Drain You

I might be experiencing an extremely strong reaction to a rather mediocre book, which is strange. I've never liked the phrase “guilty pleasure.” Why should you feel bad about anything you enjoy? But I enjoyed this book, and I kind of feel like I shouldn't have.

The voice is going to annoy the hell out of a lot of people. It is a product of its setting – Los Angeles, circa late 90s I think, considering the lack of cell phones and the continued unironic relevance of The Cure and James Spader – and as such is horribly vapid and up its own ass. The first twenty pages of ripped leggings, leopard bikini top, bowler hat, smudged multicolor nail polish, straw fedora tipped back, guys in denim shorts (no really, guys in denim shorts), and everyone has too much money and too much time and not enough parents I had to stop myself from facepalming until I had a big red imprint on my cheek. And then I got into it.

As pretentious as it is, as unapologetically hip every single word is, Bloom does in fact know what she's doing. When you tap into the tremulous nature of youth, especially that of lost rich kids whose parents are in Cairo, at galas, don't-forget-to-double-click-the-Lexus notes left on the pillow, you're accessing what's so damn creepy about being a teenager. Something that I always remember said about the movie Brick was that it was so effective because it was made by people young enough to remember how scary high school is. Walking home alone from work half-naked on hot summer night is fun and oh-so-quirky until all of a sudden it's not, and your vulnerability, your mortality becomes profoundly real. That instead of the popular girl's manic pixie best friend you are prey in every sense of the word. It's what Brett Easton Ellis on one end, and Twillight on the other don't have – the unraveled feeling of a lonely summer vacation.

Drain You is a deconstruction of the Twilight template that's been used repeatedly in the YA scene. Or at least that's how I like to think of it. It succeeds in a lot of respects and fails in others. James, the consciously mysterious vampire love interest is actually a pretty likable guy. He's not a porcelain superhero, he's a twenty-two-year-old kid who got drunk at a party and woke up dead. He's just as insecure and socially clumsy as our heroine, Quinn. I like that he's a bit of a coward, the same way I like the fact that Quinn is sincerely selfish. They're both painfully normal – and I mean really painfully, the kind of way that makes you wince because you can understand why they have no idea what to do, and how they're compelled towards stupidity. They're young and much too powerful for their age. As James' sister, Naomi, says of him, “Those parts of him that you love – the weak, nice human parts – are the exact reasons we can't trust him to save us.”

Speaking of James' family, the Sheets, I adore them. They are not an unapproachable brood, they're just like every other teenager on Mulholland Drive in the summer – alone. Naomi is a bit too hysterical at points, but by the end, as she was holding an empty gas can in her flower sundress, she was giving me tingling feelings. And Whit, well, Whit is a gift in tortoise shell glasses. He's James' wittier, more confident, and straight up cooler younger brother. He provides the love triangle aspect that's clearly necessary for this kind of story. Um, actually. Let's take a moment and talk about that.

There's James, who Quinn is in love with, and Whit who Quinn loves. And then there's Morgan. I hate Morgan. With a passion. From the first pages it was obvious Morgan was a Nice Guy. He pined after Quinn even though she had made it clear she wasn't interested. Sure, she loved being around him and moreso she loved his attention (as she says, rather beautifully and sincerely “I never wanted to hear him say he loved me, but I had to believe he felt it,” and I kind of hated myself for relating to that so much), but a hint's a hint. She wouldn't take rides to and from work from him, or a ride to a party that would suggest they were there together. She suggested other girls that he should date. And yet he keeps pushing, ignoring her refusals. Then he tries to kiss her when she's fall-down drunk, and then gets pissed at her when she walks out on him. As if that weren't enough to paint this guy as a Grade-A douchebag, Quinn has a moment of epic weakness when, missing James (yep, this book does the whole vampire-boyfriend-leaves-and-heroine-is-devastated thing too), she starts coming on to Morgan in an attempt to pretend he's James. As if the scene weren't icky enough, he says, “I'm not going to stop this. Even if I'm not sure you want to, I want to, so I'm going to.”

“Even if I'm not sure you want to, I want to, so I'm going to.”“I'm not sure you want to”



Just having to the type that out made me temporarily see red. Morgan, you are a mother fucking creep, get the fuck out. And yet, Quinn keeps on going on about how she's so undeserving of his devotion, that every single time there's an interaction between them its constant guilt tripping.



Quinn, sweetie, this guy doesn't respect you. He blatantly disregards your rejections, he's not even interested if you consent to sex. There's a word for guys like that. They're called rapists.

To make matters worse, Morgan has no value whatsoever to the story, and I'm not really sure what the point to his creepiness was. He is treated like crap throughout most of the book, so that's some consolation, but he's never ever called on his shit. I'm pretty sure that if he had not been in this book, I would've been able to soundly give this four stars, but with him, no fucking way.

Thankfully there's Whit, who doesn't view Quinn as a piece of ass. He's actually, like, her friend, and a pretty good one at that. “He did believe in supernatural stuff - both good and bad - because it was a reality in his life, but he also knew when to be human and let things be quiet. And when it got too quiet, he let me pretend like that was fine.” He is utterly easy. As opposed to Morgan who holds grudges simply for being denied sex, Whit forgives Quinn within the span of a night and a morning after she pulled some serious, non-petty shit on him, not because he was taking the high road or some haughty moral shit, but because she's his friend and it's easier to stand by her than against her out of spite. There are only small hints at possible real feelings for her (she did get temporarily jealous when she sees him with another girl, to which he shrugs off with, “I'm really sexy, it's not your fault”), but generally he's too preoccupied with his family problems for them to really go anywhere. Actually, I got the feeling that even if Quinn decided she loved them both, it would be ok. There's never any real suggestion that she has to choose. When she tells Whit she loves him, he says, “You love too many people.” To which she responds, “That's a stupid thing to say.” And really, how can you love too much? Quinn and Bloom may be on to something.

So I've spent way too much of this talking about boys. There is a bit of a plot here too, though not much. Thanks to the hyperrealistc approach, the story meanders to the point where it almost seems like contemporary YA instead of paranormal. But it suits the voice, and really I think it's down to matter of taste. If you want a page turner, this is not it.

But I liked this. I liked the stark and slightly scattered prose, and I liked the ridiculously honest way people spoke, which is why I did so much quoting here and I still feel like I didn't do it justice. It's the type of speech that you only hear from privileged white hipster kids who never get smacked in the mouth for speaking their mind. As said, its down to taste – if this kind of stuff annoys you, then steer clear. If not, turn on Lana del Rey and just go with it.