Oh My Goth: Stereotype Parfait, courtesy of MTV books

Occasionally, on this blog that at least 5 people read, I will review some of the travesties of literature that I have come across. This is one of them. It wasn't discovered originally by me, but my friend Kyle (WHATS UP, MYSPACE FAMOUS!) at a rendezvous at our local library. It looked fucking horrible, we had to check it out.
Can't judge a book by its cover or something, right? Whatever, lets read the summary on the back.

Jade Leigh is a nonconformist who values individuality above all else.
Right off the start, LAME. "Be yourself" isn't the same as "be different from everybody else".
She has a small group of like-minded Goth friends who wear black, dabble in the dark arts, and thrive outside the norm.
Awesome, so you and your buddies are all exactly the same and as lame as every other goth in the country (and I guess Canada too...) but you think you're fucking GENIUSES because you prefer Hot Topic to Hollister and vampirefreaks.com to myspace.
They're considered the "freaks" of their high school. But when Jade's smart mouth lands her in trouble -- again -- her principal decides to teach her a lesson she'll never forget.
Oh my! Maybe she'll make you wear pink! Maybe she'll send you to detention and make you read the latest copy of Teen Vogue! Horror of horrors, Fake Exotic Sounding Stripper Name! Hijinks surely ensue!

Taken to a remote location where she is strapped down and sedated, Jade wakes up in an alternate universe-
Oh wait, this plot just got semi-good. Is it a sort of Matrix-esque "The cake is a lie" sort of thing where Stripper Name learns that her mindset is completly wrong and the goths, the preppies, and the old people need to band together and fight the robot overlords that control the corporations she inadvertently supported by "dressing goth"?
-where she rules the school.
Nope, just teen stereotypes. Oh noes, I guess her principal is Stephanie Meyer. She wrote the most scenetasticly tweenybopperish novel ever, knowingly sprinkling in PURE MORMON PROPAGANDA so that the zionists fund her publishing, her booktour, and her merch ventures. Of course, it becomes a cultural hit (all the the dismay of Miss Jade Leigh) and now goth is lyke, totally mainstreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam-UH. The popular girls (who really probably wouldn't be so bad if Stripper name got to know them) stop tanning and begin pining over the strong, silent (ABUSIVE) type. Sale of body glitter and vampire fangs go through the roof.
But her best friends won't talk to her, and the people she used to hate are all Goth. Only Clarik, the mysterious new boy in town, operates outside all the cliques. And only Mercedes, the Barbie clone Jade loathes, believes that Jade's stuck in a virtual reality game -- because she's stuck there, too, now living the life of a "freak." Together, they realize they might never get back to reality...and that even if they do, things might never be the same.
Aw. Pooie. Nothing original here.
Jade identifies as a "punk goth". I photobucketed "punk goth" and this came up on the first page:

This is pretty much how she was described in the book: Wears mostly black, hot but has "Bella from Twilight" syndrome and thinks she's an uggo fuck, blue and black hair (BITCH, I WANNA SWITCH HIGH SCHOOLS WITH YOU! I'M NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE FUCKING BLUE HAIR!), that doe-eyed look of noncomplex thought patterns, and ultimately, ONE DIMENSIONAL, like this generic anime drawing would be if I printed it out and forced my puppy to poop on it.
Jade identifies as a "punk goth" which is pretty much an oxymoron. When I think of punks, I think of people with mowhawks in plaid, leather and fishnets, yelling at policemen, screaming about "anarchy", and listening to the Ramones, even though they're republicans.
When I think of goths, I think of sad people of all genders and sexual orientations, wearing the same drab, uninspired black clothing, swaying in pure and utter meloncholy to some generic Cure song, crying and painting their toenails black....

I'm not even going to BS you guys, back on the subject of the Ramones, I just really fucking want to post this:



Hahahaahha! Oh yeah, um, punk and goth, punk and goth. *strokes imaginary beard* I guess when you put them together, you get Jade, the ultimate poseur. Jade doesn't really know who she is and clings to the goth subculture. Its not uncommon but the fucked up author woman attributed this to Jade's dead mom. Jade's mom died in a car accident and shouted at Jade that she had to be herself no matter what right before she died. Or at least thats what the book says. Jade, like most desperate entry-level alt girls, is probably a victim of Münchausen syndrome. Her mom is clearly dead, so she can't lie about that, but I don't think it happened quite like that. I think her mom died of something totally boring and out of the ordinary and Jade just enjoys exploiting her mother's death and blaming all of her problems on it.
The entire book is sort of a blur of her bitching, and there is no way I'm reading it again, so I'll be skipping quite a bit. But theres a generic cheerleader character, and shes rich, blonde, mean, and perfect. But the one quirkalicious thing about her is that her name is Mercedes.

Fucked Up Author Lady Gena Showalter is either a super-clever humorist or the biggest dibshit around. You gave both your main character and your superevildemonincarnagegirlyhorribleprep a stripper name.
Mercedes like, talked shit about Jade's mom because Mrs. Gavebirthtomercedes and Mr. Spermenatedjade'smom are bumping uglies. "Jade's mom deserves to die." she said to her friend. Jade overhead and attacked her. Rivalry persists.
Then they're in the computer game and they could just sit around and deal with it or they could do the stupid thing and fight back. Mercedes was caught fucking this foozeball player in the library. Jade was all, "Bish PLZ!" to her math teacher. Principal makes their rents sign a waiver and traps them in Goth Purgatory.
Gena totally fails on goth subcultures. All it took was a quick browse of google images and urbandictionary to see that she fucked this up. Punk goths do not pocess an understanding of punk ethics and shop at the mall, preps shun Abercrombie and wear sundresses fucking everywhere, and cybergoths dress like rejected matrix characters rather then like the monstrosities they really are:

I lie, I envy her ridiculosity.
They both hate Goth Purgatory, and band together to get out. Jade gets the mystereiousnewguy to help her and eventually he cracks the code. They get out and everything is wonderful again. Bottom line, buy this book. It will be the most wonderfully terrible thing you ever read. There is not enough blog to describe how fan-fucking-tastic this is. Its like a manual on how to be a poseur.