Susan Helene Gottfried, $0.99
Contemporary Fiction, 2014

I have no recollection of purchasing Susan Helene Gottfried’s Broken but here it is in my pile of unread stuff. The official plot synopsis is vague, but what the heck.

I just spent a few days lying in bed thinking that it would be so anticlimactic after all that drama about the COVID-19 these few years, I never caught it even once and instead I’m going to be toppled down by some mundane, stupid flu bug.

Of course, I am still here, feeling like death warmed over. Surely I can’t feel worse after reading this, right? Things can only get better… yes?

Nope. Every day, I learn that I’m still an optimist in spite of how old and cynical I feel I am.

Anyway, this one is told from the perspective of “T”, the sole female member of a heavy metal band called Ice Cubes in Hell.

She hates her manager, whom she calls Asshole.

She describes all the female groupies that linger around after their show in ways that make me wonder whether I’m supposed to renounce femininity and start identifying as a bamboo shoot or something.

I don’t get the point of drenching a story with so much misogyny, because it’s not like these women are actually vampires or demons that need killing. They just do what groupies do, and since T is not a green band member, I don’t know why she acts like a bitter, disapproving buzzkill.

She also dislikes her fellow band members, so I guess she’s an equal opportunity hater.

Anyway, after pages after pages of her hating everything, hurling insults at the people around her, and screeching and acting like a complete tosser, the story then ends.

What the hell was that all about? Where’s the plot? What’s the point?

So, to sum up my issues with this story:

One, the protagonist acts like she’s forced to be in a heavy metal band and she loathes every second of it. It may be amusing if this had been a story of, say, a nun forced by some weird cosmic quirk to be a heavy metal guitarist, but no, this story is just about the bad-tempered screeching of a walking PMS catastrophe.

Two, T has the discordant, whiny first person voice of a teen that still believes that cussing and being rude without any ounce of wit are the height of being edgy and hence “grown-up”. The whole thing just feels immature and stupid.

Three, hello, where’s the story? What’s the story?

This thing is indeed Broken, that’s for sure.