Modelland by Tyra Banks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
01/10/2016 Update:
“Admiring the D, are you?”
The first piece of dialogue in this chapter, spoken aloud by a giant face made out of vines and flowers.
Let me bring everyone back up to speed.
We just went through Thigh High Boot Camp, THBC, which was a bunch of weird tests of the model candidates. As Dylan puts it, in her in and out accent of sorts: “Honey chile, I just been invaded by bacteria, sliced and diced by earrings, stabbed by a monster needle, and had my head imprisoned in a bubble.”
Thanks, Dylan! It’s almost like this book was written with the knowledge that a person can only take about one chapter at a time, after which a month-long hiatus is necessary.
Which brings us here. “The D.”
The D is not as exciting as I hoped. It’s basically a sorority house. Or what I imagine a sorority house is. It’s like a sorority house for lame teacher students or something. Why do I say that?
“This is the UnCommon Room, where you’ll all hang out!”
I see what you did there. This room is ANYTHING but common. What with its couches, tables, AND pillows. Haha, whoa! Watch out! Lock up your…I don’t know, antique library card catalogues that could be turned into a jewelry box or some shit?
Don’t tell me, this UnCommon Room is where you get crazy and play Cards Against Humanity. And one time you binged like a whole season of Sherlock in here. And the cat walked across the piano in the middle of the night and freaked everyone out because they thought it was a ghost. Ah, the UnCommon Room. These are the memories that will bolster me for another day of teaching long division, these times where my wild oats were sown allow me to settle down and slowly build up my scrapbook of things discontinued by Restoration Hardware.
That’s really bitter. I hated school, not teachers. Sometimes the bitter spills over. Sorry. You’re mostly good people, teachers. Just stop wearing sweaters with embroidered chalkboards that say A+ on them. Can we agree on this one thing?
Once we’re in the UnCommon room, the remaining 50-some girls receive their Senturas. Special scarf things that are worn around the hips and make a person’s powers even more powerful. Think of these like Charles Xavier’s science helmet, Cerebro, which enhances his already existing power. Think about it like that, except these are color-coordinated scarves instead of cool science helmets, and remember that the powers we’ve seen so far include bullshit like the ability to make people want to buy stuff. Wolverine these folks ain’t. Hell, they’re not even Jubilee. At least Jubilee could fuck up the TV in a bar that shouldn’t have a TV. At least Jubilee could totally make your phone go wacky if you were hanging out together and on instagram nonstop, and she was like, “I’m a real person. Pay attention to me, not your stupid phone!” Then the sparks happen, then the anger about who owes how much money to who.
Tookie gets a Sentura too, and this is yet ANOTHER thing she can’t believe. She just can’t fucking believe it.
Swear to fuck, every minute of Tookie’s life is like that part in the Blind Side:
I never had one of these before.
What, your own room?
A bed.
It’s like that, except not touching and not interesting, and holy fuck when is Tookie going to accept that some weird shit is going on and she’s part of it?
It’s like that weird thing in Zelda. Every time you find a new thing in Zelda, you hear that Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh! music, Link holds it up in the air so we know what the fuck it is, and then we move on. Modelland is like that because it doesn’t seem to matter what Link gets, he’s fucking pumped. Empty jar, jar with a live bee in it. Oh, that bee. That little fucker was like my mutually-assured destruction in that game. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to tell bad guys “Listen, if you don’t leave me alone, I’m opening this bee jar, and NONE of us are going to be happy about it. I might get stung more than you, I probably will, but I’ll do it. Don’t push me.”
This book is like, imagine playing The Legend of Zelda, and every time you found a new item, all that normal stuff happens, then there’s a dialog box where Link says, “Gosh, I’m just a boy of questionable lineage (elf? part elf?) who started off swordless on an adventure, and now look at me, owning my very own EMPTY JAR! I never dreamed this would happen. I’m so pure of heart that everything is a gift from the universe, and every mouthful of bread is the heavens smiling down on me, and holy shit it’s kinda hard to get anything done because I’m always thanking no one in particular for every small fortune, but so be it. #LovinLife.”
But let’s not dwell on this. Let’s go to the second floor. Up the staircase constructed of only flat, suspended boards that are supported seemingly by nothing. No rail, no risers, just the flat steps. Let’s not dwell on that either because A) This is exactly the kind of thing that in a good narrative, would come back later and B) we’re going up to the second floor to get bedrooms assigned and C) it’s time to get Harry Potter up in this beyotch.
We’ve done Willy Wonka, we’ve done Hunger Games [check date], we’ve done R.L. Stine cliffhangers. But so far, we’re missing a little Harry Potter.
That is, until we go up the magical stairs, find bedrooms, and bump into invisible beds, which then become visible, after which a pencil scratching sound happens in the room and each girl’s face is drawn onto her comforter.
But that’s not all.
What Harry Potter story would be complete without some kind of magic gizmo?
Enter the Headbangor.
The Headbangor.
Basically a headband iPod. That’s waterproof. Because one of Tookie’s friends has a terrible music addiction. Her professor/inventor father made it for her, and she wears it all the time, and the songs piped in are sung by her actor/director/singe mother.
And wait a second, what Harry Potter story would be complete without a bully?
Which is why our nemesis, Zarpessa , is roomies with Tookie. Of course.
I have a Harry Potter question. Actually, I have a lot, but one of my questions is about Crabbe and Goyle.
Why have a sorting hat if you’re just letting dopes like that in the school? Seriously, those numb nuts were totally worthless, and you’d think that a school run completely by magic nerds would develop a system that weeded out kids whose primary joy came from picking on magic nerds.
Moving on, what Harry Potter story would be complete without weird, arbitrary rules? Such as the rule introduced here that the candidates can only keep two of the things they brought with them.
For Tookie, it’s easy.
T-Mail Jail. Also known as her diary. Which I didn’t even know she brought with her, but was apparently stashed in her cargo pants, which I didn’t know she was wearing when she left but would have been a nice detail because everyone looks bad in cargo pants EXCEPT what’s her face from Freaks & Geeks who pulled off that 90’s grunge military jacket thing like a champ.
What’s item number 2? Of course, the button. The magic button that got smooshed in the early chapters to kind of (not really) spell out her name: T O OKE. That beloved object that came about when her crush, Theopholus, accidentally squished it and it shot all around the room in crazy fashion, and Tookie dug it out of the garbage, after which she kept and cherished the item lo these last 48 hours or so.
This. Fuckin’. Button.
As if the origin of the button wasn’t insane enough, Tookie busts it out, then realizes she can’t be seen with it in front of Zarpessa, who is Theopholus’ real girlfriend and will somehow identify it as an object of her boyfriend’s.
What happens next is hard to explain. So I’m going to just say what the book says.
Tookie busts out this button, someone asks what it is, Tookie panics, looks around the room, runs into the hallway, picks a flower from the WALL, attaches it to the button, and then comes back in the room, a cool customer, and is all like “Oh, this is a corsage and shit. Probably not even button-based.”
The perfect crime. The perfect nonsensical crime motivated by nothing.
And then Tookie puts on a nightie with AN ATTACHED MOTHERFUCKING CAPE, and the Harry Potter cloning is complete.
What’s next? A laser sword duel? A bunch of boys crash land on an island and beat up a fattie? A cancer-based romance? What bases do we have left to cover.
If you said Requiem for a Dream, and if you figured Tookie would sleepwalk into a room where Ci~L was beating herself bloody with a paddle and wailing, you were totally right. And I really question the way your brain works and wonder if you’re interested in participating in a really crazy study.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with this line, from Tookie’s sleepwalking adventure:
“This definitely isn’t the D.”
Indeed. If there’s one thing you know on sight, it’s The D.