Carrie Hope Fletcher #6 Over 800 books and she's reading tattle

[queequeg19]

I skimmed it and ended up at 2.26 in - her proof copy.

Jesus. So smug.

It just comes across some pretentious.

This tag is years old. Out of all the content she could make, she picks a trend no one has cared about for ages.

 

[SophJohns]

I skimmed it and ended up at 2.26 in - her proof copy.

Jesus. So smug.

It just comes across some pretentious.

OMG I've never heard a booktuber mention proof copies so many times in video other than for hauls etc. Was really pissing me off. I swear she hadn't read half of them either.

 

[R2T2]

Also what a coincidence that Oliver just happened to turn up in that video when everyone was speculating here if he was still about

 

[Carrieisabadwriter]

Arcs are wasted on her

 

[Kitt]

I bet 95% of the arcs are from penguin, her own publisher. They do that hoping for a quote for the cover.

 

[agirlofnoimportance]

Here are the next few chapters! We're nearly at the end now-just the final chapter and the epilogue after these. Thank you to everyone for their kind words regarding this summary, and I hope you're all enjoying it

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE READING ON-Chapter Nineteen-The Pearl, is the chapter in which the sexual assault occurs. What I've done, and I hope this works for everyone, is I've mentioned where in the chapter the sexual assault is, but I've not talked about it at all other than its location, with absolutely no detail, and I've put my analysis of it in the final spoiler below marked Content Warning 2, so that you don't even have to look at it if you don't want to. In the Chapter Nineteen summary, I've indicated with Content Warning 1 when I'm going to mention it's location, so you can stop reading there if you don't want to read any mention of it at all. Please don't read about it if it's going to affect you, it really isn't worth it and frankly it doesn't affect the plot at all if you miss it.

Spoiler: Chapter 16-Dying Embers

We’re back in the past now. Just FYI, my question from a previous chapter about Hamish’s position eventually gets answered-he's both an actor and a producer, so him being onstage wasn’t a mistake. I was wrong and dumb lol.

So basically Fawn and Walter are having a secret tryst in the dressing room and rumours are already flying about them. Fawn and Walter are rather sweet together, and they're convincing forbidden lovers. Their scenes together are much better reads than the Oscar and Olive show, so it's a shame that we don't get many of them. But their lovely scene is interrupted by Hamish banging on the door. Walter leaps out of the window and hangs from the pane like a goddamn action hero to listen. We get another decent-ish scene between Hamish and Fawn, where he basically gives her an ultimatum; marry him or he'll ruin her career and make sure she never works again. He's very physical with her and anyone would be intimidated, though Fawn tells him no in no uncertain terms like a goddamn G. But Hamish retorts that if she won't marry him, he can have her killed. Someone called Randall on the street outside has watched Walter climb out of the window; he's one of Hamish's henchmen and he's going to report back what he’s witnessed. The only thing you need to know about Randall is that he’s basically everywhere at all times and SEES ALL. KNOWS ALL. And I mean ALL. But now, Walter, having heard Hamish’s threats, is on a mission, and no one better frick with him. Go get ‘em!

As I’ve mentioned before, Hamish is a scary and worthy villain, however, my description of him as a moustache-twirling cartoon character who ties women to train tracks is absolutely accurate. The trouble is, Carrie’s over-explaining comes in to ruin what would otherwise have been an excellent scene. Hamish’s dialogue has all the subtlety of a reversing truck. Here is an example; in the same paragraph as he gives a cartoony “You are mine, and only mine!” he says, and this is the exact quote, “I’ve been speaking with your father and if you want to remain a start of the stage, you’ll have to marry me, and if you do not, I will make sure your little feet never set foot inside a theatre again.” The trouble with this is that this is the marriage proposal. Although it’s hinted at, this is the first time Hamish has mentioned marriage to Fawn. It would have been much better if Hamish had turned up acting all nice with a flashy ring for Fawn, and when she turned him down, then we could have got the escalation, the violence, and the threat. Instead, we get it all in the same breath. It just feels rushed, especially when we consider that the writer recently spent an entire chapter talking in circles (my nemesis chapter 12). That’s why I keep saying it comes across cartoony-he just bursts into the room like the Kool-Aid guy and starts making threats. With a bit more nuance, Hamish would be a petrifying bad guy. I know I shouldn’t be backseat writing this book, but it feels like this is the kind of pacing and tone thing an editor should have addressed. This kind of rushing is consistent through the rest of the book. Whoever edited this book did Carrie dirty.

Spoiler: Chapter Seventeen-An Idea

Fawn is traumatised from her encounter with Hamish, and Carrie actually writes this very well. She meets Walter after the show and they decide that there’s no way they could run away, hide, or go to the police, even though they totally could, because Hamish is just too powerful. Go overseas, assume new identities, or there’s Fawn’s father, who is as powerful as Hamish if not more, so they could definitely at least try the police with Fawn’s rich daddy backing them. But Walter gets it into his mind that the only thing to do is for him to kill Hamish. Instead of slipping some arsenic into his coffee, or glass into his supper, or dropping a piano on his head because we’re in a cartoon, or any other subtle way to kill someone, Walter decides that because Hamish’s character gets shot in the play, he’s going to mess with the gun they’re using so instead of firing a blank, it’ll fire a real bullet.

Okay.

So Hamish threatens Fawn again, making sure we understand that she’s a damsel in distress. Again, I can’t complain about Fawn being such a thing-it’s set up well in the text, and it isn’t because she’s useless-she just doesn’t have any control. But when Hamish manhandles her, Fawn spits in hisface like a total badass, and Hamish throws her to the floor, snapping her peal necklace. But before he can do anything too terrible to her, Lenny comes to her rescue. He comes back with a strange accent I don’t think he’s ever displayed much of before, saying “Suvern Cross” instead of Southern cross sand “fing” instead of thing. He doesn’t speak like that in previous chapters, so I’m not sure why it’s happening now, but go off I guess.

Anyway, Walter is in tears because he couldn’t save Fawn himself, and it’s actually a lovely moment-we love male vulnerability. They go back to Walter’s crappy apartment, and Fawn says that she wouldn’t take a room at the Ritz over being with Walter. They declare their love for each other, and spend the night together. It’s not clear whether anything happened, but it’s a genuinely nice scene, if a little cheesy.

Spoiler: Chapter 18 – Listen

In a surprising move, Carrie has Randall the henchman choose not to disclose his information to Hamish yet, but instead he uses it to threaten Walter into behaving and doing his job. This is good, subtle writing; Randall zigged when he should have zagged, and I quite enjoyed it. But basically, we are told that Lenny has quit, which Walter instantly knows isn’t true, but under Randall’s threat, he has to step into Lenny’s shoes and take over as the stage door guy. We don’t find out what happened to Lenny just yet, but its hinted that he *Godfather voice* sleeps with da fishes.

Fawn arrives at the theatre and tells Walter that they should run away to America-finally, an actually logical idea. No idea why she didn’t just suggest this first before Walter got his mind set on murder, but go off I guess. The show ends, and Hamish comes to tell her they’ve got to have dinner with Lord and Lady Something to discuss their next production together. Thinking fast, Fawn packs everything in her satchel to run away with Walter, but before she can escape she’s apprehended by Randall, who takes her at gunpoint to a car where Hamish is waiting. If you think this has escalated quickly, you’d be right. It all happens at lightning speed-we go from Fawn and Walter talking about running away, to trying to run away, to Fawn being apprehended at a break-neck pace. And yet we’ve had time to sit around for hours listening to Ocelot and Orca talking in circles. Apparently dinner with Lord and Lady Poshpeople has been forgotten.

Spoiler: Chapter Nineteen-The Peal

Oh God, this is the chapter, isn’t it. I don’t want to re-read this. Hamish and Randall take Fawn into a hotel room, threatening her with a gun and telling her that if she doesn’t do exactly what she’s supposed to, they’ll kill Walter.

Meanwhile, Walter, who has until this point been a man of action, waits nearly an hour before deciding to do anything about Fawn not showing up after the show. It feels very out of character for him. Anyway, he overhears some convenient policemen talking VERY LOUDLY IN THE STREET about someone having their ears cut off, and he deduces that it must be Lenny. At least the poor old bugger is alive, but he’s too scared to talk. I actually quite like this-Carrie set up that something had happened to Lenny, let us worry about him for a bit, then delivered a conclusion. If it wasn’t so clumsy, it’s almost good writing.

Content Warning 1:- This is the scene, and I’m just going to say when it happens without any comment on it. I’m going to talk about it in the last spoiler at the end of this section of the summary, but if you don’t want to read about it at all, just know that the only other significant thing that happens in the chapter is the next day, Fawn gives Walter a pearl to use as a bullet. If you don’t want to read about the sexual assault scene in any way, please stop here.

Okay so I’m of two minds about the next paragraph. I’ll have to explain it very carefully, as I had to read it a few times to understand it. Maybe I’m just dumb, but it’s a bit confusing. Walter gives up trying to look for Fawn straight away, which is again out of character for him, as he’s been established as a romantic and a man of action. I appreciate that he was feeling helpless, but if I thought someone terrible had kidnapped a woman I loved, I’d move heaven and earth to try to find her. I certainly wouldn’t just amble into a pub and start drinking, as Walter does. Walter gets into a fight, and the fight runs parallel to the scene in the hotel room, where Hamish is preparing to assault Fawn. For example, as Walter spills beer on himself, Fawn throws her champagne in Hamish’s face. You get the picture, this goes on. Walter has got into a random barfight and this physical violence mirrors the violence in the hotel room, until Hamish assaults Fawn in the worst way. It’s a weird way to write the scene, and I’m not sure if it works, or doesn’t work. I’ll talk about it more if you want to read it at the end, but for now, I’m moving on.

The next day, Walter comes into work, and Hamish demands that he gives him the keys to all the dressing rooms. Traumatised but resolute, Fawn gives Walter a pearl to use as a bullet. I’m not sure how she’s expecting that to work, but sure. Okay.

Spoiler: Chapter Twenty-The Curtain Call

So a determined Walter gets ready to load the pearl into the gun, and shares with the reader his own clunky metaphor about how because it’s a pearl from the necklace Hamish snapped, it’s like Hamish’s own violence is ending his life. Almost as if Walter knows he’s in a book. But I digress. Walter and Fawn do feel morally conflicted about the murder, which fleshes out the scene, but ultimately they know it’s what has to be done (even though it isn’t and they could still totally get Fawn’s rich dad to call in the cops, but whatever. I’m totally on board with Hamish dying, btw, but just know it’s not the only solution available to the characters).

During the show, Randall comes into Fawn’s dressing room, locking the door behind him. Fawn feels like Rapunzel trapped in a tower, reminding us again that, yes indeed, we are reading a book by Carrie. So Randall tells Fawn that he’s been watching all of her trysts with Walter in the rafters from the dress circle from the beginning, because he’s somehow everywhere at once watching Fawn and Walter at all times, despite never being mentioned until he sees them through the window of the dressing room. His retroactive presence in those scenes now just feels like an afterthought added later to make Hamish seem more powerful, with spies in the theatre. It’s a bit dumb. Anyway, Randall’s all-seeing eyes have noticed Walter toying with the gun,

because of course they did, he somehow manages to be everywhere at once. He tells Fawn that she’s got to stop the gun from being fired in the shooting scene, because if Hamish gets shot, he’s going to be in the wings with his own gun aimed at Walter, ready to shoot him if Hamish dies. He tells Fawn that if Hamish lives, he’ll see that Walter gets away (hinting that he’ll tell the police that Walter tampered with the gun, although I’m not sure how he’d prove it), and Fawn can marry Hamish as if nothing happened. Fawn is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t, and it’s very sad, really. So Fawn tries to tell Lawrence, the actor who’s character fires the gun, that something is wrong and he shouldn’t fire, but Lawrence brushes this off as a joke. We live through the shooting scene again, and experience once again that the play’s a clumsy parallel for the Fawn-Walter-Hamish triangle, but go off.

While standing on stage, Fawn decides it’s better to die herself than let Walter die, or to live as Hamish’s wife, so she very bravely/stupidly, depending on your stance, steps in front of the pearl bullet and takes it. Big reveal!

Only the way the other character react to it is a bit confusing. Walter is so shocked and distressed the he vomits, and it’s horrible-you really feel for him. But somehow, the ensemble girls, unnamed and unnoticed up until now, know instantly that Fawn took the bullet deliberately, despite presumably not knowing anything about Fawn and Walter or their plan?!

Anyway, Randall tells Walter to run, but Walter has managed to compose himself in record time and reasons that the guilty finger is already being pointed at Hamish, but my question is WHY THE HELL WOULD HAMISH, IF HE WANTED TO KILL FAWN, LOAD THE GUN THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SHOT AT HIS CHARACTER? He didn’t know that Fawn was going to take the bullet-she didn’t even know until seconds before she did it. So why does Hamish look guilty at all? Maybe I’m being stupid, but I can’t figure it out. Walter even says that Hamish only looks guilty because everyone in the cast hates him and is prepared to decide that he is? It’s all a bit woolly if you ask me.

Anyway, so the audience, realising that something has gone wrong and that Fawn is actually dead, get to their feet in a mark of respect-her final standing ovation. Meanwhile, Randall reminds Walter that he’s the one who loaded the gun that killed Fawn, then slips off into the shadows like his namesake in Monsters Inc.

That’s it. That’s where we’re left. I’ll be covering the final chapter and the epilogue, which are both set in the present, tomorrow. See you then!

Spoiler: Content Warning 2

So I’m not a writer, but I read a lot of books and watch a lot of booktubers (YouTubers with channels based around books). I’ve heard this more than once, so I can’t attribute it to any one person, but there’s a common piece of writing advice that goes something like: “If you can use anything other than rape, don’t use rape”. What that means is that rape is an incredibly sensitive issue, and if you’re not equipped and educated and researched enough to handle it with that sensitivity…it’s just very bad, and looks bad for you and your story. It also means that rape shouldn’t be used as a lazy backstory filler for any character (you see this especially with female characters, but it can happen with characters of any gender) to explain why they’re so hardened or damaged, but with this book, we have a case for the first definition.

I want to say first that we don’t know Carrie’s life, and we don’t know why she wanted to include it-it could be for any number of reasons, and I’m certainly not going to speculate, or give cause for you to speculate.. I’m also being careful not to talk about Fawn’s reaction to it (or, frankly, her lack thereof) because everyone is different, and no one knows how they’re going to react to something until it happens. It might not be bad writing-she might have just gone into shock over it, and shut down. Totally possible. Or Carrie might have just not wanted to dwell on it in case her readers, who are probably largely young, were upset by it. If that was the case, it shouldn’t have been included at all, but I’m trying to give Carrie the benefit of the doubt here, and not make assumptions based on things I don’t know. I’m just going to talk about the scene in the way it’s presented in the book, as if it was published anonymously, and nothing more

The scene where Fawn is raped is completely unnecessary. We know that Hamish is a creep, we know he’s evil, we know he’s forcing Fawn to marry him. Walter even has the idea to kill him before it happens, so it doesn’t even lead to that. Arguably, it leads to Fawn agreeing to the murder plot, but she could have come to that conclusion herself any number of other ways. We don’t need it-it’s only there for shock value. Afterward, it’s only mentioned once, then forgotten about. Fawn acknowledges that she knows she has been raped, and tells Randall that he should feel guilty for holding her prisoner and allowing it to happen, but otherwise, it has no effect on the story going forward. I suppose you could make a case that it influenced Fawn’s decision to take the bullet, but she’s not thinking about it at all when it happens. I guess it could have unconsciously influenced her, but I’m not sure Carrie is that subtle a writer. In fact, I know she’s not.

To conclude, the rape scene was totally unnecessary. That’s the last time I’m going to mention it. Sorry.

Hey everyone, here's the final part! We made it to the end, woo! Thanks everyone for all your support with this. It's been great to have an extra project in these days of isolation, and I hope you enjoyed the summary. I have strong feelings about the ending, so make what you will of it...

Spoiler: Chapter Twenty-One – Finale

OH GOD. They said it couldn’t be done. They said there would never be a chapter I hated more than chapter twelve. But behold: chapter twenty-one. This chapter ties up all of the loose ends in the book and brings the story to a close-but it’s bad. I’ve avoided full-on shitting on the book until now, but this is just straight up, unarguably not good. What’s frustrating is that with a bit of editing, it didn’t have to be this way, but this is the book we have, and not the book we wish we did.

So half the final chapter is given over to Walter relaying what happened to Fawn to Oscar. A blow-by-blow retelling of the whole story, from Hamish to the pearl bullet. I mean, I get that Oscar doesn’t know, but the reader does-we just had five chapters of it! Having to read a recap of what we just read a minute ago in the previous chapter just feels…patronising. And boring. Anyway, Walter calls Oscar “boy”, like all the older men in this book call all the younger men, and Oscar calls him “old man”, which would be quite a funny retort if I thought it wasn’t meant to be serious. Carrie’s over-explaining of everything is rife in this chapter-for example, Walter refers to Fawn, the love of his life as “the rising starlet that was Fawn Burrows”. I mean, why would he say that? The reader knows that’s what she was, and why would Walter refer to someone he was close to in such a detached way if not for the benefit of the reader? Walter also calls her the best actress he’s ever seen, and Oscar thinks “I hope he’s not including Olive”, because Olive is all anyone in this book ever thinks about. I don’t know why that annoyed me, but it did. Oscar’s friend just had his arm crushed, he’s realised that ghosts are real and able to hurt the living, and all he’s worried about was oh, Olive’s the best actress to ever live, don’t you know? Gah.

So Walter is still haunted by Fawn’s death because he doesn’t know if she stepped in front of the bullet on purpose. Which is a bit peculiar, because as I said, the ensemble girls who saw the whole thing seemed to know at once that it wasn’t an accident, despite not knowing anything about the situation? But go off, I guess. I like that he’s not certain and he’s still haunted all these years later, but considering (spoiler) that Walter does get closure at the end of this chapter, it might have been structured better if Carrie had kept the reader in the dark as to why Fawn had stepped in front of the bullet. If we hadn’t got Fawn’s point of view as she was making the decision to step in front of the bullet, and instead had been following Walter’s POV, we could have suffered with him as readers and his closure would have been a release for us too, and therefore much more emotionally impactful. Instead, because the reader already knows, Walter’s worrying about it is frankly a bit dull and pointless.

To answer the question you’re probably asking too as you read this, Walter did try to ask Fawn’s ghost why she did it, but she always vanished as soon as he did, so he stopped asking in order to spend more time with her when she appeared. Fair. Quite admirable there: Carrie saw a plot hole and filled it with something pretty reasonable.

Anyway, Walter tells Oscar that if Hamish’s ghost is around too, it’s not a good idea to leave Olive alone, because apparently even the dead are obsessed with her (they are, they all are, you’ll see). So Walter and Oscar go back to the scene of Doug’s accident, everyone is really upset about it, and the cast are comforting each other. They call out for Olive, who is standing in the rafters. Please stay with me here, because it’s a bit woolly.

So Hamish’s ghost has possessed Olive’s body (stay with me). Walter tells him to leave Olive alone, as she has nothing to do with any of this, but Hamish says that she has “everything” to do with this. Because Olive is the centre of the universe. Hamish tells us that he’s been hanging around haunting this theatre ever since his “sorry life” ended. Hold on a second-why would Hamish, the conceited twit, call his own life “sorry”? This is what I mean when I say that all the characters are cartoons with black and white morality. Hamish is aware that he’s evil and lived a bad life-he basically turns to the camera and says “I am the bad guy. You are not supposed to like me”. The mark of a good villain is that they think, despite everything, that they are in the right. I hate to cite JK Rowling as an example, but look at Lord Voldemort-even he thought he was doing the right thing with his wizard superiority-over-muggles thing. But Hamish knows that he is baaaad. It’s the least subtle thing ever.

Anyway, Hamish says that the ghosts were able to materialise because Oscar and Olive have fallen in love in the theatre. That’s it. That’s the reason. Hamish has Olive grab the prop gun and put it to her head, saying that because he lost Fawn, he’s going to take Olive from Oscar because mwah-ha-ha-ha he’s evil. He reveals that it was Oscar he meant to hit when he sent the light crashing down, but somehow he mistook him for Doug???? Despite the fact it’s never been mentioned that they even look vaguely alike, other than that they’re both…men, I guess???? But okay, I’ll suspend my disbelief.

Meanwhile, our girl Olive is in there fighting. She tries to force Hamish out, but it’s just no use. Luckily, it’s Fawn to the rescue! She manages to expel Hamish from Olive’s body and climbs in herself so she can talk to Walter, because apparently we’re going by Whoopi Goldberg ghost rules-but oh no, Hamish has latched onto Walter instead, and tries to have Walter shoot himself with the gun. Walter’s fighting him-but instead of doing literally anything to save himself-this bullshit freaking happens:

Walter, WITH A GUN TO HIS HEAD goes into a page-long monologue about how wonderful Olive is. I’m not even kidding. It’s all, Oscar, you’re the luckiest person in the world to have Olive, because she’s a total gem and not like other girls, and she’s prepared to let Oscar screw her around because she just wuvs him so much. I wish I was joking. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you at this point that Olive is a self-insert character. At the beginning of the book wer were told that Olive's only flaw is letting people take advantage of her, but I guess it's okay if it's Oscar. What's character development, after all, in the face of tru wuv? Then Fawn backs this up, waxing lyrical about how special the two Os are together. A quick reminder that they do this while Hamish is supposedly fighting to take over Walter’s body. I kind of get that they want the Os to have the life they couldn’t, but it’s just another example of the world revolving around Olive and every single character living to praise her, and it’s SO ANNOYING.

Anyway, after a SECOND monologue about how Olive’s so wonderful and not like other girls-and then a THIRD monologue about Olive-I’m not even exaggerating, I wish I was-Walter lets Hamish make him shoot himself so that he can be with Fawn. So in this man’s dying moments, all he does is go on and on and on about Olive. It just royally pissed me off, I’m sorry. I liked Walter and Fawn, who both actually suffered during the story, unlike the Os who get (spoiler) a Cinderella ending (pun intended). Fawn and Walter deserved better. (look at me actually caring about these character lol)

So Hamish is banished by the gunshot, and Fawn and Walter (restored to his youth) are ghosts together, and now they can both go “on”. This had so much potential to be a completely lovely scene, with the two star-crossed lovers reunited and at peace at last. But WAIT. Before poor Fawn can go, she has to deliver one last speech to Olive about how special she is and what a brilliant actor she is…why? This poor girl had a completely horrible and short life, her death has been unrestful, and now she’s got to spend her final moments joining the we-love-Olive fan club that is comprised of every single character in this book but Tamara and Jane? Girl, Olive is terrible.

ANYWAY. One last annoying, self-indulgent thing happens in this chapter. Just before Fawn and Walter finally take their leave, the Southern Cross Theatre is filled with ghosts of the audience who were present the night Fawn died. SERIOUSLY. I get that’s it’s supposed to be cinematic, but you’re expecting me to believe that ALL these freaking hundreds of ghosts, with their own lives and families, have all hung around in this theatre for however long since they died, just to see a random actress they saw ONCE (remember WTCF was her debut, it’s not like she’s Judi Dench) take her final bow. SERIOUSLY. I am done. I am done.

Spoiler: Epilogue

I’m not done. The epilogue. Oh God, the epilogue.

I didn’t think I could dislike this book more, but my expectations are constantly surpassed. So the epilogue is set twelve years later, where we are met with an extract of a magazine article about Olive Green. Olive, two time Olivier award winner, which is basically like the British Tony Award as far as I know, is starring in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on Broadway. But the article tells us that this isn’t even Olive’s Broadway debut (that would be too exciting, and this book has remained steadily boring), because WTCF transferred to Broadway. I don’t know much about theatre, so I don’t know how likely that is, but go off. It’s nice that Doug’s accident didn’t harm the production at all (for Olive of course, not for Doug). Anyway, so we find out Oscar’s career has similarly taken off and he is starring as the sidekick in an Indiana Jones remake, so he’s gone from being a soap actor to an international star. Fair, I guess, if you must. Oh, and we find out that Oscar and Olive got married. Because of course they freaking did. I’m actually happy for them, because they’re both as annoying and patronising and sanctimonious as each other.

Olive’s friend Lou (who I’ve not mentioned up until this point and you’ve not noticed her missing because she appears only via text in the book and, yes, you guessed it, exists to praise Olive) gives her a call and they talk about how brilliant Olive is and how wonderful New York is, and how they call Oscar Mr Green, which is fair I guess, but Olive takes the opportunity to clunkily explain that although she’s married, she’s keeping Green forever as her stage name. Fair. Lou uses the word “corking”, which is weirdly old-fashioned and just makes her sound like Olive and, you know, literally every other character in the book.

Anyway, so Oscar’s in the audience watching Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and he gets recognised by some squealing teens. Some random person tells him they don’t like the Indiana Jones remake, so he totally owns them by saying, well, he has had dinner with Harrison Ford so-HA! GOT THEM!

Anyway, the show is “an undeniable success”, and while everyone’s clapping, the producer’s son says that he’ll be taking Olive Green home at the end of the night. I guess this is supposed to be a call-back to Hamish, but it’s a bit lackluster. Anyway, Oscar leans over to him and is like “Oh, you see…I’m her husband.” like it’s a big reveal, even though we’ve already been told a million times in the epilogue that yes, Oscar and Olive are married. It would have been better if we didn’t know, and it was a reveal-or if the reveal was that Olive's husband was someone else-but I’ve said that a thousand times through this summary, and there's no point saying it again.

Oscar says how lucky he is to have Olive. That’s it. That’s the end of the book.

I’m left frustrated. Carrie clearly has good ideas, but she needs either more time or more assistance to make them happen as well as they deserve. Olive hasn’t suffered, and she hasn’t changed as a character, or learned anything, or become a better person-she is exactly the same. This whole book has just been about people praising her and telling her she’s perfect. Perhaps that’s the moral-people don’t have to change-but since Olive is such a sanctimonious, patronising self-insert, it feels disingenuous. That’s the trouble when your lead is a Mary Sue self-insert-a writer is really shooting themselves in the foot when their lead is supposed to reflect them, and they’re not willing to criticise them as a result. Carrie has done herself dirty if we’re supposed to see her in Olive, who is terrible. Wish-fulfilment (just as an example in the epilogue, Carrie has mentioned dreaming of Broadway herself) can also ruin a good ending, as we can clearly see here; a supermegahappy ending is just dull and predictable. Maybe Oscar has changed-I’ll give him that much credit, but the only change is that he's committing to Olive now. He's still a patronising idiot. Point is, there were so many good parts about this book that were ruined by the totally unlikable and unrelatable protagonist, poor structure, over-explaining, clunky prose and dialogue, and no distinct character voices. It’s probably not Carrie’s fault if no one at her publisher’s is trying to make her a better writer, because her name sells books anyway. Whoever Carrie is working with either needs to be harsher with her edits, or frankly, do more work to make Carrie’s end product better. She has potential to be a good story-teller, and it’s such a shame. That’s my final word on this book. It’s a shame.

The whole summary of WTCF has totalled over thirteen thousand words, which is a considerable amount of your time to have spent reading, so thank you for all the support on this site and I really hope you’ve enjoyed it! Love, agirlofnoimportance

 

[salatblader]

Hey everyone, here's the final part! We made it to the end, woo! Thanks everyone for all your support with this. It's been great to have an extra project in these days of isolation, and I hope you enjoyed the summary. I have strong feelings about the ending, so make what you will of it...

Spoiler: Chapter Twenty-One – Finale

OH GOD. They said it couldn’t be done. They said there would never be a chapter I hated more than chapter twelve. But behold: chapter twenty-one. This chapter ties up all of the loose ends in the book and brings the story to a close-but it’s bad. I’ve avoided full-on shitting on the book until now, but this is just straight up, unarguably not good. What’s frustrating is that with a bit of editing, it didn’t have to be this way, but this is the book we have, and not the book we wish we did.

So half the final chapter is given over to Walter relaying what happened to Fawn to Oscar. A blow-by-blow retelling of the whole story, from Hamish to the pearl bullet. I mean, I get that Oscar doesn’t know, but the reader does-we just had five chapters of it! Having to read a recap of what we just read a minute ago in the previous chapter just feels…patronising. And boring. Anyway, Walter calls Oscar “boy”, like all the older men in this book call all the younger men, and Oscar calls him “old man”, which would be quite a funny retort if I thought it wasn’t meant to be serious. Carrie’s over-explaining of everything is rife in this chapter-for example, Walter refers to Fawn, the love of his life as “the rising starlet that was Fawn Burrows”. I mean, why would he say that? The reader knows that’s what she was, and why would Walter refer to someone he was close to in such a detached way if not for the benefit of the reader? Walter also calls her the best actress he’s ever seen, and Oscar thinks “I hope he’s not including Olive”, because Olive is all anyone in this book ever thinks about. I don’t know why that annoyed me, but it did. Oscar’s friend just had his arm crushed, he’s realised that ghosts are real and able to hurt the living, and all he’s worried about was oh, Olive’s the best actress to ever live, don’t you know? Gah.

So Walter is still haunted by Fawn’s death because he doesn’t know if she stepped in front of the bullet on purpose. Which is a bit peculiar, because as I said, the ensemble girls who saw the whole thing seemed to know at once that it wasn’t an accident, despite not knowing anything about the situation? But go off, I guess. I like that he’s not certain and he’s still haunted all these years later, but considering (spoiler) that Walter does get closure at the end of this chapter, it might have been structured better if Carrie had kept the reader in the dark as to why Fawn had stepped in front of the bullet. If we hadn’t got Fawn’s point of view as she was making the decision to step in front of the bullet, and instead had been following Walter’s POV, we could have suffered with him as readers and his closure would have been a release for us too, and therefore much more emotionally impactful. Instead, because the reader already knows, Walter’s worrying about it is frankly a bit dull and pointless.

To answer the question you’re probably asking too as you read this, Walter did try to ask Fawn’s ghost why she did it, but she always vanished as soon as he did, so he stopped asking in order to spend more time with her when she appeared. Fair. Quite admirable there: Carrie saw a plot hole and filled it with something pretty reasonable.

Anyway, Walter tells Oscar that if Hamish’s ghost is around too, it’s not a good idea to leave Olive alone, because apparently even the dead are obsessed with her (they are, they all are, you’ll see). So Walter and Oscar go back to the scene of Doug’s accident, everyone is really upset about it, and the cast are comforting each other. They call out for Olive, who is standing in the rafters. Please stay with me here, because it’s a bit woolly.

So Hamish’s ghost has possessed Olive’s body (stay with me). Walter tells him to leave Olive alone, as she has nothing to do with any of this, but Hamish says that she has “everything” to do with this. Because Olive is the centre of the universe. Hamish tells us that he’s been hanging around haunting this theatre ever since his “sorry life” ended. Hold on a second-why would Hamish, the conceited twit, call his own life “sorry”? This is what I mean when I say that all the characters are cartoons with black and white morality. Hamish is aware that he’s evil and lived a bad life-he basically turns to the camera and says “I am the bad guy. You are not supposed to like me”. The mark of a good villain is that they think, despite everything, that they are in the right. I hate to cite JK Rowling as an example, but look at Lord Voldemort-even he thought he was doing the right thing with his wizard superiority-over-muggles thing. But Hamish knows that he is baaaad. It’s the least subtle thing ever.

Anyway, Hamish says that the ghosts were able to materialise because Oscar and Olive have fallen in love in the theatre. That’s it. That’s the reason. Hamish has Olive grab the prop gun and put it to her head, saying that because he lost Fawn, he’s going to take Olive from Oscar because mwah-ha-ha-ha he’s evil. He reveals that it was Oscar he meant to hit when he sent the light crashing down, but somehow he mistook him for Doug???? Despite the fact it’s never been mentioned that they even look vaguely alike, other than that they’re both…men, I guess???? But okay, I’ll suspend my disbelief.

Meanwhile, our girl Olive is in there fighting. She tries to force Hamish out, but it’s just no use. Luckily, it’s Fawn to the rescue! She manages to expel Hamish from Olive’s body and climbs in herself so she can talk to Walter, because apparently we’re going by Whoopi Goldberg ghost rules-but oh no, Hamish has latched onto Walter instead, and tries to have Walter shoot himself with the gun. Walter’s fighting him-but instead of doing literally anything to save himself-this bullshit freaking happens:

Walter, WITH A GUN TO HIS HEAD goes into a page-long monologue about how wonderful Olive is. I’m not even kidding. It’s all, Oscar, you’re the luckiest person in the world to have Olive, because she’s a total gem and not like other girls, and she’s prepared to let Oscar screw her around because she just wuvs him so much. I wish I was joking. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you at this point that Olive is a self-insert character. At the beginning of the book wer were told that Olive's only flaw is letting people take advantage of her, but I guess it's okay if it's Oscar. What's character development, after all, in the face of tru wuv? Then Fawn backs this up, waxing lyrical about how special the two Os are together. A quick reminder that they do this while Hamish is supposedly fighting to take over Walter’s body. I kind of get that they want the Os to have the life they couldn’t, but it’s just another example of the world revolving around Olive and every single character living to praise her, and it’s SO ANNOYING.

Anyway, after a SECOND monologue about how Olive’s so wonderful and not like other girls-and then a THIRD monologue about Olive-I’m not even exaggerating, I wish I was-Walter lets Hamish make him shoot himself so that he can be with Fawn. So in this man’s dying moments, all he does is go on and on and on about Olive. It just royally pissed me off, I’m sorry. I liked Walter and Fawn, who both actually suffered during the story, unlike the Os who get (spoiler) a Cinderella ending (pun intended). Fawn and Walter deserved better. (look at me actually caring about these character lol)

So Hamish is banished by the gunshot, and Fawn and Walter (restored to his youth) are ghosts together, and now they can both go “on”. This had so much potential to be a completely lovely scene, with the two star-crossed lovers reunited and at peace at last. But WAIT. Before poor Fawn can go, she has to deliver one last speech to Olive about how special she is and what a brilliant actor she is…why? This poor girl had a completely horrible and short life, her death has been unrestful, and now she’s got to spend her final moments joining the we-love-Olive fan club that is comprised of every single character in this book but Tamara and Jane? Girl, Olive is terrible.

ANYWAY. One last annoying, self-indulgent thing happens in this chapter. Just before Fawn and Walter finally take their leave, the Southern Cross Theatre is filled with ghosts of the audience who were present the night Fawn died. SERIOUSLY. I get that’s it’s supposed to be cinematic, but you’re expecting me to believe that ALL these freaking hundreds of ghosts, with their own lives and families, have all hung around in this theatre for however long since they died, just to see a random actress they saw ONCE (remember WTCF was her debut, it’s not like she’s Judi Dench) take her final bow. SERIOUSLY. I am done. I am done.

Spoiler: Epilogue

I’m not done. The epilogue. Oh God, the epilogue.

I didn’t think I could dislike this book more, but my expectations are constantly surpassed. So the epilogue is set twelve years later, where we are met with an extract of a magazine article about Olive Green. Olive, two time Olivier award winner, which is basically like the British Tony Award as far as I know, is starring in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on Broadway. But the article tells us that this isn’t even Olive’s Broadway debut (that would be too exciting, and this book has remained steadily boring), because WTCF transferred to Broadway. I don’t know much about theatre, so I don’t know how likely that is, but go off. It’s nice that Doug’s accident didn’t harm the production at all (for Olive of course, not for Doug). Anyway, so we find out Oscar’s career has similarly taken off and he is starring as the sidekick in an Indiana Jones remake, so he’s gone from being a soap actor to an international star. Fair, I guess, if you must. Oh, and we find out that Oscar and Olive got married. Because of course they freaking did. I’m actually happy for them, because they’re both as annoying and patronising and sanctimonious as each other.

Olive’s friend Lou (who I’ve not mentioned up until this point and you’ve not noticed her missing because she appears only via text in the book and, yes, you guessed it, exists to praise Olive) gives her a call and they talk about how brilliant Olive is and how wonderful New York is, and how they call Oscar Mr Green, which is fair I guess, but Olive takes the opportunity to clunkily explain that although she’s married, she’s keeping Green forever as her stage name. Fair. Lou uses the word “corking”, which is weirdly old-fashioned and just makes her sound like Olive and, you know, literally every other character in the book.

Anyway, so Oscar’s in the audience watching Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and he gets recognised by some squealing teens. Some random person tells him they don’t like the Indiana Jones remake, so he totally owns them by saying, well, he has had dinner with Harrison Ford so-HA! GOT THEM!

Anyway, the show is “an undeniable success”, and while everyone’s clapping, the producer’s son says that he’ll be taking Olive Green home at the end of the night. I guess this is supposed to be a call-back to Hamish, but it’s a bit lackluster. Anyway, Oscar leans over to him and is like “Oh, you see…I’m her husband.” like it’s a big reveal, even though we’ve already been told a million times in the epilogue that yes, Oscar and Olive are married. It would have been better if we didn’t know, and it was a reveal-or if the reveal was that Olive's husband was someone else-but I’ve said that a thousand times through this summary, and there's no point saying it again.

Oscar says how lucky he is to have Olive. That’s it. That’s the end of the book.

I’m left frustrated. Carrie clearly has good ideas, but she needs either more time or more assistance to make them happen as well as they deserve. Olive hasn’t suffered, and she hasn’t changed as a character, or learned anything, or become a better person-she is exactly the same. This whole book has just been about people praising her and telling her she’s perfect. Perhaps that’s the moral-people don’t have to change-but since Olive is such a sanctimonious, patronising self-insert, it feels disingenuous. That’s the trouble when your lead is a Mary Sue self-insert-a writer is really shooting themselves in the foot when their lead is supposed to reflect them, and they’re not willing to criticise them as a result. Carrie has done herself dirty if we’re supposed to see her in Olive, who is terrible. Wish-fulfilment (just as an example in the epilogue, Carrie has mentioned dreaming of Broadway herself) can also ruin a good ending, as we can clearly see here; a supermegahappy ending is just dull and predictable. Maybe Oscar has changed-I’ll give him that much credit, but the only change is that he's committing to Olive now. He's still a patronising idiot. Point is, there were so many good parts about this book that were ruined by the totally unlikable and unrelatable protagonist, poor structure, over-explaining, clunky prose and dialogue, and no distinct character voices. It’s probably not Carrie’s fault if no one at her publisher’s is trying to make her a better writer, because her name sells books anyway. Whoever Carrie is working with either needs to be harsher with her edits, or frankly, do more work to make Carrie’s end product better. She has potential to be a good story-teller, and it’s such a shame. That’s my final word on this book. It’s a shame.

The whole summary of WTCF has totalled over thirteen thousand words, which is a considerable amount of your time to have spent reading, so thank you for all the support on this site and I really hope you’ve enjoyed it! Love, agirlofnoimportance

Love your summary, as always, and I find it both hilarious and infuriating that her books are _this_ bad, and she still gets to call herself an author. I knew they were bad, but I didn't know the level of it. This just makes me want to tell the publishing industry to get it together and _at least_ edit her books before forcing them on the public.

 

[cherryblossomlatte]

I’m sorry you had to go through the book but I am thankfull you told us the plot.
The randomly chaning POVS would have driven me crazy

also for someone who had done video from years and is a performer....that chocolate add was terrible

 

[salatblader]

Inspired by @agirlofnoimportance, I went to check out the reviews for this book on Goodreads, and they are also hilariously shady and accurate!

 

[YTZeleb23]

That video - great, Carrie, you live in your own mini Waterstones. How much have you actually read though?

 

[Poothe]

Inspired by @agirlofnoimportance, I went to check out the reviews for this book on Goodreads, and they are also hilariously shady and accurate!

I just read a few reviews and they fall into two categories - those who worship the ground she walks on and who are completely blind to any faults (i.e. the superfans) and those who want to like her work but are repeatedly disappointed by the piss-poor editing and self-insertions. She really should give it up. And god her YouTube is sooooo dull these days.

 

[thisiscat]

I haven’t read any of her books, but when I hear the concept I think they sound okay. Sounds like they have the potential but the editors just don’t care. You hear Carrie raving about her editors, does she not realise they do the bare minimum when it comes to her books?

 

[Poothe]

Just when I thought the marketing of Cinderella couldn’t get more confused, we now have a recipe for buns added in to the mix. I know it’s Easter but really?

 

[babygoats]

also for someone who had done video from years and is a performer....that chocolate add was terrible

Absolutely. She also did something similarly amateur for Mother's day.

 

[Poothe]

Once again Cinderella is getting slaughtered on Theatreboard.

 

[ChubbRub]

Maybe everything to do with Cinderella was just one huge, expensive April Fools Joke and today they'll announce the actual cast and a solid concept/storyline.

 

[salatblader]

Someone on Theatreboard posted about this article speculating that ALW wants Paul Mescal from Normal People for Cinderella. I'd rather not give The Daily Mail clicks, but I'd never heard of him in contact with Cinderella before, so that's interesting. Apparently there was a video with the "hot cross buns baker" singing about...buns...before it was taken down. The caption they used about him.. and his "buns" and the winky face emoji...just when I think they can't possibly make it worse, they turn it into even more of an absolute cringefest once again.

I feel so bad for anyone involved with this show. On the Cinderella Twitter account, there's a sound clip of Emerald Fennell "introducing us to Belleville" (the town in Cinderella, apparently). It. Is. So. Cringe. I can't....On Theatreboard, someone said she makes it sound like it is going to turn into Magic Mike

 

[emmer_moans]

Once again Cinderella is getting slaughtered on Theatreboard.

I have just been to look, wow haha it’s not just us that finds the marketing of Cinderella cringeworthy!

 

[queequeg19]

Someone on Theatreboard posted about this article speculating that ALW wants Paul Mescal from Normal People for Cinderella. I'd rather not give The Daily Mail clicks, but I'd never heard of him in contact with Cinderella before, so that's interesting. Apparently there was a video with the "hot cross buns baker" singing about...buns...before it was taken down. The caption they used about him.. and his "buns" and the winky face emoji...just when I think they can't possibly make it worse, they turn it into even more of an absolute cringefest once again.

I feel so bad for anyone involved with this show. On the Cinderella Twitter account, there's a sound clip of Emerald Fennell "introducing us to Belleville" (the town in Cinderella, apparently). It. Is. So. Cringe. I can't....On Theatreboard, someone said she makes it sound like it is going to turn into Magic Mike

Carrie shared that video to her story. I did try to find it on the cinderella twitter and tiktok and it wasn't there. The talent thats being dragged into this tit show is too much. First Ivano, now poor Paul.

 

[Poothe]

OMG the irony of what she’s retweeting today. Zero insight. Much passive aggressive energy.