Last time in Wallbanger...Our nameless
main character (who is possibly female) moved into a new apartment.
They share a wall with a neighbor (Simon) who has loud sex. They also
have a cat named Clive.
Chapter 2
Our NMC (nameless main
character) “silently curse[s] last night's antic next door” while
eating their breakfast. They mourn the lack of sexual activity on their
end before preceding to converse with their “Missing O” which I still read as "MissingNo".
“'Still nothing, huh,
O?'”
People mock cat ladies for
treating their pets like people, and here we have a cat lady treating
chemical ecstasy like a person.
“She felt real enough
when she was rocking my world back in the day, but sadly, now that O
had abandoned me, I wasn't sure I'd recognize her if she saw her.”
- “...if she saw her.” Did Clayton spontaneously switch to third person and not notice?
- Are we really having a deep spiritual conversation about NMC being pre-orgasmic? I know they have fond memories of orgasms, so using a word that refers to never having an orgasm is a bit of a misnomer, but close enough.
- Is this supposed to be charming and/or funny? Almost all the positive reviews for this book talk about how hilarious it is, so I am kinda expecting a chuckle fest. Although, the last time someone said that they were talking about the movie Bridesmaids, which I did not care for.
She (she referred to herself
as a girl off-handedly) stops her conversation with herself and we
get some direct and indirect description.
“...I pushed my light
blond hair back into a sloppy ponytail and surveyed the chaos that
surrounded me. No matter how well I labeled those boxes, no matter
how often I told that idiot moving guy that if it said KITCHEN it did
not belong in the BATHROOM, it still was a mess.”
The direct description is
obvious so I will skip that. Our NMC is meticulous because she
labeled her boxes. She is wealthy or at least well off enough to not
have a roommate in one of the most expensive cities in the US and is
able to afford to pay people to move her stuff. In chapter 1, we
found out she is an interior designer, the Occupation Outlook
Handbook says that the average interior designer in 2012 earned
$47,900. Good money until you think about her rent. After a quick
search a 1 bedroom/1 bath that allows cats costs between 1,500 –
3,500 per month. If we take the median from that (2,500) and assume
she has 18% taken out for taxes, she would make about 3,273 a month.
Which leaves about 773 for utilities, gas, food, pet stuff and her
luxurious thread count, not to mention her probable student debt. I
know what you are thinking,
Hex, why does this matter?
Because now we know what social circles our NMC walks in and how old
she is. She is probably making more than the average designer or else
she would not be able to afford her lifestyle and that means she has
to be well established in the firm she works for, and her clientele
must be people of means. Depending on how old she is or if she comes
from money herself, she may not have student debt. In short, she is
probably in her mid-thirties from a middle class upbringing.
Anyway...
“...I'd only spoken
three times since waking up this morning, and every word uttered had
been directed at a pussy. Ahem...”
I feel like I'm going to be
using this a lot so, any time I know there is a joke but I did not
laugh I will put up that picture. And, by the way, the last ellipse
was not added.
NMC hears a conversation in
the hall. Naturally, she only shares this floor with one other person
because it is Simon. NMC goes to her door to look out the peephole.
The woman (who NMC names “Spanx”) is too short for her to see and
Simon is conveniently out of view.
“I hadn't heard any 'I
love yous' when she left, but they did seem very comfortable. I
chewed absently on my ponytail. They'd have to be, what with the
spanking and all.”
I would hope that any
persons having any sexual relations are comfortable with each other,
but I guess that's just me. But this does give us a clue about Simon.
He and the lady seem to have a casual relationship which is good if
he is our OLI (obvious love interest). I hate when author's have our
MC break-up a relationship.
An hour later (in-universe)
and NMC's two besties come over. They are Sophia and Mimi. They are
introduced by arguing in the hall. One of them almost dropped
something, the other scolded them and NMC quelled the argument by
calling them pretty. This may be my feminist sensibilities, but I
disapprove of this method. It's intended as a joke, but I never cared
for the “pat the silly female on the head and tell her she's
pretty” as a way of shutting a woman up. It always feels
condescending and usually has nothing to do with the argument at
hand.
The thing one of them almost
dropped was a big box which they carried up the stairs to the surprise of our NMC
“My girls did not do
manual labor when they could get someone else to do it.”
Yep, solidly middle class or
higher.
What's in the box you ask?
“...a shiny, new,
stainless steel KitchenAid stand mixer...”
So this is what she got
And this is me
That is a $400 piece of
baking equipment. I am hardcore wearing my jealous pants.
Anyway...
They make a vibrator joke
and NMC is no longer nameless. Her name is Caroline, and her friend
Mimi really wants to organize Caroline's new apartment.
“Mimi was a
professional organizer.”
I did not know that was a
job, and after looking through the Occupation Outlook Handbook, I'm
not sure it is. But Mimi is so good at her fake job that she has even
been on HGTV for it a few times. They do move in things before a page
break.
After the page break,
Caroline is watching The Barefoot Contessa
This version
not this one
when she hears people in the
hall again. She thinks that Simon and “Spanx” are back but it is
a new woman.
“Two different women
in as many days. Manwhore.”
Slut-shaming, regardless of
gender, is not cool. As long as he is not raping, lying, or
misleading these women, he is free to schtupp whoever he wants with
any frequency.
Fast-forward a little, we
get some insight into Caroline's life as she looks at photos in her
room. We find out her friend Sophia likes anything phallic and plays
the cello in the San Francisco Orchestra.
“...even though she'd
been around musical instruments all her life, she could never pass up
a joke when she saw a flute.”
As a former flutist
We find out that all three
of them are unattached. I have a feeling this is going to be like Sex
and the City (which I actually like) where they all find love in a
surprisingly un-diverse metropolitan city.
“I thought back with a
shudder to the night when O and I had parted ways. I'd had a series
of bad first dates and was so sexually frustrated that I allowed
myself to go back to the apartment of a guy I had no intention of
ever seeing again.”
This makes her manwhore
comment more confusing. So she has no problem with one night stands
unless some random dude is having them? Neither is bad, or wrong, or
problematic, but I don't get why she thinks Simon is a whore.
She details how bad the sex
was. I will spare you the details but it ends with
“My poor hoohah felt
like it had been sandblasted.”
Yeah... this was an episode of
Sex and the City.
Anyway...
She talks about how she
tried to get herself off and all I can think about is how she was
fantasizing about George Clooney's ER character. This supports
my idea that she is around 35. I mean she could theoretically be as
young as 23, but if this takes place the year it was released (2013)
then she would have been in her first year of college when the show
ended. I guess that wouldn't be impossible, but I don't know many
people my age into ER. House or Grey's Anatomy,
sure, but not ER.
Caroline goes to bed but
another page break later, she wakes up to wallbanging. But this time
she doesn't hear spanking, she hears cat noises. Naturally, she looks
to Clive for answers but, alas, it is her neighbor's night time
visitor. Apparently, this woman is so good at making cat noises that
it convinces Clive that there is a female cat in heat next door. So,
Caroline's neutered tomcat starts to claw the wall to try and get to
get to the other cat.
It goes on for a few
paragraphs until the woman starts yelling
“'Da!'”
Because of course she is
Russian. How much do you want to bet her name is either Natasha or
Nadia? It's always one of those two.
“Then all was blessedly
silent. Except for Clive. He continued to pine for his lost love
until four mother-loving a.m.
The cold war was back
on...”
And that's chapter 2. For
all my rambling, it was serviceable. I can see why this would appeal
to someone, it just doesn't have my full attention yet.
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