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A review by whilhelminaharker
Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky
3.0
There's a lot of great ideas here, and I think at the least it manages to pull itself together into something very entertaining. However, I have several qualms. The first being that the racial stereotypes and fatphobia are utterly gross. 'Nuff said there. The second is that it doesn't utilize the unreliable narrator factor as much as it could. By the end, I want to be seriously questioning whether any of this is true or just an insane fan's desperate attempt at attention. I want to be doubting throughout how much of this we can believe or not. This is set in the age of Internet standom, where anyone can and will make some crazy shit up - while I like what's there, this aspect could have been played with a lot more.
Third: I wish this had a more ambigous ending. I think this should end with them walking out of the hotel with the world burning around them, and then we can get that cheeky little "was any of this true" question mark. The way it stands, the epilogue wraps everything up way too nicely. I want to be left questioning whether the meeting with Rupert K(which I'm sure is purposefully meant to sound like a self-insert fanfiction) was real or not - instead, it just has to give us that Cinderella pastiche, which just feels like a cop-out.
And finally - I wish it would pick a lane. This is such a fantastic premise, and there's so much here that's ripe with potiental. I can honestly say this book is the only one I've read that comes closest to capturing what pop music fandom in the age of social media is like, and it's deliciously nasty. All of the members having the same name, as if they were printed out in a factory. Rupert P. being the Louis/Kevin of the group(apologies to Louis Tomlinson and Kevin Jonas). The shallow model girlfriend with a name as wonderfully satirical as Michelle Hornsbury(the twist at the end that she's the killer is brilliant. Hailey Bieber is probably taking notes as we speak). The Thanksgiving special, the mayhem when Rupert P. "quits", the "secret gay romance" theories and professional beards. It all speaks to someone who's been in the trenches and knows what they're talking about.
But with so much overflowing materiel, this ends up going in a million directions and feels scattered as a result. Whodunnit murder mystery? Rape revenge thriller? Weekend At Bernie's style comedy? Pretty Little Liars-esque digital paranoia? It all gets wrapped into a bursting-at-the-seams package that is certainly a lot of fun - but good satire is more than just fun. It's fast, clean, and cuts like a knife. It leaves you with something substantial. This needed some more time in the editing room, some more fleshing out of its ideas, and a lot less telling/more showing. Ultimately, the point is that a mysoginistic society deems teenage girls and the things they like "shallow" - but in reality they contain multitudes. Our protagonist certainly goes on a lot of rants about this fact. But you're preaching to the choir here - after all, teenage girls are the target audience of this book. If the story was sharper, darker, and more cutting, a deeper point could have been made than just "fandoms bad...but also good?". It may have been able to actually freak out its audience by holding up a mirror, and daring them to like what they see. The idea here is that this is what happens when stan culture and a dehumanzing entertainment industry are taken to their natural endpoint - but honestly? The "real" natural endpoint may be even more fucked up than this book cares to be.
Also why the fuck did the only Chinese character have to be a homeless orphan and why the fuck is she named after food and why the fuck is she the subject of a million fat jokes and why the fuck is the Latina character the "spicy" one and why the fuck--
Third: I wish this had a more ambigous ending. I think this should end with them walking out of the hotel with the world burning around them, and then we can get that cheeky little "was any of this true" question mark. The way it stands, the epilogue wraps everything up way too nicely. I want to be left questioning whether the meeting with Rupert K(which I'm sure is purposefully meant to sound like a self-insert fanfiction) was real or not - instead, it just has to give us that Cinderella pastiche, which just feels like a cop-out.
And finally - I wish it would pick a lane. This is such a fantastic premise, and there's so much here that's ripe with potiental. I can honestly say this book is the only one I've read that comes closest to capturing what pop music fandom in the age of social media is like, and it's deliciously nasty. All of the members having the same name, as if they were printed out in a factory. Rupert P. being the Louis/Kevin of the group(apologies to Louis Tomlinson and Kevin Jonas). The shallow model girlfriend with a name as wonderfully satirical as Michelle Hornsbury(the twist at the end that she's the killer is brilliant. Hailey Bieber is probably taking notes as we speak). The Thanksgiving special, the mayhem when Rupert P. "quits", the "secret gay romance" theories and professional beards. It all speaks to someone who's been in the trenches and knows what they're talking about.
But with so much overflowing materiel, this ends up going in a million directions and feels scattered as a result. Whodunnit murder mystery? Rape revenge thriller? Weekend At Bernie's style comedy? Pretty Little Liars-esque digital paranoia? It all gets wrapped into a bursting-at-the-seams package that is certainly a lot of fun - but good satire is more than just fun. It's fast, clean, and cuts like a knife. It leaves you with something substantial. This needed some more time in the editing room, some more fleshing out of its ideas, and a lot less telling/more showing. Ultimately, the point is that a mysoginistic society deems teenage girls and the things they like "shallow" - but in reality they contain multitudes. Our protagonist certainly goes on a lot of rants about this fact. But you're preaching to the choir here - after all, teenage girls are the target audience of this book. If the story was sharper, darker, and more cutting, a deeper point could have been made than just "fandoms bad...but also good?". It may have been able to actually freak out its audience by holding up a mirror, and daring them to like what they see. The idea here is that this is what happens when stan culture and a dehumanzing entertainment industry are taken to their natural endpoint - but honestly? The "real" natural endpoint may be even more fucked up than this book cares to be.
Also why the fuck did the only Chinese character have to be a homeless orphan and why the fuck is she named after food and why the fuck is she the subject of a million fat jokes and why the fuck is the Latina character the "spicy" one and why the fuck--
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis and Sexual harassment