Discussion Post: Nerd in Shining Armor
WHAT A BOOK, YOU GUYS. I know how antsy you have all been to get some SERIOUS DISCUSSION underway. I bet Oprah was mad when Kelly Ripa picked this for her book club because IT IS SO GOOD that surely Oprah wanted to feature it, but Kelly had to go and steal her thunder. Tragic!
Anyway I was going to fake up a bunch of discussion questions about the book as a modern-day retelling of the story of Eden and whether you guys thought maybe the albatross is actually the reincarnation of Granny Neville and/or Elvis, but come on, this is a book about psychic hillbillies. So instead, here are your discussion questions:
1. One a scale from one to ten, one being "eh" and ten being "as irritating as a fictional human being can possibly be," I think we can all agree that Gen starts out as a TEN before gradually reaching a point where she stops spouting bullshit about how to land a husband and how good she is at blowjobs long enough that she is occasionally almost tolerable. ANYWAY, THE QUESTION: At her best, how close did she get to the "eh" end of the scale?
2. Clyde Loudermilk: Great name for an oversexed hillbilly, or GREATEST name for an oversexed hillbilly?
3. Would you rather receive a homemade afghan or a Nintendo?
4. Has any teenager ever sounded as much like an idiot as Lincoln does?
5. Does this book contain TOO MUCH WHITTLING or NOT ENOUGH WHITTLING?
6. "Brogan would drop her sooner or later. His kind always did. And then Jackson wanted to be ready."
"She needed him right now, and maybe she'd need him later, after all of this was over."
"The deeper they got into this mess, the more she was reverting to the little hillbilly she once was. He loved watching it happen, because it made her more accessible."
JACKSON FARLEY:
Y/N?
7. "She had some sexy moan. If he could program it into the sound card of his computer, he'd stay permanently aroused."
a) Okay, Jackson. b) This book was published in 2003, yet THIS happens, like there is no such thing as an MP3, and also the way everyone talks about Jackson using his computer to simulate flying planes and racing cars there is this weird tone to it that makes me feel like this book was written in the eighties. So, THE QUESTION: Vicki Lewis Thompson: REAL LIFE hillbilly from the Hollow who went to Goodwill and found a decades-old book about all the exciting things you can do with computers?
8. "He thought about that for a while and decided that if he had a prize rooster, he'd be cautious about making that bet." If you had a prize rooster, how cautious would you be about gambling with it?
9. "When it comes to makin' babies, I don't trust any man."
His grip on her arm gentled, and a soft light came into his eyes. "You could trust me."
When it comes to makin' babies, would you trust Jackson Farley? What about the other men in the book - Nick? Matt? Lincoln? Elvis? Clyde Loudermilk? I think we can all agree that at the very least you could trust Clyde Loudermilk to knock you up.
10. "And bad luck was just a part of living, like boll weevils and chigger bites." Are you as surprised as I am that "boll weevils and chigger bites" as a replacement for "death and taxes" somehow hasn't caught on and become mainstream yet?
In conclusion, if you thought this book was bad, then you cannot even begin to comprehend the horrors that lurk in the pages of Gone with the Nerd, which stood out to me as the worst thing I'd ever read in a year where I spent a decent amount of time reading High School Musical badfic for kicks.
Anyway I was going to fake up a bunch of discussion questions about the book as a modern-day retelling of the story of Eden and whether you guys thought maybe the albatross is actually the reincarnation of Granny Neville and/or Elvis, but come on, this is a book about psychic hillbillies. So instead, here are your discussion questions:
1. One a scale from one to ten, one being "eh" and ten being "as irritating as a fictional human being can possibly be," I think we can all agree that Gen starts out as a TEN before gradually reaching a point where she stops spouting bullshit about how to land a husband and how good she is at blowjobs long enough that she is occasionally almost tolerable. ANYWAY, THE QUESTION: At her best, how close did she get to the "eh" end of the scale?
2. Clyde Loudermilk: Great name for an oversexed hillbilly, or GREATEST name for an oversexed hillbilly?
3. Would you rather receive a homemade afghan or a Nintendo?
4. Has any teenager ever sounded as much like an idiot as Lincoln does?
5. Does this book contain TOO MUCH WHITTLING or NOT ENOUGH WHITTLING?
6. "Brogan would drop her sooner or later. His kind always did. And then Jackson wanted to be ready."
"She needed him right now, and maybe she'd need him later, after all of this was over."
"The deeper they got into this mess, the more she was reverting to the little hillbilly she once was. He loved watching it happen, because it made her more accessible."
JACKSON FARLEY:
Y/N?
7. "She had some sexy moan. If he could program it into the sound card of his computer, he'd stay permanently aroused."
a) Okay, Jackson. b) This book was published in 2003, yet THIS happens, like there is no such thing as an MP3, and also the way everyone talks about Jackson using his computer to simulate flying planes and racing cars there is this weird tone to it that makes me feel like this book was written in the eighties. So, THE QUESTION: Vicki Lewis Thompson: REAL LIFE hillbilly from the Hollow who went to Goodwill and found a decades-old book about all the exciting things you can do with computers?
8. "He thought about that for a while and decided that if he had a prize rooster, he'd be cautious about making that bet." If you had a prize rooster, how cautious would you be about gambling with it?
9. "When it comes to makin' babies, I don't trust any man."
His grip on her arm gentled, and a soft light came into his eyes. "You could trust me."
When it comes to makin' babies, would you trust Jackson Farley? What about the other men in the book - Nick? Matt? Lincoln? Elvis? Clyde Loudermilk? I think we can all agree that at the very least you could trust Clyde Loudermilk to knock you up.
10. "And bad luck was just a part of living, like boll weevils and chigger bites." Are you as surprised as I am that "boll weevils and chigger bites" as a replacement for "death and taxes" somehow hasn't caught on and become mainstream yet?
In conclusion, if you thought this book was bad, then you cannot even begin to comprehend the horrors that lurk in the pages of Gone with the Nerd, which stood out to me as the worst thing I'd ever read in a year where I spent a decent amount of time reading High School Musical badfic for kicks.