In life, we feel bound to celebrate the many firsts and inaugurations that are so central to our growth, and we here at the graveyard are certainly no exception.  This blog post marks out very first ever Drunk in a Graveyard book review!

Having my Bachelor’s degree in English, has never paid off in terms of getting a job where I can actually use it, so really, what else is there to do with five years combined knowledge but review books?  I adore books.  I have this weird creepy relationship where I appreciate a good book more than a night out or a conversation and coincidentally I have many more books than friends.

Our first submission came to us from a dude named Ray S. Kent and the book he submitted to the Drunks (read Robin, because Scotty is many things but a fast reader he is not) is a little volume called Trashlight and I’m assuming he felt that Trashlight would be appropriate for the Graveyard because we clearly have substance problems and are definitively low class.  Whatever was going through his head when he submitted the book to us, he was 100% in the right because I whipped through Trashlight in about an hour and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Unfortunately, I am unable to drink alcohol and read.  It’s physically impossible.  Something about focusing on written words on a page with the addition of ethyl alcohol is near enough to force my brain to reach critical mass.  It just doesn’t work and it isn’t good for the environment, so I did read Trashlight sober as a judge.

So the backstory behind Trashlight is that it is something of a retelling of the eponymous Twilight series, told if Twilight had been set in the trailer park and had involved a lot more Wal-Mart merchandise, Jack Daniels and drunken rednecks.

Confession time.  I’m a little sad to admit to everyone reading (especially since I just espoused on my Bachelor’s degree in the English language), that I have read the entirety of Twilight…  and HATED it.  The fucking book series reads like a 9th grade book report (done the night before), and not only compares Natives to animals but tells a whole generation of young women to wait around for Mr. Abusive-Right and all your problems will go away..  Fuck the suffrage, apparently.  The author, Stephanie Meyer, is also a ridiculous Mormon, and her barely disguised Mormon values and apparent inability to spell or punctuate anything correctly pepper the book series, and because of this I hate her intensely.  I mean sure yes, if kids are reading Twilight, then yes, yes, they are AT LEAST READING, but still there’s really only so many concessions one can make for something as retarded as Twilight.  For whatever fucking reason though, people love the fucking shit out of Twilight, and not just like pubescent pre teen girls who haven’t discovered how to masturbate yet..  but like old bitches like this one:

And if that ^^ isn’t enough to scare you back to Church, then here’s another fucking revelation for you..  Fifty Shades of Grey was ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS TWILIGHT FAN FICTION on the internet..  and then somehow got published.  I am quite certain the only reason it got published is because a whole bunch of older Mom types maybe felt slightly uncomfortable with all the sending of muffin morse code they were doing to their daughter’s copies of Twilight, and of course such as with most things in life, where exists a niche, something will inevitably come along to FILL said niche.

All that aside, while Twilight might be a monumental epic, Trashlight is actually a novella and really drives home the point that just because you can make something longer, doesn’t mean you actually should.  So here we go kids – Trashlight:

The heroine in Trashlight is named Connor Ellis, and she’s a foul mouthed product of Hot Topic goth culture and Wal-Mart.  The first thing that struck me about Trashlight is that it reads like an episode of the Trailer Park Boys – stream of consciousness and liberally peppered with foul language, which if you think about it is actually more in line with how people interact and speak, rather than the “um” and “oh jeez” that Stephenie Meyer would have you believe is being spouted by the young generation.

I will say that I swear a fucking blue streak and give absolutely no fucks who may be offended by this.  However, Scotty Floronic does occasionally have to rein me in when I really kick up outside of schools or other densely populated child friendly places, and did give me “the look” when I sparked up a doobie outside the Catholic church just down the street..  However he didn’t say shit when Rigby and I loudly discussed rape at the Insidious 2 showing, so he has no class either..  don’t be fooled.

My life long love affair with dirty language found it’s perfect match in the Canadian mockumentary TV series the Trailer Park Boys, and I really feel that Trashlight would fit in quite nicely with the crew from Sunnyvale Trailer Park and it was the similarities that made Trashlight all the more enjoyable for me.

Back to Connor, who plays to the role of Bella Swan, she meets her vampiric Edward counterpart one night when he rescues her from certain redneck gang rape.  His name is Devon.  Devon, lives with his family in a group of motorhomes/trailers/RVs on the outskirts of town, and the vampire familiy eschews coffins in place of large Rubbermaid tote bins.

Also I am not really too sure why, but for the entirety of Trashlight I kept picturing Devon as Darryl Dixon from the Walking Dead, which is so much fucking better than pussy ass broody Robert Pattinson Edward Cullen who needs to lay off both the eyeliner and cocaine.  Bitch, who the fuck do you think you are?

Ugh.  Honestly though, it really says something for the Twilight series that all Robert Pattinson does now (aside from make horribly unwatchable movies) is rip on how much Twilight sucked donkey balls and how he only did it to make money and felt no love for his role (or Kristen Stewart apparently..  wayo).  Which by the way, who else had a really good long laugh about THAT little charade.  Hahahaha..  Oh Hollywood, just build up that teen dream only to bring it crashing down around us all.

Speaking of crashing down around us – Trashlight has some amazing moments to really bring that sexy glittery vampire image right to the ground.  In Trashlight, Devon explains that vampires can eat regular food with this eloquent statement:

“We can eat it if we want; it’s just that this isn’t the kind of stuff we really crave, y’know?  Besides when we do eat regular food we have to digest it, which is not cool.  Just try to image Lestat, or Dracula or even pretty boy Edward in a Chilli’s bathroom taking a huge dump..  Doesn’t really fit with the whole image, y’know?” – Trashlight page 24

I was inappropriately snort laughing, let me just say.  Further to the point, the vampires in Trashlight do feed on humans but only on “jerks and assholes”, which basically means that they only feed on dumb jocks and redneck idiots.

Trashlight really gives the reader the whole comedy experience while both homage to and parodying the new found Twilight driven fascination with “paranormal romance”.

Connor is wined and dined (read: taken to Wendy’s) by Devon and the pair begin something of a trailer park quantum entanglement.  Devon plays the role of boyfriendly vampire easily, but rather than being the ever present cloud of doom hanging over Connor, he falls into the role of patient tag along.  Make no bones about Trashlight – as much as Devon packs the literal bite, Connor writes her own checks.  As much as telling your teen daughter to look up to Connor as a role model might be something of a sticky situation in that Connor drinks, smokes, and gets tongue fucked by her vampire boyfriend on the regular – but she is fairly steadfast and I LIKED that.  Ironically here, it is the “trashy redneck slut” who informs us, the readers, with no qualms that she has a “nice bod” and isn’t afraid to flaunt it, but she isn’t a “slut”.  Though she does give it up for her vampiric love, she admits to only having given it up once before and since she “was really into” the guy, it meant something.  How perfect is that?

Why tell sexually charged youth to “save” themselves for marriage?  The reality is that kids are gonna have sex if they want to, and at least waiting until it means something is kind of a happy medium and Trashlight really pokes fun at the whole of Twilight basically being stretchy a story into four books until Bella and Edward get married so the reading public can read the horribly disappointing bang scene – which if you think about it..  Imagine being told your whole life to save yourself for marriage because of your religious beliefs and you do and then you get married to a total dreamboat and he ends up being a total loser in the sack and you wouldn’t even know and then you teach your daughters to wait until marriage and then end up with total losers and never have an orgasm..  THIS IS HOW WARS ARE STARTED PEOPLE.  This is why we have generations of teenage girls fainting at Justin fucking Bieber concerts – because there are generations of women out there who need to wring out their panties on the daily because they and their husbands both know more about “God” hating fags than they do about basic anatomy.

You’re welcome.  I not only dropped some epic fucking science, but I also explained Beatlemania in less than a paragraph.  Where’s my Nobel Prize?

Ironically, Devon is not able to have an orgasm but that doesn’t stop him from pleasing Connor on the regular.  There’s a message for teen girls I can really get behind – if your boyfriend doesn’t devour your pussy like a beer on a hot summer day, then he ain’t worth your time.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not fuck him in the backseat of his Mom’s car.

Seriously though, and I can’t actually say this enough – I loved Trashlight.  It’s short and sweet and to the fucking point.  It is tongue in cheek without trying too hard, and is self aware of not only the audience but also of it’s short comings.  Ray S. Kent is actually kind of a genius in this way.  Social commentary is not so easy, especially not when the commentary is well written and funny as hell (it’s why we work so hard at the Graveyard).  I don’t want to get into more detail about this book because I WANT YOU TO GO AND BUY THE FUCKING THING AND READ IT.  Seriously.  The book is like $10 at amazon, or $4.50 for the fucking Kindle edition.  It’s a quick read that doesn’t ask too much of you and actually has a pretty decent ending as far as books go.

We here at the Graveyard want to send a special thank you to Ray S. Kent for kindly sending us a copy of Trashlight to review and being endlessly patient with us when it came to getting the book (go fuck yourself Canada Post!) and then the time it took to get this review up.  We really really hope we were able to do it the justice he was hoping for, and look forward to seeing more of his work in the future.

Drunk in a Graveyard intoxicant rating – if you’ve ever really identified with Britney Spears, LOL’d at People of Wal-Mart, drank Jack Daniels while wearing something with the confederate flag on it, or gotten finger blasted to Free Bird, then this book is for you.  And even if you weren’t on that list, it’s still for you and you should read it.

So like we always say here at the Graveyard (Trailer Park)- if we can’t smoke and swear, we are fucked, so put on some Hank Williams, git yer gun and remember to ALWAYS stay spooky!