“Tutti Fucking Frutti” by Meryll
Hall was definitely a story for a select audience. With the crude bitchyness
and choppy sentences and endless outside referneces, it was the kind of story
that would be great for the people it would be great for but leave everyone
else in the dust.
I liked the underlying theme of
lonliness told through the unreliable narrator but I think it could be played
up even more. With Andrea walking around downtown and then only getting
absently invited by text last minute to a distant acquaintance’s house was a
great way to start the desperate characterization.
As a story, I didn’t see any arch
or any change in the character. She started as a bitch full of allusions of
popularity awesomeness and ended the same way. In order for the story to be
worth reading, even to the specific audience that would be interested in it,
there needs to be a story.
Some of the details were pretty
good, with the flask falling out of her purse and the wilted flowers and the
separated liquors, but it seemed that the details were too exaggerated and I
still didn’t feel like I ever knew where I was in the story.
The fact that only one side of
Andrea is ever seen is also a problem. I finished the story impressed that Hall
could think someone up so awful but was so disgusted with Andrea that I barely
remembered what happened in the story. Even if she is going to remain awful and
self obsessed, she needs just a tiny bit of humanity shown within the story.
Maybe she loves animals or she takes care of her sick dad or anything that
forces the reader to not want her chopped up and left in a black trash bag in
the woods.
I liked the underlying theme of
lonliness told through the unreliable narrator but I think it could be played
up even more. With Andrea walking around downtown and then only getting
absently invited by text last minute to a distant acquaintance’s house was a
great way to start the desperate characterization.
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