A Book Review of the Election of 2016

Once Upon a Time Kat ‘O Keefe blessed us with this little tweet:

cringeworthy dialogue, over-the-top villain, difficulty suspending my disbelief to buy into the ridiculousness. 1/5 stars to election 2016.

— kat o'keeffe (@kat_tastic) October 21, 2016

Naturally, my mind began immediately converting this clever quip into a blog post. Wouldn’t it be funny, I thought. Wouldn’t it be neat if I portrayed my views on the Election of 2016 the same way I portray my views on books? Wouldn’t it be swell?

Thus, I’m introducing my take on the Election of 2016…as if it were a book. In the same format as any ‘ol book review. 🙂

Title: The Election of 2016

Author: The United States of America

Genre: Political Drama, Horror

In 2016, the United States of America is facing a difficult choice.

Must the country choose between Hillary Clinton, a woman under federal investigation for using a private email server, or Donald Trump, who called Mexicans rapists, claimed the president was born in Kenya, proposed banning an entire religion from entering the US, mocked a disabled reporter, said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured, attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, bragged about committing sexual assault, was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault, said some of those women weren’t attractive for him to sexually assault, said more countries should get nukes, said that he would force the military to commit war crimes, said a judge was biased because his parents were Mexicans, said women should be punished for having abortions, incited violence at his rallies, called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, called for his opponent to be jailed, declared bankruptcy six times, bragged about not paying income taxes, stiffed his contractors and employees, lost a billion dollars in one year, scammed customers at his fake university, bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself with money from his fake foundation, has a trial for fraud coming up in November, insulted an opponent’s looks, insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks, and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy?

A choice must be made, and a choice will shake the whole world.

Mmmkay. Firstly, this book was WAAAY TOO LONG. The novel represented TEN MONTHS of campaigning and therefore is roughly the size of a miniature schnauzer.
The story diverges into two POVs: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hillary’s POV was actually written rather neatly, but OH MY WORD DONALD TRUMP. His POV rollicked in grammatical mistakes, disgraceful hyperboles, and kindergarten vocabulary. And that’s just the writing style! Not even the content! I get it, the technique attempted to show the idiocy of Donald, but come on:

“Dummy Bill Maher did an advertisement for the failing New York Times where the picture of him is very sad—he looks pathetic, bloated and gone!”

“Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them.”

“You was totally out of control!”

Grammar wasn’t the only problem the Donald POV struggled with. He was also galloping about in idiocy, bigotry, racism, sexism, etc. Aren’t we supposed to be creating understandable and complex villains now? Honestly. Just:

“I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing.”

“Grab them [women] by the p—y. You can do anything.”

“Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”

BUT TRUMP STILL WON?? I mean, ok, yeah. Hillary had an email scandal, so obviously she wasn’t a great choice, not one bit. Plus there were plenty of other signs pointing to her corruptness. BUT DONALD TRUMP WAS AN ORANGE. WATERY BRAINS AND ALL. HIS PLANS FOR AMERICA WERE JUST VAGUE DOODLES. No way millions of American voted for him. Even if they ever did, obviously he would be impeached within a month! 0% realism in this novel. 0%.

A what was with the random plot twists??? Okay so this FBI director announces: New Hillary Clinton emails! OMG! Then 20 pages later he sneaks in with a: Just kidding. It’s fine. Uhhhh…what the heck? How is this helpful to the plot?
I don’t know what those random side characters were doing in this book. What were their names even? Garrett Clayson? Jessica Simpson?
The ending was awful. The villain won. While his idiocy was entertaining through the beginning and middle of the novel, his success at the finish line just left me with a hollow hole of a heart. And now we have to wait 4 years for a sequel to see how much he screwed it up 🙄
Literature hold power. Literature pounds impact. Fictional worlds set a precedent for the reality of generations. So when a novel represents a man who has said blatantly racist words and done blatantly racist actions as a presidential candidate—and then president? When a novel represents a man who has bragged about sexual assault and been accused of it by a dozen women? And a substantial of the fictional Americans don’t care? That affects reality—certainly not positively. Not cool.

Awful writing—my journal from first grade is superior in quality. Ridiculous villain—at least Voldemort was believable. NO REALISM—as if this election would ever actually happen! Depressing—Edgar Allen Poe’s work supplied more faith in humanity than this novel.

ZERO STARS. ZERO.