#It's the first melee dps I have found I would like to test early on

[unt2017]

People Like Us by Dana Mele

Genre: Mystery/Suspense

Image

  Evaluation/Response

People Like Us by Dana Mele reminded me a bit of the premise for the show/book series Pretty Little Liars which is the main reason I decided to pick it to review for the class.  I have always enjoyed mystery and suspense books.

           The mystery begins with a group of girls by the names of Kay Donovan, Brie Matthews, Tai Carter, Tricia Parck, Maddy Farrell, and Cori.  They start off as the typical characters, but that changes when a classmate is murdered. That is the beginning of the plot for People Like Us by Dana Mele.  According to Tunnell, Jacobs, Young & Bryan (2016): “A good plot shows what happened to the characters in such a way that the reader cares about the outcome…well-defined plots introduce a question early on that will be answered yes or no by the end of the story” (18).  To that end, the first question that drives the plot is “who killed Jessica?” I found that her death was a good starting point to the story, but not to be main plot point. That would end up being who is messing with Kay? The reason that question comes up is due to an email with a link, but that wasn’t the weird part. The odd part is the email comes from the girl who is killed in the beginning. Confused yet? I think that is the point. Mele (2018) writes at the beginning “Jessica’s final project was revenge. And she sent it straight to me” (33).  So, the question turns from who killed Jessica to what is Kay’s involvement in the murder if any? Did she have a part while another person actually killed her? In the mean time Kay is being “haunted” or is it more than that? So many questions that stem from one person’s murder. Friendships are tested. Others are put in danger. Secrets are exposed.  There may be only one plot line, but sometimes there are smaller points that branch out and bring it full circle.

             I don’t know if I can answer any of the questions from the Williamson article because in theory, none seem to really fit in with this book. I mean I guess I could answer the question of “How well does it address things that you care about and consider important to the world?” (Williamson, n.d, p.2).  One of the key subjects that come up during parts of the book is how much the main characters bullied the person who is now taunting Kay under the dead girl’s name and information.  Mele (2018) points this out when she has Kay say “Our suspect list is clouded by what we know about people,” I say. “What we think about them. And ultimately, what we want to happen to them (288).  Teenagers are horrible to each other, but teenager girls can be evil little twats and that’s putting it nicely. This book, while it was a good book, might give the wrong impression that teenagers should be able to be mean to people and get away with it. That teens should just be able to take it and not fight back. There are many ways to fight back, and while according to the book, revenge is the only way to get justice, that is not necessarily true.  I realize that as fiction the story didn’t happen, but there are similar stories to this one that have happened in real life.  A book like this should be read, but done so with the understanding that the behavior in the book is not okay.

  Another piece of a story that should tell the reader whether a book will be good or not is the pacing. While the chapters weren’t overly long and dense there were times when I felt like parts were just filler.  Part of the plot the pacing felt rushed while other parts felt too slow.  For example, one part had Kay wondering about someone she had gotten close to. Mele (2018) writes is this way

I hang back by the bed, the journal stuffed in the back of my jeans, hidden under my coat. Part of me wants to take it and run, but I can’t bring myself to do it. After everything we’ve been through, if Nola really did this, I needed to hear it from her. To my face. No More guesswork and no more connecting dots. I need a confession or a refusal (352).

           Honestly, the fact it took until chapter twenty-eight to get to this point irritated me slightly. I understand that the way authors write should make it easier for their audience, but in a way that the characters don’t figure it out, but I feel like there were so many strings that could pull the reader in different directions. Some readers might like that, and while I was okay with it, I didn’t really like having good clues to figure the ending out. 

Conclusion

The ending made sense in hindsight and I really enjoyed the book overall, but I felt there was an easier way to get from point A to point B.  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to hate or pity the person who killed the characters, but the truth is everything played out in the only way it could. The person was arrested and the people she wanted revenge on are damaged beyond repair. I’m not sure there is a winning in a situation like that, and it is because of that, I was sad that I liked the book as much as I did.  I may not have liked how it was written, but it was a very good story.

    References:

 Mele, D. (2018). People Like Us. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

“People Like Us” (2018). [image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071FLH9XN/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Tunnell M.O., Jacobs, J.S., Young T.A. & Bryan, G.  (2016). What is a good book? in Children’s Literature Briefly, (pp. 15-23.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

 Williamson, O.M.  (2006). “Reader Response”. Retrieved from http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310link/readerresponse.htm

[solarbird]

it is not easy to explain, said the widowmaker

This is not part of the on overcoming the fear of spiders continuity; Lena Oxton is Tracer, not Venom. It is a standalone story, in an AU which is still pretty much canon-compliant as of July 2017. It would be set in late 2077 or early 2078, in universe.

"It is not easy to explain," said the Widowmaker, looking frustrated, fixated on her game screen and sitting next to Hana Song, who of course had her own pro rig and client.

Widowmaker had said that, not Amélie, and it was very important not to get that wrong. The Widowmaker didn't like it, and if Amélie had an opinion - or was in there at all - she never spoke up.

The blue assassin was playing a shooter game, but not as a sniper - as a melee character, high DPS, fast - not entirely unlike Tracer. She always played the same character. Tracer wasn't sure what that meant; Angela told her not to read too much into it, but she knew that Lena tended to think of it as a good sign anyway. It's still shooting people, but it's shooting people in a different way, and Lena couldn't help but feel a little flattered that if the spider was emulating anyone, it was her.

"I exist," the spider continued, as her character on screen ran across open field between buildings towards some sort of objective. "I am here. I exist by right of existence. I do not wish not to exist." Realising that - she knew, herself - had been a big step for her, one she had managed on her own, one taken before she escaped from her controllers with a surprisingly complete list of Talon embedded agents to exchange for her sanctuary.

"And Talon didn't agree with that, did they." Tracer replied.

"No. I was supposed to be an asset, not a person."

"And Angela doesn't entirely either, does she." It was a statement, not a question.

Widowmaker glanced briefly at Tracer, just with her eyes, just a little surprised, before her focus snapped back to the game. "No. She still thinks I am some folded-up version of her former friend. I am not."

The spider saw that Tracer nodded her agreement. Of all the people here, she thought, only Tracer seems to understand even this much. Perhaps it was the younger woman's experience as a ghost, after the Slipstream accident. Perhaps it was being an Omnic War orphan. Perhaps it was just her nature. The spider didn't know.

Tracer watched the two women game, but really watched Widowmaker think. She's close to something, I can feel it, she thought to herself.

"Is this why you won't let Angela undo any of Talon's work?" Widowmaker had adamantly refused any attempt to reverse any of the physical changes Talon had made, though she tolerated anything she could decide qualified as an "improvement." That included giving her control over her own emotional dampers. Handling that was still a learning process.

"Yes," replied the blue assassin. "I am me. I am not that other woman, even if she was the source for some of my parts. I cannot be her. I do not want to be her."

"I get that, luv," said the Londoner. That part didn't matter to Lena. It was easier, for her, if Amélie was dead, if she was gone, and buried, and this was Widowmaker, another person entirely, just happened to look a lot alike. "Y'know, personally, I like the blue," she said. Makes it easier, she thought.

"You may be the only one, myself aside," replied the spider.

"Hey, n00b," Hana said, "Cover your flank or you're gonna get p0wned."

"Thank you," Widowmaker replied, sweeping left, hitting far more than she missed. D-pad instead of mouse or rifle, she was built for aim.

"Nice shot! For a game controller. You should level up to a real interface."

"Perhaps never," said the assassin.

"Okay," replied the gamer, "don't listen to the professional."

"...point taken," replied the blue woman, as the round ended, with scores D.va 100, bad guys 12, Widowmaker 10.

"I'm outta D.ritos. Want anything?"

"No thank you."

"Just ate, luv, but thanks."

"Be right back!" she said, as she jumped backwards over her chair and headed out to the hallway.

Widowmaker leaned against the rec room's couch, watching the game's idle screen. "I like the character I am playing, more than the game itself. I think that is not too unusual, no?"

"Sure!" Lena answered, encouragingly. "That's why there are fan sites and hangouts and stuff. What do you like about her?"

"This character I play," Widowmaker gestured to the screen, "within the confines of the game, she is a person, like me - no, that is wrong, she is not like me, except in that she was... constructed. It is part of her story. Built, for a purpose. As I was, by Talon."

Built, thought Tracer. "Like Omnics, you mean?"

Widowmaker shook her head, no. "I have thought about it, but I think not. Neither of us are robotic, I do not think it is the same, and I cannot really ask our occasionally resident Shambali master to be sure..."

"Yeaaaaaaaaah," agreed the younger woman. "Probably never."

"I have been told that he says he does not carry a grudge, but I can tell that he carries a grudge, and I do not even blame him." She paused for a moment. "I am far more surprised that you talk to me than that he does not."

Lena bit her upper lip for a moment. "T'be honest, I am too."

Widowmaker hummed a little, a note that signalled her acknowledgment of the situation. "Why do you?"

Lena tilted her head back and forth a little. "...I dunno. That night in King's Row was the second worst of my life. I felt so angry and so betrayed, and I'd've done anything to undo it, but I couldn't. And you couldn't even tell me why."

"I did not know," she replied. "Or care. The question, it struck me as so unimportant, so silly. It was the first time I'd ever laughed. It may have been my first real, unprogrammed... thought."

"I didn't know that," said the Overwatch agent. Her first thought was... laughter? Wow. "But it hurt, then. Still does, a little. Less, now that I know you really aren't Amélie."

"My emotional range is still limited, but... I think I am sad about that."

"Maybe that's why, then. Maybe I can tell. Maybe that's why... somehow, here I am."

The eyes of the woman who had been made from Amélie Lacroix narrowed in thought at those words.

"Winston was built, too, genetically," said Tracer, changing back the subject and realising as she said it that it didn't fit. "But that's really not the same either, innit? He still grew up. You didn't. I think I get it, you just... came online, all at once, didn't you? 'Here I am, ready to kill.'"

The spider's gold eyes flashed to Tracer, but not in anger, as was so usually the case with that look. "Yes," she said, grabbing Tracer's hands. "Yes. I had a purpose, already. And then I had more purpose, that fit with it. No doubts, no hesitation, just purpose. Do you actually understand?"

Lena's heartbeat jumped as the spider grasped her hands, but she didn't let herself flinch, at least not more than with surprise. She touched me, she thought, intentionally. Woah! "I," she gathered her thoughts, "I think I do. I mean, not emotionally, right? I grew up too, and looked for somethin' to do with my life. But... in my head, I kinda get it. A little. You're not there, and then you are, all at once. And you already know why. That's, that's, that's, a kind of perfect, innit? It's..." she groped for the right words, "...flawless."

"Yes," she said, squeezing Lena's hands tightly. "For a reason, and with a purpose, and she," she gestured to her head to the screen, "is like that, and also biological, also for a reason, also for a purpose."

Lena put the rest of the pieces together. "...and nobody else in the whole world is."

The Widowmaker pulled Tracer against her, suddenly, roughly, and put her head on the Overwatch agent's shoulder. Lena could hear the spider breathing and found herself dazed, wrapping her arms around the assassin before she even knew what she was doing, asking only as she did it, softly, "...is this okay? Do you want a hug? 'Cause I can stop..."

"...no. I think I do."

She is so lonely, thought the former test pilot. And she don't even know it. Maybe that's why I don't mind this. She held the cool blue woman carefully in her arms. "Did you lose it, somehow? Your purpose?"

The spider did not say anything.

"Did you stop believing in it? Was that it?"

"It was... I could not stop... thinking. I was perfect, and whole, and content, and I brought exquisite deaths, and then I... and then I laughed, and I was not perfect, and not whole, and not content, and I could not fix it."

"And you miss that purity of purpose."

"So much."

"Would you go back to it?"

"I cannot."

Tracer nodded, and hugged a little tighter, as she said, "Because it's part of being a person. That's why you're here, innit?"

Widowmaker lifted her head from Lena's shoulder, looked her in the eyes, and whispered, "You do know."

Lena Oxton met the spider's gaze, and was not afraid. "This much, yeh. I do."

The spider laughed, just a little. Another thought, all her own. "May I hug you again, later?"

Tracer surprised herself by nodding agreement at once. What am I doing? She... she's who she is. She's built to kill. I can't ignore that. "'Course you can."

"Thank you," she said, and went ahead and did it right then, as well.

I can't ignore what she is, but maybe, Tracer thought, as Hana burst back into the room with grotesque amounts of junk food, ...maybe I can learn to live with it.

#widowtracer #tracermaker #tracemaker #widowmaker #tracer #overwatch #overwatch au #fanfic #also on ao3