Save the Pearls: Chapter 10 (Or, Alpha Male Pwns Beta Leftists)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: Captured by Jamal and his FFP communist/terrorist/racist pals, Eden had to think fast to fuck up their plans. Her solution? Burn fucking everything. While this allowed her to escape, the FFP caught up to her. When all was lost, Bramford completed his transition to being a literal cat man, and Eden was totally into it.

Oh, and even though this chapter doesn’t escalate the rascism past what we’ve seen, it still manages to be the worst chapter yet!

Save the Pearls: Chapter 9 (or, Catman Begins)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: After the original test subjects went missing, Bramford volunteered to be turned into a CatBoy. Eden ran off to find Jamal, only to discover that he was actually a communist revolutionary/terrorist who literally wore a beret “at a jaunty angle”. He revealed his evil plot to take the Animorph tech for himself, and Eden felt betrayed.

Save the Pearls: Chapter 7 (or, The Chapter I Accidentally Skipped And Didn’t Even Notice Because It Made No Difference)

So, you’re probably  thinking, wait, didn’t you already review chapter 7? The answer is no, I did not. The “what about the alt-left” chapter is actually chapter 8, and I somehow skipped over chapter 7 entirely. This is the real chapter 7.  

Previously, on Save the Pearls: After being captured by two scary members of the FFP, Eden is taken to the Moon Dance, where she almost raped twice! Though she briefly escapes, she is recaptured, but just when she loses all hope of rescue, her boss Bramford appears to save her. He says some Edward Cullen/Christian Grey-type stuff, and then they leave.

Save the Pearls: Chapter 8(or, What About The Alt-Left?)

EDIT: I originally thought that this was chapter  7, but it turns out that I skipped an entire chapter, so this is actually chapter 8. Oops.

Previously, on Save the Pearls: After being captured by two scary members of the FFP, Eden is taken to the Moon Dance, where she almost raped twice! Though she briefly escapes, she is recaptured, but just when she loses all hope of rescue, her boss Bramford appears to save her. He says some Edward Cullen/Christian Grey-type stuff, and then they return to her father’s lab.

 

Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden and Bramford flew on an airplane back to the lab. We learned there’s an Important Fire going on on the surface! That was it.

Save the Pearls: Chapter 6 (or, Attempted Rape is OK when White People Do It.)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: As Eden made her way to the Moon Dance, she contemplated her father’s plan to turn everyone into cat/snake/bird hybrids. Then, she fell into the clutches of some black rapist men! And honestly the whole thing reads like I imagine racist problematic rape-fantasy erotica does.

Save the Pearls: Chapter 5 (or, And You Thought Those Other Chapters Were Bad)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden and Jamal almost fucked holograpically, but then Eden’s heart-rate was too high so they didn’t. Jamal did some shady stuff, and Eden thought about how he was totally going to marry her. Jamal invites her to the Moon Dance, and then leaves after she accepts. Finally, the FFP prank-called Eden for the lulz, I think?

Save the Pearls: Chapter 4 (or, Chapter 3, Part 2)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden returned to her apartment, and was alerted to the fact that unless she gets married within six months, she’ll get killed off. Then, she prepares for her date with Jamal, which was essentially a racist makeover montage.

Save the Pearls: Chapter 3 (or, In Which Victoria Foyt Butchers Biology, Economics, Sociology, and more!)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: Having been swarmed by a mob of angry black people, Eden attempts to flee, but she’s not very spatially endowed so instead of escaping from the horde, she smacked right into her sexy, beast-like boss, Ronson Bramford. Although Eden expressed severe dislike of this man, he seemed to go easier on her than she anticipated. Furthermore, we learn that Eden is in a secret relationship with the Head of Security, Jamal, and hopes that he’ll choose to “mate” with her. Ultimately, Eden was put on probation for failing at work, but otherwise emerged unharmed. Also, Jamal said that they would have a hot date!

Save the Pearls: Chapter 2 (or, Victoria Foyt’s Understanding of Racial Politics)

Previously, on Save the Pearls: We met Eden, an oppressed white “middle-aged” 17-year-old living in an underground dystopia where black people are in charge, because I guess their melanin protects them from solar radiation? Yeah, don’t think about it too much. When we left off, Eden had just been attacked by her supervisor, Ashina (or “that bitch”), and because she dared to defend herself, the legion of other scary black people are now all mad at her. And Chapter 1 is probably the least cringe-inducing that this book  gets, so strap yourself in for all manner of discomfort!

Save the Pearls: Chapter 1 (or, The Bad Beginning)

When I started reading this novel yesterday, I was skeptical that it would be as abjectly terrible as Handbook for Mortals. Like, I didn’t doubt that it would suck, and handle its racial elements horrendously, but I thought it would probably be a paint-by-the-numbers forbidden love thing, and that would ultimately cobble together some kind of social-jusice-y “racism is bad!” moral. Thankfully, I was wrong. This one is so much worse.

While Handbook for Mortals is amateurishly written and certainly has a lot of problematic elements, there’s an unselfconscious earnestness about it that is, in retrospect, almost endearing. It’s a beautiful mess in the way that The Room or Birdemic: Shock and Terror both are.

Save the Pearls is different. While its prose is marginally better, it also tries to be Important. Where Lani Sarem quotes the Dixie Chicks and Tumblr poets, Victoria Foyt quotes Albert Einstein and Emily Dickinson. Where Lani Sarem steers clear of anything weighty or topical, Victoria Foyt has a lot of serious stuff to say about racism, Science, Nature, Love, and even communism (!). All of it is incorrect. Read on to find how just how bad it is!