 So I just finished Pariah by Bob Fingerman and I really really wanted to start this video off with just reading off one or two lines from this book like just completely out of context so that you could all feel the dawning horror that I did when I cracked this piece of crap open but I would get demonetized if I said that too early in the video so you're just gonna have to wait with me just for a minute please don't click away just stay here for a little bit and we'll get right to that because I promise you whatever you're picturing it is worse this is the introduction song it's not very good but it's not too long this book is one of the worst things that exist it's one of the worst things I've ever read period like if I were to put this in my top 10 somewhere and admittedly it's been like three years since I've updated my top 10 most hated books I should probably do that sometime but like if I were to put this uh somewhere on that list I think I would put it right above the fifth sorceress so like somewhere in the middle of the top 10 because this is a little bit worse than the fifth sorceress in a lot of ways like it's just more unpleasant to get through but at the same time the fifth sorceress is way longer and in the second and third books it gets way more boring so that was overall just a worse experience for me I really mean that like I'm not going to do a long in-depth review on this just because I I just don't feel like it it's not going to happen but this is worse than many of those that I've done like significantly worse than a lot of those okay now that the demonetization time frame has passed by now I'm just gonna read you one line from this book and I think you will understand what's so wrong with it Ellen's body even dissipated still held some attraction for Ellen okay it was a sort of hot emaciated supermodel bukenwald sort of sexiness but she still had that kind of certain indefinable something that put lead in Alice Ellen's pencil burn this all copies destroy I hate that line more than I hate the existence of cancer and I have lost loved ones to cancer you know if I had a nickel for every time I was reading a book for this channel and it seemed mostly innocuous up until the narration just suddenly mentioned bukenwald completely out of nowhere I would have two nickels I don't want two nickels I wish I had zero fucking nickels take these nickels back okay so I've gone on a little too long I haven't actually said what this book's about yet so pariah is a it's a zombie story you know it's about these people in New York they are in an apartment building and then there's an outbreak most of the city is overrun and destroyed and so there's just a couple of people that are holed up in this apartment building and they are slowly starving to death because they can't go out and get any food and then one day a girl walks past their building and the zombies aren't touching her like it's not just that she's getting bitten and is immune or anything but like she will walk through a crowd and the zombies will like part out of the way to avoid her and then they'll go right back to where they were when when she passes like that they don't it's like they simultaneously don't notice her and are trying not to go near her and then the story such as it is unfolds from there I put quotes around story because like there isn't really a plot or conflict here now I think that's a cool idea and I did like the cover as well like it just has this city street at night bathed in this harsh red glow there's some zombies stumbling around and then there's just a girl walking through the scene very casually it's like it's a cool cover I'll admit and I was just looking through the bookstore several months ago when I saw this and thought why not I'll pick it up because see a lot of zombie stuff does deal with immunity of one or more characters right in fact that's almost a cliche at this point but usually it is just like one person it's super super rare if not unheard of and it's just if they get bitten they won't turn but like that famous line in the last of us you aren't immune to getting torn apart you know whereas this takes it a step further it's like the zombies won't even touch her she can just walk through completely unmolested and later on in the book they find out that it has sort of an umbrella effect so that if another person walks next to her they also won't be bothered and that's a cool idea it makes me wonder like okay why does she have this ability how exactly does it work what are they going to do with it I don't know like even after reading and like there's no sequels or anything which further explore those questions and explain what's going on by the way like this is a standalone book and we never find out exactly what caused this we don't see them do anything all that interesting with it it takes over a third of the book for the girl her name is Mona by the way it takes over a third of the book for her to show up and just that's it so like even that cool idea they do nothing with it so the first third of this book it spends a little bit of time explaining how the outbreak happened but I mean very very little like we learn almost nothing about the broader strokes of this like what's happening outside the city all we know is the city is overrun because the characters watch on the news for a little bit and then it just cuts forward to months later when they're all half-starved and holed up in this building and that's it for the first third and some change then Mona shows up and then she just like very boredly decides to help these people out like it is kind of strange the way she acts like she's just walking around and then people call for help and she like casually walks up to the window and is like hey what do you need you know hey can you get us some food and she's like okay sure and then she goes and helps them and then decides to just stay at this apartment with them and Mona gets like no personality she she has no nothing to her like we don't find out or rather we find out very very little about what she was up to before the world ended we don't find out why she is completely untalkative and barely ever converses with anybody she just kind of sits around and has headphones in and blasts music all the time we know nothing about that she gets like the tiniest bit of development at the very end and by very end I mean like the last three freaking pages but that that is it there is just nothing to her there's nothing to any of these other characters except that they're assholes and like I said there's no real story here there's no conflict like these people are trapped in this building like what are they going to do about it like nothing like that they're starving for a while then Mona shows up gets them food and then that's it like after that it's just them hanging around and like at the last minute they do make one of the human characters a villain but it's not exactly a twist you know we already knew he was kind of evil from the beginning and like he doesn't have any grand plan or anything he's just does something really bad near the climax and then he gets killed for also there's gonna be spoilers here I don't freaking care but if you if you want to leave now then do that I really really cannot stress to you how much of this book is just like being inside the inner worlds of all these characters and just them complaining and just them being assholes like I can understand them being stressed out and being kind of jerks given the difficult circumstances sure but that is really just the entire book is just them thinking about how they're all twats and how they're all assholes now to this book's very very little credit that is at least partially on purpose and what I mean by that is that there is a character named Eddie who is like the kind of sort of villain at the end and from the very beginning when we first meet him he's just a very unpleasant awful person like he's super racist and homophobic and he's just a jerk to everyone around him and then later on he graduates to being an outright rapist and murderer like we're clearly not meant to like this guy and in the climax again he is he is the villain he is the antagonistic force for like four pages so we're not meant to like this guy we're supposed to hate him so in that regard it is on purpose the problem is that every other character is almost as unlikeable as he is like for example there's a guy named Alan who I read that weird book involved line with with him he's like a painter and he wants to have sex with this lady whose baby and husband died and then they have a sexual relationship and then he constantly thinks about various things that make him horny and just that's that's it like he's just kind of a selfish asshole who constantly thinks about things that make him horny and doesn't do a whole lot to help people except the very end like I gained the smallest fraction of respect for him during the climax because during the climax he actually does like rush through a crowd of zombies in order to save Mona and it's like okay cool he did one good thing but when 98% of his time in this book is just being trapped inside his mind with him and him just constantly whining about how unfair life is and hating just oh god I can't I can't I can't do it I can't do it I hate every character is like that I swear to god every character in this book is like that like I out of this entire thing there's like maybe three percent of the entire book that is anything else than just sitting with these characters and seeing how they're all cunts part of the reason I hate this book so much is that again I like the concept you know that the whole zombie shield thing that's that's a neat idea I haven't seen done before and they go nowhere with it it's not really explored or explained all the characters are either assholes or well okay the one non asshole character is Mona and she's just boring because there's just there's nothing to her like I said there is no plot there's just a brief climax and spoiler alert what happens is uh Eddie goes off with Mona to try and help one of their friends who got trapped outside and you know the zombies won't bother them because Mona's there and then while they're there Eddie is just all hopped up on many many drugs and then he decides not completely out of nowhere because again he's already a rapist and a murderer he's decides he's gonna try and rape Mona but he can't and so he just beats her up and then leaves but I guess he just forgot that he's not immune to zombies so the crowd notices him and swarms on him and tears him apart and then Alan just has to run through a little while later by himself and finds Mona and she like she's okay she's very badly hurt but she's not gonna die and then he helps her go back and there's that's it that's the end of the book I really just can't explain anything else about why this book is so awful so I'm just gonna read some lines for you and I want you to keep in mind that the entire book is like this like everything from cover to cover is all written like this and it is the most one of the most miserable experiences of my life going through it Alan had suggested that he document her pregnancy with some tasteful nudes but again the answer was no even though she thought it a good idea at first that was a real pity her breasts had gone from admirable to astounding during those months and then stayed that way for quite a while he'd never seen her nude back then that would have been a thrilling experience now he routinely saw her in various states of undressed and it was tragic Mona was barefoot and once again Alan was attempting to not be aroused by Mona's sumptuous calves and now of all things her well-turned feet most feet he'd encountered male or female were functional but unattractive collections of jutting tendons knots and joints often rough and calloused Mona's were just the opposite their top smooth and dull like almost like a doll okay this is just the author's fetish shining through for a minute here Mona sure she was alive but in spite of her fetching appearance she lacked vitality her eyes communicating no more than those of the undead outside reptile eyes insect eyes and yet still the hard on persisted Alan tried to will it away thinking of disgusting things but what was more disgusting than his waking life in the old days if he wanted to suppress a boner he'd think about maggots and rotting car cantaloupes and roadkill all of which seemed rather quaint now i'm jerking off to paintings of a fully clothed girl's ankles wow i'm so fucking great i can't stand it i am the man i am the greatest living artist and this is what it comes down to and i had issues about doing wank it working material for eddie i'm pathetic pathetic i know i just love that line but i'm not rereading it killjoy he sneered then swung the hammer in a graceful arc and knocked the jaw clear off the female bullseye he gaffaud at the female's hands jerked up to her ruined face and astonishment there goes your modeling career eddie scoffed well pleased and so much for that blowjob too although the zombies tongue lulled stupidly in the jawless opening between her upper teeth and gullet this isn't a huggy moment ellen said voice flat it is what it is and all without the hassle of pro-lifers to complicate things that's pretty all all right i call that progress what do you think the pro-lifer stance on a boarding a fetus in a dead world would be would that still be so bad not that it matters but we're making conversation while we put off abes expulsion from the building i'm ragging on you don't give me that look he has to go neighbors who will eat their fellow neighbors are not to be permitted i think that's in the charter what what's that look no one talks like this as they trudged on slowly deliberately he felt the insistent surge of blood into his groin yeah like moses his fucking staff and here's the final line of the book you ready he entered the living room opening a jar of salsa the chips were already on the table he took his seat and dipped a chip like he thought the author thought that that was a line to end on i don't know what anyone would see in this book okay like it has positive review quotes from both max brooks who wrote the world war z and the zombie survival guide and robert kirkman who wrote the original walking dead comic both of which are pretty good like these guys are good writers they've done good zombie stuff and good stuff outside that i do not know what they saw in this book but it makes me question a lot about them i so wish that i had not read pariah like i wish i didn't know it existed but i have to live with that knowledge now like everything contained in this book is going to stay buried in my cerebellum until my last neuron stops firing like the rest of my life it is going to be there i have to live with this knowledge and now so do all of you do not read this please goodbye wow you you're still watching i i mean i guess i appreciate it but i'm not sure why i mean at this point all that we have left is all these names here these are my patrons and including my ten dollar and up patrons aposavalanan olivia rey and brother sentodys buffy valentine carolina clay dan and celia vich dark king dawn dio echo flax carcat kitsune lexie delorm lyza rudakova lord tiebreaker microphone mist boy peep the toad roby reviews sad martigan sillier the vixen stone stairs tesla shark vei victus and westley these are all great people you know let me let me just let me tell you if you want to get your name on here then consider donating to me once a month become a patron or if you don't feel like doing that or you just can't because you know you're like poor or whatever no shame in that uh then just you know rate the video comment on it subscribe share it around spam it to all 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