Critique: Dangerous Deception (Caster Chronicles; Dangerous #3) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)

 

This plot was far more structured than Dangerous Creatures. With Dangerous Creatures, the plot’s direction wasn’t clear from the start and it simply fell into place as characters went from task to task. With Dangerous Deception, the plot’s direction is clear from the beginning.

Ridley has been captured by Abraham so Link and co decide to rescue her. Later they meet Angelique, a caster and Abraham’s escaped lab rat. During this period, Angelique had gained the powers of a Catalyst and she’s pretty crazy.

Link being in Oxford is so painful and made me cringe. This is fine: it fits the character. But his culture shock was bizarre to watch. And then he takes the mick out of British food. Um, excuse me but you’re the one that eats something called ‘grits’. Grit belongs on the road in icy weather, not on a dinner plate.

At the end, Rid’s been completely changed by Abraham’s experiments. When Link comes for her, she steps on a lolly, wonders if she still loves him, and says she’s no longer sweet. This is a great passage but it would have been better is she smashed the lolly between talking of love and sweet.

 

There were a few problems.

In this book, an Evo is described as getting the powers of another caster by touching them. The thing is, these are the powers of an Empath.

As Liv talks, she mentions that Abraham is Silas’ grandparent. Yet Link still feels the need to say, ‘”his granddad, Abraham.”’ Yes, we already know.

When John comes back to America, he gets Doritos and says he missed them. But Doritos are very popular in the UK. There’s no way he couldn’t have seen them.

 

This book wasn’t as funny as the previous ones but it didn’t need to be. The plot was serious with the characters having needle-like determination and focus. Too many jokes would have ruined the severity of the atmosphere.

Floyd wonders how Liv knows so much and Liv replies, ‘”there are these remarkable things called books.”’ Best line of the novel.

There’s a possibility that Floyd could die and Angelique says she’s ‘”happy to cremate her body.”’ Morbid but hilarious.

 

It’s been a really long time since Dangerous Deception was written. It makes me wonder if the series will continue at all. I hate not knowing what happens next but a good story would be better than a rushed story any day.

 

 

Critique: This is Going to Hurt

Yes, watching this is going to hurt. Specifically your ribs because you’ll laugh so much. It follows the life of Adam, a doctor on the maternity ward. One patient Erica has to be the best television character of all time ever.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Adam is really mean to a more junior daughter called Shruti. There’s absolutely no need for it and it made me quite cross, to be honest.

When I found out this series was based on someone’s memoir, I was quite surprised that they would be so honest about their bad behaviour. Then I learnt Shruti was a character made up for the show and not a real person at all. But whether a character is real or not, it’s good when they aren’t portrayed as perfect.

The whole hospital seems mean to each other, though, so maybe it was dramatized a bit? For example, Adam did what he thought he should to save a baby’s life and the staff in every department are just awful to him. Julian in particular is horrific until he learns of the complaint made against Adam. After that Julian is the nicest guy ever.

 

These two items aren’t criticisms of the show but about real life that were shown in the programme.

            This item is a question of logistics. If a woman puts a red sticker on her folder, it tells the doctor she’s a victim of domestic abuse. But doctors handle folders, not patients. So how do women have access to put red stickers on the folders?

An inclusivity officer says they have to call disabled people ‘differently able’. That is so utterly ridiculous. Disabled people have spent so long making sure there’s no shame with being disabled: calling disabled people anything else not only makes a mockery of that effort but throws the shame right back in people’s faces.

 

Many decisions were made well.

Shruti rightly complains that senior doctors never make time to teach her anything. When a new doctor, Al, comes onto the ward, she initially refuses to help. But she quickly rectifies this. (So I didn’t have to spend too long thinking she was a hypocrite.) Shruti does an amazing shift where she takes charge, finally having confidence in herself. This makes what happens next all the more heart breaking.

I’m really glad they set it when it was written, rather than modernising it to the present. I have nothing against this in principle. However, the story relied on the conditions of the time period it came from with no equivalents on parallels in the present day. The most glaring example is the phone credits.

No, this show did not break the fourth wall. Diaries are written after the fact so reflection on events is natural. This is what Adam talking to the camera conveys. The show is a visual representation of a diary, after all. Although when he accidentally says this reflection out loud so the other characters can hear, this does throw my defence out the window. Unless the person this character represents objected to Adam’s telling on the story?

 

When listing my favourite moments, I legitimately could have written the entire script. So having to cut them down to a smaller (yet still large) list was difficult.

The first patient we see casually has a baby arm hanging out of her vagina.

Adam calls the maternity department ‘Brats and Twats’.

Every time he delivers a baby boy, he tells the parents that ‘Adam’ is a good name. But to a racist patient he says that ‘Adolf’ is a good name.

Adam gives a patient he doesn’t like a caesarean section which cuts through her tattoo. When he sows her back up, he makes sure the tattoo is no longer aligned.

One of the doctors calls for a ‘stiff upper labia’.

Adam calls Al ‘a complete waste of organs.’

Al faints when he sees a caesarean performed. But he faints forward, right into her open stomach.

Adam tells a patient with a prolapsed vagina that he’ll use something “to keep it up there” and she replies, “I haven’t had anything up there since decimalisation.”

Adam has to pull out loads of things from people’s vaginas and they always tell him off for trying to throw the item away. The woman with an engagement ring inside a kinder egg stuck up her vagina, for example.

“Thank you God that I don’t believe in.”