Kelly Reads The Haunted Vagina Chapters 2 and 3

CHAPTER 2

You know, for a scary erotica, I’m neither aroused or scared.

Chapter 2 begins with Steve describing how Stacy easts a Carl’s Jr. Burger. Oddly, specific and completely irrelevant to the story, but okay. Steve talks about how cute Stacy is for separating out all the parts of the burger, cutting them into bite-size pieces, and then eating them. Then Steve explains how he eats food by making sure his lips never touch the utensil. This causes his teeth to scrape the fork constantly. Which is obnoxious. I hate Steve. Stacy apparently doesn’t like this either, but Steve won’t stop because she’s even cuter when she’s annoyed. Uh. That’s not exactly a great life strategy. Also, it’s kind of sexist. You are going to invalid my anger and not correct your behavior because I look cute when annoyed?

The rest of the chapter describes the other supposedly cute things Stacy does including always ordering food that is not part of the restaurant’s theme (i.e. eating burgers at Mexican restaurants, eating salad at a German place, etc.) Sadly, this where the chapter ends. No really. We got three freakin’ pages of likes and dislikes, people. Let me remind you, this book has won awards. This book is sold out on Amazon.

This is crazy.

CHAPTER 3

Steve and Stacy are having issues because Steve won’t have sex with her because he is too scared of her vagina. They finally agree to have oral sex by 69-ing, and Stacy promises to keep her legs closed so that Steve won’t hear her vagina. Also, apparently her pet name for her clitoris is glowworm. It doesn’t glow, mind you, but whatever.

So they are having sex, when Steve thinks about the fact that Stacy does fish lips to give oral which makes him aroused. Granted, with the amount of people doing fish lips on social media, I’m glad someone likes it. Then we get this odd sentence, “I can see the crack of her vagina completely now, staring up at me as I lick.” Do you see what I see? “Staring”? Vaginas don’t normally stare so in a different book I would be able to write this off, butttt this is The Haunted Vagina. Does her vagina have eyes? Or does something in her vagina have eyes that he’s seeing?

Also, I would like to point out that the word “flesh” is not sexy. It’s just such a weird word to use in a erotica. Like, unless you are talking about a corpse, could we not? ‘Kay? Thanks.

Okay so as they are about to climax her belly starts to expand as if she were pregnant and then it continues growing so that “She’s getting almost twice as pregnant.” And this boy’s telling me that in a year’s time he didn’t know something was up with his girlfriend? Uh-huh. Also, if she is looking pregnant, that’s more than just a vagina. That’s like a haunted uterus, a haunted fallopian tubes, and so on. Damn, this book’s title is so inaccurate. It should really be The Haunted Woman Bits.

Then as Steve is cumming a skeletal hand comes out of Stacy’s vagina so Stever jumps backward so that “My penis shoved completely down her throat, cumming inside her.” So, of course, in this scene I suppose I should be either scared or amused by the skeletal creature coming out of her vagina, but I can only think about the idea of suffocating on cum. Death by cum. What a sad way to go…

The skeleton starts trying to emerge completely from her vagina, but it seems more like a cartoon skeleton than anything else since it is “Animated, chattering its teeth.” The skeleton starts growing a body (eyes, skin, and all that jazz) and Steve tries to kill it with a lamp and then finally succeeds with dropping a nightstand on it. Blah blah blah. Of course, after this episode, all I think of is:

The end of this chapter is Stacy running away. Instead of Steve. Which is weird. Good day. May a skeleton not come out of your nether regions. 

Kelly Reads The Haunted Vagina Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

You know I never thought I would read “hairy flesh seashell” in a piece of literature before. Confused? Oh, maybe I should rewind and start at the beginning.

You all asked for this. You voted for me to read The Haunted Vagina as my next Kelly Reads series. Disclaimer: as the title might suggest, this novel has some sexy time stuff in it. You’ve been warned. So…here we go!

The book begins with Steve being a bit special needs. He tells the reader that he was with Stacy for over a year before he realized her vagina was haunted. Yep. Over a year. Mind you, this isn’t a quiet haunted vagina. Granted, I don’t even know exactly what a quiet haunted vagina would be. A yeast infection?

Anywho, this haunted vagina makes noises. Whispers. Laughs. Cries. Howls. The whole works. And little ol’ Steve here was with her for a WHOLE YEAR before he figures this shit out. What, was her vagina just being polite whenever they went out to eat or watch movies? Could she turn it off like you would your phone? However, once they get engaged and she moves in, Steve begins to sense something is a bit off. First, he thought it was her snoring. Then he thought it was the television.

Then he asks Stacy and she’s just like, “Oh, it’s my vagina.”

And he’s like, “But, really. What is it?”

And she’s like, “It’s tots my vagina. Listen.” And presses his ear against her vagina.

Wow. So Steve must have some real issues whenever someone is talking in another room or anything that requires any auditory awareness of distance. Like he never noticed that the noises got louder when he was closer to her? I’m definitely assuming he has never given her oral then.

Then she says she has a ghost in her vagina. He asks how. She says that she doesn’t know, but it’s been there a long time. He asks why she doesn’t call a priest. And she sarcastically responds, “What’s a priest going to do? Stick a cross up there and cast the spirits out?”

Whoa! You got a ghost up your va jay jay and you sassing priests? Like, yes, I’m agnostic, and I find religious people to be a bit wacky, but beggars can’t be choosers now. But, noooo, apparently she likes it. It makes her unique.

(Side note: Is it weird that I like the fact that she has pubic hair? I feel like most people shy away from pubic hair because we are taught that it’s nasty, so I guess I kind of like the fact that a girl with pubic hair is represented…even if it’s in a weird book like this?)

Then Stacy says, “My other boyfriends thought it was kind of sexy.” Uh-huh…sureeeeee…..

They then have sex even though he finds her haunted vagina repulsive and classifies their sex as “the most awkward sex I’d ever had” which makes me wonder if this was completely consensual. Also, during sex, she sucks on his “crusty lower lip”. Crusty? Really? Why is his lip crusty? Out of all the ways to describe a lip, why crusty? Yuck.

Okay. Then we get the story of how the met. You ready? The both feel asleep on a city bus together on each other — complete strangers, mind you — and when they wake up, she asks if he wants to go back to her place to sleep some more. Yep. That’s not a euphemism for having sex (which Steve was confused by as well). She really just wants to sleep with him. They both go back to her place and cuddle. Steve adds “We didn’t even know each other’s names…” SAY WHAT?! So, you are telling me that you woke up on the bus, walked to her place, stripped down to your undies, and cuddled together, and in all that time NEVER asked what the other’s name was????

Then they continued this cuddle fest for three weeks. THREE WEEKS. And this story wants me to believe Steve never heard a peep from her haunted vagina? Now, back in the beginning, Steve mentions that he first noticed the odd sounds coming from her when she slept. Well, okay, you could maybe rationalize that the noises only ever came from her when she was sleeping, and if Steve never slept with her or spent the night, maybe he wouldn’t have heard it before. BUT, that’s the friggin’ start to their relationship. They were sleeping together from the beginning!!! Are you telling me Steve is really that dense or hard of hearing or…dense?

Apparently, they didn’t talk very much or make an effort to get to know each other. It says that “To her, I was just a stuffed animal with a heartbeat.” Wow, that’s cold. Now we are getting her backstory (before this all we knew was that she was Asian). Just read how unbelievable this is:

“I found out her favorite food was stuffed grape leaves and her favorite films were all Russian. She was born in Thailand but was adopted by a wealthy African American couple before she could walk, and spent most of her life in an upscale suburb outside Los Angeles. She spent ten years at the university here in Portland, getting degrees in every subject she could acquire. She wasn’t interested in a career. She just liked learning new things, and her parents paid for everything until she turned thirty. That’s when they cut her off and she had to drop out to get a job. Unfortunately, her degrees in Philosophy, History, Russian, Anthropology, Psychology, and Humanities were useless in the job market, so she worked at one of the hipster clothing stores downtown. That’s when she decided her real passion in life was fashion design, and she’s been saving up her money to go back to school ever since.”

OMG. Someone couldn’t decide what they wanted their character to be, so they gave them all the things! I mean, none of these are impossible alone, but together? Pffffftttttt what the hell! Paid for her college until she was thirty? Jeez! Could her parents adopt me? Also, she got degrees in every subject she could? She has six degrees including Russian and Psychology, and they are all useless in the job market? All of them? I mean I know that everyone makes fun of degrees in the Humanities for being useless which is why you get memes like this:

But if this girl can get six degrees including a science degree and a foreign language degree and still not get a job? Hell, we’re all screwed then.

Then we find out that Steve tried to be a musician for 10 years before giving up. Stacy then decides she wants to start a band, and Steve asks if he can be in it, and she says no. What a jerk. You know, considering that’s the only thing he wanted to do with his life. We can’t all have a kajillion useless degrees paid for by our rich African American adoptive parents. Jeez, Stacy…

Then they pass by a grubby homeless man named Donut. I should probably question why his name is Donut, but if I were to question everything we would never finish this. Steve surprises himself by wrapping his coat around the homeless man. Steve then explains how he hasn’t even given money to the homeless in years since he switched from carrying cash to a debit card. I don’t know why this is important, but apparently the author thought it was.

Then Steve talks about how Donut would follow him around asking for change and wouldn’t stop following him even when Steve gave him change and then when Steve refused to give Donut change, Donut would call him a racist. Steve is still surprised that he wrapped his coat around Donut, so we spent a page and a half for Steve to explain why he was confused with a gesture that still doesn’t have significance to the story. Also, his coat was $200! Seriously, I’m more shocked by the price than the gesture, considering he’s a failed musician but whatever.

Apparently, it is this gesture that makes Stacy love him. A gesture that Steve explains is uncommon for him and that even he doesn’t know why he did it….true love, eh? However, even this is muddled because apparently she tells him she loves him “with her shiny dark eyes”.

Looks in bag. Oh, look at that. I’m out of fucks already.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2. Maybe I'll find some fucks to give by next Tuesday.  

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Review

Fiction

336 pages

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Completion: I was fully invested in this book. I would have read it and finished it even if it hadn’t been for class. What a refreshing surprise! 

(P.S. I'm so glad I don't live in a dystopian or post-apocalyptic world. I would definitely be the first to die.)

Writing/Style: St. John Mandel’s writing brings such a haunting beauty to the collapse of civilization as we know it. By writing about the world before the collapse and twenty years after it, she manages to avoid the cliches of the mainstream dystopian genre.

Mainstream dystopian novels be like...

Characters: This story has significant cast of characters, and yet they are distinct and richly developed. There are moments where you feel emotionally invested in all of them, and that’s a hard feat to pull off. Plus, even if you have your favorites, each character presents a different part of this vast post-collapse world and present different ways to react and survive in this world.

Plot/Pacing: This is not a linear plot, but it never felt jumpy or slow. St. John Mandel did a great job of weaving the pre- and post-collapse worlds together, sometimes with only a few sentences. One of my favorite examples of this (no spoilers) was when I read a chapter of minor characters in the pre-collapse world having a conversation when the story flashes forward to say:

“Of all of them there at the bar that night, the bartender was the one who survived the longest. He died three weeks later on the road out of the city” (15).

Shivers, amiright?

World-building/Atmosphere: This book balances tragedy and hope and redemption of human relationships in a seemingly isolated world. I felt completely enveloped in the landscape of this novel.

Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): While I wouldn’t classify this novel as a mystery by any means, St. John Mandel by going backward and forward in time slowly puts together this puzzle of the connections between her cast of characters that is surprising satisfying. As well, while the topic is serious, she does a great job of balancing it with moments of levity.

FINAL VERDICT: If you are looking for adrenaline-filled adventure through a post-civilization wasteland with cannibals, shoot-outs, and villains, oh my!, then look elsewhere. For everyone else, this is a smart, satisfying read that will leave you wanting more.