Hate-Reading

Andy Warhol, Pink Car Crash

Ever hate-read a book? Maybe a better description of what I just did is this – I stayed up well past midnight reading an intriguing mystery despite the fact that the protagonist thoroughly annoyed me to the point of pissing me straight off. Like, is this character painfully stupid, delusional, and ridiculously inexperienced? Has she met any other humans before now? Was she raised in some paradesical la-la land meadow somewhere? Or is she just young and naive? Was I ever this green and dewy?

The book is The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully.

Olivia is presented as a 25-year-old fact checker for an online media site who loves detective fiction and, somehow, thinks this means she’ll be a great sleuth. She finds out that a renowned private investigator, who just happens to live nearby, has an opening for an assistant (NOT a co-sleuth – an assistant) and applies for the gig.

First sign of “this book is really gonna challenge my ability to suspend reality?” The former fact-checker and her aspiring actor beau (who, presumably, works low paying gig jobs to keep himself free for auditions) live on 14th St. in Manhattan where, if you’re very lucky, you might be able to rent a 296 square foot, fourth floor walk-up, studio apartment for three grand a month. 

Second sign? The Goodreads synopsis starts with:

Olivia Blunt doesn't want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor and renowned investigator, Aubrey Merritt, but the latter is no easy grader.

“She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor” HAH! It’s clear that after working for Merritt for just a few weeks, Olivia sincerely believes that she knows everything there is to know. She’s ready for the big time and infinite praise from her illustrious boss. 

Best I could tell, the author actually wrote this character unironically. She wasn't even in the same universe as "just okay." Olivia was obviously, in no fucking way, ready for more than a role of taking notes, doing research, observing, and learning how to think critically and creatively. Her main strength seemed to be overestimating her abilities.

She lacked:

• Foresight. Thinking up and critically evaluating possible actions? Pfft, that shit’s for suckers, amirite?
• Objective analysis. I believe, on some level she tried but Olivia was way more about knee jerk vibes than actual, hard reality. 
• Her observational skills were decidedly haphazard and I’m being generous. 

Olivia lacked a solid, real world understanding of basic human nature. She reminded me a lot of the entitled, white, young BernieBros who seem to think revolution is easy and can be accomplished in an afternoon. Simple! All we have to do is have a general strike, get out in the streets, vote for X presidential candidate who will magically solve all our problems. *BOOM* Utopian society!

Life is a LOT more complicated than that. DUH! I wonder, was I this astoundingly naive and unrealistically idealistic at 25? I’ll cop to being some level of this but I hope to fuck I wasn’t as cartoonishly nimrodian as Olivia.

Was Tully intentionally painting her as a caricature – a starry eyed, overly optimistic, shallow thinking, credulous, melodramatic, overly impulsive child? She comes off as more of a dim teen than an adult – not to dis Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or the Scooby Gang (who were NOT dim).

Did the author mean to give her main character a giant ego, a near total lack of self-awareness, and the belief that she deserves instant prestige?

I took this book out of the library because the blurbs promised it would be an amusing murder mystery romp. It wasn’t gritty certainly but, boyhowdy, I wanted to slap the main character sideways. IF you enjoy hate-reading, and aren’t getting enough of that from keeping up with current events, OR you enjoy car crashes and train wreck, THIS is the perfect book for you.

By the by, Liza Tully is a nom de plume for Elisabeth Brink. Ms. Brink also writes under the names Elisabeth Elo and Elisabeth Panttaja Brink. I’m gonna make sure I miss out on books written under all these names.