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I loathed Jaclyn Moriarty’s I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes. I despised all the characters except for Listen Taylor, and I wouldn’t say that I actually liked Listen, it’s just that she never does much aside from mope.
Admittedly, most of the characters spend much of the book moping, but Listen at least has a good reason - a reason, moreover, which is not of her own making. All the other characters mope because they keep spoiling their lives with their own wretched self-centeredness.
Marbie Zing: cheats on her boyfriend because she is afraid that things are too perfect and can’t stand the pressure. Then she leaves tragic little messages on the answering machine and sends him tragic little notes and cries all the time until finally the chump takes her back.
Said chump is Listen’s older brother, who raised Listen after they were orphaned. Marbie tries to be a mother figure to Listen, which would probably work better if Marbie didn’t have the emotional maturity of a dachshund.
Admittedly, it is not entirely Marbie’s fault, because all the Zings seem to be exactly that immature and awful, so clearly she was just emulating her older sister and her mother.
Fancy Zing: imagines that her husband is having an affair, only to realize that he’s not but she wishes he is because she’s tired of the marriage. I think we’re supposed to think that he’s annoying and only loves her because of the Zing Family Secret, but mostly I got the impression that Fancy is a petty idiot who can’t get over small annoyances and is too chicken to communicate honestly with her husband.
The narrative rewards her by suggesting that she’s going to get together with her Canadian neighbor - he never gets a name, he’s just “the Canadian” - but I know that five years down the line, she’s going to be moping into her coffee writing lists of “tiny things that annoy me about the Canadian” on her napkin. If you want your husband to help with the dishes, Fancy, you should ask him to help with the fucking dishes.
They even go to couple’s counseling, and the counselor asks them to share honestly what annoys them about each other, and instead Fancy writes hers in code. Fuck you, Fancy. I bet her husband will find someone better than her. Maybe Fancy’s daughter will team up with Listen Taylor to run away and find adults who are actually grown-up to bring them up.
Cath Murphy: has an affair with a man who is married to someone else, then spends the rest of the book moping about how, horrors, he goes back to his wife. Am I supposed to enjoy her misery as karmic comeuppance for her selfishness? Or am I meant to feel sorry for her? Because I felt the first, but I’m pretty sure the book meant me to feel the second.
Also, the book revolves around the “Zing Family Secret.” It isn’t revealed until the last few chapters, when is is simultaneously so ludicrous and so unbelievably creepy that I almost threw the book across the room.
( The Zing Family Secret, so you don’t have to read the whole book to find out )
I paid money for this book! I feel cheated, cheated, cheated!
Which, let’s face it, is probably thematically appropriate.
Admittedly, most of the characters spend much of the book moping, but Listen at least has a good reason - a reason, moreover, which is not of her own making. All the other characters mope because they keep spoiling their lives with their own wretched self-centeredness.
Marbie Zing: cheats on her boyfriend because she is afraid that things are too perfect and can’t stand the pressure. Then she leaves tragic little messages on the answering machine and sends him tragic little notes and cries all the time until finally the chump takes her back.
Said chump is Listen’s older brother, who raised Listen after they were orphaned. Marbie tries to be a mother figure to Listen, which would probably work better if Marbie didn’t have the emotional maturity of a dachshund.
Admittedly, it is not entirely Marbie’s fault, because all the Zings seem to be exactly that immature and awful, so clearly she was just emulating her older sister and her mother.
Fancy Zing: imagines that her husband is having an affair, only to realize that he’s not but she wishes he is because she’s tired of the marriage. I think we’re supposed to think that he’s annoying and only loves her because of the Zing Family Secret, but mostly I got the impression that Fancy is a petty idiot who can’t get over small annoyances and is too chicken to communicate honestly with her husband.
The narrative rewards her by suggesting that she’s going to get together with her Canadian neighbor - he never gets a name, he’s just “the Canadian” - but I know that five years down the line, she’s going to be moping into her coffee writing lists of “tiny things that annoy me about the Canadian” on her napkin. If you want your husband to help with the dishes, Fancy, you should ask him to help with the fucking dishes.
They even go to couple’s counseling, and the counselor asks them to share honestly what annoys them about each other, and instead Fancy writes hers in code. Fuck you, Fancy. I bet her husband will find someone better than her. Maybe Fancy’s daughter will team up with Listen Taylor to run away and find adults who are actually grown-up to bring them up.
Cath Murphy: has an affair with a man who is married to someone else, then spends the rest of the book moping about how, horrors, he goes back to his wife. Am I supposed to enjoy her misery as karmic comeuppance for her selfishness? Or am I meant to feel sorry for her? Because I felt the first, but I’m pretty sure the book meant me to feel the second.
Also, the book revolves around the “Zing Family Secret.” It isn’t revealed until the last few chapters, when is is simultaneously so ludicrous and so unbelievably creepy that I almost threw the book across the room.
( The Zing Family Secret, so you don’t have to read the whole book to find out )
I paid money for this book! I feel cheated, cheated, cheated!
Which, let’s face it, is probably thematically appropriate.
