The Nine Lives of Chloe King YA Paranormal With A Terrible Moral Compass

The Nine Lives of Chloe King if anything is unoriginal. At its best, it's a shoddy knockoff of a series that died called "Birds of Prey" which followed the escapades of the Huntress (Batman's daughter) and tanked after a few episodes. At it's worst, it has a terrible moral compass and is disturbing on many layers. In brief, the pilot episode had the subtle messages:

1) It's okay to lie about your age where sex and getting into a bar are concerned.

2) If you commit criminally negligent manslaughter, then it's okay as long as you didn't know that what you did could kill someone. WTF??! More on this below.

Now, I don't watch many ABC Family shows but I gave this a try because the premiere was last week (I missed it), however, you can download the premiere for free on iTunes (which I did).

First off, the lead-up promotions to this show were absolutely insane if you got in on it early (which I didn't). You could play this game where they sent you an Egyptian box in the mail that included a "Nine Lives of Chloe King" free iPad 2 that had an Egyptian hieroglyph on the back plus a bunch of cards and clues that you followed on that iPad. Then the winner got some grand prize (I assume it's to go to one of the live tapings of the show). I would rather have had the iPad 2 to be honest.

Anyway...impressions from the show.

1) Everyone is skinny and the setting is very rich (urban San Francisco). In case you don't know...you gotta be making some bucks to be able to live the city life of San Fran and send your kids to high school there. No $50,000 a year State government job is going to cut it...try making at least four times that. However, it's the kind of rich that you see on Beverly Hills 90210...less subtle and ostentatious but if you know your designers and you know how much hairdos, shoes, cars, morning coffees with biscotti, and tech costs...then you can add up the cost of this lifestyle for parents and kids alike. It's really no wonder that the main character is white...just sayin'. However, it's also a huge lie. Very few people can actually live this kind of lifestyle yet young women grow up with expectations of just this. So I guess if you want your daughters to grow up with entitlement on their minds then this is definitely another show you should add to the list of brainwashing that gets pumped to today's youth.

2) Everyone is beautiful. Main character is blond with blue eyes with token Asian friend (who is probably good at math) and dark-haired (tag along BFF). There are no "real" people...ever. "Real" meaning people who have weight problems, maybe who have eyes that are too far apart, or too close together, are losing hair, or who work real jobs (the adults in the show gotta have lots of free time to send covert messages, keep tabs on people, or to be available for kids whenever they need to "talk".) Food when consumed is only in the swanky sushi parlors. There's no fried chicken and hamburgers.

All you needed was a blog to get this sent to you.

3) Once again everyone that is "Sixteen" is obviously older because to me they look twenty. That's just how Hollywood goes about these things...If you're twenty, you can fool sheeple into thinking that you're sixteen (but not really). I've never been fooled by it but I guess some people are which I don't understand. For example: Glee cast members look almost thirty to me but whatever...they're supposed to be teenagers.

4) Favorite Quotes: "I just wish I could get kissed..." Keep in mind the main character is a blond bombshell. This is the same as an obese man saying, "I just wish I could eat a frickin' doughnut!" Also it does play into the fact that her kiss is deadly to mere humans thereby sealing her into loneliness unless she is to mate with another of the Mai.

Mom says to Chloe, "Your father wasn't a big fan of questions"...this just goes along with the cliche "Men are not good at communication." Whatever...this is cliche.

5) Cliche Lies: Some dude to Chloe at a nightclub, "Don't get me wrong...but you look kinda young." Answer from Chloe, "Oh, I'm eighteen..." (awkward smile).  MESSAGE to young women: lie about your age to men so you can get attention and maybe some sex. If you don't like the sex, you can call it rape and have the perv arrested.

6) Everyone has super white, perfect teeth.  Even the street bum.

7) The villain in the pilot is a black man. That isn't enough though...he has a scar on his left cheek from where she clawed him with her cat nails (different than press-on nails). Additionally, a bum tried to rape her (the one with perfect teeth) after she wouldn't give him some money. MESSAGE: Black men are evil and men without jobs are rapists.

8) The high school jock is blond with blue eyes and could be an amateur bodybuilder easy...maybe professional. Plus there is no acne at all on any of the supposed "teens". Super clear complexions. You find out later that he's one of the special "Mai" that are this super race which maybe goes to explain his incredibly "rockin" body but again...whatever. More Hollywood crap.

9) Lots of Apple plugs because "Apple" is the tech brand that is popular amongst young rich kids.

10) She discovers her powers in the same wide-eyed goofy way that Tobey Maguire did in the original Spiderman. In fact, she seems a lot like a female spiderman but I guess being part cat makes you super strong and agile, she has tons of energy, and superhuman hearing.

11) Every conversation between Chloe and her BFF (when no one else is around) is about boys, kissing, and potential coupling. There was lots of squealing and "OMG...did he kiss you? ... Yeah I think he did!!!" stuff. There was also reinforcement from the BFF that she needs to see the guy she kissed with his shirt off first before making a choice (reinforcing that the dude had better have six-pac abs or is unworthy of 'boyfriend' status).

12) Real parents are gone (she's adopted). If that weren't enough, her adopted dad was a dead-beat dad. Dad left over ten years ago leaving mother to come up with all the money to afford a San Francisco lifestyle (remember when I said it was expensive to live there? Look San Fran up sometime and you'll see).

Checkout this cast of...ermmm...regular teenagers.

13) Every shot of San Francisco includes the Trans America Pyramid. I'm just waiting for the first chase scene on cars because San Fran has hills and there is always some chase seen with cars bouncing on hills.

14) She's part of some strange race where if she kisses someone she kills mortal men. So her touch is poisonous/deadly to guys. This "forced loneliness" opens the series to much angst of course and forced romance as she can't have guys or kills them (we've seen this before a lot). Lana Lang became poisonous to Clark Kent (Superman) in Smallville. In Tahereh Mafi's upcoming "Shatter Me" her heroine kills with a touch. In Marvel comics, the X-Men called "Rogue" kills people if she holds onto them too long. That's how she got all of Miss Marvel's powers.

I have issues with this curse, primarily, in how it's being handled by the show. She murdered an innocent guy that she met at a nightclub after lying to him about her age and kissing him outside. Yes...he went home and died on the floor of his apartment. At the end, she cries about it and the other Mai say, "It's okay...you didn't know that this would happen." I think that this is bullshit.

Criminally negligent manslaughter in the United States is a crime and it doesn't matter if the woman involved is sixteen, rich, white, lives in San Francisco and enjoys sushi and shops at boutiques, and is the member of some ancient race of perfect white people that served Egyptian Pharaohs. If she doesn't turn herself in, I'm seriously going to be pissed at this show because it sends a terrible message to kids. "Oh I just hit some guy and killed him with my truck on a dark road because I was talking on my cell phone and telling my BFF about how handsome this new boy is that I met." (looks around to make sure no one was watching)...then hits the gas and drives off.  I'm going to watch this show for a few more episodes but if this issue is dropped, I'm going to send a terrible letter to the producers of this show. I'm tired of crap like this being shoveled down our throats.

15) The CW's successful formula of pairing Pop music with the show. I can't complain about this as I like Pop music. It's smart to do this, actually.

Eight Rules To Publishing Success

I wanted to go over my checklist of things that I've learned from the internets in order to get my writing published. These rules are applicable to a debut author only. Authors that have already earned their chops can publish their laundry lists which is hardly interesting or exceptional in my opinion. Also, there is no sarcasm in my post. Otherwise I'm a dirty frickin' liar and Stephen Colbert is not an actor.

1) Show, Don't Tell. Source: Just about everyone (including Misha on her Tuesday post). When can you break this rule? When you have lots of sheeple as followers and you are essentially famous (if not A-List then C-D list celebrity still works...like the dude that got a pic of himself posted to Twitter when Paris Hilton was passed out drunk at a Hollywood sex party still works).

2) Girl point-of-view only. Source: Numerous agent blogs. Women buy books, men buy video games, drink beer, and send pics of their bare chests to single women (especially true if married because men hate the feeling that their greatness has been tied to one person--honestly--the length of a man's dick needs to be shared with others). When can you break this? If you write for an audience younger than 10 or older than 30.

YOUNG MEN ARE TOO BUSY TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY IN YOUR BOOK

3) Romance. Source: Numerous agent blogs. People who read want to escape reality. Unfortunately this means that much of reality is a cesspit where romance does not exist. People are all about the bottom line (money), want your rent check, and could care less whether you are feeling like shit. If you don't have your rent check then they are interested in you...interested in taking you to court or how soon you'll be moving out. One way or another...it's not the kind of interest you want. Hence...grab a book. When can you break this? If you write for an audience younger than 10 or for straight men.

THE WORLD NEEDS A LIL ROMANCE BECAUSE REALITY SUCKS

4) A clearly defined protagonist and antagonist. Source: Numerous agent blogs. People like good vs. evil. When can you break this? When you are George R.R. Martin.

5) Include hot men. Source: Nearly every book in print. Women and gay men like their men smokin' hot with six pac abs and forever stuck in that senior in high school period of time.  When can you break this? Only if you write for straight men (good luck finding that audience).

If we dream of perfection...why the hell not write about it too, right? Here's to you Stephenie Meyer! "Perfect" does not a
description make but at least you were honest when you said
you dreamed about it.

6) Use great English. Source: Universities and professors who speak of getting published but really have no clue. You have a towering education and can put together great sentences similar to Faulkner and Hemingway. Your command of symbolism is akin to Hawthorne. When can you break this? When you are any level of celebrity even if it is so low that your only claim to fame is impregnating a failed vice-presidential candidate's spawn who defrauds her own charity to pocket an extra $200,000 a year. Those Prada shoes gotta be paid for somehow.

7) Your characters must be white (Caucasian) with blue eyes. Source: Just about every book out there. Seriously, I challenge you to tell me of a debut author that had a traditional publishing contract with a black protagonist. Hitler would be so proud of today's publishing business. Also, despite being a part of the master race and looking sexy, the woman must pine at the ripe old age of 16 at never having been kissed. When can you break this? Only if you submit your manuscript to a small press. Minority issues just screams small press, doesn't it? Because they don't make the $$$$ like the big boys do. The big presses in New York City are all white wash baby. The other exception to this is of course...fame.

8) Provide advice on crafting an amazing novel. SOURCE: Just about everyone. You've gone to school for years, learned from the best professors at University of California, Irvine, Cornell, Stanford, Yale, Harvard...and you name it.  When can you break this? There are two occasions. The first is by starting a blog. This gives you the ability to provide everyone that visits your little slice of internet heaven your own version of writing advice even if you don't have a leg to stand on. The other is by being an agent. You graduated from an Ivy League school or similar institution and needed to pay rent so you went to work for the equivalent of the Wal-Mart of the writing world (think any huge agency). By that virtue alone...you can now tell anyone how to write even if you've never published anything yourself :).

If you have done all 8 things, you are ready to query. Let me know when you are published so I can be your sheeple. I bleat.

Did I miss anything? Happy Hump le Hump Day.