Review: Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia

There has been a great discussion in the comments about pulled Fanfictions and whether they are morally reprehensible for their past or should be judged based on their quality and degree of separation from their source material.

Unfortunately this book fails both tests. Yes, it is a reworked fanfiction. I was willing to maybe put that aside if it was good because I remember the relationship dynamic and characters being very different from the source material and, indeed, being very different from any book I’d ever read.

That part is still true – but I’m saved from having a moral dilemma over whether to give this book a high rating or not – because this is not a good book.

I could rattle off the usual.  The characters are two-dimensional and unconvincing, the plot is a haphazard hodgepodge of nonsense and the writing is mediocre.  The exboyfriend was mustache-twirling ridiculous, the three brothers lacked a realistic bond or even respectable backstory.  The main female protagonist was laughably incomplete as a character and still managed to be scarily dependent on her boyfriend despite the fact that he was both homeless and mentally-ill.

All of this would usually still leave you with somewhat of an okay story.  Readable but nothing spectacular.  Unfortunately, the novel’s history caught up with it in the least expected the way.

You see, Fanfiction and novels appear on the outside to be similar mediums.  Both narratives that span similar lengths from novellas to sprawling epics.  Yet, it’s in their conception and delivery that makes them markedly different.

A novel is written, edited and then published for public consumption.  This hopefully means that the story has been smoothed out and any plotting problems sorted.  The consumers receive the book whole and can read it in one sitting.  The author then has the luxury of evenly spacing the story arc and gives the book balance.

Fanfictions, are written and published (or updated in the fanfiction world) chapter by chapter.  Sometimes the author has a plot worked out but often not.  Updating sometimes happens as often as weekly or can stretch out to be several months between updates.  As such, readers follow many stories at once and thus the skills of a successful fanfic deviate heavily from a successful novel.

For starters – relationships can not take an entire book to develop.  After some general polling a couple of years ago, fanficers reported that they would abandon a story should the main characters not “unite” within 9-11 chapters (considering many fanfics have 30+ chapters, this is a rather short amount of time).  Then it’s a matter of dragging the story along for a while until people start to get bored.  In the last five chapters or so, fanfiction authors tend to shit out a resolution, wash their hands of it and move on.

This is exactly what happens in Poughkeepsie.  The couples mostly resolve their issues and are happily together.  There is a visible moment in the story when the author shits herself, realizes she needs a tidy way to resolve the plot and then sets about creating a ridiculous ending.

What I had hoped was that this novel, when pulled, would be seriously – and with great consideration – edited into a respectable piece.  In this I was disappointed.  I can’t see anything new or different from the Fanfic.  I would go through my version to see if the author has done anything more than find and replace the names, but I can’t be bothered.

The chance I had been willing to give this novel is now squandered.  I guess now we’ll never be able to know what brilliant argument I would have come up with to justify the morality in its publishing.  Which is a shame.  I love arguing.