#worst books of 2022

[fiftytwotwentytwo]

Closing the Book on 52 Books

I saw a YouTube video not too long ago where a person talked about how they also read 52 books in one year and how it changed their life.

So, is my life changed?

No.

But I will say a weight has been lifted.

I initially started this challenge because I could not remember the last time I read a book (It had been at minimum 2 years since I read a book) and I wanted to fall in love with reading - I wanted to make it a lifelong habit.

Well - it certainly could have been my book choices but most of the time I felt like I was doing homework. I also thought by reading almost everyday that my reading speed and comprehension would increase - to be honest I never measured it AND don't know how to measure it, but I feel like I am about the same as I was.

What will happen after this?:

With my personality - I have recognized that I can drop things pretty easily without remorse. I could (and most likely) easily slide back into not reading books again.

A reverse addiction....

A Reverse Addiction is coy way of me saying that laziness is my real addiction.

Man-Oh-Man, I absolutely love doing nothing. I could do nothing for weeks if I could afford to or didn't have obligations (my internet persona is going from self appointed "Person Amongst Saints" (big JK right there) to a real Piece of Shit - no JKs there) AND I recognize that about myself.

And since laziness is an obvious realization for myself I started creating grand, yet arbitrary, goals for myself each year.

Back in college an acquaintance stated the "challenges" I set for myself were just punishements to keep me living in misery and I would have to disagree - yes - sometimes the goal I can set for myself can be tedious, exhausting, and eat away at my social engagements - but at the same time I like having something to look forward to - something to break me of my laziness - and it wouldn't be too far fetched to say that I don't at least least learn something new (either in knowledge or internalized retrospection).

Anywhosel, back to the books - Will I continue reading?

Well, I not going to worry about - I not going to set goals - so I do forsee I will probably not read much. In a perfect world What would be nice is if read about 1 to 1.5 books per month... 12-18 books per year... but no promises to myself.

.

.

If I do seek out some books - Here are some author's on my "booklist":

V.E. Schwab: I love their writing style - read two books already by Schwab. I have a third book of theirs already collecting dust that I am somewhat excited to read.

.

Taylor Jenkins Reid: Read two of her books - Thought they were good. Enjoyed a small discovery that her stories/characters live in the same universe - I wouldn't mind reading more of her stuff.

.

Stephen King: Only read one of his books, but I was thoroughly impressed and of course he has a reputation to stand up too.

.

Agatha Christie: I was a bit skeptical - but her mystery books are legit and I could use more mystery in my life.

.

Lee Child: This one I think I was most shocked by - Killing Floor (first installment to the Jack Reacher series) was sooo good. I think I wouldn't mind following Ol' Jack Reacher around.

.

Kurt Vonnegut: This dude has some effing style when it comes to his work - dark humor and a bit absurdist - kind of elevated punk.

.

.

And Now - Here is the list of books from my self described Worst Reads to my Favorites:

The Love Hypothesis (Wasted Potential - BS premise)

Ready Player Two (An absolute fall from grace - Made me Hate fictional versions of John Hughes and Prince which in turn made me non-fictional despise the author)

The Hating Game (IMO - Hot Garbage)

Interview with a Vampire (Depressing)

American Psycho (No Charm - Boring)

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Artful, Poetic, Repetitive, Dull)

Midnight Sun (An unreadable cash grab)

Brave New World

Last of the Breed

The Fuck-Up

Eat, Pray, Love

All About Me

The Midnight Library

Tuesdays with Morrie

Feed

Murder at the Vicarage

The Paris Apartment

Snow Crash

Carry On

Cinder

Leviathan Wakes

Grey

Crushing It

The Unhoneymooners

No Memes of Escape

Where The Crawdads Sing

Silver Screen Fiend

Yearbook

Mexican Gothic

Survivor

Invisible Monsters

Malibu Rising

Vengeful

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone

The Maidens

Breakfast of Champions

Coma

The Storyteller

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Death on the Nile

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Verity

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Circe

Song of Achilles

Jurassic Park

Pulp

11/22/63

Killing Floor

The Confederacy of Dunces

Slaughterhouse-Five

Vicious (Read Vicious in late January and I still think about to this day -Could not put it down - Fun, Exciting, Dark, Read like a Movie)

RED = Cannot Stand / Unbearable

BLUE = Highly Recommend / Keepers / Will Re-Read

GREEN = A New Favorite - Top 5 for Life

#52 in 22 #books #book club #reading #book review #page count #good reads #Vicious #love reading #worst books of 2022 #Best Books #favorite authors

[readingaway]

Worst Reads of 2022

time for some negativity! I’m just going to list the books I absolutely hated this year and give a short explanation of why I hated them.

1- Disfigured by Amanda Leduc

Literally the best part of this book is the description. The contents never get deeper than that and the book utterly failed to really investigate or explore what Leduc claimed to be writing about. Much of the text is taken up by autobiographical details and biographical details about other writers. 

2 - Namesake (Fable, #2) by Adrienne Young

This was especially disappointing because I’d quite enjoyed Fable - in-so-far as I can enjoy most YA adventure fantasy-romance, and Fable was very typical of its genre. But Namesake? What the hell was the point of this duology. I have to ask. What was the point Ms. Young? More importantly, you do understand that in your chosen genre of YA fantasy adventure the protagonist needs to do something.

But wait a second I need to go over another detail before I get back to the insanely weak plot and characters. The worldbuilding. It sucked. In Fable I put up with it, there was some nice imagery. But with all the other issues in Namesake I couldn’t ignore it. Young uses the same tired costuming tropes where, in one scene, the MC is forced - forced I say! - to wear a pretty dress to a party which involves a horribly uncomfortable corset. (What undergarments was she wearing before?) But that’s barely even an issue compared to, for example, that there is exactly one alcoholic drink in the entirety of this fictional world and it is called rye. That’s it. Rye rye rye. He was drinking rye, she was drinking rye, they were drinking rye. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had originally been rum and the editor made Young come up with something else to call it because rum would be too stereotypical or whatever. The rye thing is a pretty good example of the weak worldbuilding without getting too far into the plot. But I would also note that there is no clarity in what the climate is like, or the various cultures. Oh yeah. I guess there’s some magic in this story and some people have the ability to read or sense gems somehow, and it is only used for tension in a couple scenes and doesn’t matter to the main plot.

And back to the plot, which sucked. As a general rule, the main character of a story needs to do something. There are other important things about plots and characters, such as that a main character should want something, and that this drives the plot. The MC here does, at least, want something: her father’s love. What she does do over the course of two books is all about gaining her father’s approval or love, or it’s about helping her love interest. Just typing that makes me realize that somehow this duology failed the sexy lamp test with its main character. Fortunately it’s been almost a year so I won’t write more but seriously. This book is so bad. It’s soooooooooo bad.

3 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I love the 90s adaptation of this book and so was excited to read listen to it, at last. That was a mistake. The first section of the book, up until Edmond escapes prison is good. It’s tense and you can really feel and understand why he’s so angry and set on revenge. The rest of the book.... his revenge is too intricate, there’s too much moralizing and talking. The revenge isn’t even satisfying. There’s a time gap between the escape and Edmond’s return to Marseille and he picks up this Greek slave girl who is kind of his adopted daughter but then becomes his love interest. He screws Mercedes over. The movie changed almost everything from the point of the escape and that was the right decision. There’s no satisfaction or great romance in the novel.

4 - Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

So, I wasn’t a fan of American Hippo because it turned out that the novellas were not, in fact, fun and were instead gritty westerns. I figure that’s more an issue of my not reading the description carefully enough. This, I was unsure about and I just wish I hadn’t picked it up. It might have been good, but it’s missing so much worldbuilding/ information. I cannot buy into a story where somehow, at the time of the real american civil war, there’s instead this very fascist government over all the white people and there’s a secret society of people ferrying folks from the east to the free, rebel-held west. And that the headquarters of this rebel stronghold are in Utah. And the place names are the same. You cannot actually expect me to believe that there is a Provo, Utah not twenty years after initial colonization that is a glorious safe haven for free speech and being gay and nonbinary. I also don’t recall there being much about race or colonization in this story despite it being set, again, at the time of the real american civil war and with the group the audience is supposed to be rooting for heading for safety in a very recently colonized place.

*addendum, apparently this story is actually supposed to be “near-future.” But the worldbuilding issue remains the same. There’s nothing in this novella to 1) make it clear when this is supposed to be set, 2) make it clear or even possible to guess what has happened to bring about this “near-future” dystopia. I’ve read other, similar stories that also involve a near-future dystopia set in the US that give enough detail for that described future to be plausible. (Ex, The Handmaid’s Tale, or Civilwarland In Bad Decline.) This novella does not give enough information for me to even visualize the story, much less understand the essential question of “how did we get here?”

5 - How to Write a Mystery, edited by Lee Child

There were a lot of bad essays

6 - Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

I wrote a review of it which you can read here.

7 - The Once and Future King by T.H. White

So yeah. I would like to stuff a sock in Merlyn’s mouth and duct-tape it shut and shoot him out of a cannon. That’s a bit extreme, but so much of this text was taken up by his patronizing, philosophizing, when he wasn’t going on racist rants and making up colonial manifestos. Such speeches rang especially hollow with the hindsight provided from the last several decades since the books were being published. There were other issues I had with the book, such as abrupt time skips and glossing over important details or constantly referencing other authors so that in order to understand this excessively long book, one must already be familiar with the preceding major works of arthuriana.

#2022 reading wrap up #worst books of 2022

[sol-em-gemeos]

#piores leituras de 2022 #não caio na sua #se você segurar na minha mão #the worst best man #lucy score #o amor e outras coisas #christina laurem #love and other things #sei-chan your love is too much #sailor moon short stories #worst books of 2022

[clarislam]

Worst 5 Books I Read In 2022!

Bonus post today! What books did I enjoy reading the least? Find out in today's blog post—the Worst 5 Books I Read In 2022! #reading #Worst5Books2022 #fiction #worst5books

Hello, fellow readers! As is tradition at this point, I will be ranking the worst five books that I read this year, 2022! Last year, I read so many terrible books that it was hard to choose which ones were the worst. Fortunately, this year was much easier to pick among what I enjoyed least. This is because there were far more books I enjoyed reading and reviewing this year compared to last…

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#books #fiction #reading #reflections #Worst 5 Books #worst books #Worst Books Of 2022

[readingwithwrin]

Blogmas Day 20 | My Least Favorite Books of 2022

Blogmas Day 20 | My Least Favorite Books of 2022

My Least Favorite Books of 2022 I struggle with not finishing books. But I am trying to get better at not forcing myself to read books that I’m not enjoying because when I do that it just leads to a reading slump. Nobody wants a reading slump, especially when books are a big part of your life like they are for me anymore. For that reason this year if I’m not enjoying a book by either 20% or 100…

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#blogmas #blogmas 2022 #did not finish #dnf #worst books #worst books of 2022

[tercessketchfield]

regency-set (or indeed any) period drama be like:

every other character: * more or less accurately dressed; at least the main aspects of historical costume are preserved in outfits and hairstyless *

the main heroine: * loose hair, vamp make, prom dress / male suit *

the filmmakers: You simply don’t get it; she’s a nonconforming free-spirit. She’s modern, you know? We wanted to give her a personality what

#and it's not only about the dress #unfortunately it's also too often about the character #to tell the truthe we are very lucky if we really get a glimpse of historical costume even somewhere in the background #it is only a mh for whom the worst costumes decisions are firmly reserved #ah side curls! it's decidedly for the boring fools in the sidelines #the advanced heroines don't wear it like that (derogatory) #period drama #period dramas #book adaptations #regency #regency era #jane austen #wardrobe #costume drama #persuasion 2022 #persuasion netflix #netflix persuasion #txt

[learnelle]

.

#Do some of you guys remember when I used to make lil update posts on the dates I went on? 👀❤️ #And those updates stopped at person number 3? On January 6th? I forgot to mention it earlier but we’re officially together 🥺💕 #This morning we were talking about books and I came to a realisation that I haven’t finished a single book this year so far #(After reading 58+ books last year 😳) #That conversation made me realise that it’s because I’m just so happy now 🥺 #I read so much last year as a form of escapism and now I struggle to finish any book because I feel content 🥺🥺 #2022 was the worst year of my life and so everyday now just feels like a blessing #While my bf was taking a shower this morning I went to grab us a baguette and I just felt so jolly in the sunlight and just full of love #I’m 1000% certain that things always get better and I wish I could scream that to my hopeless past self #I hope the rest of the year will be kind to us all 🥹

[voltaical-art]

first time doing this, usually i dont have enough art :}

i feel like i use a lot of the same colors lmao

#art summary 2022 #original character #oc #ashton greymoore #oj haywood #neverafter #even tho some of these i never posted lmao #really happy with my art this year honing in on that old comic book style #these csp printing noise brushes have been everything ive ever wanted <3 #incredible that i even had art every month conisdering i got hit with the worst art/creative block of my life in like july when i got covid

[jeanmoreaux]

*✧ — april 2023 wrap up

i finally read deathless!!! who is surprised it ended up being a new favourite? not me, but probably none of you either (big thanks to everyone who told me to read it because they thought it sounds like something i’d enjoy. you were right.) i had a great reading moths in general and the slump i was fearing didn’t manifest in the end, which i’m so happy about. nevertheless, this might be my last massive wrap up for the first half of the year. i assume may and june will be much shorter simply because of uni and an urge to get back into watching tv shows. i guess will see how things develop from here on out :)

2023 goal: 74/100 books

as alway, feel free to drop book recs, questions, or opinions in my inbox; i am always happy to talk to you about books!

* –> newly added to my favorites shelf

follow my goodreads | follow my storygraph | previous wrap ups

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo | 3.75★ | review

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin | 2.5★ | review

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy | 3★

On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts by Thomas De Quincey | 4★

The Beautifull Cassandra by Jane Austen | 3★

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey | 3.25★

Die Physiker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt | 4★

Demon in the Wood by by Leigh Bardugo, Dani Pendergast (illustrator) | 4★

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors | 4.25★

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados | 4★

* Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente | 5★ | review

War of the Foxes by Richard Siken | 5★ | review

Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood | 3★ | review

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano | 3.5★ 

* Joan by Katherine J. Chen | 5★ | review

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson | 4.5★ | review

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

rereads

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden | 4.25★

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo | 4.5★ | review

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo | 5★

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo | 5★

#the rest is under the cut #putting this together i also realised i haven't made a best of/worst of of my 2022 reading year lmao #guess it's not gonna happen at all now #whoops i guess #i feel so bad for my 2022 favs in particular like i do love them lots i am just so bad at keeping up with this stuff atm :// #goodreads #wrap up #the storygraph #mish reads #book recs

[liu-anhuaming]

So generally I stay away from books that get popular on tiktok because they all sounds like shit (to me), but one of my mutuals on insta posted about how she'd read These Violent Delights and the sequel by Chloe Gong and *loved* it, so I said, okay, maybe I'll look into it. It's possible that booktok has finally rallied around a book that I might like, right?

It's set in 1920's Shanghai and follows two rival gang leaders, which is interesting enough. So I decided to peruse a few reviews on goodreads like I always do, just to see what sort of praise/criticism was floating around in the different star rankings.

Well. The top review is a scathing one star review that lays out some twitter drama the author has gotten into, along with giving the context that the male lead is a Russian guy? Also, it includes some snippets from the book, and good lord, this is not my opinion of good writing. So uh, after reading this review and a few others, I will be steering incredibly clear of tiktok books until the end of time. The people on booktok have a very different taste in books than I do.

But one thing I want to share in particular from the top review is the below quote, because it left me wheezing:

#sorry but i will not read a ya romance novel set in republican era shanghai where the male lead is white #idc how good the writing is. i am not interested in that. #i also was on youtube and apparently two youtubers i follow/whose opinions i trust had read this book #i checked their reviews and their either didn't finish it or straight up ranked it as 'one of the worst books i read in 2022' so... #they all keep saying the male lead has no personality either which is just adding insult to injury here #there was also another goodreads review i saw that compared the book to riverdale #and at that point i had to tap out bc i was laughing my ass off

[tearsfallingdownat-theparty]

the blatant 1890s sexist and misogynistic views/beliefs about women is ruining the crossover and lovely tenderness of todays email for me i fear. every time i think surely this is the last time this will come up and then someone says ‘only women should comfort men!’ or ‘all women have a mothers heart it’s what they’re suited for’ or ‘mina has a man’s brain’ i feel like i’m gonna lose it

#dracula daily #dracula liveblogging 2022 #mina murray #abraham van helsing #john seward #bram stoker for this i will h8 u forever #like i know when it was written and this is certainly not the worst crime this book has committed #etc etc #but DAMN is it getting on my nerves #literally neverending #personally racist jonathan abt the romani ppl has been the worse thus far #but my god

[fandomsideworks]

horror movies/shows based on books I

x the ruins

x 20th century ghosts (the black phone)

x worst laid plans

x scary stories to tell in the dark

x misery

#horror #books #movies #the ruins (2008) #the black phone (2022) #20th century ghosts #worst laid plans #scary stories to tell in the dark #the ruins #misery #misery (1990) #stephen king #joe hill #alvin schwartz #scott smith

[capricores]

happy new years guys!! i hope you're all having a wonderful day/night so far <3

i'm not sure about everyone else, but it really doesn't feel like a typical new year! i think with the heaviness of the mars & mercury rx (especially considering the signs are inconjunct, which makes things extra tough), it kind of just feels like another day!! if you have a day chart, you might feel extra impacted by the mars retrograde as compared to night chart babies. definitely take it easy if you're feeling off/stressed/etc, and perhaps use january as a time of reflection, and focus more on putting plans into action in march! (or, in january - if it feels right for you!! but if you feel overwhelmed or lack motivation for any sort of resolutions or planning, just know you aren't alone, the sky right now is a bit "heavy")

personally i tend to celebrate the new year as per the astrological new year (aka first day of aries szn as the new year) which feels extra right because that'll be around the time mars is no longer rx nor in the shadow period!!!

anyway!! how are you all feeling?! any thoughts about 2022/2023, plans/etc?! personally the only thing on my mind rn is genshin impact girl groups, and relaxing as much as possible in january until mars and mercury chill out!!! 2022 was rough!!

#luna.txt #would luv to hear how u guys are feeling!!! #esp how ur feeling + ur rising/dominants?! #if u have any q's about astrology or current transits or just anything im here!!! #im working on some posts finally!! and i decided im gonna offer readings in january!!! #ive spent the last month reading even more astro books #ive studied astrology for so many years but this month i somehow feel like #ive learnt more in a month than i have in 8+ years studying omg #not really but you know what i mean fdjlkfjdf #i might make a post asking y'all preferences re: readings?! or maybe ill just go for it idk #idk about u guys but 2022 was one of the hardest years ever for me?? #and it was mainly bc internal? like not that many external things happened idk?? #it was a 12h solar return sun year for me.. hated that! #worst sr sun ever for me #my panic disorder relapsed right when mars rx entered it's shadow omg its been so rough #but starting to feel better slowly!! but still hard to learn how to live w/ panic again!!! #part of why ive been so ghost from this blog :(( #BUT I MISS IT<3 #i also considered making a girl group and maybe genshin tumblr too!! #cause i have like 1.2 friends who like that stuff and i need to yell abt it anyway #ANYWAY HI if anyone feels like talking in my ask.. come rant abt ur year or astro or anything ily

[cparti-mkiki]

Alatriste and Aguila Roja are both so utterly terrible im so mad they're (somehow?!) the most popular representations of the 17th century in spanish media like. Okay. The three musketeers dollar store ripoff (featuring the cringiest "badass" "hardened" protagonist ive seen in a long time) and the nonsensical ninja of madrid telenovela. Cool. Neither competent fictional stories nor good historical representation. Cool cool.

And after them?? The third most popular piece of media??? El rey p*smado. Im gonna bite someone's head off

#all of them do felipe extremely dirty 🤩🤪🤩 #is it asking for too much? a piece of media involving actual historians? (yeah) #maybe alatriste is the worst offender because the others don't really pretend to be historically accurate #whereas perreteverde fancies himself a historian #(he is not. in fact all this takes in the books are wrong and born out of extremely outdated historiography) #that won't stop the don arturo bootlickers from thinking they are learning history from his worthless books #have you read STRADLING arturo? elliott? their works were ALREADY OUT IN YOUR TIME #and in the year of our lord 2022 you have no excuse. there's so much research you could read but noo de topicazo en topicazo claro que si #the cultural damage both alatriste and el rey psmd have done to the image of felipe is. uhfjhhjgh. #thankfully only 80s and earlier kids remember the latter but still. sigh. #aguila roja might have done less damage because felipe is unrecognizable in it and im not sure the average viewer makes the connection #spain produce good period pieces challenge (impossible) #my posts

[emmersreads]

Here’s my list of my 5 best, 5 worst, and 5 blandest books of 2022. Takes include: I quite liked Gideon the Ninth, I hated Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Heartstopper was fuckign boring 

#book blogging #bookblr #book reviews #books of 2022 #best worst and blandest #bookstagram

[doodlebeeberry]

Scarf in the Sun

As the two bickered, Ruby trotted over to the workbench. A little wooden thing she’d found on the side of the road a while back that her friends had helped her paint in chaotic, patch-mark colours last month, now it was a mess of assorted tools and broken things in need of fixing and gifts her friends had given her that she liked to keep around. Much of the garage was like that, clustered with little gifts and memorabilia: Book’s radio sticking halfway out of the clustered shelf, Bubble’s plant growing wild on the windowsill, Flower’s scarf, the newest edition, living on her workbench until she could find it a proper home. Treasured things.

in which Ruby mistakenly damages a gift from a friend

for objectober day 2- fashion!

have i ever mentioned that i love mechanic ruby. top ten bfdi hcs i love it so i want her to fix a car

(ao3 link in source)

    “Ack!”

 Ruby threw her arms up in front of her face, as much as she could from the tight underside of the van where she was currently squished. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much. Oil sputtered out of the now open line in inconsistent spurts for several seconds, splashing rainbow-black into her scrunched-up face before it dawned on her that she could simply tighten the nut she’d just loosened back up instead of getting drenched. It took a few extra tries, given the slickness now coating her hands and tools and everything in reach, really, but in a few hearty turns she managed, until the flow slowed to little more than sparse drips, few and far between. At the criss-cross of pipes, lit mainly by the now filthy penlight she’d dropped beside her in preparation of the onslaught, she stared, noting which line the oil waterfall had just come spurting out of. Notably,

       “Is it broken?” Pencil called to her flatly, interrupting Ruby’s train of thought.

       “Uh, kinda.”

 Ruby slid out awkwardly, looking up to find Pencil leaning over her, lips pressed in an impatient line.

 “There’s oil in the fuel line? It’s not supposed to be there” Ruby reported, sitting up. Pencil’s brows jumped up at that.

       “Oil?” she pondered this for a minute as Ruby pulled herself to her feet, tools in hand. And, when the answer, or, rather, culprit, seemed to dawn on her, Pencil turned her eyes to the third and final person in the ramshackle little garage.

 “Match?”

 The match in question, disinterestedly fiddling her way through staticy stations on the slightly rusted radio, looked at them.

 “What?”

 Pencil’s look went steely.

 “Hey! I didn’t—” Match yelped defensively, catching on.

 “Match.”

 Match looked between Pencil, the van, and Ruby, weighing her options carefully.

       “Ok but it was like. Really early in the morning right.”

 Pencil pinched her brows, sighing.

 As the two bickered—or, more accurately, Match defended her inexplicable mixing up of oil and gas while Pencil regarded her, unamused—Ruby trotted over to the workbench. A little wooden thing she’d found on the side of the road a while back, which her friends had helped her paint in chaotic, patchmark colours last month, now it was a mess of assorted tools and broken things in need of fixing and gifts her friends had given her that she liked to keep around. Much of the garage was like that, clustered with little gifts and memorabilia: Book’s radio sticking halfway out of the clustered shelf, Bubble’s plant growing wild on the windowsill, Flower’s scarf, the newest edition, living on her workbench until she could find it a proper home. Treasured things.

 She tossed her wrench down haphazardly, knocking a pile of bolts around in the process.

       “You know what, whatever” Pencil said, yielding, “Can you fix it?”

 Ruby turned to them.

       “Yep!” she chirped, reaching blindly for a rag, “It’s pretty easy,” she set about wiping the mess off her face quickly and easily as she continued, “I’ve just gotta clean the oil out!”

 Eyes now clear, she pulled the soft cloth from her face, blinking at the duo currently staring at her from several steps away like she’d suggested turning the van inside-out. Pencil looked between Ruby and the cloth in her hands.

       “Uh, Ruby? Did you mean to do that?”

       “Do what?” Ruby replied, blissfully ignorant right up until she looked down at the rag currently bunched up in her hands. Now, in most circumstances, the rags she kept around the garage were either old disused dish rags or scraps of leftover fabric from Flower that she otherwise couldn’t make much use of, all of which were matted with grease and grime that, even after washing, still left them dulled and greyed and rough-feeling. What she was holding, however, was bright blue with yellow trim and baby blanket soft, sparkling slightly in the morning light that came in through the window. She unbunched it, letting one end tumble out of her hand and onto the floor in all its scarfy, now oil-soaked glory.

Ohhh, Ruby thought, Flower’s gonna be mad.  

 Match and Pencil exchanged a look, then, in an act of true loyalty,

       “Yeeeaaah,” Match said, “we’ve gotta gooo.”

 Ruby’s eyes snapped up to them, slipping out the door.

       “What?”

       “Yeah, we’re busy,” Pencil responded quickly, turning the corner out of view, “have fun with that.”

 And, after a moment, she called as an afterthought,

 “Call us when the van’s fixed!”

           “Oh! I could paint it!”

 Several hours later, Ruby sat at the workbench, the scarf Flower had gifted her sprawled out across it. On the floor were bottles of just about every cleaning supply she could get her mitts on—dish soap, laundry detergent, scouring powder, even—all emptied in half-baked attempts to lift the stains to no avail. They had made the situation considerably worse, if anything, as the bleach in some products had burned white patches into some of the unsoiled parts of the fabric, avoiding the oil stains almost entirely by the looks of it. At the thought of paints, though, she hopped to her feet, clattering about the shelves and knocking a few things off in the process.

 “I still have some,” she said, sticking her tongue out a bit as she dug, “…here!”

 She pulled out a can of spraypaint in the completely wrong shade, holding it aloft like treasure.

 “See?”

       “I think Flower might notice that,” Book said gently, leaning on the hood of the supervan, a pencil and notepad with several scrawled-out cleaning ideas in her hands. After Ruby had exhausted her own ideas, she’d called up Book as a last resort, figuring, the smart friend that she was, that she’d be able to come up with something. Book hadn’t been thrilled to work with water, not wanting her pages soaked, but she’d still come by with a list of cleaning hacks that she’d ripped off the internet in hand. And after two boxes of baking soda, three tubes of toothpaste, and nearly gassing themselves with ammonia and bleach, they were left, still, at step one. Lower, even, all things considered. Book tapped the pencil against the hood.

 “Maybe you could just tell her you lost it?”

       “Hmm, I don’t know, she’d get pretty sad if I did that. And mad.” Ruby replied.

       “Madder than she would be, though?”

       “Maybe?” Ruby pondered the possibilities for a moment, “Yeah, maybe”

 Silence settled over them, broken by Ruby, a moment later, shaking the can, “Are you sure the spraypaint won't work?”

 It was then, before Book could reply, that a voice called from outside,

       “Ruby!”

 Ruby dropped the can. The two shared a look, not quite of panic, necessarily, but some undeniable alarm. By the sound of it, Flower was heading straight for them. Ruby scrabled for the workbench, taking the scarf in hand.

       “Is that—”

       “Cover for me?”

 “...What?” Book blinked, slightly puzzled, before Ruby ducked behind the van, vanishing from view.

 “Ruby, what are you doing?”

       “Sneaking out the window!”

 Book looked at the window, a long, thin cut-out poised up high along the far wall. Much thinner than Ruby.

       “I don’t think that’s—”

       “Ruby!” Flower’s shout cut Book’s rebuttal short, rounding the corner and descending on the seemingly Ruby-free garage. Ruby began to creep slowly across the room. Stealthy, she tried to be, weaving around the odds and ends on the floor as Flower entered.

       “Book!” she said, emphatic. Book struggled a bit to play it cool. “Is Ruby around?”

 It was then that Ruby elbowed one of the empty soap bottles, sending several clattering to the floor in a cacophonous, if brief, domino chain.

       “Nope,” Book replied once it was over. “Haven’t seen her.”

 For a half-second, both Book and Ruby held their breaths, frozen, waiting for Flower to trot behind the van and catch her red-handed.

       “What was that?” Flower asked instead.

       “The van.” Book answered quickly, “It’s the exhaust. It uh. Ruptured”

 It was all over, they figured. They were dead.

       “Oh, ok,” They breathed a sigh of relief at that. Thank god almost none of their friends knew anything about cars. Ruby quickly continued her scrabbling,

 “Well, if you see her, can you tell her I—”

 Right up until she tripped over the end of the scarf, sending her tumbling out from behind the van and into the open with a noticeable clatter. Both objects turned to her.

       “Ruby! There you are!” Flower all but shouted upon spotting her. A pink bag hung off her arm, and she seemed so awash with excitement that she was nearly buzzing. Ruby just barely managed to hide the scarf behind her back. “Do you still have the scarf I gave you?”

 Trying to hide her mild panic, Ruby looked beyond Flower to Book, who shook her head fervently, mouthing ‘no’ at her almost overdramatically.

       “Umm…Yeah!” Ruby replied like it was the most obvious answer in the world. Book buried her face in her hands. “But!” she tried to backtrack at that, “I don’t—”

       “Good, cause you need to throw it away”

 Ruby froze. Her arms dropped to her sides, and the scarf came into view with them. Oblivious to, or perhaps simply not acknowledging, her shock, Flower began digging through the bag.

       “Huh?”

       “I messed up the stitching, and the colours are kind of…eh,” Flower said, and, with all the bravado of a mad scientist presenting their latest creation “you should just get rid of it, cause I’ve got something even better!”

 In a dramatic flourish, she pulled out another scarf, this one wider but seemingly of a lighter weight fabric than the one currently clutched in Ruby’s hand. Unlike the solid tone of the original, this one bore a gradient of more gentle, subdued blues stretching from either end, a delicate viney patterning sewn along the edges in glittering turquoise thread. Flower held it out to her, smirking almost cockily.

 “What do you think? Pretty good right?”

 Ruby stared at it a moment, letting the old scarf fall from her hand.

       “It’s beautiful!”

 She reached for it, but Flower snatched it back, spying the still slightly soiled state of Ruby’s fingers.

       “Wait” Flower said, cringing only slightly,  “wash your hands first. They’re kinda gross.”

#this is silly and kinda dumb but. who cares. #objectober #objectober 2022 #bfdi #bfdi ruby #i have the WORST time writing her for some reason i never feel it comes out right. hell #bfdi book #bfdi flower #battle for dream island #writin and ravin #bfb #bfb ruby #bfb flower #tpot book