fishfish's review
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Features toilet humour, If that isn’t your thing wouldn’t recommend
larrys's review
1.0
Come Back Gizmo is one long humiliation gag. And for true humiliation, a cishet boy needs a female romantic opponent.The (literal) girl next door is a highly unsympathetic archetype. Jennings uses this exact description in any story with a sexually attractive girl. She is always a white girl and she always looks like this:
Oh, just look at her. Golden hair. Blue eyes. White, white teeth.
Jennings describes Samantha's cat, though he is also describing Samantha herself, because he has demonstrated in other stories that girls are in one of two categories: classy and cheap:
Samantha is carrying her cat, Doddles. It's one of those expensive ones with green eyes. It is a classy cat. There is nothing cheap about it.
The reader is given no reason to like this girl, and we don't know why the boy likes this girl either. The truth is, he doesn't like her at all. He is annoyingly drawn towards her because... hormones? And because boys are not encouraged (in fiction as in real life) to see pretty girls as people.
The situation of a boy hopelessly attracted to a girl he wouldn't otherwise like as a friend draws upon a universal feeling of youthful attraction... perhaps. This might explain the popularity of this trope, in which a boy keeps making a buffoon of himself, especially in front of the girl he likes. (In a twisted attempt at gender parity there are stories now where girls are also the buffoons in front of hot boys.)
But there's another side to this trope, as used in this story, which presents another 'universal truth': That women (and girls) are manipulative liars.
Jimmy assumes (as a universal truth) that Samantha would be interested in him because he 'doesn't have a dollar to his name'. The universal truth as presented on the very first page: Girls like boys who have money. Girls are gold-diggers.
Samantha forges a bargain with Jimmy in exchange for a kiss. The implied universal 'truth': girls fully understand their own sexual appeal, and will manipulate hapless boys into doing exactly what they want. A secondary universal 'truth' is that girls are the natural gatekeepers of sex.
Later, Samantha lies to the 'little man' from the SPCA when she insists she had nothing to do with locking the dog in the boot. Implied universal truth: That girls are liars.
We might generously code this as 'Samantha, this particular character, is a liar', except this plot point rides on the initial presentation of Samantha as sexually manipulative, and the attributes go hand-in-hand.
Also, the trope of the manipulative, self-centred, beautiful, sexually alluring and wholly unlikeable girl is a storytelling technique we see time and again throughout history.
The most disappointing aspect of Paul Jennings' body swap dog story: It didn't even *need* the romantic subplot bookending each end. The girl exists in the story purely to heighten the humiliation aspect of Jimmy running around naked, scratching fleas, cocking a leg on lampposts.
I've heard 'both sides' rebuttals to this very point, and they go like this: Sure, the girl is a manipulative liar, but the boy really is made to look stupid in this. Surely that's not sexist now? I mean, the girl AND the boy are presented in a bad light. In fact, if anything, it's reverse sexism!
That's how the counter argument goes.
But it doesn't hold water, because:
1. If you flipped the genders, the gag in this story wouldn't work (ie. it would just be weird and uncomfortable, seeing a girl run around naked in front of the entire neighbourhood)
2. For this exact reason: we objectify the bodies of girls
3. Therefore a girl's naked body cannot be presented as funny; her body is always viewed through a sexual lens. Only boys have the privilege of running around naked without being viewed via a sexual gaze.
And I suppose this is why we don't get many body swap stories in which girls swap bodies with their dogs.
This book is awful; avoid like parvovirus.
Oh, just look at her. Golden hair. Blue eyes. White, white teeth.
Jennings describes Samantha's cat, though he is also describing Samantha herself, because he has demonstrated in other stories that girls are in one of two categories: classy and cheap:
Samantha is carrying her cat, Doddles. It's one of those expensive ones with green eyes. It is a classy cat. There is nothing cheap about it.
The reader is given no reason to like this girl, and we don't know why the boy likes this girl either. The truth is, he doesn't like her at all. He is annoyingly drawn towards her because... hormones? And because boys are not encouraged (in fiction as in real life) to see pretty girls as people.
The situation of a boy hopelessly attracted to a girl he wouldn't otherwise like as a friend draws upon a universal feeling of youthful attraction... perhaps. This might explain the popularity of this trope, in which a boy keeps making a buffoon of himself, especially in front of the girl he likes. (In a twisted attempt at gender parity there are stories now where girls are also the buffoons in front of hot boys.)
But there's another side to this trope, as used in this story, which presents another 'universal truth': That women (and girls) are manipulative liars.
Jimmy assumes (as a universal truth) that Samantha would be interested in him because he 'doesn't have a dollar to his name'. The universal truth as presented on the very first page: Girls like boys who have money. Girls are gold-diggers.
Samantha forges a bargain with Jimmy in exchange for a kiss. The implied universal 'truth': girls fully understand their own sexual appeal, and will manipulate hapless boys into doing exactly what they want. A secondary universal 'truth' is that girls are the natural gatekeepers of sex.
Later, Samantha lies to the 'little man' from the SPCA when she insists she had nothing to do with locking the dog in the boot. Implied universal truth: That girls are liars.
We might generously code this as 'Samantha, this particular character, is a liar', except this plot point rides on the initial presentation of Samantha as sexually manipulative, and the attributes go hand-in-hand.
Also, the trope of the manipulative, self-centred, beautiful, sexually alluring and wholly unlikeable girl is a storytelling technique we see time and again throughout history.
The most disappointing aspect of Paul Jennings' body swap dog story: It didn't even *need* the romantic subplot bookending each end. The girl exists in the story purely to heighten the humiliation aspect of Jimmy running around naked, scratching fleas, cocking a leg on lampposts.
I've heard 'both sides' rebuttals to this very point, and they go like this: Sure, the girl is a manipulative liar, but the boy really is made to look stupid in this. Surely that's not sexist now? I mean, the girl AND the boy are presented in a bad light. In fact, if anything, it's reverse sexism!
That's how the counter argument goes.
But it doesn't hold water, because:
1. If you flipped the genders, the gag in this story wouldn't work (ie. it would just be weird and uncomfortable, seeing a girl run around naked in front of the entire neighbourhood)
2. For this exact reason: we objectify the bodies of girls
3. Therefore a girl's naked body cannot be presented as funny; her body is always viewed through a sexual lens. Only boys have the privilege of running around naked without being viewed via a sexual gaze.
And I suppose this is why we don't get many body swap stories in which girls swap bodies with their dogs.
This book is awful; avoid like parvovirus.
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