Modelland

I finished it. And I didn't hate it.

The key to enjoying this novel is simple: turn your brain off. Reasoning has no place here. After a certain point your mind just adjusts to the weirdness and you shrug it off because the next page is definitely going to spiral down even more.

It's not even a spiral. It's just a steady decline.

A few chapters in, I realised that if I continued on with the mental state I was reading the book with, I'd give up. So my mind began to gloss over. La dee da, yes that is ridiculous and I know you want to snark but ignore those minor things, just carry on. Wow, stereotypes. Oh, the cliches. And all the whipped cream and oral fixations?

Probably the grossest part of the book. Let us put those things behind us. But I persevered. And I ended up getting absorbed into it. I enjoyed it. I thought, ‘hey, props to you, Tyra, for your stand in what you believe in in the fashion world. Props to you for trying to fit it in.' I thought, ‘All weirdness aside, Bravo and Tookie could actually be a cute couple.'

I am ashamed.

The redeeming qualities are not found in the writing of the story. It is not in the names. Ci~L makes me wonder if I'll ever truly enjoy using tildes again. Somehow, though, Tyra Banks has managed to weave a compelling tale by crafting a world so unbelievable it could only be one you wander in a dream.

Because that's how I view this book. It makes a perfect dream world, really. One I would revisit and long to see again years after, just snippets. And the dark parts are pretty much akin to nightmare days. If Tyra had dreamt up the location first, I could see why she'd want to write about it. What I don't see is why she wanted to publish it.

Alas, the world ultimately also falls to the flaw of dream worlds: a lack of logic. What was this book about? Don't ask me. I don't know. I don't want to talk about it. The list of acknowledgments begins with rivers and restaurants rather than people.

That's right. Tyra managed to make even the acknowledgments weird.

To put it simply, this book was a mindfuck. And I don't use that word often.