift: that they will never have periods again in their lives, for Modelland doesn’t want their studies impaired by their cycles. They’ll still be able to reproduce, but will never have another period in their lives. “Period.”

So Modelland causes every girl to suffer through periods…then makes it so that they never suffer periods again? Brilliant.

And what does Tookie do? Angst, of course—she thinks about how Myrracle had teased Tookie about not having her periods yet, and how she had “finally reached womanhood” only to have it snatched away. Because the defining trait of being a woman is an unpleasant cycle.

The second gift are three-dimensional images of their work in class. Dylan complains about not having had her “game face” on. Chaste makes a comment about her image being hot, and Zarpessa mocks Tookie’s image. Tookie worries about the possibility of failing and angsts about her family, Lizzie, and the possibility of becoming a Factory Dependent. Her thoughts then turn to the rumours of sacrifices and experiments, with the chapter closing on Tookie’s worries that she will be nothing more than a guinea pig.

We’ve already gone over how Zarpessa is a flat Alpha Bitch, but I want to touch upon Chaste. Chaste’s only character traits are that a) she’s a friend of Zarpessa and b) she’s a slut. And based on how her slutty behaviour is portrayed, it’s safe to assume that we’re supposed to have a negative opinion of her when she tries to act sexy.

But what about when Dylan tries to act sexy? Should we be scoffing and scowling when she does a sexy swagger, as she did in a previous chapter? Or should we have a different view on her attempts to act sexy solely because she’s a positive character (by virtue of being nice to the protagonist)?

We’ll stop here for today, but there’ll be plenty of poor storytelling and angst-fuel for the protagonist in the future. We’ll tackle Chapters 20, 21, and 22 in the next installment, get them over with, because Chapter 23…let’s just say that Chapter 23 is a special chapter.

(And apologies for taking so long and only doing two chapters this time. Can you blame me for being more interested in Mass Effect than the dormitory effect?)

¹ Kudos to sakuuya, who figured out that the home of the Likee sisters, MiniPaul, is a combination of “Minneapolis” and “St. Paul”, also known as “the twin cities”.

Comment [7]

Chapter Twenty: Run and Gun

It’s time for Tookie’s next class, Run-a-Way Intensive. On the way to the class, Tookie sees holograms of Intoxibellas, including a faint image of Ci~L. Tookie wonders if her vision of Ci~L had really been a dream.

Shiraz pops up, as she happens to be in Run-a-Way Intensive with Tookie…and so are Zarpessa and Chaste.

As they scuttled into the classroom, Tookie could feel two pairs of familiar eyes BitterBalling her again.

I’m the one reading this book and I don’t remember exactly what this means, though I am picturing a hilarious look on Zarpessa’s face. Anyway, Zarpessa acts like a bitch some more. Tookie remembers Ci~L’s words and doesn’t retort.

And then Dylan and Piper show up as well, along with Gunnero Narzz, who tells the students that he is the teacher of Run-a-Way Intensive. Then Persimmon enters, telling Gunnero that, by order of the BellaDonna, the day’s class will be co-instructed by “the only living Triple7”. Gunnero says something about a “Body Girl” and Persimmon says that the co-instructor will be an Intoxibella ordered to repent. Naturally, it’s Ci~L, who walks in wearing an outfit made of handcuffs. As soon as she spots Tookie’s group, she starts reciting poety, looking at each of Tookie’s friends. For Piper, we get:

“A colorless girl in a colorless world,” … “Now stained crimson because of her quest.”

And for Shiraz:

“A microscopic lass below the criterion,” … “Journey aborted, but soul cannot rest.”

And seemingly for Dylan:

“A Rubenesque damsel, surrounded by twigs
Her lush carcass devoured, insects infest.”

And then one last set of lines:

“Their crony, elected exemplar of excellence,
Has failed them, whose soul demons now do possess.”

For someone who’s supposed to be a renowned poet, this is pretty loused poetry. And as a minor quibble, it irks me that the first two poems she reads out are integrated into the rest of the text (the ellipses indicate where Ci~L has a dialogue tag), but the last two poems are set apart from the rest of the text. It would have been a simple matter to have the first two poems formatted in the same way by having the dialogue tag before the lines, not in the middle of them.

Tookie wonders again if her vision might not have been a dream, then Shiraz notices the BellaDonna moving towards and looking into the classroom window.

Then flowers start coming out of Ci~L’s mouth, including an entire rosebush. Gunnero sniggers, calling Ci~L “Body Girl”. Ci~L shouts at the statue, promising that she’ll stop reciting poems and that she knows what she did was wrong. The BellaDonna statue returns to its original position and the flowers stop.

Now that that bit of “why in the world is this happening?” is over, Gunnero starts his lecture, explaining that _“To bring forth the true power of the Sentura, one must retract one’s stomach, letting the Sentura’s majestic force soak into one’s soul.” Because you can’t be a magical model without trying to look as thin as possible. Ci~L demonstrates, doing a runway walk. Tookie notices that Gunnero seems to be jealous of Ci~L.

Ci~L disappears behind a wall, then reappears in a dress covered in teddy bears. I’m not making this up. Tookie thinks about how Ci~L had done every fashion show by herself one season.

But how? What was going on backstage that got her back out on the runway so fast?

I’m going to hazard a guess and say magic, you idiot. Has Tookie forgotten that she’s in a school for magical models?

Ci~L does several more outfit changes, and Tookie notices that Ci~L flinches every time her clothing rubs against her back. Gunnero eventually tells her to stop, then has Ci~L explain that what they saw wasn’t real. Mirrors on the wall plays back Ci~L’s walks, except they show that she was running and jumping. The mirror also show that backstage, Ci~L’s clothes simply flew off and disintegrated, while tiny hands put on clothes that appeared out of nowhere.

Well, what do you know? It was magic after all!

Gunnero explains how the Senturas hypnotize audiences and that his class is the most important class in Modelland.

Dylan jabbed Tookie in the ribs. “All the Gurus got some swelled-up heads, don’t you think? I ain’t never taken so many important classes in my life!”

Um, Dylan? The only other class you’ve taken so far is CaraCaraCara, and Guru Pacifico never said it was the most important class. He never even used the word “important”.

Tookie asks how Ci~L did her magic, and Ci~L explains that you need a Sentura. Gunnero adds that a model’s movements have to be graceful and “swanlike.” Tookie worries about tripping.

Shiraz volunteers to go first. She doesn’t do that well, and Gunnero mocks her. As she returns to Tookie, Shiraz comments on how Ci~L is staring at Shiraz. Tookie wonders if Ci~L is pleased or disgusted.

Next comes Bo, the emotionless girl from CaraCaraCara, who is completely emotionless during the walk. The girl who is supposed to be next, Desperada, is simply crying. Ci~L tries to encourage her to stop crying while Chaste goes.

In the mirrors, she somehow made running look almost pornographic, shaking everything she shouldn’t. On the runway, she rubbed her body all over, gyrating to the beat like a dancer in an exotic nightclub.

“I not old enough to look!” Shiraz yelped, closing her eyes.

Because as we all know, Chaste is a slut and only a slut.

Gunnero tells Tookie to go next. Tookie gathers her resolve and starts leaping down the runway, but her magic doesn’t seem to be working—her performance looks the same as her reflection. Tookie wonders what’s going on before she notices Zarpessa with a “clearly devilish smile.”

All at once, Tookie knew. She did something to me. Something to mess up my walk.

Or maybe you just suck and she’s grinning because she’s just an Alpha Bitch? It’s not like you were remotely successful in CaraCaraCara.

Tookie charges ahead—straight into a wall. Zarpessa jeers, and Tookie says to her friends that she thinks Zarpessa did something.

Zarpessa does her walk, and despite being told not to, ducks behind the wall and changes her outfit. Hm, I wonder how she did that? Gunnero snarks at Zarpessa, then says that the class is over and complains about the general lack of talent. And we get more actress-bashing from him.

Zarpessa appears behind Tookie, explaining that she took the yellow dress that she brought to Modelland and cut it up into ten items, including a yellow scarf. Tookie realizes that Zarpessa switched her Sentura, and Zarpessa warns Tookie not to tell anyone anything about her, otherwise “it’ll be bad for [her] soul.” She makes a comment about karma, which is rich coming from a character whose only personality trait is being an Alpha Bitch.

Tookie goes to exit, then notices an omnious look from Ci~L. As Ci~L turns around, Tookie notices blood seeping through the cloth of Ci~L’s outfit.

DUN DUN DUUUNNN!

Chapter Twenty-One: Jammers, Chowers, and Poachers

After Tookie gets her real Sentura, she heads off to Mastication class. Tookie feels pity and envy for Zarpessa, along with anger. She thinks, “why does that girl have to be so nasty?” I think the real answer to that has to do with amateur writing. Tookie also realizes that she’s hungry.

The Mastication class building looks like a giant bowl made out of loafs of bread with a ladle-shaped smokestack. Tookie goes to lick the window, but Dylan stops her, warning her that licking the food will get you an electric shock. She says “Cuh-ray-zee!” and I’m inclined to have myself a little splash of wine. Dylan also mocks Tookie’s dislike of chocolate, because she’s a twit. Then she complains about her first class, Tick-Tock Color Clock—

—except Dylan was in Tookie’s first class, CaraCaraCara. Tookie has three classes and Dylan is in all of them, so unless Dylan has an extra class, her first class would have been CaraCaraCara. But you’d think that all of the new students would have a class teaching them about the stupid colour clock system, wouldn’t you?

I don’t think Banks thought this out very well.

Tookie tells Dylan about what happened in Run-a-Way Intensive—

—okay, now I know Banks didn’t think this out very well. DYLAN WAS THERE.

Dylan calls Tookie “my Tookie” which makes Tookie feel good about herself, then asks what Zarpessa’s problem is. Tookie doesn’t say as they walk into Mastication and are greeted with the smell of delicious food.

They soon come across the teacher of this class. It’s not Professor Loopin, but a woman with extended arms, a tool belt with cooking utensils, an outfit with various foods stiched into the fabric, and hair made out of spaghetti and licorice.

More Bellas enter, including Zarpessa, Chaste, the Likee sisters, and Kamalini. Small mouselike creatures with slits on their bellies start running around the classroom, which the Guru of the class calls “roo jerky” and says that if they catch one, they can eat it—which she does as soon as she grabs one. The Guru introduces herself as Guru Lauro Brown. She has a Didgeridoo accent, if the text didn’t make that obvious with her saying “G’day!”

She takes the girls’ Senturas, then orders them to stick out their tongues so she can appraise their favourite food. Dylan’s is Bou-Big-Tique deep-dish pizza.

Dylan jolted back and put her hands on her hips. “Honey, don’t say pizza pie unless you got some!”

…moving on. She sees Tookie’s favourite food is whipped cream, and the Likee sisters’ favourite is breath mints. She tells them that they need proper food, which immediately makes Lauro the most sensible (a.k.a. not stupid) of the Gurus so far. After divining that Zarpessa’s favourite food is white-truffle-wagyu-saffron risotto toped with Almas caviar, she notices the taint of “discared foods” on Zarpessa’s tongue.

Kamalini asks how Lauro knew their favourite foods, and Lauro says that she’s a tongue-reader. You know, if that wasn’t obvious from the whole “stick your tongue out and I’ll tell you your favourite food based on it” thing. Lauro lifts off her chef’s hat, releasing yellow smoke. Everyone comments on how it smells like their favourite food, including Zarpessa.

“No, it smells like virgin olive oil bread with only a slight hint of mold, which is okay because it can be sliced off, and a half-eaten pheasant!” Zarpessa swooned before stopping herself.

Because obviously Zarpessa likes eating out of the garbage, right?

Harnesses lower from the ceiling over vats. Lauro tells them to find their food and climb into their harness. As Tookie climbs into her harness, she sees a ton of whipped cream cans squirting into the air. She tries to reach for the whipped cream but can’t reach it. The harnesses lower slightly, but the girls still can’t reach.

Lauro strolled around the room, dipping a finger into each girl’s slop. “Outstanding pizza pie,” she told Dylan.

How exactly do you dip a finger into a pizza? Unless it’s pizza-flavoured slop, but then it wouldn’t be a pizza. Nevermind, it’s just really dumb phrasing.

The harnesses pull up suddenly before lowering enough so that the girls can start eating. Tookie starts gorging herself with whipped cream, discovering that she can hide a can of whipped cream in her flower brooch somehow. It really does use the word “somehow”.

After a while, the vats tip over, spilling their contents onto the floor. The girls are released from their harnesses, and Zarpessa continues eating off of the floor.

Next, the girls go into the food-vats, which carry them to another building with nozzles squirting out syrups. Everyone pigs out again.

After a while, Lauro stops the nozzles, then says that it’s time for the lesson on Jammers, Chowers, and Poachers. She takes a green stamp and starts pressing it on girls, branding them “Gut Chowers“—the girls who ate well, including Kamalini and Chaste.

“That’s the first time anyone has ever told me it’s good to stop even when something feels really good.” Chaste licked a bit of leftover chocolate off her thumb.

Okay, I’m getting really annoyed with how Chaste is nothing but a slut. Everything she does or says has a slutty connotation to it. She has absolutely no dimension beyond “do/say slutty things”. And it’s long past getting old.

The Likee sisters get a stamp that says “Gut Poacher”, telling them that they need to eat food and not feel bad about the food that they do eat. Zarpessa gets a stamp that simply reads “Gut”, while Tookie gets a red “Gut Jammer” stamp. Lauro tells her that she shouldn’t just stuff her tummy all she wants and that she should be happy with how she looks, saying that Tookie’s appearance “ain’t half bad”. This makes Tookie feel good.

Dylan also gets a “Gut Jammer” stamp, and tries to make excuses for it. When Lauro suggests that the pizza has an emotional effect on Dylan, Dylan immediately denies it.

Lauro starts talking about how food may be their biggest challenge in becoming Intoxibellas. I’ll just quote a little bit of this:

“Starvation and oversatiation are not acceptable, mates. Models are known for restricting their food or going on binges, but that’s not what we’re going for here. And besides…” Guru Lauro trailed off, making a face. “Those lolli-headed leading ladies restrict as well. Worse than models, in my roo opinion.”

…

…please stand back, people.

WHY, TYRA?! You had a genuinely likeable character here! You had someone giving a lesson that is actually important, someone giving a good moral that applies to real-life and not just some stupid fictional model school—and you had to go ruin it with STUPID actress-bashing! Why must you do this to me?

…okay, I’m good, let’s get back to this.

Lauro says that she’ll be designing the Bellas’ meals, and makes the Bellas hungry again. A room is revealed with hundreds of doors and mouthwatering dishes beyond, colour-coded according to the labels she had applied to the girls. The word “EATZ” is visible on the wall, and when Tookie declares that the “E” in Modelland must mean “Eatz”, Zarpessa rudely interrupts. This starts an arguing match between Dylan and Zarpessa, both calling each other “L” insults, which Tookie eventually breaks it up after Zarpessa gets the last insult in. Even though the book then says “Dylan turned away, but she was smiling wide, having gotten in the last L insult.” Consistency? What’s that?

The girls get their Senturas back and go to the wall of dishes—except for Dylan, who just stands still. Tookie doesn’t pry, and pulls Dylan over to the food.

All of a sudden, all of the girls rush towards the windows. Chaste makes a slutty remark. I shouldn’t even need to say that what Chaste said was slutty, so from now on, whenever I say that Chaste does or says something, it’s something slutty unless I specify otherwise. (And I will keep track of whether or not I ever have to.)

Outside the window are three young men carrying a steel girder over their heads—the three male models from Bestosterone that Tookie encountered earlier. Two of the boys, Webb and Alexander, show off for the girls. Bravo just smiles politely before tossing the girder into the air a couple of times for a photographer. The third time, it cuts open his forearm. Then Bravo looks directly at Tookie, and the chapter ends.

Well, that was random.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Fused Flashback Females

The girls are perplexed by Bravo looking at Tookie. Zarpessa makes a bitchy remark, and I start considering whether I can give Zarpessa the same treatment as Chaste where I can just say “Zarpessa says/does something” and it’ll be a given that she’s just being a bitch.

Bravo makes a wiping gesture across his nose, and Tookie realizes that she had whipped cream on her nose. Then Persimoon shows up and tells the girls to get into a single-file line. Chaste says something, and Persimmon tells her that she needs her filthy mouth cleaned out. (See, it’s working so far!)

They arrive at a place called the OoAh. Zarpessa explains it’s where Bellas go to relax after training, and claims to have one attached to her bedroom. Persimmon orders the girls into groups. Tookie, Dylan, and Kamalini end up in a group together and are led off by a yellow-glowing Mannecant. Tookie feels the wall and realizes that it’s cashmere. Tookie thinks about a cashmere suit that her mother Creamy wore, and wonders what Creamy is doing at the moment. I wonder as well…?

The girls are told that the OoAh will remove their clothes and are instructed to lie down on three slabs. Once they do, little hands take off their clothes and a cushion of air causes the girls to hover in the air while water sprays above and below them. So this is basically a car wash for models?

They’re given minidresses and are led on a tour of the OoAh. The Mannecant tells them that they can change the environment to whatever they want. Kamalini asks for the OoAh to look like her home, then Tookie asks for a whipped cream factory. This makes her think about Lizzie and Exodus (the plan) again, though thankfully we don’t get angst.

Eventually, the girls come upon a room where three women are sitting together, with their hair fused into a large beehive. The Mannecant explains the Flashback Females: they can take a person and their friends into a past memory. The Mannecant also mentions that if they want to try it out, all of them have to. Dylan asks Tookie and Kamalini if they want to give it a try, and both of them are uneasy about it. Kamalini mentions that she’s ashamed of her house, to which Dylan points out that she lives in a store.

Kamalini goes first, and is led by one of the Flashback Females into the circle. The area changes into a luxurious bedroom with a window overlooking a shanytown. A younger Kamalini jumps out the window and goes to visit a group of people she tells the others are a family she would sneak unused stuff to. Young Kamalini tells the family that they have speaking parts in her mother’s next film, then the setting changes to Cappuccina where the family is reciting their lines and then to a film location in Très Jolie where Kamalini is helping her mother. In this setting, Kamalini’s mother is shooting a big thunderstorm scene. As the family performs, the backdrop tips over and collapses on the family. One of the little girls in the family crawls out, screaming for her parents. Kamalini reveals that this is the reason that she wears her Headbangor, in an attempt to block out the memories of the family’s deaths.

I just have one question: why did Kamalini want to relive this memory?

Next comes Dylan’s flashback, and the girls find themselves in a park in Bou-Big-Tique Nation. A young Dylan is playing with her father when suddenly her father collapses onto his knees. Her father tells young Dylan to remember that she’s beautiful and that she’s perfect before falling over. An ambulance appears, taking Dylan’s father away as the scene fades away.

The Mannecant asks Tookie if she is ready. Tookie starts towards Dylan, who is crying on the floor, but hears one of the Flashback Females seemingly saying, “Let her be, Tookie. The pain is part of the healing.” Tookie wants to skip but, as the Mannecant tells them, she would end up being marked as incomplete since OoAh is a class.

Tookie approaches the Painful Backstory Exposition Ladies Flashback Females, and the room changes to her home in Peppertown, albeit less ramshackle. Creamy enters, followed by a man who Tookie thinks is Chris-Crème-Crobat though she is unable to see his face. They look over the child in the bed, a two-year-old Tookie, talking about how she looks just like both of them. Little Tookie bites on a toothbrush, and Tookie reflects on how the toothbrush was a symbol of love before it became a weapon from her father. Tookie wonders about what changed to make her parents hate her as Chris-Crème-Crobat tells little Tookie to go to sleep, repeating his favourite words: “Just go, for all of us.”

The flashback ends. Then Tookie takes out a pink pen and starts writing a letter to Lizzie in Gowdee’an—wait, where’d she get the pen from? Her clothes were removed and she’s wearing the OoAh minidress. And what is she writing on? I think she’s supposed to be back in her room writing in her T-Mail Jail, but the formatting in the copy I’m reading is messed up.

Anyway, her letter goes on about how Tookie thinks Lizzie might hate her for seemingly abandoning her and says that she hopes that Lizzie is wondering about what Tookie is doing. She writes about her “friendSSSS” and how she’s become “Modelland’s Stare-at-Her girl.” Tookie mentions what happened with Bravo and how one of the Gurus said she “ain’t half bad”. She even uses “cuh-ray-zee” in her letter. Tookie says that she misses Lizzie, then adds as a postscript, “I hope you’re staying far away from sharp rocks.” With the exception of that line, Tookie’s letter is really self-centered.

But that brings us to the end of Chapter 22, and the end of this installment. Tune in next time for a sudden and awkward time skip, cats, and…oh yeah…the very special chapter I mentioned last time.

Comment [12]

It’s time for that special chapter I was talking about in the last two updates. What makes Chapter 23 so special? Is it a truly hysterical scenario of fail? Is it the most stupid moment of this book?

Not quite. What’s special about this chapter is that this chapter is actually good, and not only is this chapter good, it’s the first chapter in a series of four chapters spread throughout the book that are actually interesting. It may have something to do with the fact that they don’t involve Tookie and her entourage of idiots.

Granted, these aren’t perfect, as we’ll be seeing. And it just so happens that in the final chapter of the adventure we’ll be getting our first glimpse if now is a very bad moment in this book. In fact, I would consider it to be one of the two worst points in this book—but we’ll handle that when we get to it. Now, to join the Pilgrims!

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Diabolical Divide

Past the sign that marks the entrance into the Diabolical Divide, a group is starting to assemble. In this group is a teenage girl and her mother, a woman in her forties, and our old friend Abigail Goode (DOWN WITH RAZORS!) with her mother Harriet. (facepalm) There’s another person, a hunchbacked man wearing a leather hood.

His kind was unfamiliar to the group, but a certain porcelain-skinned girl named Piper would know them quite well. She’d lived with the daily terror of scores of them threatening to penetrate her homeland’s grand protective dome, after all.

So this guy is a LeGizzârd.

The teenage girl, Jessamine, remarks to her mother about how strange it is for a man to be there, given that “Everyone knows men don’t usually go on these things”. Because men are not as obsessive about being models and have other aspirations in life.

Everyone checks their gear, and the text tells us about how the group is suffering from the Pilgrim Plague and have decided to embark up to Modelland. The last figure is a Raider by the name of Macy Kamata, who swallows a bag of pills and gives each of the Pilgrims a bag of pills. Next, he injects needles into his own and the Pilgrims’ butts. Kamata warns the Pilgrims that their safety and lives are not guaranteed, and takes the Pilgrims’ money. The woman in her forties, Lynne, remarks that she is giving her life savings to Kamata.

Before the group can depart, two more figures come running towards them. After giving Kamata their money, the taller of the two introduces themselves: Creamy and Myrracle. Creamy even tells Myrracle to stop dancing, and Kamata remarks on how Creamy is taking along her doll, Bellissima. After Creamy, Myrracle, and Bellissima get their medicine (yes, Creamy insists on Kamata giving her doll a shot in the butt), the Pilgrims depart.

And to end the chapter, we have a letter from Tookie! Poo. She goes on about how Creamy probably thinks that Myrracle deserves to be at Modelland instead of Tookie, her “friendSSSS”, her classes, how Zarpessa is evil, how she is trying her best, and how she knows that Creamy once loved her. It’s not particularly interesting.

Chapter Twenty-Four: W.O.W.

Our most unusual tale picks up at the start of the next Modelland quadmester, three months and four days into the Bellas’ first year at the unusual, untouchable, and never uneventful fantastical land at the top of the mountain….

Time skip! We got one single class from the first quadmester and now we’re in the second quadmester. And evidently Modelland is “never uneventful” given that nothing of note happened after the first class.

We are told that every morning, Tookie is reminded of her father every time she brushes her teeth. And minutes later, Tookie, Dylan, Shiraz, and Piper are walking near the stadium.

Bravo says hello to Tookie. Tookie thinks about how he pointed out the whipped cream on her nose after her first Mastication class and acts like a jerk towards him:

“Good luck with your manly-man stuff,” she added flippantlly. “And don’t forget to pout your perfect lips and contract your rippling muscles for the cameras.”

Bravo laughs over Tookie’s comment, shaking loose bark and dust from the tree limb he’s carrying, with some of it landing on Tookie. Tookie wonders, “Is it this boy’s mission in life to torment me?” Why are we supposed to like Tookie, again? And as it just so happens, Bravo apologizes for it immediately after she thinks that.

Tookie then notices the salted-caramel colour of Bravo’s eyes (Theophilus had the same colour of eyes) and tells herself not to swoon. Bravo pats off the dust on Tookie, and when his hand brushes against her lips, she locks her lips around his thumb. Bravo asks if he tastes good and Tookie’s friends are “playfully mocking her.” Because they’re her friends and thus allowed to make fun of her. Tookie runs off as Bravo’s friends arrive and start teasing about Tookie’s behaviour.

“Pretty boy kooky over Tookie, and want her nookie,” Shiraz said sexily to Tookie as they jogged away.

“You sound like Chaste,” Tookie reprimanded, not laughing back.

Slut shaming!

And then Tookie wonders if it was all a joke, “Or something more?” Subtle.

The girls eat and then Tookie gets approached by a girl named Bibiana who asks about the clock system in Modelland. We’re told about how the entire class needed a remedial lesson on the colour clock system and how Tookie still doesn’t understand the clocks.

Their next class is W.O.W., War of Words, so they go there together. They arrive at the THE WAR OF WORDS MAGNETOSPHERE, and Piper arrives shortly afterwards. We get mention on how Piper turned the umbrella that appeared out of nowhere when she arrived in Modelland into a couture-like hat and how she looks like an Intoxibella already.

Along comes Bo, the emotionless girl, who just walks near the ball and gets sucked into it. Tookie, Bibiana, and Piper do the same and get sucked into the THE WAR OF WORDS MAGNETOSPHERE, finding themselves in a perfectly round room. As it turns out, Shiraz and Dylan are also there, along with the Likee sisters and Zarpessa. We’re told that Zarpessa’s become even more of a bitch towards Tookie, to the extent of making the image of Tookie on Tookie’s bed try to strangle her. Nice, now the Alpha Bitch is practically trying to kill our protagonist.

Around the room, various metal objects are stuck to the walls. Everyone’s jewelry then starts coming off of them and sticking to the walls—including Tookie’s tooth filling. Tookie’s T O OKE button comes flying off, but the flower brooch ends up sticking to it.

Chaste then says something (to be specific, she’s saying that the teacher’s name is MattJoe Von Megalo and that she’s calling “firsties”), then Guru MattJoe enters and turns out to be ugly. He introduces himself and explains the class:

“You will learn how to use words to convince, to charm, to soothe, and to strike and DESTROY the arguments of anyone standing in your way! And I don’t mean the way thespian dames do, ladies, just reciting lines from cue cards and crying on command. I mean doing so with Modelland CONVICTION!”

Hooray, more actress-bashing! MattJoe says that he’s usually not aggressive and must have learned it from Bravo, whom MattJoe says is a friend of his. Tookie thinks about Bravo again, wondering if she should have acted like Chaste (a slut), Zarpessa (a bitch), or Dylan (an idiot) instead of sucking on Bravo’s thumb.

MattJoe continues explaining the class, about how the girls must learn how to convey love for something even if they detest it, and asks for a frivolous topic to start off with. Dylan complains about how MattJoe keeps saying “yep, yep”, further cementing her as a judgemental bitch.

Then Chaste makes a suggestion: “How about we debate free swing versus firm sling?” MattJoe thinks that she’s talking about hammocks, to which Chaste replies that she’s talking about “Hammocks…for honkers.” And at this point, I want to throw something out of a window because this girl that exists solely to say and do slutty things is really getting on my nerves.

MattJoe has Chaste speak for “free swing” while Shiraz goes for “firm sling”. He has them put a plus and minus sign respectively on their foreheads, prompting a quip from Zarpessa about Dylan’s big butt. This makes Tookie think about how Zarpessa is a “bully strategist” in how she targets Tookie’s friends as well.

When Chaste starts talking, her forehead becomes magnetically attracted to Shiraz’s forehead. Why in the world is this happening? Chaste starts waxing poetic about boobs, which might have turned me on if not for the fact that I can feel nothing but seething rage whenever Chaste says anything.

Next comes Shiraz’s turn. And whereas I felt nothing but hatred for Chaste’s words…

Shiraz cleared her throat, seeming a little knocked off her game. Then she launched into a song. “The boobies high and tight on me.” Everyone laughed. “My knobbies pert and firm, agree? But forever young they will not be. No bra, they’ll sag with grav-i-tee!”

…this actually made me laugh.

MattJoe weighs in on each girl’s presentation, and while it seems like Shiraz is about to be declared the winner, the floor opens up before MattJoe can give his verdict. Two figures emerge from the floor: Persimmon and a bound-and-gagged Ci~L wearing a grey jumpsuit with the words “UGLY ROOM” on the back. Persimmon explains that Ci~L has been delivered to the THE WAR OF WORDS MAGNETOSPHERE (can’t you tell I love that name?) to be a first-year Bella again. She has Ci~L remove her jumpsuit, revealing a Modelland uniform that’s too small on Ci~L. Persimmon states that after Ci~L’s course, she’ll be returned to the Ugly Room. MattJoe expresses pity for Ci~L, noting that Ci~L was far ahead of everyone else in W.O.W. class. Then he sees a BellaDonna bust and immediately takes back his words. Zarpessa makes a snide comment about Ci~L, prompting Tookie to verbally lash out at her. Zarpessa tells her that she’s “only here for a Modelland sacrificial science project” and MattJoe stops them, deciding that they will be next to debate against each other. He assigns both of them a partner: Dylan for Tookie and Ci~L for Zarpessa.

MattJoe’s topic for the two teams is to argue unusual physicality versus defined beauty, with Ci~L and Zarpessa’s side arguing for unusual physicality. The four put on the plus and minus signs and take their places. Zarpessa starts off, insulting Tookie and her group and saying that they deserve to feel attractive despite being “Unfortunate-Lookings—ULs, for short”. MattJoe isn’t pleased at Zarpessa’s argument. Ci~L starts reciting a poem trashing Zarpessa.

Tookie’s turn comes next, and she styles her speech in the form of one of her T-Mail Jail letters, gushing about Ci~L and expressing her worries about Ci~L’s mental health. She goes on about how she’s a Forgetta-Girl while Myrracle is an ideal beauty, and how Ci~L shouldn’t stand up for her.

This provokes Ci~L to start into a rant about how they’ve been brainwashed into believing that beauty is only certain things and says that if they “reprogram our brainwashed-with-extra-strength-bleach minds”, they can conceive beauty in people like Shiraz, Piper, and Tookie.

Then Dylan starts ranting about how she’s fat, prompting Ci~L to get pissed off and tell her to “look in the damn mirror”, to which Dylan disagrees. Ci~L calls Dylan a “coward” and tells her that she has to defend her body, to which Dylan simply tells Ci~L to shut up. Dylan storms out of the classroom. MattJoe says that despite Dylan’s poor behaviour, Tookie has “won” her first War of Words.

Then Persimmon pops up, scolding MattJoe for allowing Ci~L to spout her poetry. She puts Ci~L back in the Ugly Room jumpsuit. Tookie retrieves her T O OKE button and leaves the THE WAR OF WORDS MAGNETOSPHERE. Tookie, Shiraz, and Piper see Dylan running into a plaid cube, so they follow her, chasing her into a hallway that smells of wet fur. They hear hissing sounds, and Shiraz realizes where they are: the Catwalk Corridor.

And that was when the first set of claws ripped into Tookie’s flesh.

DUN DUN DUUUN!

Chapter Twenty-Five: One Bee-yotchhh

As it turns out, the claws just scratched Tookie’s ankle. Yes, that last chapter’s cliffhanger was overdramatic. She does end up getting scratched in the face, then sneezes.

At which point a voice with a “TooLip” accent starts speaking. In the darkness, the girls can see hundreds of eyes staring at them—cat eyes. Two of the cats even have painted claws. Tookie tries to run, but a massive gate cuts off her escape. Then she comes across a Persian with a human face who wants her to comb its hair. Tookie starts thinking that the cat resembles an Intoxibella named Anka. A bunch of cats tell Piper to take a pill to colour her blank skin, and Tookie notices that a tabby cat looks like another Intoxibella, Fiona (from Icylann). Next comes a Siamese cat that looks like an Intoxibella named Phara, and the cat says that it is the Intoxibella Phara. Tookie asks how they’re cats.

Then Zarpessa and Chaste wander in. One of the cats pees on Zarpessa’s foot, causing Zarpessa to run away. Why are Zarpessa and Chaste here, other than to get peed on? Why did Dylan come into this building? Why in the world is this happening?

The cats start pouncing on Tookie, who says that they have to find Dylan and leave. They reach the end of the corridor, where Zarpessa and Chaste are staring at a bunch of cats seemingly praying before a massive lion face. The lion face speaks in the BellaDonna’s voice, expositing that the Catwalk Corridor is a correctional facility for Intoxibellas, saying “There. Is. Room. For. Only. One. Bee-yotchhh” and ordering the cats back to their pens. One of the cats that bit Tookie has this delightful tidbit:

“Watch out, De La Crème. This kitty-cat got a taste of your sweetness and wants more of your cream!”

Saying that the lesbian overtones are the best part of this book is an exaggeration…but not by that much.

The lion face’s mouth opens, and the girls walk through the mouth, coming out in the D (for Dorm) building. The passageway disappears behind them as the chapter comes to a close.

This chapter is revolves around one of the greatest flaws of this book: Tookie ends up in places for contrived reasons simply for the sake of exposition. Whether it’s sleepwalking or her friend running into a random building, Tookie conveniently stumbles upon causes for exposition, whether it’s just worldbuilding like when she comes upon her father practising and here in the Catwalk Corridor, or dramatic revelations like Chris-Crème-Crobat’s plan to send Tookie away and seeing Ci~L acting crazy. And this is going to come up again, quite soon in fact, and in an even more stupid manner.

In the next installment: we learn what a self-centered and vain bitch Piper is, get zome zreally ztupid zialogue, and our suspension of disbelief gets smashed to bits with a massive freaking hammer.

Comment [4]

We’re a little over halfway through the book now. It certainly feels like it, right? Don’t worry, we’ll be getting some sort of conflict in this installment.

Even if it is shoved into the story in what is possibly the dumbest scene in the entire book.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Porcelain Pact

Tookie, Piper, and Shiraz go into Dylan’s room, where the Likee sisters express their dislike of the girls’ appearance and tell them that Dylan is in the bathroom. The girls find her in one of the stalls, having thrown up. Dylan says that looking at Zarpessa made her want to be thin like Zarpessa, and angsts about how no one at Modelland looks like her. This prompts the girls to express how no one looks like them as well, and start into confessing their vulnerabilities. As Dylan puts it:

“True friendship is about bein’ really vulnerable. About sittin’ around a toilet and, uh…I don’t know…lettin’ loose.”

Piper starts, and angsts about being albino. She confesses that she hates her mother not because of her mother’s politics, but because she married a man with albinism. Because to hell with whether or not her mother loves a man or likes his appearance, how dare she condemn her daughter to albinism? She shows the others a photo of herself wearing makeup and a wig to look “normal”. Tookie wipes Piper’s tears away, and we’re told that “Tears were streaming—quite beautifully, in a strange way—from her rose-colored eyes.” Alright, you can start making out now. Will the lesbian undertones ever end?

Shiraz goes next, talking about how her parents were tall while she’s short and how her father called her names based on how short she was. They were a famous singing show, earning candles for Shiraz’s sick mother. Alas, evidently Shiraz wasn’t good enough for her father, because he died shortly after Shiraz’s mother. Shiraz says that he died of a broken heart, which she takes as meaning that he didn’t love Shiraz. She shows the girls a picture of her and her father, with her father’s face gouged out.

And to think that Piper and Shiraz were once the tolerable members of Tookie’s ensemble.

Then comes Tookie’s turn. She pulls out the T-Mail Jail, explaining it to her friends, and shows a letter that she wrote to herself, viciously berating herself and hoping that she dies. It ends with “Just go…for all of us.”

All of the girls immediately start saying that their troubles are nothing compared to Tookie’s, with Piper saying that Tookie is oh-so-speshul. Tookie hugs her friends, then thinks of Lizzie.

Then Dylan decides that their group needs a name. Dylan suggests “Krapper Sisters” because she’s a freaking moron, while Piper says “The Vulnerable Four”, “V4” for short. Tookie suggests the “ULs” because Zarpessa calls them “Unfortunate-Lookings”, but then suggests “Unicas” which the rest of the girls naturally love.

And naturally, everyone’s attention returns to Tookie and the cuts she got from the Catwalk Corridor. Piper volunteers to take her to the FEDS (Fashion Emergency Department Store). Dylan tells them to watch out for “that corridor catty thingamajigga” and Tookie says that she would like to see a cat pee on Zarpessa again.

Don’t you just love our protagonist?

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Z

I just love it when Banks gives things names that are so stupid, they’re fun.

Tookie and Piper make their way to the FEDS. ZhenZhen shows up, recognizing Tookie’s cut as from the Catwalk Corridor. She explains that the cats are Intoxibellas who break the rules and do drugs, and they get turned back to people once they reform. ZhenZhen says that she is going to her Go-See-Go, part of her final exam. Tookie asks if ZhenZhen is going to imitate Ci~L, and ZhenZhen says that whatever Ci~L does, she’ll do. Just before she leaves, ZhenZhen exposits about an emergency ZipZap to LaDorno that a lot of girls died in, which allegedly has an uncontrollable fork that leads to the Diabolical Divide. Huh, I wonder why ZhenZhen just happened to know about that and told them now. We couldn’t be getting a reason in the next chapter as to why Tookie might need to know about that, right?

ZhenZhen hurries off, and Tookie thinks about how ZhenZhen is too stunning to be an honorary Unica. Tookie and Piper then take a ZipZap to the FEDS. Upon arriving, Tookie is reminded of the various tests her mother had done on Tookie to figure out why she was so ugly, which always came back inconclusive. The two girls walk up to the check-in counter, where a very old woman wearing clothes made of various weapons is sitting. She introduces herself as Purse Drestookill, and Tookie makes the astute observation that nurses are called “purses” at Modelland. She thinks about how she should have known that, which is a good point given that it’s the kind of stupidity you’d expect at Modelland. Purse Drestookill tells her that the Catwalk Corridor cats have tetanus and uses the blade-covered device on her head to put a “Clawed by Catwalk Corridor” sticker on Tookie’s arm. All the time, Purse Drestookill insults Tookie’s forehead and lips.

Tookie and Piper sit next to a girl with a uniform too small for her. Tookie asks what the girl is at the FEDS for, and the girl shows her sticker that says “Tax Evasion” “Flooding Pants”. The girl explains that she washed her uniform in hot water when she was supposed to use cold, which turned her uniform tiny and caused water to envelop her. Just after she explains, water starts coming from her feet and envelops her until Purse Drestookill punctures the “bag” of water.

I know what we’re all thinking here: why in the world is this happening?

Tookie looks around, seeing a girl with “Smoky Eyes” who has puffs of smoke coming out of her eye sockets. Then Tookie notices Desperada crying and Zarpessa covered in injuries from the Catwalk Corridor. Tookie smirks at this, because she’s a bitch. Zarpessa shoots Tookie and Piper a look. Tookie walks over to Desperada, asking if she got scratched by the cats—despite there being no indication that Desperada is injured or was even in the Catwalk Corridor. Desperada says that she’s sick.

A woman in roller skates comes in, and Zarpessa hounds the woman about Desperada’s crying. The woman tells Zarpessa that she is a doctor and not a purse, and that she should check Zarpessa for brain trauma. More laughs at the alpha bitch’s expense! The doctor introduces herself to Desperada as Dr. Erica, then diagnoses Desperada’s condition as BW—Boy Withdrawal. Desperada cries about how she misses her boyfriend, to which Dr. Erica responds by telling her that she can’t go home without a dear price and that she needs to suck it up. As Desperada leaves, Dr. Erica makes fun of her name.

Then Bravo comes in with a gash on his neck. Piper calls him “thumb boy” because of how Tookie sucked on his thumb. He acts all humble, then sits down. Dr. Erica announces that Tookie’s next, to which Zarpessa whines and is promptly shot down. Dr. Erica says that Tookie is good at hiding pain and must have been doing it for a while, before giving Tookie some Zed Med. She warns Tookie that they have “a Z effect.”

Then two strands of Dr. Erica’s hair snake through the air and go up Tookie’s nostrils. Eeeeuuugggh. Tookie asks about Dr. Erica’s skates, and the doctor reveals that the skates are part of her body. After Tookie asks about the strange-looking Gurus, Dr. Erica explains that Modelland took in abnormal people like herself and the Gurus, that they would have been experimented on and called freaks without Modelland. Dr. Erica says that her daughter, who also has roller-skate feet, is in a medical school hidden beneath Modelland. Tookie points out the different standards for Gurus and Bellas, and the doctor says that she thought Tookie was an injured Guru and that she doesn’t know why the double standard exists. She gives Tookie more Zed Med, then launches into a speech about how she insulted Desperada’s name:

“Oh, and I know you heard me talking about how children grow up a certain way depending on what their parents name them. Dig deep to see if your name is something to follow or fight against. Tookie. The last syllable sounds like key. Maybe you’re searching for something, and you have the power to unlock it or set it free.”

Well, Tookie is certainly following her name. She’s quite an ass.

Tookie catches a glimpse of the Likee sisters, suffering from “Clothes Horse” from stealing other girls’ stuff. Tookie asks if Dr. Erica can replace the filling that she lost at THE WAR OF WORDS MAGNETOSPHERE.

She had a feeling the Likees—the Fraud Quad—had pilfered it after War of Words class.

Wait, when have we gotten any indication prior to just a few moments ago that the Likees were thieves, let alone had such a nickname? The only things we knew previously is that they malnourished themselves and that they thought the Unicas were ugly. Oh wait, that certainly means that they do mean things all of the time elsewhere. Right?

Dr. Erica brings in Bravo, who is followed by a bunch of girls including Zarpessa. Bravo ignores them and goes to sit with Tookie, asking what happened to her. Tookie responds with “Zats”, revealing what the chapter title and the Z effect is all about. Bravo reveals that Intoxibellos rarely have magic, and that his main concern is architecture. Because boys have interests other than modelling. Zarpessa tries to suck up to Bravo’s interest, but he ignores her and asks if Tookie wants anything to eat. He brings her some Modelland Munchies, then complains about the food at Bestosterone. Tookie tries to eat it, but she puts it on her cheek…somehow. This prompts Bravo to insert it into Tookie’s mouth, getting bloody saliva on Bravo’s hand. Zarpessa starts acting like a bitch, to which Bravo gives no damns. After Bravo says that it must suck having a cut lip when kissing, Zarpessa strolls over.

“Like Chaste would say, there are plenty of other ways to get busy even with a cut lip, right, Too-Too?”

At least Zarpessa is aware that Chaste is a one-dimensional slut. Zarpessa then mocks Tookie for having never “done it” and having never kissed someone, prompting Bravo to tear into Zarpessa for her being a bitch. She leaves angrily, and Bravo continues feeding Tookie. Tookie complains about the food being zoo zry, then pulls out her whipped cream from her flower brooch. (I still have no idea how it fits.) Bravo praises Tookie for not being afraid to eat, then starts shoving things into Tookie’s hammerspace brooch. Tookie laughs like crazy at this, remarking how she’s having fun with a guy.

Dr. Erica returns, saying that she’s ready for operating and that Bravo has to leave. Bravo says zoodbye to Zookie as Tookie is taken to the OR-U-OK, and Tookie thinks about how his hands are “Perfectly imperfect.” Dr. Erica says that she thinks Bravo likes Tookie, which Tookie doesn’t believe. She thinks of Bravo as better than Theophilus and wonders if she really likes Bravo as she goes under.

To Tyra Banks’s credit, the relationship between Tookie and Bravo is a lot better than a lot of young-adult novels. Silly, yes, but there’s a bit of a good quality to it.

If only we weren’t doing the next chapter right now, we could have ended on a high note. Because we’re about to go down, down, down.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Three Decrees

When Tookie wakes up, she realizes that she’s not in the OR-U-OK or the FEDS anymore. Yep, she sleepwalked. She notices a window looking out onto the M plaza and glass walls. After looking around, she realizes where she is.

I’m in the M building!

Yes. We were told that the M building was off-limits to Bellas.

We were told that the M building is the headquarters of Modelland.

We were told that the M building is very secure.

Tookie sleepwalked to dozens of floors up in a building with glass walls without being discovered. And why do you think she sleepwalked here? Why, what reason has Tookie ever sleepwalked during the story? What purpose does Tookie’s sleepwalking serve? That’s right! She sleepwalked here so that she could be in a place which she has no reason to be in at a time which she would otherwise be asleep to hear some plot-relevant exposition!

Tookie sneaks out of the room she’s in, noticing that some of the hallway glass is cloudy and thinks that she could use that to hide. How convenient!

She goes past Guru Applaussez and Guru Lauro having coffee, narrowly avoiding being seen thanks to some opaque glass. How convenient!

Then she notices Guru Gunnero sitting in a diamond throne, seemingly staring directly at Tookie and smiling. Then he applies lipstick and Tookie realizes that he’s just looking at a two-way mirror. HOW CONVENIENT.

Tookie hears angry voices at the end of a hall, then notices a sign that reads “Emergency Exit to the M”. HOW CONVENIENT! Really, I thought that Tookie was going to have to use her smarts to escape the M, but as it turns out, there’s just so many things that happen to help her!

Tookie draws closer to the exit sign, then notices Persimmon eavesdropping on a conversation in another room. The conversation turns out to be the BellaDonna shouting at a sobbing Ci~L. The BellaDonna screams about how Ci~L is trying to unmake the place that made her and that she was trying to do something to girls’ bodies, something which frightened the BellaDonna. The BellaDonna refers to “that round one, that wee one, and that wan one”, which Tookie knows means her friends, and how she wants them abolished. Ci~L insists on keeping them around, saying that she knows the BellaDonna’s “little secret.” Ci~L lists off the horrible things that the BellaDonna made her do, including doing War of Words in her first-year uniform and cleaning the floors of the Ugly Room with her tongue. Ci~L reveals that the BellaDonna’s grave mistake was making Ci~L work in the admissions department, where she discovered something. It’s a good thing that the BellaDonna is that stupid.

And because it’s information that is important to the girl that happens to be eavesdropping, Ci~L randomly brings up the three rules that BellaDonnas must abide by. Say it with me: how convenient!

“One: You must set a world-changing definition of beauty and stick to it for five years. Two: All Gurus must have a combination of a defect and a power. And last but not least, three: Do not tamper with the predetermined admissions list!”

Well, there you go! T-DOD is a crock, a sham, a phony exam.

Ci~L goes on about how the BellaDonna scratched out one worthy candidate and how the BellaDonna faces unspeakable consequences. The BellaDonna eventually asks what Ci~L wants, and Ci~L says that Tookie’s friends are staying. The BellaDonna asks why.

Ci~L laughed devilishly, almost evilly. “You know why. They’re my experiments.”

“If you don’t let me, what I did to those girls’ bodies just might have to happen again. This time, I’ll be successful—let the death march begin! C’mon, BellyDonna. You’re up for a little sacrifice, aren’t you?”

Tookie is freaked out over Ci~L’s words. The BellaDonna accepts, and Ci~L says that she won’t say a word about how the BellaDonna replaced a worthy candidate—with Tookie De La Crème.

Looks like we’ve got some conflict and intrigue now, folks! If only it wasn’t provided in a contrived, unbelievable, and downright stupid manner! And I’m going to spoil a bit of one of the next chapters here: Tookie escapes without being detected. Even more, she doesn’t even try to go undetected. She simply runs out of the building without being seen by anyone.

All together now:

HOW CONVENIENT!

(sighs) We’ve just passed what is arguably the stupidest moment in the book, and we still have the two utterly-sickening parts of the book left to go…

…but on the bright side, the next chapter is a Pilgrim chapter. So we have that to look forward to.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flute Creepers

We start off with Myrracle and Creamy talking and a mention of how the Pilgrims had been travelling for months.

Suddenly, ominous winds blew in.

Even the wind in the Diabolical Divide is diabolical. Or perhaps should I say, wicked?

The Pilgrims ready their makeshift weapons, knowing that creatures called Tumble Terrors would soon be coming. The group has scars from these monsters; Lynne (the old woman) lost her middle finger, Abigail Goode has a gash on her face, and Harriet Goode had a chunk taken out of her hairy butt. Literally.

One of the pug-sized creatures had extracted a three-inch chunk from Abigail’s mother’s shaggy buttocks.

As it turns out, Creamy has a special concoction that she uses on herself and Myrracle to protect them from harm, which she doesn’t share with the rest of the group. We’re also told how Lynne seeks revenge on an Intoxibella named Larcenina who stole Lynne’s husband from her. Creamy and Lynne snap at each other’s appearances for a bit.

We’re then introduced to a mysterious hunchbacked figure that the Pilgrims call “Hunchy” who takes down a Tumble Terror and slices its torso open with the claw on its foot so he can reach into its carcass and eat its pancreas. He promptly spits it out.

The sweetbreads he desired, the reason for his trek, were so close, yet so far, within a certain pale-skinned Unica who resided in Modelland…

Well, so much for the intrigue and mystery. Hunchy is a LeGizzârd who wants to eat Piper’s guts. Then again, for the payoff of this plot arc in this book, well…I won’t spoil the payoff.

Kamata announces that the group has made it through the first level. Kamata warns them that the second zone is even worse and tells everyone to set up camp. Creamy notes that she brought a blow-up tent for herself and Myrracle, then refuses to eat any of the mango rations Myrracle hands her.

Suddenly, the two De La Crémes hear a strange song, then look out of their tent to see silver plants resembling musical instruments sticking themselves into the mouths of the other Pilgrims. The Flute Creeper, as the text exposits, knock out their victims with venom, crawl into their victims’ bodies, then devour their victims from the inside out while the victims still live. Kamata was supposed to stay awake and look out for them, but he had failed miserably.

Myrracle asks if they should let the other Pilgrims die, to which Creamy says that there’s strength in numbers and throws a spear at a Flute Creeper on Kamata. She rips out the Flute Creeper’s heart and shoves it into Kamata’s mouth, forcing him to chew it as the heart contains the antivenom. Myrracle asks how Creamy knows this, to which Creamy simply responds, “Personal research.”

And that brings the Pilgrim chapter to an end.

Sadface. Because in these two chapters, Creamy and Myrracle have shown themselves to be more proactive in pursuing their goals than our protagonist.

Chapter Thirty: D-Head and Dread

Tookie bolts out of the M building, avoiding detection without even trying to sneak past any security. (Though I already mentioned this last time.) As she runs away from the M building, she wonders if the BellaDonna really did replace another student with her. Well, it’s either that or the BellaDonna is allowing herself to be blackmailed over something that never happened, so why don’t you work out the logic there, Tookie? Tookie thinks about how her and her friends were surely experiments all along, and how the BellaDonna had mentioned bodies to Ci~L and some horrible thing that Ci~L had done.

What if Ci~L had taken the torture too far, had done something even Modelland didn’t stand for?

The BellaDonna said Ci~L scared even her! Oh God! Ci~L is the most twisted, diabolical person here…

Keep in mind that Tookie is basing this entirely off of what the BellaDonna said, and as we’ve seen so far, the BellaDonna is quite sadistic and cruel. How does Tookie know that what the BellaDonna was referring to was merely something that the BellaDonna disapproved of? Because we know that the BellaDonna is such a paragon of morality, but no. To hell with every interaction Tookie had with Ci~L; Ci~L is now officially worse than Satan.

Tookie goes towards the D building, angsting about a bush that frowns at her and thinking it wants to hurt her. And then she runs into Bravo. Bravo calls her “Creamy” because of her whipped cream, to which Tookie rudely tells him to never call her that again. He asks if “D-Head” would be a better name, as the shape of her head reminds him of the D building. From what we know of Bravo, he’s a fairly intelligent and civil guy, so how the hell did he think saying that was a good idea? Naturally, Tookie gets pissed off about it. Bravo explains that the D building is the perfect example of “uncommon beauty”, “a curious collection of peculiar things.” Apart, they would be less than ordinary, but together, they’re special.” Gag.

Bravo says that Tookie’s lips look fine, perfect for her first kiss, and then a leaf falls on Tookie’s lip. This gives Bravo an excuse to stick his thumb in her mouth again. Bravo compliments her eyes, then Tookie says that she’d want to hate him because he’s more attractive than she is. Our protagonist, people! She assures him that she doesn’t actually hate him, and just when it seems like they are going to kiss, Tookie remembers Ci~L’s words and runs off.

Tookie runs into the D, where her fellow Unicas are trying to get Kamalini’s attention away from her Headbangor as they’ve made a bet and whoever loses has to shove “Zar-Oppressa” the next time she acts like a one-dimensional Alpha Bitch. Because two wrongs make a right. (But three rights make a left!)

Tookie pulls them away and tells them about the conversation between the BellaDonna and Ci~L. She mentions the time she sleepwalked onto Ci~L beating herself up and screaming “sorry” over and over again. Tookie thinks this means that she was apologizing to the people she killed, and now she’s ready to do it again. Dylan gets pissed off over how Tookie never mentioned that, and Tookie says that she thought it might have just been a dream and that she should have mentioned it earlier. Dylan naturally forgives her and starts angsting about her momma, four sisters, and four brothers. Shiraz expresses her fear of dying, and so does Piper:

“I’ve never felt so alive. It feels so good to not start every day in fear of the LeGizzârds taking my life.”

One second, please.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Okay, let’s continue.

Tookie rallies the girls, telling them that they need to escape. Piper suggests that everyone should focus on what they do best: Piper focuses on research and technology, Dylan uses her big mouth, and Shiraz serves as a lookout. Tookie wonders what she’s good at, then the rest of the girls appoint her as their leader. Tookie then thinks about how she has no idea what to do.

Because it’s not like she was told about a potential escape route earlier, right?

Chapter Thirty-One: Despairing Desperation

Two weeks pass and Tookie’s still got nothing. They sure were hard at work trying to think up a plan, weren’t they? Meanwhile, the 7Seven Tournament is drawing near, prompting the girls to argue over who they think will be chosen. We’re told about how Ci~L just stares sadly at Tookie’s friends in War of Words and how Guru MattJoe had to have Modelland security physically subdue her three times—for what reason, we’re never told. We’re also told about how Bravo leaves whipped cream for Zookie on each day of the two weeks. This doesn’t do enough to abate the Unicas’ fear, leading to them losing their appetites.

With the 7Seven stadium almost completed, Tookie’s class gets a tour from ZhenZhen. Then it occurs to Tookie that they could use the emergency ZipZap that ZhenZhen mentioned. Gee, why didn’t you think of this earlier, you massive twit? The other girls point out how it has a fifty-fifty chance of spitting them into the Diabolical Divide, and the idea of just climbing over the wall comes up. Tookie points out that they’d still have to go through the Diabolical Divide, and Dylan says that she’d rather know exactly where she’s going.

So, given the choice between a 100% chance of ending up in the Diabolical Divide or a 50% chance of ending up in the Diabolical Divide, the girls decide to go for climbing over the wall. Morons.

They go to scout out the perfect spot to climb the wall, then return to bed. Tookie dreams about Ci~L being worse than Satan and her friends’ dead bodies, but is then awakened by a screeching alarm. Outside of the building, they see Desperada running towards the wall. Desperada screams that life is not worth living without her boyfriend, then starts climbing the wall.

Ci~L then shows up, telling Desperada to get off the wall. Guru Gunnero comes along, scolding her for trying to stop Desperada and calling her “Body Girl” again. The Unicas immediately assume that Gunnero’s nickname for her is supposed to mean “dead body girl”. Yes, because we have some vague reason to believe that Ci~L is a villain, everything about her will become utterly and throughly demonized.

Desperada keeps climbing. Ci~L mashes the Paragon interrupt button, but fails to grab Desperada. That’s when Tookie notices that instead of nails, Ci~L has claws. Because she is evul. Desperada insults everyone who left their boyfriends behind. Ci~L warns Desperada of the “permanent” consequences of leaving and starts climbing after her. Gunnero eggs her on, prompting Ci~L to insult Gunnero about how he doesn’t like how his life’s turned out.

Then Desperada jumps off the wall. Shortly afterwards, a lightning bolt strikes the wall, turning it transparent. As Desperada rises to her feet and turns back towards Modelland, it is revealed that her face has become old, that it “looked as though it belonged to someone of almost seventy, not a girl of fifteen.”

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given that all of the students were told this when they started at Modelland. Which brings up a very good: how come none of our brilliant Unicas remembered this?

Zarpessa makes a quip about the Unicas being ugly, prompting Tookie to think about how “foul and black-hearted” Zarpessa is. Because she’s just a one-dimensional Alpha Bitch. Tookie shoves Zarpessa to the ground, provoking Zarpessa to challenge Tookie to a brawl. Dylan breaks them up and Zarpessa swears vengeance.

Gunnero has Desperada taken away from Modelland, mocking her over her lost youth. Then an earthquake suddenly starts, knocking girls off their feet.

The BellaDonna statue glowed, its arms outstretched, vibrating violently. Ci~L just stood there with a foreboding look in her eyes as everything started to crash to the ground around her. Tookie somehow knew that Ci~L, in tandem with the BellaDonna, was responsible for the devastating tremor. Debris was falling everywhere. Everywhere but on Ci~L.

…Tookie. Perhaps maybe, if the earthquake isn’t causing stuff to fall on Ci~L, maybe it just might be because the BellaDonna doesn’t want to piss Ci~L off and provoke her into spilling the beans? And what reason do you have to believe that Ci~L is causing the earthquake along with the BellaDonna—especially given Ci~L’s blatant animosity against the BellaDonna and how Ci~L just tried to stop Desperada from ruining herself? Oh wait, logic has no place in this book—Ci~L is teh evul, therefore she must have caused the earthquake.

All of the Bellas run for cover until the earthquake stops, Tookie realizes that they can’t climb over the wall and they need to find another way out. Is that 50% chance of salvation looking any better now?

In a happy universe, this chapter would end here. (Wait, scratch that. In a happy universe, this book would have been throughly edited and critiqued before being published, if it got published at all.) But we have another one of Tookie’s stupid letters, one addressed to Ci~L. I’m going to quote the letter in full, because there’s just so much to tear apart and I think me getting completely pissed off at this book is a good way to finish off this installment.

Ci~L,

I really don’t understand you. One minute you’re beating yourself, the next you’re rocking and chanting, then you turn into a blackmailing devil with the BellaDonna, and just now you faked concern for Desperada.

Excuse me, Tookie, but what the fuck makes you think she faked concerned for Desperada? Because you think she’s teh evul and that means that she can’t possibly mean good in anything she does?

I’ve wondered if you are mentally disturbed, but now you’ve truly confirmed just how sick you really are.

By trying to stop a girl from doing something stupid and standing around doing nothing while an earthquake happens?

I was once told by a supportive Triple7 Intoxibella who seems to have just up and disappeared that people who hurt others are hurting even more themselves. You must have been talking about yourself.

Or maybe Ci~L was talking about Zarpessa, who had done something bitchy immediately prior to Ci~L looking at her and saying that? And it’s not as if Tookie doesn’t have first-hand proof of a way that Zarpessa is hurting inside, rather than baseless assumptions provoked from the words of an unreliable source.

Is that what the sacrifices are about? Are you a broken, barren soul, feeding on suffering to maintain your flawless existence?

Keep in mind that we still have absolutely no solid proof of girls being sacrificed. The only thing we have to go off of is one vague conversation.

Your maverick ways, your renegade fight…it’s a booby trap, a gimmick, an illusion, so you can strike your victims while they’re distracted by your unpoetic gibberish.

You’re one to speak for unpoetic gibberish, Tookie.

I’ve already been the victim of evil here at Modelland, you know that. In fact, I LIVE with it, literally, and she is bathed in a glowing Lumière as I write you. But THAT evil, as hurtful as it is, I kind of understand. THAT evil is living a lie and grabbing on to the handlebars of dear life to maintain her fantasy for an existence. While yours just seems selfish, pure evil for evil’s sake.

Let’s rewind a bit back, to when Tookie was thinking about Zarpessa:

She had never met anyone so foul and black-hearted in her life.

Tookie, you fucking hypocrite. And now we’re branding Ci~L as worse than a character who exists solely to be a bitch to our heroine!

I thought you were an inspiration, Ci~L—most of the world thinks so. So you’ve broken my heart in more ways than one. But the Unicas will beat you at your own game. We are getting out of here; we won’t be more of your victims.

“Where the hell is Ci~L?” they all ask. When I get away from this place, the first thing I’m going to do is tell the world what a phony, evil, sick bitch you are.

Good luck with that, given the overwhelming mountain of proof you have that everything nice Ci~L does is just her faking it and that she is sacrificing girls for her own selfish gain.

Ever since Tookie met Ci~L, she’s had nothing but a high opinion of Ci~L. Ci~L has given her and her friends words of encouragements, stood up against bullies for them. Tookie’s views of Ci~L had always been positive—she looked up to Ci~L and felt pity for her situation.

On the other hand, the BellaDonna has shown herself to be cold and cruel. She publicly shames and tortures Ci~L, based on whatever perceived wrong that Ci~L has done. The very conversation which led Tookie to believe that Ci~L is “the most twisted, diabolical person here” also implicates the BellaDonna in some nasty plots. The BellaDonna has been nothing but a “bee-yotchhh”.

And based on the BellaDonna’s words and some vague sentences, Tookie’s opinion of Ci~L has completely changed. And now our protagonist is demonizing everything that Ci~L has ever done, out of the belief that nothing about Ci~L could possibly be good. But given the type of book that Modelland is, what do you think the odds are of Tookie being completely right about everything she has accused Ci~L of?

Next time on the Modelland spork: we get strong evidence for the idea that the girls are in danger (three guesses as to who this evidence doesn’t point to), another Pilgrim chapter (yay!), and Tookie proves herself to be even more of a hypocritical, unlikeable bitch.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need some chocolate.

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Chapter Thirty-Two: There Is No, Has Never Been, and Never Will Be

As Tookie comes out of the D building, she overhears girls talking about what happened to Desperada. Two girls speculate that the BellaDonna made Desperada age, one of those girls being Chaste. Holy cow, Chaste said something that wasn’t completely slutty! It only took…however many chapters since this one-dimensional slut first appeared. A memorial to Desperada has been made where she had jumped over the wall, with the wall changing itself to show before-and-after pictures of Desperada. Tookie wonders how they’re going to escape Modelland now, apparently having forgotten again about the emergency ZipZap. Screw 50% chances of safety, the Unicas only care about 0% chances.

A hologram of Guru Gunnero appears, telling all of the Bellas to go to the M building.

Tookie and her friends froze and exchanged worried glances. The M building. Where she’d heard they were all going to be experimented on and sacrificed.

Um, no, Tookie never heard anything of the sort. She overheard that her friends and herself were experiments themselves, and only a vague mention of “sacrifice”. Tookie has a very poor memory.

All of the Bellas go to the M building. Tookie thinks about the random things she saw in the M building, somehow capable of remembering those things better than the actual words that she had overheard. On a wall before the Bellas, two sad-looking eyes and lips appear. Persimmon introduces the BellaDonna, and the BellaDonna starts singing about how Desperada is now ugly and that Modelland is no longer her home. The Bellas repeat the single verse six times.

The BellaDonna then expresses her pity for Desperada, taking shots at Desperada’s obsession with her boyfriend and “imbecilic mistake.” The room goes dark and the BellaDonna launches into a speech about how a woman’s dreams are more important than men in Modelland.

“But Madame BellaDonna.” Even in the darkness, the voice was instantly recognizable. Zarpessa’s voice continued. “I don’t think it’s wrong to live for a man. Their intelligence is far greater than ours, and it is our duty to submit and love and—”

“How dare you speak when I am speaking, and such nonsense on top of that!” the BellaDonna roared.

Don’t you just love how all just about every character in the book, even the villainous ones, rebuke Zarpessa for her shallow and idiotic beliefs?

The BellaDonna goes on a tirade against love, ending with “There is no, has never been, and never will be room for love at Modelland. Ever.” So much for my hopes of Tookie falling in love with Kamalini. Girls in the audience express their dislike of the idea of disregarding love, including Zarpessa herself.

Then Shiraz points out that she’s able to see in the darkness because of the low light in Canne Del Abra.

Low light.

In a country where hundreds of candles are constantly burning.

Okay, then.

At which point the BellaDonna apparently thwacks Shiraz and tells her to close her eyes. The BellaDonna taunts Shiraz over her short legs, says that Dylan’s sass can’t save her, and has this little gem for Piper:

“A mind like yours is a terrible thing to waste,” … “I’ll make sure she sautées it and eats every last drop.”

And take a guess what Tookie thinks of this?

Ci~L is coming for them any minute, Tookie thought. This is the BellaDonna’s warning!

…

(smashes head against wall repeatedly)

No, I’m not getting pissed off over Tookie’s constant demonization of Ci~L, what makes you think that? It’s not like the BellaDonna just made herself out to be a total bitch and insulted two of Tookie’s friends. No, because the BellaDonna used the word “she”, that must mean that she’s warning you about how Ci~L is planning to kill you! Because the BellaDonna is such a stand-up lady, don’t you think?

(smashes head against wall repeatedly)

Anyway, Tookie feels the BellaDonna looking at her, but the BellaDonna says nothing. Tookie realizes that they have to leave, immediately.

How much do you want to bet that, after this Pilgrims chapter, that several days have passed with Tookie and her friends having done absolutely nothing to help themselves escape?

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Mutant Music Monster

The Pilgrims are now in the second level, and the wear and tear on their bodies is starting to show. Creamy tells the group that she is assuming control, given “the many near tragedies at the hands of our drowsy, irresponsible leader”. You know, that one time he fell asleep and the Flute Creepers nearly killed most of the group. Or has he been incompetent more times than that? It would be nice if we could be told anything about those times.

Kamata protests, but the rest of the group votes to make Creamy leader. Kamata says that he’ll stay with the group so that he can finally see Modelland, revealing that he’s a phony. Hunchy (the LeGizzârd who wants to omnomnom on Piper’s guts) returns just as they start off.

The group sees signs of past Pilgrims. Myrracle is completely oblivious to the danger of the Diabolical Divide, which aggravates one of the other Pilgrims, Jessamine. Creamy and Kamata discuss something in private, then Kamata tells the group about a fresh watering hole not far from where they are. The whole group decides to stop at the watering hole. Who wants to bet that this is going to end badly?

They arrive at a “pristine lake” in the middle of a vicious hellhole. Creamy tells Myrracle to let the others go first, and Kamata suddenly says that the center of the pond is allegedly reserved only for the purest beauty.

Hey, remember that last chapter where Creamy said that it was best to have the other Pilgrims alive? I’m getting the strange feeling that Creamy is trying to get someone killed.

Jessamine charges into the pond, swimming towards the center. Creamy mutters, “Lights out, shining star”. When Jessamine arrives at the center of the pond, the pond starts bubbling, with thousands of skulls rising to the surface. Everyone else retreats from the pond, while Jessamine’s mother Meena grabs a branch and tries to get Jessamine out of the pond.

Then a massive monster rises out of the water.

Its body was made of dozens and dozens of human arms, and its head was a mash of ancient musical instruments contorted into an evil, hungry-looking array of sharpened, sideways-turned cymbals for teeth, hollow eyes made of tuba bells, and a steaming nose made of organ pipes.

Who didn’t see this coming? If you didn’t, then clearly you haven’t read the chapter title.

The monster takes a bite out of Jessamine’s torso. Meena tries to attack the monster with the branch, which promptly gets her eaten. Everything of Jessamine and Meena gets eaten, save for their arms, which it places on its head. The arms come to life and start playing on the monster’s instruments. The monster starts charging for Myrracle, but Creamy steps in the way, without a hint of fear.

She stared viciously at the creature, then spat out a five-word warning. “Touch. Myrracle. And. You. Die.”

The monster immediately retreats. Everyone stares at Creamy, wondering “Who was this woman?” Creamy simply says that they need to keep going.

And now Creamy has cemented herself as a much better villain than either the BellaDonna or Ci~L.

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Madwoman of the Modelland

Well, what do you know? The Unicas are still at Modelland, with no clue of how to escape. They wonder if climbing the wall and aging would be better than death, but Piper questions whether it would shorten their life-spans, which discourages them from climbing the wall. Which leaves them with no ideas. Because they still haven’t remembered the emergency ZipZap.

It’s nighttime, and Tookie is lying in bed awake. Then Zarpessa starts freaking out, with her Lumière shining into her face. Zarpessa tells some lady that she isn’t hiding her anymore, tells someone to “stop it”, and says that she will wear some dress to The Day of Discovery. Tookie wonders if Zarpessa is dreaming about the dress that she fought over with Lizzie. Which brings up a question: is everything Zarpessa is saying directed at the same person in her head? If so, has Zarpessa been “hiding” Lizzie from someone? Will this come up later, or have any importance in the plot?

I’m sure everyone here knows the answer.

Zarpessa mentions a “Poppi”, who Tookie suspects is Zarpessa’s father. Tookie feels like trying to comfort Zarpessa for a second, then decides, nope!

Zarpessa runs out of the room and down the hallway. Shiraz comes out of her room and calls Zarpessa “the Madwoman of the Modelland”, while Dylan calls her “loony”. Well, so much for being better than Zarpessa, right?

Zarpessa goes on further about the lady and Poppi, eventually mentioning that she’s starving and that it’s “Time for Dumpster-dive dinner!” Chaste insists that Zarpessa’s family is rich and would never Dumpster-dive. Dylan tells Chaste to help Zarpessa, but Chaste refuses.

Dr. Erica arrives, asking what’s happening. Shiraz explains and Dylan takes another bitchy (takes a sip of wine) shot at “Zar-Opressa” (downs the rest of the glass), calling her “cuh-ray-zee” (starts drinking straight from the bottle).

This is why there isn’t a Modelland drinking game, folks. We all would have died from alcohol poisoning the second time Dylan said “cuh-ray-zee”.

Tookie actually feels sorry for Zarpessa, who Dr. Erica describes as having a breakdown. She asks if anyone knows what’s wrong with Zarpessa. Piper mentions that Tookie knows Zarpessa from home, so Dr. Erica asks Tookie if she has any idea.

On one hand, what Tookie does here is kind of virtuous. Tookie thinks about how this would be the perfect time to reveal Zarpessa’s secret (that she’s homeless), right in front of the other girls. But then Tookie remembers Ci~L’s words—the words that Tookie decided had been Ci~L talking about herself just a few chapters ago—and decides that revealing Zarpessa’s lies to everyone isn’t the right thing to do.

On the other hand, there would have been a simple solution, something that would have helped Dr. Erica help Zarpessa without embarrassing and shaming Zarpessa. Telling Dr. Erica about Zarpessa in private. She could have asked Dr. Erica to promise that she wouldn’t tell Zarpessa about what Tookie said about her. We’re supposed to think that Tookie is so good for taking the better of two options, when the third obvious option would have been best for everyone.

This was a short installment, but the next three chapters are going to be…fun. We’ll waste more time with Tookie doing things that aren’t trying to escape, and more “Ci~L is evil” idiocy. We’ll finish off the adventure of the Pilgrims with one of the two events in this book that I consider to be the most thematically revolting. We’ll watch Tookie become more of a Mary-Sue and a plan to escape Modelland actually come into action.

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Chapter Thirty-Three: Deco

The morning sun blazed brightly, but to Tookie, it felt as if the sky were covered with angry storm clouds.

ANGST.

The Unicas are talking about Zarpessa’s breakdown from the night before.

“She’s probably still in the FEDS,” Dylan whispered. “Givin’ a Zar-Opressa Madwoman of Modelland performance. I bet they put her mean butt in some wild-animal restraints. What I wouldn’t give for a CaraCaraCara picture of that!”

Why are we supposed to like Dylan, again? Are our protagonists meant to be liked for acting like the Alpha Bitch?

Then Bravo knocks on the window, calling for Tookie. Tookie invites him in, despite not being allowed to have boys in the D building. Bravo wants to talk to Tookie alone, which makes one wonder why Tookie doesn’t step outside with him, but whatever. Tookie’s friends leave, giggling, and Tookie asks if Bravo has been following her. Bravo admits this (goddammit, we had a semi-likeable love interest and now he’s a stalker) and says that he hurt his hand and wants Tookie to suck his thumb. Bravo tries to see what’s under Tookie’s flower “brooch” (her “T O OKE” button) but she pushes his hand away. Bravo tells Tookie that he likes her because she doesn’t chase after him like other girls.

Bravo starts to tell a story about a boy named Deco who wanted to be an architect, but everyone noticed him for his face. There was even a composer who wrote a whole symphony about Deco’s face, which gave Bra—Deco the chance to oggle the concert hall. When Braco became a teenager, he was overwhelmed by attention from girls and his architectural designs were overlooked in favour of his beauty. He had been asked to attend Bestosterone, but had no interest in doing so. Then one day, he heard his two favourite architects talking about Modelland’s architecture and their plans to go through the Diabolical Divide to see Modelland. They were never seen again. Brav—Deco realized that there was a safe way up the mountain: Bestosterone.

Tookie grasps onto the painfully obvious fact that “Deco” is really Bravo. He bats a hair away from her eye, and Bravo gushes about how special and unique Tookie is and how he wants her first kiss. Tookie thinks about how she “promised” herself to Theophilus, then decides that she wants to kiss Bravo.

Our first kiss. That sounded so good. “Where?” Tookie whispered.

“I’ll sweep you away, where no one at Modelland can see us,” Bravo said. “We’ll go on a magical ride down a secret ZipZap that we hid under the new 7Seven stadium and land in the most beautiful fountain in LaDorno.”

Time to repeat two certain words: HOW CONVENIENT! Isn’t Tookie lucky that Bravo just spontaneously mentions the emergency ZipZap?

Bravo says that they’ll go after tomorrow’s ManAttack. Tookie is surprised about the ManAttack, and Bravo says that it’s supposed to be a secret for the Bellas but he told her anyway. Tookie asks him if he can show her where the secret ZipZap is right then, and he agrees to show her that night.

Tookie is about to tell Bravo about her plans, but then Ci~L bursts in, screaming. She tells Bravo to get out…

Then she glared at Tookie. “Do you know what happens to girls like you who break the rules? Do you know how much I want to kill you right now?”

Well, what do you know. It’s a giant spider. Ci~L is evil.

Ci~L shoots flaming fabric out of her fingertips, then advances on Tookie and Bravo, her face changing between a mixture of Gunnero’s and Applaussez’s to a combination of Chaste’s and Zarpessa’s. Then her face starts changing to a horrific combination of the Unicas’ faces. She readies her claws, and even has “sharpened teeth”.

The girls hold onto each oth—wait. It was just Tookie and Bravo in the room. The girls left so that Tookie could be alone with Bravo. Where’d Bravo go? Where’d the other girls come from? Was this book proofread at all?

Tookie is convinced that Ci~L is going to kill them, but then Persimmon shows up and drags Ci~L away in the space of a single paragraph, with Ci~L saying that she should just burn the girls alive.

Over my dead body, Tookie thought.

Well, you’ve…got her there, Tookie. She can’t burn you alive if you’re dead…

Chapter Thirty-Six: All Hail Queen Creamy

All of the Pilgrims stink. Creamy, being more competent than the rest of the Pilgrims, has made herself into a monarch of sorts, with the rest of the Pilgrims carrying the De La Crèmes up the mountain.

They stop for a break, and ahead of them, they see a lush garden with the sweet smell of flowers coming towards them. Then a strange sound starts up near the ground. Abigail “Down With Razors!” Goode points towards a well-tended cemetery, each labelled with the name of a “Muse”. Lynne touches one of the stones, which causes the cemetery to start shaking. At this point, you’d think they would know not to touch anything.

Everyone gets into a defensive position, then Abigail suddenly screams at Modelland:

“I should have known you wouldn’t help me change the world. To spread the word about how beautiful a hairy body can be. And now I…have…had…enough!”

Her mother Harriet tries to calm Abigail, but Abigail ignores her and grabs a dagger before ripping off her clothes.

I sincerely apologize for the image in your heads right now.

Abigail brings the knife to her chest, but instead of stabbing herself like Harriet thinks she does, Abigail starts cutting off all of her hair. She then states that she’s giving her hair away to charity.

Now that she was completely without hair, the group could see the Abigail who had been hiding all along.

“Preee-teee…,” Hunchy slobbered, ogling Abigail.

The organ eater was wrong, though. Abigail was not simply pretty. She was out-of-this-world, breathtakingly beautiful—absolutely, undeniably, soul-stirringly stunning.

…

…the moral here, kids? If you adhere to the social norms of beauty, then you too can be beautiful! Forget being comfortable with the way you want to look, look this certain way and you will be absolutely stunning!

…

…

…let’s move on.

With Abigail now suddenly the most stunning girl in the group, Creamy decides that Abigail needs to die now.

Then a massive creature with thousands of human-like legs sticking out of its body comes along. Creamy calls it a Leg Leech and appears worried. It sticks out two of its legs, then starts clicking them together. Myrracle starts snapping her fingers, followed by the rest of the group except for Lynne. The Leg Leech “[motions] for Myrracle and Lune to join in with both hands” and I’m wondering what the hell that motion is supposed to look like. While Myrracle is perfectly capable of snapping with both hands, Lynne can’t without her missing middle finger. Harriet stops snapping and walks over to Lynne.

Then the Leg Leech sticks out a tendril that slices Harriet and Lynne through their hips.

Abigail freaks out as the Leg Leech sticks Harriet’s and Lynne’s legs onto its body. What is with the theme of monsters that cut off your limbs and stick them onto their own bodies in the Diabolical Divide? This would actually be hilarious if whatever bit off Lynne’s middle finger came along with the finger on the top of its head, flipping off everyone.

The Leg Leech starts waltzing, so Myrracle starts dancing with Bellissima (Creamy’s doll) in her arms. The Leg Leech starts retreating, then a ring of fire erupts around the cemetery, trapping Myrracle and Bellissima inside. The ring of fire then turns into a massive fireball that torches Kamata and Abigail. This pleases Creamy, though Myrracle is freaking out. Then four more fireballs appear, flying towards Creamy, Myrracle, Hunchy, and Bellissima. Hunchy runs in a different direction than Creamy and Myrracle before the fireballs explode.

A few minutes later, Hunchy wakes up. He calls out, but there’s no answer.

Hunchy jumped up from the mud and shook himself off. All that running and dodging had worked up his appetite. He followed the sweet scent not of blood orange, but of the pancreas and thymus glands that lived within one particular platinum-headed Unica, and he resumed his trek to Modelland.

Alone.

This is the last chapter of the Pilgrims’ adventure, but not the end for Creamy and Myrracle. But what of Hunchy? What of the LeGizzârd who set off for Modelland just to dine on the guts of one of our heroines? What becomes of him, at least in this book?

I’ll just spoil it right now: absolutely nothing.

I’m serious. Hunchy doesn’t appear later in the book, he doesn’t come up near the end, there’s nothing remotely connected to the plot arc of Hunchy that comes up in the rest of the book. His subplot here just vanishes entirely from the book. And while I assume that Hunchy will come up in one of the sequels to Modelland, the way his plot suddenly ends here in this book is really awkward.

And this isn’t the last time that something like this happens.

Onwards! To a freaking long chapter!

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Man Attack and Heartache

The Unicas are discussing their plans to leave Modelland. Tookie realizes that she must leave behind Bravo forever if she wants to survive. They begin devising a plan, with Piper being responsible for causing a blackout, Shiraz being their guide in the darkness, and Dylan fainting as a diversion. Tookie and Dylan start harassing each other, requiring Shiraz to break them up. Dylan suggests getting Bravo to come with them, but Tookie, knowing that he’s living his dream in Modelland, decides against it.

The next morning, when Tookie looks in the mirror, she starts thinking that she looks less ugly. Then Guru Gunnero announces ManAttack and tells all of the Bellas to report to the OrbArena. The Unicas encourage Tookie to do well, then Ci~L shows up. Ci~L grabs Tookie’s wrist and pulls her away, taunting Tookie all the time about how “It’ll all be over in a flash” and that she and her friends have to report to Ci~L once ManAttack is over or Ci~L’ll find them herself. Because Ci~L is teh ultimate evulz.

They arrive at the OrbArena, and Tookie is taken to the prep area by a Mannecant. She is told to strip and put on some complicated-looking underwear. Then the other Bellas competing arrive: Chaste and Zarpessa.

Naturally.

Zarpessa looks fine at first, but goes into hyper-Alpha-Bitch mode as soon as Tookie asks if she’s okay. Tookie then looks at the scoreboard and sees that she’ll be competing against Bravo. Oh noes!

The OrbArena fills with Bellas, Bestosteros, and Gurus. Tookie changes into her underwear along with Chaste and Zarpessa, then gripes about how she’s going to have to escape in this underwear. The girls step out of the prep zone and the audience cheers for them.

Gunnero introduces the crowd to ManAttack, and Tookie notices Piper searching for the light switch before staring at Bravo on the other side of the arena.

Gunnero explains the four phases of ManAttack: the Touch, Wardrobe, Makeup, and the Photo Finish. Then we get this flavourful gem:

“Bravo, I want to have your babies! We can start trying right there on that plank, right now!” a Bella behind Applaussez shouted from the crowd.

(facepalm)

Gunnero tells the participants not to hit each other’s faces or the guys’ crotches (it hurts when girls get hit there too, you know), then annouces the first match between Chaste and Alexander, ordering the others back to the prep zones. As their battle begins, Bravo shows up in the Bella prep zone, all excited about competing against Tookie. Bravo tells Zarpessa to leave, and Zarpessa acts like a bitch before getting lost.

Bravo tries to reassure Tookie and gives her some ManAttack advice. He comments on how Chaste is a slut. Tookie tries to tell him something, but he keeps talking about ManAttack. He then licks his thumb and starts rubbing Tookie’s eyebrow with it, which makes me giggle hysterically for no good reason. Chaste and Alexander’s match ends, Chaste winning 85-30, prompting Zarpessa to go on. Bravo asks if Tookie wants the rules explained again, then she bursts out and tells him about her plan to escape Modelland through the emergency ZipZap. Bravo is surprised that Tookie is leaving, and she doesn’t tell him about why she has to leave. Bravo claims that Tookie used him. Tookie tries to apologize, then Bravo says that his affection towards Tookie was simply part of a bet between him and two other Bestosteros. Tookie tells him to get out, and Bravo leaves. Tookie starts angsting, thinking that she should have known better than to think anyone would love a “freak-a-zoid Forgetta-Girl” like her.

Zarpessa’s match ends, with her winning 92-25. Tookie’s turn is next, and she faces off against Bravo in the arena. As soon as the match starts, Tookie charges at Bravo and hurls him off of the plank they’re on, winning her the Touch part of the match. He’s tossed back up on via antigravity as phase two begins. Clothes and accessories start shooting at the two, and Tookie has to dress as a queen while being pelted with dresses and crowns and blazers. She almost falls off the plank, but Bravo catches her. Then Tookie looks at Bravo, thinks about how hot he looks, then punches him in the face.

Next comes the Makeup round, with “Maki Balls” flying out at the two. Bravo tells Tookie to get herself dressed, earning himself a penalty for kicking the Maki Balls away. As Tookie uses a Maki Ball to put makeup on, she describes her fantasy first kiss to Bravo. Bravo tells Tookie to mess him up, prompting Tookie to get even madder at him. Tookie considers throwing her crown at Bravo, then Bravo tells her to activate two Maki Balls and throw them at him so he can sabotage himself. Bravo says that she deserves better, which leads into Tookie gushing about Theophilus Lovelace—in front of Zarpessa. Bravo, thinking that Tookie is leaving to see Theophilus, tells her that he lied about there being a bet out of spite. Tookie doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth, comparing him to Ci~L in how they had fooled her.

She grabs one of the Maki Balls, which begins leaking a yellow liquid. The Maki Ball turns into a SMIZE, which Tookie puts on, causing her to feel superpowered and super-special. The crowd goes wild over super-SMIZEd Tookie. Tookie takes two Maki Balls, gives them to Bravo, licks her thumb, rubs his eyebrows with her thumb, then walks away as the Maki Balls explode. Then she stands in front of him, using her CaraCaraCara lessons to portray the opposite emotion of what she is feeling. The final score: Bravo, 19 points—Tookie, 106 points.

Because it’s not enough for Tookie to simply beat Bravo because Bravo is letting her win, no—Tookie has to get a deus ex machina SMIZE and get the highest score to become ManAttack champion.

Then Dylan faints. And the lights go out.

It was time.

Next time on Lily Sporks Modelland: we say hello and goodbye to a wonderful character, the ultimate confrontation between Ci~L and the Unicas, and our dahling narrator returns to lecture us in regards to one of the stupidest fucking plot “twists” I’ve ever seen in a story.

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Chapter Thirty-Nine: Left, Right, Left

With the OrbArena in darkness, the crowd starts panicking. Shiraz appears beside Tookie, pulling her away from the arena, with Tookie losing the SMIZE in the process. Dylan and Piper join up with them as they exit the OrbArena. Piper leads the way to the 7Seven stadium. Tookie thinks about everyone she’s leaving behind, then hurries after her friends. Descending down flights of stairs, the girls find the emergency ZipZap underneath a pile of rocks and leap inside.

They come to a fork in the ZipZap. The girls are split on which way to go, but they go down the right fork anyway. Which ends up not being the right fork, as they land in the Diabolical Divide!

But then they just jump back into the ZipZap just before they’re hit with magical fireballs.

Well, that was incredibly pointless, especially since they could just jump back in if they chose the wrong path. And why does this ZipZap lead to the Diabolical Divide anyway? And how come all of the girls who went the wrong way when the old stadium burned down didn’t just jump back into the ZipZap?

Anyway, the girls go the left way this time and land in a fountain in LaDorno. They think about what to do next, with none of them being particularly enthusiastic about going back to their old lives.

But then Ci~L’s weird pouch thing shows up! Because who would have thought that the super-powered supermodel would pursue them? The girls start running, through alleyways and into sewers, winding up in the place where Metopia’s Day of Discovery was held—and where Ci~L had chosen Tookie to go to Modelland.

Then a noise comes from behind a garbage can. Piper thinks that it might be Ci~L, but instead a redhead in a hospital gown and covered in cuts and burns steps out.

Joy fills Tookie (and me!) as she runs to Lizzie, doing their “What’s up, Hot Queen?” greeting. Lizzie comments on Tookie’s costume, and Tookie wonders what happened to the SMIZE. She wonders if the Likee sisters stole it. Keep in mind that we’ve never seen any traces of the Likee sisters being kleptomaniacs other than Tookie thinking that they are.

Lizzie says that she’s been waiting for Tookie to return every day. Tookie apologizes for being dragged away, glad that Lizzie isn’t mad at her. Tookie tells Lizzie that she’s ready for Exodus and introduces Lizzie to the other Unicas.

Lizzie then sees Ci~L’s pouch. Thinking that it’s whoever is after her, Lizzie starts freaking out before running away. Tookie chases after Lizzie, leaving the others behind. She ends up getting lost, not knowing where any of her friends are.

But then a bus shows up with the other Unicas on board. The bus driver, speaking in a Labrian accent, tells Tookie that he knows who Shiraz is and is helping them to escape Ci~L. Once Tookie boards the bus, Dylan sees Ci~L flying through the sky, followed by two Ci~Ls appearing on each side of the bus via the power of Multiplicity. The Unicas order the driver to step on it, with the three Ci~Ls in pursuit. As the bus approaches the Obscure Obelisks, Tookie sees Lizzie taking a metal object to her wrist. Then a shopkeeper steps out in front of the bus! The driver tries to steer around the shopkeeper, causing Tookie to slam into the windshield and lose consciousness.

Damn those inconvenient shopkeepers. Never paying attention to speeding buses.

Will Tookie wake up in time in order to escape Ci~L’s clutches? Are we going to get an extremely stupid plot “twist” in the next chapter? Will we see Lizzie again?

The next chapter will answer those first two questions…and I’m just going to answer that last one right now: no, we won’t. Just like Hunchy, Lizzie completely disappears from the story after this point. Nothing about her character is resolved. All she gets in the end is a token thought from Tookie, hoping that Lizzie’s alright.

Farewell, Lizzie. You were the most interesting character in the entire book, a character who wanted me to learn what was happening to you. Instead, we got stuck with a bunch of idiots.

And speaking of idiocy…

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Breathless Sister-Friends

Tookie regains consciousness and immediately starts wondering where Lizzie and the other Unicas are. The Unicas are nearby, but Lizzie is nowhere to be found. (sniff)

This causes Tookie to think about everything in her life that sucks, prompting her to repeat “I’m so sorry!” for Lizzie. Then, when she stops speaking, she hears someone else saying the same words—someone kneeling before the Obscure Obelisks. Ci~L.

Do the girls take this moment to run like hell from totally evulz Ci~L? Nope! Tookie sticks around, watching Ci~L claw at herself until Ci~L spots Tookie. Ci~L advances on Tookie, who tells Ci~L to take her instead of the other Unicas, whatever Ci~L wants to use her for.

Ci~L stops, then immediately starts apologizing to no one again. She keeps saying that something is her fault. Tookie suspects that Ci~L is referring to the sacrifices that she thinks Ci~L has done, but then Ci~L says that she should have been able to save some people. Shiraz thinks she isn’t talking about the Unicas.

Ci~L launches into a rant about these people, then screams at the Modelland mountain. She says that she dug up her three friends, but they wouldn’t wake up, and asks Tookie to help her wake up.

And in this moment, Tookie realizes that everything she assumed about Ci~L was completely wrong and that Ci~L couldn’t possibly be a murderer.

…

Remember back when Tookie had just overheard Ci~L’s conversation with the BellaDonna and “realized” that Ci~L was “the most twisted, diabolical person” in Modelland based solely off of that one conversation? Remember how, shortly after that, Desperada started climbing over the Modelland wall? Remember how Ci~L tried to stop her from climbing over the wall?

And what did Tookie think about that? Did she take it as a sign that maybe Ci~L wasn’t utterly evil? No, she assumed that Ci~L was faking her concern for Desperada.

Which begs one simple, glaring question that makes Tookie look like a massive idiot (even though, naturally, Tookie is completely right this time):

WHY THE FUCK DOESN’T TOOKIE THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT CI~L IS FAKING IT RIGHT NOW? Why does she automatically know that Ci~L isn’t a murderer based on her breakdown right now, especially when Ci~L flat-out told Tookie that she wanted to kill her previously?

In fact, don’t you find it strange how Ci~L seemed very positive (save for the breakdowns that Tookie witnessed, of course) before the moment when Tookie overheard the conversation between Ci~L and the BellaDonna? That Ci~L only showed any hint of hostility and threat towards Tookie and her friends after that conversation?

Like Tyra Banks had to have Ci~L act completely different than how she acted previously in order to turn her into a red-herring villain, using “Ci~L is crazy” as an excuse?

As soon as Tookie overheard a vague conversation that mentioned other girls, the BellaDonna’s dislike of what Ci~L was doing, and the word “sacrifice”, she decided that Ci~L was completely evil in everything she did and completely incapable of kindness. And just as quickly as Tookie decided that based on vague words, she’s now instantly reversed her opinion on Ci~L based on more vague words, despite having decided recently that anything “nice” Ci~L did was just Ci~L faking it. There’s no apphrension. There’s no doubt. Tookie is certain that Ci~L is not evil, and of course she’s right.

Yeah, let’s get back to the story now.

Tookie gets Ci~L to stop attacking herself, then asks who Ci~L is talking about. Ci~L tells Tookie about her three friends who happened to resemble Tookie’s three friends. Ci~L would always invite her “sister-friends” to her penthouse. One day, Ci~L’s friends had vanished, and Ci~L had realized what had happened to them. She went into the Diabolical Divide, finding her friends and digging up their bodies with the intention of parading their bodies through LaDorno. With Gunnero pursuing her, Ci~L created the Obscure Obelisks and put her friends’ bodies into the Obelisks—hence Gunnero’s nickname of “Body Girl”. The BellaDonna wanted the Obelisks removed, but the mayor of Metopia refused because they drew tourists, thus the BellaDonna took her frustration out on Ci~L.

Tookie tries to tell Ci~L that she shouldn’t beat herself up over her sister-friends’ deaths. Piper and Shiraz point out the obvious here: that Ci~L is nuts and that they don’t know if she might experiment on and kill them.

Ci~L blinked hard. “Killing? Are you serious?”

Yes, they’re serious, Miss “Do you know how much I want to kill you right now?” Ci~L.

Ci~L tells them that Piper, Dylan, and Shiraz weren’t on the list she was given on The Day of Discovery, but she threw away the list once she found Tookie, though she doesn’t know why Tookie was chosen in the first place. She explains her staring at the other Unicas as being reminded of her friends. Ci~L tells them that she’s bringing them back to Modelland, and Tookie now angsts about everything she disliked about Modelland, like she angsted about everything she disliked about LaDorno life previously. Ci~L tells them that they’re symbols and Tookie’s “victory” at ManAttack made her look good.

The Unicas’ decision is unanimous: they agree to return with Ci~L. Ci~L gives a farewell to the Obelisks and takes the girls away in her pouch.

As soon as they return to Modelland, Tookie and her friends are torn limb from limb by Gunnero while Ci~L and the BellaDonna laugh maniacally. Then they start making out. What, there’s enough lesbian undertones in this story already.

Chapter Forty: The 7Seven Tournament

Hey, look who it is. It’s our dahling narrator. The one who hasn’t shown up for dozens of chapters. She’s here to exposit about the 7Seven Tournament, telling us things that don’t have any impact on the plot of this story.

First, she’s going to get very annoying.

Oh my poor, dear dahling. You thought it was over, didn’t you? That the Unicas piled into Miss Used-to-Be-Sweet-Then-Turned-Crazy-and-Now-Is-Sweet-Again Intoxibellas’s pouch and sailed up, up, up into the sunset, the end. Dahling, you should be ashamed of yourself. There’s so much more to this story to tattle-tell you.

And how dare you assume otherwise!

Yes, because the fact that there are still eight chapters and an epilogue to go whizzed by my head when I thought that this story was over. Wishful thinking, perhaps? Not to mention the mountain of unresolved plot arcs, not that I expect very many of them to get resolved.

It was quite the shocker that Ci~L was not a murderess sociopath, wasn’t it, dahling? Might I suggest the next time you come ‘cross another vindictive, vile, venomous creature, you stop, drop, and roll around the idea that maybe the, shall I say, bitch did not spring out of her mother’s birth canal that way. I can money-back-guarantee that her sorrowful, sourpuss saga would be quite interesting, but nowhere near as juicy as this one.

Yes, how dare we think that Ci~L is evil after the author had Ci~L act completely contrary to her established character and just chalked it up to being crazy.

With our dahling narrator’s idiocy out of the way, we get paragraphs of exposition on the 7Seven Tournament. To sum them up: seven girls are chosen to become Intoxibellas; stupid jealous twits with bad breath call them names; only 43,347 people are invited to the Tournament; girls sometimes screw up their powers; it isn’t rigged like college basketball; the Bellas who lose get nothing, they lose, good day ma’am, though some are chosen as Scouts. Finally, we’re told that Tookie has returned to Modelland, “Safe. Sound. Happy. But maybe not for long.”

Ci~L gets the Unicas through the Modelland gates and hurries them to the 7Seven Tournament. Ci~L is back into Awesome Sassy Ci~L mode, complaining that they’ll have to stand if they take too long and that her dogs are killing her from chasing the Unicas.

They run through Beautification Boulevard, with everyone else being too obsessed with preparing for the Tournament that they don’t notice our messy heroines. The Mannecants are directing traffic, confiscating cameras and snatching flowers from guests. As they pass through the crowd, competing Bellas angst about the Tournament and their abilities. Then ZhenZhen calls to them and approaches the girls, unable to keep herself from turning into Ci~L with her power of (sigh) Chameeleoné. Ci~L tells her that people don’t want a knockoff and that ZhenZhen is more special when she is being herself than being Ci~L. A horn sounds and ZhenZhen rushes off.

The girls arrive at the D building, where Ci~L orders the Unicas to change into their uniforms. Once dressed, they head outside…to find that everyone’s headed off for the stadium. Ci~L vows to get the Unicas into the Tournament “if I have to teleportal your butts inside.”

Then two Mannecants close the stadium doors and Ci~L takes a hissy-fit. How about that Teleportaling now, Ci~L?

Piper hears a noise coming from the other side of the wall around Modelland. The group watches as filthy, monstrous-looking hands appear on the wall, followed by a head and shoulders. Piper recognizes the creature as a LeGizzârd and breaks down crying. The LeGizzârd approaches them, licking its lips…

…and then Tookie notices something in the monster’s hands. A doll. A familiar doll. Bellissima.

This wasn’t a LeGizzârd. It was…

“C-C-Creamy?” Tookie cried, and promptly passed out.

Cliffhanger! Though this does bring up a very interesting question: are LeGizzârds former Pilgrims who were transformed in the Diabolical Divide? Sadly, we don’t get a concrete answer in the story itself.

And that marks the end of this twist-filled installment. Next time: Tookie wakes up and thinks it was all a dream, we delve into the BellaDonna’s past, and two minor characters turn out to be major players in the mountain of a flashback we’re about to delve into. (Whoever guesses which two characters correctly first wins ten metaphorical points.)

Comment [5]

It’s the third-last installment of the Modelland spork! Time to delve into the mountain of exposition that composes the ending of this novel.

Though to be honest, the backstory we go into is kind of interesting, even if it comes to a painfully-cliched revelation as we’ll soon see. At the very least, it’s far more intriguing than the story of Tookie and her friends.

Chapter Forty-One: Stone to Bone, and Flesh

Tookie wakes up, thinking that she’s in her bedroom in Peppertown. She thinks it was all a dream, but eventually she gets back to reality and the face of her screaming LeGizzârd-ified mother. Tookie tells the others that the monster before them is her mother, and then Myrracle climbs over the wall. We only get a description of Myrracle’s eyes, by which Tookie recognizes her, but based on Piper’s words afterwards, Myrracle has been LeGizzârd-ified as well. Tookie then thinks that Myrracle was truly meant to be the one who would go to Modelland, the person whom the BellaDonna replaced with Tookie.

Creamy orders Tookie to take them to the BellaDonna. When Tookie refuses, Creamy starts towards the M plaza, with everyone following behind.

Tookie turned and felt a momentary jolt of pleasure at seeing Myrracle looking so wretched while she herself wore Modelland Dress Uniform couture.

Wow, what a swell person you are Tookie! Feeling happy over your sister being turned into a freak!

Creamy starts yelling at a statue of the BellaDonna. Ci~L mentions that the 7Seven Tournament is ongoing, but that doesn’t stop Creamy from yelling louder. The BellaDonna statue starts moving and starts singing, to which Creamy tells her to shut up. The BellaDonna accuses Ci~L of being part of the events that are unfolding.

“I don’t know what this is, but it’s pretty damn entertaining,” Ci~L said.

Ci~L is a pretty cool character. When she doesn’t get derailed by the author to serve as a red-herring villain.

Tookie thinks that the BellaDonna won’t bother with them, especially on the day of the 7Seven Tournament, but instead the BellaDonna orders them through a ZipZap. Tookie asks if Ci~L is coming, but Ci~L says that she doesn’t want to be around Creamy and Myrracle because of how they remind her of her sister-friends’ bodies.

Then Tookie notices Bravo, who is staring at her. Tookie remembers what he said before ManAttack and watches him licking his thumb and pantomiming wiping Tookie’s eyebrows. These lovebirds are weird. Tookie’s still pissed at him, apparently having forgotten what he said during the match.

Tookie manages to convince Ci~L to come along. They go through the ZipZap and find themselves in the OoAh. Tookie wonders why, and as we’ll see in a bit, it’s solely because there’s something in the OoAh that we’ve already seen which the story needs in order to resolve the plot. They enter the lobby, where Creamy calls out for the BellaDonna. Persimmon appears, prompting Creamy and Myrracle to gasp at the sight of the Mannecant. Persimmon tells them the rules of seeing the BellaDonna, then leads them into an empty room with a BellaDonna statue inside. As Creamy approaches the statue, the statue starts cracking and breaking.

“Ooh, you broke it,” Dylan murmured under her breath to Creamy. “And as we say at the Bou-Big-Tique Nation: you bou-break it, you bou-buy it, baby.”

It’ll be such a relief when I’m done reading stupid dialogue from Dylan.

As the statue crumbles away, it reveals the BellaDonna in the flesh, clearly angry with Creamy.

Chapter Forty-Two: Les Trois Copines

“Oooh,” all the Unicas said at once.

“Boooo…,” the BellaDonna answered, like a seductive ghost.

That made me laugh a little.

To sum up the BellaDonna’s description: she’s hawt. Very hawt. The girls stare at her while her dress changes into a black gown with a spiked collar. Ci~L explains how the BellaDonna sets fashion trends, earning her a kick from Persimmon for talking out of line.

Creamy and the BellaDonna snap at each other like five-year-olds. Tookie is worred about what the BellaDonna might do to her mother. Creamy claims that the BellaDonna sold her soul, prompting the BellaDonna to…change the room to look like the 7Seven stadium, for some reason. Tookie looks around at the crowd, looking at the Bored, various Intoxibellas, and one of the models from the Catwalk Corridor who is popping pills. Piper realizes that the people in the stadium can’t see them, so…

She stuck out her forefinger and thumb and mimicked crushing Chaste’s and Zarpessa’s heads. And in an uncharacteristic way, she said, “Take that, bitches! Who’s translucent now?”

It’s like Tyra Banks is doing everything she can to make her characters into unlikeable jerks.

And then it gets worse.

Dylan sidled up next to Piper, lifted her train, and pulled aside her leotard, baring her butt. She wiggled it at the girls. “This is for you, ladies! Some Bou-Big-Tique booty!”

Now I can take comfort in knowing that everyone reading this spork is as scarred for life from this as I am.

Persimmon tells Piper and Dylan to behave. Creamy tells the BellaDonna that Tookie doesn’t belong in Modelland—Myrracle does. Shiraz speaks out in protest and gets herself kicked by Persimmon. Creamy claims that the BellaDonna has a grudge against her, and the BellaDonna states that she is happy that having Tookie brought to Modelland instead of Myrracle has made Creamy catch the Pilgrim Plague. Then Creamy notices Myrracle dancing along to dancers in the stadium. Creamy slaps Myrracle, angered that Myrracle is more concerned with dancing after everything they’d gone through, which leads to Myrracle running out of the room.

Creamy demands that the BellaDonna let Myrracle into Modelland, or else she’ll tell the others about the BellaDonna. The BellaDonna says that Creamy is simply evil and insults her doll. Creamy gets pissed at the BellaDonna, then tells Tookie that what happened is none of Tookie’s business, leading to Tookie thinking about how she was nothing but an obstacle to her mother. Tookie decides that she deserves to know the personal lives of her mother and the BellaDonna and comes up with a plan to spill the beans.

While Creamy and the BellaDonna fight over Tookie, Tookie inches her way towards the hallway. Once they’re halfway down the hallway, Tookie breaks free and runs towards the Flashback Females. Everyone else follows her into the room. Tookie asks one of the Females if she can see what happened between Creamy and the BellaDonna, but the Female tells her that she can’t access another person’s flashback. Creamy says that she’ll access it, and the BellaDonna tells everyone to leave. The Unicas automatically obey the BellaDonna, Tookie included despite being the one who got everyone into the room. The other Unicas leave, but Tookie trips. The doors slam shut, trapping Tookie and Ci~L inside with Creamy, the BellaDonna, and Persimmon. The BellaDonna tells Persimmon to have the doors opened, but Persimmon points out that the BellaDonna herself made it so that the people inside can’t exit until the flashback is over.

The Females start the flashback, bringing them to the Modelland of the past. A bunch of girls in Bella uniforms come down an escalator, and Tookie recognizes one of them as the BellaDonna as a young woman by the girl’s singing. Another girl accompanying her, a blonde, calls her “Ladonna”, which Tookie realizes is the BellaDonna’s real name. Creative. Ladonna compliments the blonde’s abilities, calling her a “Future Triple7”. The blonde mentions that Ladonna wants to see some man, which Ladonna shushes her over.

A brunette in a glamourous gown comes running up to the group. The blonde calls the brunette “Latta”, which shocks Tookie. The brunette calls the blonde “Percy”, which accompanied by Persimmon shaking her head leads Tookie to realize that Percy must be Persimmon, before she became a Mannecant.

Tookie realizes that the brunette’s dress is identical to the dress that Creamy chose for Myrracle’s Day of Discovery, confirming that “Latta” is Creamy.

And Creamy, the BellaDonna, and Persimmon had once been best friends on their way to becoming Intoxibellas at Modelland.

Chapter Forty-Three: Porcelain Living Dolls

The flashback ends, with Creamy and the BellaDonna hissing at each other. The BellaDonna reveals Creamy’s full maiden name: Cremalatta Defacake.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Even Tookie’s thoughts note how stupid this is.

Tookie asks why Creamy never told her about being a Bella, and Creamy simply dismisses her question. Tookie asks if that’s how Creamy knew that Myrracle would be chosen, with the text noting “Daughters of Intoxibellas had almost a 100 percent chance of getting into Modelland, after all, higher than the chances of SMIZE finders.” Wouldn’t it have been good to have any indication of this earlier in the story? This would have served as excellent foreshadowing to this reveal had we known about it earlier. (Though to be fair, there actually is something that hints at what happened to Creamy earlier in the story, which we will get to soon.)

The Flashback Females initiate another flashback, taking the group to the backstage area of a fashion show. Ladonna and Percy are getting dressed, and with the higher amount of attention Percy is receiving, it’s evident that Percy is the star of the show. Ladonna welcomes a man wheeling in a crate, then introduces him as the “first and only love of [her] life” to Cremalatta and Percy. Ci~L comments on how the BellaDonna was dating a civilian, provoking an enraged shout from the BellaDonna.

Ladonna’s lover mentions Percy’s Triple7 potential, but Cremalatta tells Ladonna how Ladonna’s relationship is against the rules. Ladonna doesn’t care about the rules forbidding Bellas from dating civilians. The show starts up, with Percy leading and Ladonna going second, after some reassuring from her lover. While Cremalatta is still getting dressed, she comes onto Ladonna’s lover, who backs away by jumping up onto a low beam, balancing perfectly upon it.

The scene changes again, into the old Modelland grounds. Tookie and the others follow Percy into the D building, where there is someone throwing up in the bathroom. Percy thinks that it was just the chicken Ladonna ate, but this is proven wrong with “the cry of a tiny baby emerging into the world.”

The Queen BellaDonna shows up, demanding to be let into the bathroom. Percy opens the stall door to find Ladonna and her baby, commenting on the baby’s grey eyes. Ladonna has no idea what to do, and Percy wraps the baby up in her Sentura. The bathroom door bursts open and the Queen BellaDonna walks inside, demanding Ladonna’s baby. Ladonna insists that she had no idea she was even pregnant. The Queen BellaDonna knows that the baby is from Ladonna’s civilian lover and tells her that there is no room for love at Modelland. She states her intention to give the child to her civilian father and expels Percy. Percy refuses to leave, accepting the only other option that allows her to remain at Modelland. Creamy screams at the present BellaDonna for ruining Percy’s life and her Triple7 potential, while the BellaDonna insists that it was Percy’s choice. Persimmon the Mannecant speaks up, telling the BellaDonna that she couldn’t go back to her terrible home, which she described as a “cult of Persequeshun”.

The flashback scene changes to a familiar-looking village where the air is quite hot. Ladonna’s boyfriend exits out of a small shop to find a statue of the Queen BellaDonna and a stone basket at its feet containing the baby. The boyfriend takes the baby in a graceful swoop, leading Tookie to wonder if Ladonna’s boyfriend was (yay, I get to use this again) Chris-Crème-Crobat. Ladonna’s boyfriend takes the baby into his shop, which turns out to be a shoe shop. He places the baby in a shoe-like bed, a shoe that Tookie immediately recognizes: Wingtip’s giant shoe. (Wingtip showed up in Chapter 6, giving Tookie some words of encouragement.)

The flashback ends, returning the group to the OoAh. Tookie confronts Creamy about knowing who Wingtip was all along, with Ci~L remarking that Creamy’s behaviour towards Wingtip was the exact opposite of not looking at him like Creamy had told Tookie to do. BellaDonna gives Wingtip’s name, Ray Faye, just as another flashback begins.

In the Modelland of the past, Ladonna tells Cremalatta that she needs to see her baby. Cremalatta tells Ladonna to wait until after the 7Seven Tournament, but Ladonna insists that she won’t be able to concentrate without seeing her baby. Cremalatta remarks on the aging barrier around Modelland, but Ladonna insists that she’ll be able to have it reversed since she’s royalty. With that, the two girls climb over the wall and into the Diabolical Divide. Once past the wall, both girls’ faces immediately age.

Remember when Creamy was first introduced in this book? Her description mentioned that while her body looked youthful, her face bore the signs of age.

Now jump ahead to when Desperada climbed over the wall. Did Desperada’s body age? No. Did her face age? Yes.

That’s good foreshadowing. That is laying clues along the way about a revelation. Not to mention that we had a second dose of good foreshadowing—Creamy was so knowledgeable about the Diabolical Divide because she had already survived the trip once.

Cremalatta immediately asks Ladonna to make them youthful again, but Ladonna tells her to wait until they’re through the Divide. The flashback jumps ahead to Ray Faye’s shop, which happens to be near the Bangles, Baubles, and Beads factory that had been Tookie’s school in the beginning of the story. When Ray Faye greets the two women, he’s shocked by their aged faces, but assures Ladonna that he loves her for her voice more than her face anyway.

A while later, Ladonna says that she’s going to get some formula. She complains about having gained cataracts from the age barrier.

I’m sure we all know where this is going.

Cremalatta goes into the kitchen, pretending to be Ladonna and taking a suggestive pose. When Ray Faye enters the kitchen, Cremalatta throws him onto the kitchen table, insisting that he wants her. Ray Faye tries to struggle against Cremalatta, but Cremalatta demands him to tell her that he loves her.

Then Ladonna walks in, carrying a milk jug. When she sees Cremalatta on top of Ray Faye, she drops the jug of milk. Naturally. Ray Faye tries to tell Ladonna that Cremalatta assaulted him while Cremalatta tries to make it look like Ray Faye came onto her. Ladonna ends up believing Cremalatta and becomes furious at Ray Faye.

Then Modelland security shows up, breaking down the door and dragging them all back to Modelland, on account of Ladonna being royalty. Cremalatta worries about their faces, and Ladonna reassures her that she’ll have their faces turned back to normal.

The scene changes to the crystal hall of the Bored at Modelland. The Queen BellaDonna gives Ladonna an ultimatum: leave Modelland forever to live with Ray Faye and her baby, or have her youth restored and forsake Ray Faye and the baby forever. Ladonna laments being forced to choose between her baby and her beauty, but eventually chooses to relinquish her baby on the condition that Ray Faye doesn’t get to raise her. Ray Faye protests until he is dragged away from the guards, screaming all the while.

Cremalatta asks about her fate, to which the Queen BellaDonna tells her to get lost. When Cremalatta asks about her lost beauty, the Queen BellaDonna refuses to return it. Furious about Ladonna being unable to fulfill her promise, Cremalatta confesses having jumped Ray Faye despite his resistance. Knowing the truth about Ray Faye, Ladonna tries to change her mind, but the Queen BellaDonna states that Ladonna has already made her choice. She hands the baby over to a Mannecant, who Ladonna immediately recognizes as Percy. Ladonna asks the Mannecant Persimmon for her baby, but the Queen BellaDonna tells her that Persimmon’s loyalty is to the BellaDonna throne. She tells Ladonna that she made the right choice and what her destiny shall be as BellaDonna. Ladonna asks about her eyesight, which the Queen BellaDonna refuses to heal as a reminder of what Ladonna had done. Ladonna begs to be allowed to hold her child one last time…

Ladonna sank to her knees as Percy vanished down the long hallway with her child in her arms. “Give her back to me! Give me my…Ci~L!”

Dun dun duuuuun!

Modelland has managed to do something that it has been trying to do for the entirety of the book but failed miserably at (with the exception of Lizzie, of course). Modelland has presented us with characters that we can feel sorry for. We have seen a genuine villainous character here in Creamy, an interesting villain, as opposed to the idiocy that was the “Ci~L is evil; oh wait, she’s just crazy” plot.

In the space of three chapters, Modelland has made me feel more sympathy for the BellaDonna and Persimmon than it has for the entire heroine ensemble. Even Myrracle, the bratty and stupid sister, has warranted more sympathy than Tookie has. The only time I’ve felt a hint of sympathy for Tookie was way back at the beginning, when she had actually taken steps to avoid becoming a Factory Dependant and had her plans for Exodus ultimately ruined.

This book has made me more sympathetic for the cruel, sadistic bee-yotch than the main character.

Next time, for the second-last installment of the Modelland spork: impalement, torture, and beheading!

Comment [4]

Chapter Forty-Four: Wicked Couture

Last time on Modelland, we delved into the BellaDonna’s past and learned that Ci~L is the BellaDonna’s daughter. Ci~L is currently in shock about the revelation, which Creamy taunts her over. Ci~L remarks on how the baby in the flashback had green eyes, but the BellaDonna explains that it’s common for babies born with blue or grey eyes to have their eyes turn green.

Hmm, let me research that…

Ci~L confronts the BellaDonna about how she abandoned her. The BellaDonna blames Creamy, tearing into Creamy about how Creamy was jealous that the BellaDonna had love. The BellaDonna claims that Creamy only carries around her doll Bellissima because she wants something, anything, to have control over.

The BellaDonna snatches Bellissima from Creamy, who immediately tries to take back her doll. Persimmon tries to stop the two, but Creamy shoves the Mannecant away.

Then a scream rings out. Bellissima goes flying, Tookie feels droplets of something on her face, then…

Creamy and the BellaDonna huddled together for a moment, as though locked in an intimate embrace.

…lesbian undertones!

But then Tookie saw a sharp, shiny metal object piercing her mother’s gut and protruding clear through her back. The two women were skewered together with a spike from the BellaDonna’s dress.

Reading that, it comes across as if somehow the BellaDonna had impaled Creamy and herself on one of her spikes, but the rest of the text makes it clear that only Creamy got stabbed. Well, now we know why the BellaDonna went for the spiky dress.

Tookie rushes to her mother’s side, calling her “M-Mommy”. Creamy comments on this, then asks Tookie for one thing:

“Tookie, get…me…my…Bellissima…”

Chapter Forty-Five: La Camara Brutta

Then Guru Gunnero storms in, accompanied by six Bestostero guards. He scolds the BellaDonna for taking so long, only noticing that she’s lying on the floor in a pool of blood afterwards. The BellaDonna tells Gunnero that it was “an accident”, but Persimmon denies this and says that the BellaDonna intentionally impaled Creamy. Persimmon walks out of the room, resentment clear on her face. The BellaDonna appeals to Tookie, but Tookie isn’t sure what to say.

The BellaDonna had chosen Tookie to come to Modelland, after all. But Tookie knew it hadn’t been for the right reasons. She knew that danger still lurked somewhere. She just wasn’t sure where, or in what form.

Wait, I thought that the implication was that the BellaDonna replaced Myrracle on the list of new students with Tookie just to get back at Creamy. What gives any indication that there’s some other dark, sinister reason that Tookie was chosen to go to Modelland?

Tookie, not sure if the BellaDonna really did accidentally stab her mother, refuses to side with the BellaDonna. Gunnero grabs the BellaDonna and drags her out of the room by her stilettos.

The scene briefly changes to the 7Seven stadium, where Gunnero announces that the 7Seven Tournament and Modelland are shutting down. Then our dahling narrator tells us just how bad this really is:

Oh, this was a heavy day, dahling. In the history of Modelland—in the history of the world, I daresay—this was one of the most disastrous, devastating, disheartening days ever.

We get told about how hospitals end up filled with people who had fainted from the news and how fashion designers fall into depression, with many throwing themselves off of buildings. Dear goodness, this world is screwed up. The factories of Metopia close up, leading to the Factory Dependents rioting and stealing the goods they had produced. There’s vandalism and fires everywhere.

Think about how you’d feel, dahling. Think about if someone suffocated you, strangled you, cut off your nose, held you underwater, for that is how the globe’s population felt.

Guru Gunnero’s announcement had cut off the world’s oxygen supply, and they were desperately gulping for air.

I’m not sure what’s scarier: the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four or the world of Modelland. It’s almost as if the entire world is brainwashed to be completely obsessed with fashion to the point of insanity. It’s like Modelland is a massive Reaper, and upon its departure, the indoctrinated slaves are left to simply waste away and die off.

And now we return to Modelland, where Persimmon is leading Tookie down a corridor like a massive organ to a door that reads “La Camara Brutta”. Tookie realizes that this room is where she first saw Ci~L attacking herself, and Persimmon explains that this is the Ugly Room, for those who have committed the worst offenses. She sprays Tookie with Anti-Repugnancy Spritz so Tookie doesn’t suffer from the Ugly Room’s effects, which causes every surface in the room to reflect the most horrifying version of the person within. Tookie expresses her sympathy for Persimmon just before Ci~L arrives. As Persimmon sprays Ci~L, the Mannecant tells Ci~L how Ci~L being born was the day her own life ended. Tookie assures Ci~L that neither she nor Persimmon are to blame for everything that happened.

The door opens. Tookie and Ci~L enter the depths of the Ugly Room, where they find the BellaDonna and Creamy.

[The Belladonna’s] body faced a wall of mirrors, which reflected not the lovely woman they had just seen in the flesh for the first time, but a pockmarked, scaly-skinned beast. She had entrails for hair, a twisted tree root for a nose, and millipedes for eyelashes.

The BellaDonna is unable to look away from her reflection, since she is restrained and her eyes are kept open with metal clamps. Creamy doesn’t look much different, though she’s in a cot with medical equipment hooked up to her. Tookie asks if her mother is going to die. Ci~L says that Creamy might survive, but even if she does, she’ll likely remain in the Ugly Room for the rest of her life for invading Modelland after being banned. Tookie looks at her mother, thinking about how little she really knew about Creamy, just how much of a horrible person she was, and how Creamy never told Tookie anything about her past. Tookie tells her mother that she loves her and that all she wanted was for Creamy to love her back. Meanwhile, Ci~L tells the BellaDonna about her friends and how she had to leave them when she was chosen to go to Modelland. Tookie asks what happened to make Creamy hate her, and Ci~L asks if the BellaDonna ever wanted her back in her life. Tookie tells Creamy that she’s special now even if Creamy doesn’t think so, and Ci~L tells the BellaDonna that she would have preferred being banished rather than returning to Modelland.

Then the BellaDonna breaks free of her restraint and looks to Ci~L, telling Ci~L that Gunnero wanted to kill Ci~L for her transgression and that she wanted to make sure she could watch over Ci~L. She expresses her eternal regret over choosing her beauty over Ci~L and warns Ci~L that Gunnero will execute her if she doesn’t reform.

“When I had you, I looked into your gray eyes and the first thing I said was, I see love. And Ci~L, every time I see you, even right now, I see love. That’s how I named you. Ci~L…see love.”

This would be much better if we had actually seen the BellaDonna say “I see love” in the flashback. I don’t think I need to point out how stupid “Ci~L = see love” is.

Ci~L embraces the BellaDonna…until Gunnero storms in accompanied by guards. He orders “Body Girl” to come along, telling her “you must pay for who you are and what the hell you have become.” Tookie takes one last look at her mother before chasing after Ci~L.

Now, knowing this book, does anyone actually think that the payoff of this little conflict is going to be anything but stupid?

Chapter Forty-Six: With Perfect Execution

Modelland is in chaos as Gunnero’s guards drag Ci~L along by her hair. ZhenZhen tries to stop them, but is pushed out of the way by Gunnero. Tookie follows them into the M building, knowing that her magical Forgetta-Girl powers allow her to manuever through the building conveniently without being seen.

Gunnero brings Ci~L before the Bored, who are all clearly distressed. Ci~L tries to appease the Bored, but Gunnero cuts her off and pulls her over to a crystal guillotine. Tookie realizes that they’re going to execute Ci~L. Ci~L tells them to hurry up, and the blade drops.

When the blade hits her neck, red liquid spills out and covers Ci~L’s body. A crown appears on her head, followed by the red liquid transforming into a red cape. The Bored all start applauding, “To the new BellaDonna!”

…yeah, they appoint new BellaDonnas with a guillotine. Why the hell does that happen?

Ci~L thinks it’s all a joke, but as the Bored points out, Ci~L is the BellaDonna’s daughter and thus royalty. Gunnero tries to get Ci~L to decline, but she cuts him off, tells him to stop calling her “Body Girl”, and accepts the position of BellaDonna.

Everyone cheers. Including Tookie, because she’s an idiot. The guards seize her. Ci~L asks what Tookie is doing in the M building, snarling about how she’s capable of taking care of herself. And then we get this:

Oh my God! Ci~L has turned into a demon again! Where can I run? Tookie thought, panicked.

Ci~L spun around and eyed Gunnero and the guards. “Release her immediately. I will punish her myself.”

Gunnero smirked, pleased.

The guards dropped Tookie’s arms and Ci~L said, “Psych! Tookie, I was totally kidding. I was spooky, huh? Like before, when I was crazy, but I’m not crazy now but I feel crazy cuz I’m the frickin’ BellaDonna. I’m so nervous and now I’m sweating again. You know how I sweat. Augh! Come here, girl!” And then Ci~L wrapped Tookie in a big hug.

…why did you have to remind me of that moronic plot arc, Modelland?

Ci~L tells Gunnero that he won’t ever be allowed to harm Tookie, or he “can kiss [her] big fat Princess BellaDonna ass!” She even orders Gunnero to kiss Tookie’s feet, which he reluctantly does.

And Tookie had to admit it felt pretty damn good.

And Tookie remains a jerk up until the end.

Well, it’s not quite the end. We’ve still got the last chapter and the epilogue to finish off, followed by a quick look at the acknowledgements and my final thoughts on Modelland. So stay tuned for the series finale of Lily Sporks Modelland!

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This is the end, friends. The final installment of the Modelland spork. So let’s get started!

Chapter Forty-Seven: La Lengua

Tookie steps out of the M building, in disbelief over how Ci~L is now the BellaDonna. She’s full of glee, thinking of how she’s going to break the news to the Unicas. She sees Kamalini walking by, the only person unfazed by the cancellation of the 7Seven Tournament—and that’s only because she’s listening to her Headbangor. Tookie thinks about how Kamalini helped her on the first day she was at Modelland, and how she would have to thank her later. I wonder if the sequel will involve anything to do with Kamalini’s Headbangor addiction.

Then Zarpessa shows up as Tookie makes her way to the D building. Tookie insists that she didn’t tell Zarpessa’s secret, and Zarpessa reveals that Dr. Erica told her that no one said anything. Tookie says that Zarpessa has no excuse to be evil. Zarpessa reluctantly thanks Tookie, but insists that they won’t be friends in any way. She asks about how Tookie mentioned Theophilus at ManAttack, and Tookie claims that she just wanted to make Bravo jealous. Zarpessa tells Tookie to stay away from Theophilus and storms off.

Then the three Bestosteros, Webb, Alexander, and O’Neil, jump out of the bushes. Tookie tries to walk past them, but then notices the words “Tookie I’m so sorry” painted on their chests. They turn around, revealing the words “It Was Never A Bet” on their backs. Tookie is initially skeptical, until Bravo shows up behind her in a tuxedo. Bravo’s friends leave, and Bravo apologizes for lying to Tookie. He tells her that he didn’t want to stay at Modelland even for the architecture if it meant that he couldn’t be with Tookie.

Great. Life passion < Tookie.

Tookie realizes that Bravo is doing all of the things she told him that she wanted her first kiss to be like during ManAttack. He brings her to a garden he had just planted for Tookie, then starts singing about how he loves Tookie more than anything. Tookie admits between verses that while she was obsessed with Theophilus, he’s not her boyfriend, to Bravo’s relief. In the vein of Bravo’s story about “Deco”, Tookie starts telling Bravo a story about “Tookalatta”. Tookalatta Defacake would lie on the floor of her school, interpreting no one stepping on her as a sign that she was being completely ignored. Tookalatta coveted a random item from a boy she liked and fantasized about smooching with that boy. Bravo and Tookie call each other by their silly story names, then lick their own thumbs and wipe each other’s eyebrows. Then Bravo tells her to close her eyes. She does, and he shoots whipped cream into her mouth.

And then they kiss.

And while they kiss, Tookie lets the T O OKE button fall to the ground. “She didn’t need it anymore.”

D’awwww.

Epilogue

Do you see her?

We get a description of Tookie, in the style of how she was described in the first chapter, though it’s less harsh on Tookie’s appearance and describes how Tookie’s body and her feelings on her body have changed.

Do you see Tookie De La Crème up there?

I bet you do.

And I bet you’ll remember her.

For a long, long time.

We get one final scene, with Tookie on the roof of the M building. She looks down upon Metopia, giving one last token thought for her good friend Lizzie.

All of a sudden, something ironic occurred to her: the adjective form of the word Metopia was Metopic, which meant, as she’d found in Dr. Erica’s medical dictionary, “of or pertaining to the forehead.” It’s a wonder I wasn’t the queen of Metopia.

Well, that was random.

Modelland is still in chaos. In the midst of all of the noise, Tookie hears a “ditzy voice” screaming out for Creamy. Tookie realizes that Myrracle must be in the Catwalk Corridor, and giggles about it. You know, at least before she went to Modelland, Tookie cared for her sister. She wanted her sister to be happy. And now she’s just a bitch towards Myrracle.

Ci~L shows up. We get told about a letter that Ci~L had given to Tookie, inviting her to the M building, as well as the special permit Ci~L had given Tookie to enter the M building.

Ci~L says that she hopes that her mother doesn’t get punished too harshly, though her sentence is up to the Bored. The Bored also want Tookie to remain at Modelland despite not being intended to be a student in the first place. Ci~L states her plans for Modelland, which include poetry slams and her hopes that more people will be able to go to Modelland. Because every girl in the world should have the chance to become a model like they all do. She gives encouraging words to Tookie, words which remind Tookie of Wingtip a.k.a. Ray Faye.

Then Ci~L asks if Tookie wants to go flying with her, outside of her weird pouch thingy. Ci~L causes hundreds of necklaces to appear on herself and Tookie, then gives Tookie the SMIZE that she had found during ManAttack. Tookie puts on the SMIZE and feels utterly beautiful.

Because that’s all that girls want and need. To feel beautiful. There’s no need to be a strong, wise, smart, and willful woman. All you need is beauty.

They take off, and we get a very long letter that Tookie wrote in her T-Mail Jail. The letter starts off about how Tookie’s journey has been difficult, then goes into a speech to the reader, about how even though they may have gone through tough things, they have to stay strong. Tookie dedicates her struggle to the reader of the letter, telling the reader to send her their dark thoughts any time they need to, as long as they’re willing to “send your strength and power up to me” “When I feel weak, scared, or like I want to give up”. The letter ends by saying “there’s always room for you in the exclusive Unicas crew.”

Long story short, incredibly cheesy.

Ci~L suddenly feels the need to teleportal, saying that sometimes “the universe tells me to teleportal, and even though I don’t know where I’m going, I just go with it.” That sounds like an incredibly dangerous and very poor outlook on life, but whatever. Ci~L says that Tookie doesn’t have to come with her, but Tookie insists that she wants to come along.

The Intoxibella and soon-to-be Segunda Bella shot like arrows toward the earth. A black hole opened up as their bodies approached. Just as Tookie and Ci~L entered, the hole magically, seamlessly swallowed them up…and the two of them disappeared.

They end up in the middle of the Diabolical Divide. Tookie asks why they’re there, but before she can finish her sentence, Ci~L grabs her head and rips it off of her shoulders. Ci~L grabs a straw and sucks Tookie’s blood out of her stump of a neck, growing more and more beautiful with each slurp. Then she breaks into evil laughter as she attaches Tookie’s head to her shoulder. Tookie’s head comes alive and joins in on the laughter as Ci~L returns to Modelland.

…okay, I made that previous paragraph up. But that’s how it ends. No resolution on most of the plot arcs, no resolution on the world going crazy over the closure of Modelland. At least we concluded the cheesy romance arc and got Tookie to stop being an obsessive freak over Theophilus. Right?

We get a few pages of acknowledgements. It’s pretty sincere, and nothing really of note until the very end, where Banks credits her mother as “the original Ci~L.” I don’t know what that says about Tyra’s mom. The acknowledgements is followed by an About the Author section, which states that she took five years to write this book and that she’s “feverishly working on the next Modelland novel.” I can’t wait.

And that brings Modelland to an end.

Final thoughts

When I decided to spork Modelland, a quote came to me very quickly about my feelings for the book. It’s from hbomberguy’s Let’s Play of the 2008 Alone in the Dark game:

People keep telling me, hey, you must really hate playing this game, but…I liked it, and I don’t know how to like it, because I keep hating it every time I go to record.

Make no mistake: Modelland is a bad book. It’s a fairly stupid book. But it does have its redeeming qualities, so let’s give it credit for that before we discuss the book’s major flaws.

There’s several good characters. First and foremost is Lizzie, who gives us our first look into just how dystopian the world of Modelland is and evokes sympathy for what she’s going through. Then there’s Creamy, who pops up halfway through as a surprisingly effective villain with a secret motive that we eventually learn of. Even Myrracle comes across as at least more sympathetic than Tookie, as she finds passion in dancing but is constantly scolded by her mother whenever she wants to do anything but modelling.

The setting is neat. I know that there are a lot of stupid details about the world of Modelland, but the idea of a fashion-obsessed dystopia, where mothers groom their daughters in hopes of them being chosen as prospective magical models and unwanted children are given away to work at fashion factories, is quite unique. The overall concept is interesting, and while its execution may be flawed in many places, it’s still different from the average fantasy.

There’s several subplots in the book which are genuinely interesting. Lizzie’s plight evokes a sense of sympathy for her and even motivates Tookie into being a proactive and sympathetic character for a while. The Pilgrims’ trip into the Diabolical Divide gives a new insight into darker motives of an established character. The flashback into Creamy and the BellaDonna’s past is a good tale of betrayal and regret. While the main plot disappoints overall, there’s some diamonds in the rough.

And now we can get into the flaws. Because Modelland, while it does have a lot of potential for the series and Tyra Banks as a fantasy author, has many flaws.

The characters. The characters who appear most often during the story are repulsive and flat. Let’s start with the Unicas. All three of them descend to the Alpha Bitch’s level frequently, insulting Zarpessa almost any time she is around or mentioned. Piper reveals herself to be a petty twit who hates her mother just because her mother married someone who was an albino, while Shiraz takes her father’s death as a sign that he didn’t love her. Dylan…oh, Dylan. She comes across as a blatantly-stereotypical sassy black woman, is easily the most rude of the main characters, and never stops saying stupid things in a stupid voice.

Our protagonist, Tookie, is presented in the first chapter as being an antisocial, obsessive freak who seems to think that if you lie down in a busy hallway and don’t get stepped on, everyone must be ignoring you. It’s not until Chapter Seven that Tookie actually does something to pursue a goal instead of constantly moping. Sadly, the brief pursuit of that goal and just about everything else that Tookie does has absolutely no impact on the plot. She gets chosen to go to Modelland not because she stood out from the others. She becomes the leader of the Unicas for no real reason. She not only wins at ManAttack through barely any effort on her own part but gets the highest score to boot. The majority of the plot moves along based on things happening to and around Tookie and only very rarely does she act upon these events. Heck, her sleepwalking exists solely so she can stumble upon important revelations in places that she shouldn’t be at night: overhearing her parents’ plans to get rid of her, coming upon Ci~L torturing herself in the Ugly Room, and waking up in the M building to eavesdrop on Ci~L and the BellaDonna. The most notable thing she does is lead the escape from Modelland, but as we all know, the threat they were fleeing from turns out to be a complete red herring. Ultimately, her largest contribution to resolving any sort of conflict or plot in the book is to lure two squabbling women into a nearby room.

Then there’s Zarpessa and Chaste. They are both blatant one-dimensional characters: Zarpessa is an Alpha Bitch and Chaste is a massive slut. Almost every thing they do revolves around those traits. They’re given a very negative portrayal based on these traits, in complete contrast with the Unicas who often act the same way as Zarpessa and Chaste (especially Dylan). Even when Zarpessa is shown to be homeless and mentally affected by her homelessness, our heroines still mock her and act like bitches to her.

The Gurus are an interesting bunch, but as I had a minor freak-out about this, you’re probably aware of how much their random pathological hatred of actresses annoys me. Not only is it completely unexplained and makes the characters less likeable (especially Guru Lauro, who gave some very good morals about eating), it’s given some people the impression that Banks herself thinks lowly of actresses. (In reality, Banks thinks highly of acting and stresses that it’s an important skill on her reality shows.)

Nonsensical events. While it’s evident that Modelland tries to be a whimsical fantasy story, there are some things that are just too nonsensical. Modelland scouts take away prospective students in a giant pouch-thing. Giant zippers warp you around. A perfume bottle gives you your class schedule. The Likee sisters. Time in Modelland is based on colours. A guillotine is used to “crown” the new BellaDonna. Many things just happen without any warning and no explanation is even attempted to explain how or why these things are like they are.

Poor editing. Tyra Banks does credit an editor in her book:

Thank you for taking my first thousand-page manuscript (I know, insane) and making it this.

Well, that might explain a bit…

Anyway, there are numerous inconsistencies that spell a poor edit job. There’s not just inconsistencies in how place names are spelled, but also how events unfold in the story. The most notable example is when Crazy~L finds Tookie and Bravo together in the D building, and suddenly the Unicas are cowering in fear with Tookie.

The “Ci~L is evil” plot. I did mention how it’s a problem that Tookie basically does nothing to affect the plot throughout the book, but this is one plotline that I really feel that I need to bash some more. Tookie overhears a conversation that includes the word “sacrifice”, assumes the conversation is all about Ci~L sacrificing girls, and decides that Ci~L is completely and utterly evil despite everything she had done earlier. There’s no doubt whatsoever in Tookie’s mind that Ci~L’s heart is black through and through.

Then we get scenes in which Ci~L does act completely evil, unlike how she had acted prior in the novel. But despite the sudden change in behaviour from Ci~L, the moment she grieves before the Obscure Obelisks, Tookie once again completely reverses her opinion on Ci~L and becomes certain that Ci~L is not evil.

So in other words, Ci~L started acting differently solely to serve as a red herring villain and to instigate the Unicas doing something that ultimately proved pointless and had almost no impact on the plot that unfolded afterwards. Tookie ends up looking like a complete moron—both times she changes her mind about Ci~L based on little more than assumptions.

You’d think that this subplot is what annoys me most about Modelland, given how much I’ve complained about it. But there’s a bigger problem. A much bigger problem with Modelland.

The unfortunate implications. The theme of Modelland is apparently supposed to be how every girl is beautiful in their own way. Unfortunately, the story steps on this moral more than a few times, but none of those instances are as glaring as Abigail Goode.

Every time she appears prior to that fateful scene in the Diabolical Divide, she’s viewed as bizarre for her massive amount of body hair. The very moment she cuts it all off (and this is including her eyebrows and the hair on her head, mind you), the perception of her appearance changes. She doesn’t slightly improve. She doesn’t simply look a little more attractive or neater. No, she’s “out-of-this-world, breathtakingly beautiful—absolutely, undeniably, soul-stirringly stunning.” There’s no beauty in hairy!Abigail, but once she heeds societial norms and removes her body hair, she is suddenly and utterly beautiful.

Let’s take a look at the Unicas. Out of the four—pudgy Dylan, albino Piper, tiny Shiraz, and ugly-in-general Tookie—which one do we learn becomes comfortable with their appearance in the end? Tookie. And what does Tookie have that the rest of the Unicas don’t?

Simple: a boy who likes her appearance.

That is the main reason why Tookie becomes comfortable with her appearance—because Bravo likes her unusual appearance. She doesn’t decide that she can be happy with being herself, she doesn’t decide that there are more important things than appearance; she’s only happy with herself because someone else is happy with her.

There’s also the glaring differences in men and women in the world of Modelland. The men shown in the story have a variety of passions and vocations. Chris-Crème-Crobat was a famous acrobat. Ray Faye (a.k.a. Wingtip) was a shoemaker. Bravo is interested primarily in architecture; he only went to Bestosterone so he could see the architecture of Modelland. There’s men who want to be things other than models, and even the men who become models do other things such as construction and protection.

Women, on the other hand, overwhelmingly want to be models. Only a rare few female characters in the book show no interest in modelling. Do female models have other jobs? Nope, they’re just superpowered eye candy and advertisements. Many women are so obsessed with becoming a model that they will literally throw away their lives in pursuit of Modelland. Almost all of the girls in the story desire only to be models and have little if any other passions.

I’ve written quite a bit more on the flaws of Modelland than its good qualities, and rightfully so. But in spite of all of its problems, in spite of just how stupid it can be, in spite of just how little the main characters interest me…I kinda like it. It’s different. There’s spirit to it. It’s whimsical, even if a little too much at times. It tries, and even though it stumbles a lot along the way, you have to give it that merit. Love and effort went into this book, and while the lack of experience means that a lot of it didn’t go far, there’s still glimmers of potential and a shining light here and there. If Tyra Banks takes into account the criticisms of Modelland when writing the sequel, I really believe that she could write a good story—maybe not an elegant gown with jewelry in all of the right places, but a comfortable and simple dress that you can throw on and enjoy. The pieces are definitely there (stupid clumsily-hanging plot lines).

And thus concludes the sporking of Modelland. A big thanks to the readers of the spork, the editors of Impishidea, and Tyra Banks herself for a book that I can honestly say that I like…just not for all the right reasons.

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