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Onision's Book is an Abomination Against God
1/28/25
I have a burning desire to hold opinions on things that are none of my business. I also love unintentional comedy, I love stories that are so unaware of how bad they are, that they’re quite good. This blog post started as an experiment. The plan was to read the lowest-rated book in my library and then read the highest-rated book to see how they compare. The lowest-rated book in my library happens to be Stones to Abbigale by Onision, with an average of 1.87 stars on Goodreads, which is concerning. Goodreads tends to be very forgiving with reviews, if you can find anything below 3.50, you’re in for a wild ride. After reading this novel and compiling my notes, I realized that this novel is so grotesque, so insulting, that it deserves its own post entirely.
Onision is a disgraced YouTuber who has been accused of s*xual ass*ult. Among the countless videos about him on YouTube, there are plenty that discuss his lackluster books. Curiosity ebbing in my heart, I bought a used copy on eBay and waited eagerly for the novel to arrive. I was worried I’d be biased while reading the book, being aware of how other people feel about it and Onision’s past, but oh boy, I didn’t think about Onision once while reading it. The book completely immersed me. Not because it was good, but because it was so terrible I couldn’t focus on anything else.
This novel is 180 pages and normally I could knock that out in an evening, but I had to pause often to regain my composure and wait for the growing migraine to dull before diving back in. On BookTube it’s easy to find reviews of readers claiming to have found the worst book, but they’re all wrong. Stones to Abbigale is the worst novel. Ever. It contains immature, inauthentic, pretentious writing, filled to the brim with spelling errors, characters that make no sense, and senseless tragedies that are used to make the novel feel edgy and deep.
This post contains spoilers, (trust me, please don’t read this book) and trigger warnings for s*xual ass*ult, school sh*otings, m*scarriages, ab*se, self-h*rm, s*icide, and death, though I talk about none of these things in detail.
Stones to Abbigale follows James, a high school student who falls in love with his classmate, Abbi. There is no standard plot to the story; it’s less of a novel and more of a random series of events that happen to these two teens.
The other characters include Ms. Robertson, Jason, Davis, James’s Mom, Seth, and Barack Obama. There are more characters but they don’t matter.
Actually, none of the characters matter. In most novels, the author takes time for the reader to develop a connection to the characters, that way the reader will care about the story and continue to read it. In this novel, I was divorced from James and Abbi. There are scenes in this book where you should be worried about their safety and I felt nothing. There were even points where I was rooting for them to die, and these characters aren’t written to be unlikeable, they just are. Onision meant for the reader to sympathize with these characters.
We’re chronically told how smart, funny, and kind-hearted James is, but we’re never shown that. James’s inner dialogue reads like an alien’s memoir and his two personality traits are being ‘observant’ and being obsessed with Abbi. As James parades through the story, everyone is chronically kissing his ass, including the president of the United States.
Abbi doesn’t have a personality beyond having a cartoonishly tragic past and having the hots for James.
Ms. Robertson is the guidance counselor at the school and she does not behave like a human being. She’s framed as being a crazy religious Karen who has a personal beef with Abbi because Abbi was s*xually ass*ulted and when she didn’t want to keep the baby, Ms. Robertson lost her shit. Okay, that’s believable, there are tons of pro-life asshats out in the world, but Ms. Robertson loathes Abbi to the point it seems like she knows something about her that we don’t. This could've been an interesting subplot, but it was not handled well at all and came off as unbelievable. Ms. Robertson’s crimes against humanity include screaming at children in public, changing James’s class schedule so he can spend more time with Abbi, and framing innocent children for crimes they didn’t commit.
Davis is James’s ‘best friend.’ I use that term loosely because as soon as James starts dating Abbi he seemingly forgets about Davis. But Davis does not forget about him. Davis is in love with James. This is unconfirmed, but Davis goes on and on about how much he loves his buddy! Platonically, of course! At one point, Davis becomes withdrawn when James starts dating Abbi and even asks James if he ever thinks about anyone else in a romantic way. This would be an interesting subplot but it is never explored and it is never confirmed that Davis has romantic feelings for James, though it is quite obvious. Davis seems to love James a little too much… Davis’s crimes against humanity include talking like a mentally ill eight-year-old and having no interests outside of James.
James’s Mom is a cardboard cut-out who does whatever is convenient for James, which I’ll talk more about later.
Seth is Abbi’s boyfriend, who she eventually leaves to be with James. Seth is ab*sive and cartoonishly evil.
Jason switches back and forth from being a meathead bully who s*xually ass*ults classmates, to a brain-dead himbo.
Barack Obama makes a brief appearance to congratulate James on being a good person. He is never referred to as Barack Obama, just ‘the President,’ but since this book was published in 2015, this officially means that Obama made an appearance in this story. He visits James’s school shortly after a sh*oting took place there and took the individual time to speak with every class. When visiting James’s class, he knows exactly who James is, because James is the main character.
“James Patrick, the boy who nearly saved the day.” - Barack Obama
By the way, James did nothing during the sh*oting except roller skate through the school searching for Abbi. That was all he did.
The authenticity and realism of this novel were a big reason why I couldn’t empathize with these characters. This book is written how Onision believes teenagers think, but the entire novel feels unrealistic and inauthentic. Nobody talks in a normal way, nobody thinks normally. This book felt like it was written by an alien who doesn’t understand human nuances or emotions. At one point there is a school sh*oting and the only observation that James has about the incident is that his classmates are staticistly higher to experience depression or s*icide.
“[The survivors are] all now subjected to a heightened risk for depression and, statistically, even s*icide.” - James
The most egregious example of the characters behaving unrealistically is when James’s Mom invites Abbi to move in with them after her father is arrested and allows her teenage son and his girlfriend to sleep in the same bed and share the same room. Later on, James’s Mom gets remarried and moves in with her husband, leaving James and Abbi alone in the house to finish out the school year on their own with no adult supervision.
The entire novel is filled with sentences that are empty and devoid of meaning, sentences that are meant to be deep and hard-hitting. This book is like a novelization of all the r/im14andthisisdeep posts.
“Make up is just make up, skin is just skin, it is what it is.” - James
I can’t forgive this book for its sloppy, ham-fisted use of very serious issues. This book includes s*xual ass*ult, s*icide, self-h*rm, ab*se, a school sh*oting, and a m*scarriage, and absolutely none of those things added to the story. The school sh*oting is conducted by Seth shortly after Abbi breaks up with him, and it is an event that is used as a dramatic garnish right in the middle of the story and none of the main characters die or get hurt, so it doesn’t matter. The other terrible events are just a randomized list of occurrences that Abbi experienced in the past, horrible things that she often laments about so James can fix her. Words can’t describe how angry I was when it was revealed that Abbi was SA’d.
This book has nothing to say about any of these serious issues. It is ill-prepared for it, and it doesn’t even try. To lazily shoot out incidents that have nothing to do with the story so that the writer can feel deep and smart is something that I cannot take. How dare this writer use such a terrible thing as a random occurrence to make us feel bad for these unlikable childish characters. I’m not against any of these topics being written about, but when you, as a writer, introduce them into your novel, you have a responsibility to the people who suffered through these things to write about it seriously and realistically and not treat it as a joke. Onision should’ve just written “fuck SA survivors,” on his online forum and left it at that. Instead, we get this shit.
This entire novel reeks of arrogance. This novel has so many spelling errors. If I’m to believe what Amazon tells me, Onision’s partner, Kai, edited this novel, and boy, did they do a bad job. The writing style is borderline unreadable. There were so many spelling errors and the language was stilted. Just one pass through a spell check system is all it would take. Onision has fans who offered to edit it for free, and he refused. Why? Because he’s arrogant. He believes the novel doesn’t need a second or third draft, he believes it’s fine the way it is and if we can’t see that, then we just can’t appreciate true art!
James is a self-insert character for Onision. It is obvious through the way everyone treats James and his heavy plot armor, not to mention the fact that Onision’s real name is Gregory James Daniel. In the description of the book, Onision writes, “James is essentially a better version of myself. His home, his school & his life all resemble my own at his age. The people James analyzes and is surrounded by are not so unlike those I’ve known as well. I have experienced much of the loss James has however his happier moments are more often than not also mine. I want to share my story without it being purely non-fiction.”
I hope that droning, moronic sentence gives you a glimpse into what it was like to read this book. By the way, any spelling errors you see in the quotes are Onision’s and his alone.
If this is a fictionalized retelling of actual events, then what parts of this are real, then? If this novel was a way for Onision to tell his story without the confines of reality, then what percentage of this actually happened? Did Onision meet Obama? Are they still bros? Did Onision’s mother give him an apartment when he was a junior in high school? Did Onision survive a school sh*oting? From what I can find, Gregory James Daniel or James Jackson, has never survived a school sh*oting. What about this novel was real? What parts of this novel actually happened? None. None of this happened. Onision romanticized his childhood and added some random bullshit drama and violence to juice it up. The end.
On top of everything else, this book has the audacity to be pretentious. Some people can do pretention well, like Quentin Tarantino, or Christopher Nolan. Gregory James Daniel has not earned the right to be pretentious. If you’re going to be pretentious, at least give me a good story, but Onision can’t do that because he’s too arrogant to accept feedback or criticism.
The only saving grace of this story is that it can be funny sometimes. Not funny in the way it was intended, but funny nonetheless. Around 2/3 into the story, James, Abbi, and Davis are driving and witness a man jump off an overpass. Davis rushes out of the car, which is still moving, by the way, and attempts to help the man, who is clearly dead, and gets hit by a car and fucking dies. This all happens within two pages, and I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. It was so unexpected, completely out of left field, and so fucking stupid.
So after this, we get a chapter of James blaming himself, even though he didn’t do anything, Davis’s mom praising James for being a good friend, and James pushing the pain away by smashing his girlfriend.
“[Abbi] was all I had left.” - James
Yeah, fuck your mom and your sister, I guess.
So, how does the story end? Someone blows up the school. That’s it. The school is blown up and the last line of the story is, “Well, I guess I won’t be running for [class] president.”
Whoa… what a story. I bought this book on eBay for five dollars, but if I had paid full price, it would’ve been ten. Ten dollars. That was how much I made per hour at my last job. That means that one hour of labor is equal to this torture nexus. God fucking damn it…
If you’re curious about the details of this book, watch one of the countless YouTube videos made about it instead of reading it. I recommend the one by @strange-aeons, which was how I found out about this goddamn monstrosity in the first place.
I gave this story 1 star on Goodreads and 0 stars on Storygraph because Storygraph is a superior app. When looking at other reviews on Goodreads and Storygraph, it seems all the positive reviews are either people trying to give Onision the benefit of the doubt or people who are being sarcastic.
Overall, this book is similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower if it was co-written by a fourteen-year-old and a mentally ill incel and published on Temu.
Final grade: BAD
Rick Stepp (irresponsibleink@gmail.com)
@davidhasselhoff demonstrates swag in California. One for the west coast !!!
GUYS, please read Choujin X! It's super good and I really don't understand why some people hate it
Tiny book review. Shadow And Bone (Leigh Bardugo).
Finished Shadow And Bone in one day. Ordered the rest of the trilogy + first Six Of Crows secondhand. Netflix defenetly spoiled me, but there was also a good thing about watching part of the story before reading it. I could imagine the characters more diverse than they were described in the book. I am a little confused about why there were almost no describtion about the way people looked. It would be such a cool thing to imagine the different cultural clothes, what the different ethnicities looked like ect.. I mean sure, I can imagine for myself how someone from the Shu Han place would look like (I personally think about the Tatar-Mongols because of their closeness to Zar Rus) but it would be great to see more details of their special things like acessories, ways to sit, gestures, foods, anything. In Shadow And Bone we know nothing about the Fjerdians Alina met except of all of them having beards xD and we know literally nothing about the third nation (there were Ravkans (Rus based), Fjerdians (Nordic folx), Shu Han (mongol based) and the other one which sounded German or Dutch but had no describtion whatsoever so I did not even remember their name)… that’s a shame. But I hope more will come in the next books. In addition to that it was a little confusing for me as someone who speaks Russian to see the choice of words for some things. And sure, they don’t SPEAK Russian, but it’s still strange to see an infinitive verb used as a subject, it just takes away something serious from the dialogue for me… but I guess it’s a me-thing, because folx who don’t speak Russian probably enjoyed every minutes of it (and I am very happy for them!)
I do admit, that the book inspired me to pick up the worldbuilding process after I am finished with my last theater science paper.
I love how 1 star book reviews are either like a whole analysis of the book and how the plot is bad and the characters are unrealistic and how the author is problematic etc or just "this book sucked lol"
Book Review - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1/20)
Blurb: Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.
I LOVE THIS BOOK! This is my first Jane Austen and I was quite nervous about it when I started, thinking the language would be too antiquated and difficult. I was wrong. I loved the character of Elizabeth, and the pure escapism of regency England - mainly inspired by my love of the new Netflix show Bridgerton.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody who wants to get into classics a bit more, or anyone who loves the show Bridgerton. I will definitely be reading more Jane Austen in the future!
5/5
The Great Goodreads Diss List (Part 1)
Context: For many years now, I have been collecting funny lines from Goodreads reviews to share with my coworkers. (I do collection development, reader's advisory, and weeding at a public library, so I read a LOT of reviews)
Are some of these, perhaps, rather mean? Yes, but they are also very funny, and come from a place of honest frustration. In the tradition of Bargepole threads and lists everywhere, names and titles have been censored.
"First, I want to say that I understand how hard it is to write a book and how amazing it is when it is actually published. Congrats to the author for that accomplishment. That said--"
"Warning: This review will be lengthy due to pure hatred."
"I found myself feeling really, really annoyed with the world that this book is allowed to exist. We live in a universe where the passenger pigeon is extinct but this book goes along merrily being read by unsuspecting lovers of words and ideas and stories? It just seems like too much, you know?"
"Don't do it. Don't spring the cash for the hardcover. Instead, eat an entire bag of Twizzlers, spend some money you don't have at a high-end department store, look up on Facebook the shady college boyfriend that made you cry, research the current value of your home or 401K and then read all about how the big hedge fund managers are faring during the economic crisis. You'll feel about the same stomach pain if you waste your time reading this book."
"This wretched novel begins with the mugging of an old lady and it appears I may be in the process of repeating that loathsome crime as [author] was 78 when she wrote it. It is not nice to put the boot into such a poor defenseless old creature lying there with only a damehood, a Booker Prize and a few million quid. It’s a nasty job but somebody has to do it."
"I think this is the way dead people would write, if they could."
"I am considering setting up SPABB: Society for the Protection of Accurate Book Blurb. This blurb appears to have been written by someone from the publishers who met [the author] the night before, got very drunk, lost his notes and then constructed something in a fug of hangover the next morning."
"I congratulate [the author] on the early half of his book, which was thoroughly fun and made me laugh and think. I congratulate [the author] on the second half of his book, for finishing it. It reads like that was difficult."
"…a woman whose taste in contemporary literature has roughly the same batting average as a pitcher in the National League."
"The author is a pompous windbag."
"Recommends it for: No one. Recommended to me by: A friend who apparently wished to cause me great suffering."
"Makes me wonder: is it possible to obtain similes at a volume discount?"
"The repeated phrases made me want to mail a thesaurus to the author."
"I'm disappointed in myself for finishing this book."
"if the author described [character's] eyes as "obsidian" one more time I was tempted to write her and ask if her thesaurus broke."
"They say that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters would, if given infinite time, eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. [This book], on the other hand, would probably take the average monkey just under two hours."
"I can't imagine what the author had to do to get this nadir of Western literature printed on innocent trees, but he does seem to know a LOT about being well-connected in New York."
"This book is so bad it is almost worth reading just to make you appreciate the other books you are reading."
"Reads like it was written by a brilliant author, the night before it was due."
"raises interesting questions, like: can a book be so bad as to constitute an act of terrorism"
"has this author ever spoken to a human woman"
"This acorn has fallen so far from the tree that it can’t even see the forest."
"I’m guessing they are touted as ‘beach reads’ because no one will care if they get dropped into the ocean."
"This book begins with all the energy of a hand vacuum near the end of its battery life, and the pace doesn't quicken much from there."
"At least everybody’s eyes stayed the same color this time around.”
Part 2
Part 3
2020 Reading Challenge
I have read 5 of 10 books for the 2020 Reading Challenge! What should I read next? http://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/21334848
Welcome all!
Who the hell am I?!
My name is Lydia! Feel free to make up/use any nickname for me :-]
Pronouns she/her
I'm 18 years old
First generation immigrant
Avid New York Times games fan
Very new to Tumblr
Media consumer
Former theater kid....
Enjoyer of weird girl interests!
What weird girl interests you may ask...
Films:
Okja (2017)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Bones and All (2022)
The Exorcist (1973)
Beautiful Boy (2018)
My Letterboxd
Series:
Fleabag
Russian Doll
Adventure Time
Music:
Elliott Smith
Lorde
The Front Bottoms
My Chemical Romance
My Stats.fm and Spotify
Phoebe Bridgers
Literature:
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman
A Thousand Spledid Suns by Khaled Hossieni
I need to read more :'-[
My Goodreads
Tags:
#thrownoutbarbie 🖋️ - original posts
My messages are always open!!! Feel free to say hello, I'm always looking for new friends :-D
July Wrap-Up
Hey y'all, it's been a while hasn't it? To be honest, I planned on posing a June Wrap-up + July TBR but by the time I got around to doing it, it was halfway through June and It felt wrong. This month I plan on doing better with posting now that I have settled into the rhythm of my life.
July was a great reading month for me. By the end of June I had caught up with my reading goal, and this month I've been consistently about 1 book ahead (BTW follow me on Goodreads!)
In total, I read 5 books this month, which isn't as many as other people but I am rather proud of the progress I made as well as the quality of the books I managed to read this month. The reads this month definitely lead up to an exciting August TBR. Without further ado, let's get into it.
To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
I read The Summer I Turned Pretty in the later weeks of June and while it certainly wasn't the greatest work of literature, it was a fun read. After scrolling through some reviews and watching videos about those who read romance/contemporary books more than I, I heard that this was the preferred Jenny Han book series. I have to say that I agree. While this book DEFINITELY read like an older YA romance novel, it was thoroughly entertaining. I think both Josh and Peter were thoroughly boring as love interests. They were just so regular. It was still entertaining to read and I had a fun time.
Rating: 3.5/5
Where The Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens
After seeing the trailers for the movie that came out in Mid-July I thought to myself "Ah crap, now I have to read it." I remember when this book came out and my local library deemed it a book club read. I don't know about y'all's local library, but mine tends to pick not great reads for their book club. So needless to say, My expectations were kind of low but holy crap I absolutely love this book. Not only was the writing absolutely gorgeous, but I was actually rooting for Kya and the twist I did not see coming. I had theories about it and my theory could not have been farther from what actually happened. However, now I don't want to see the movie anymore because I don't think it will live up to how I feel about the book. It came full circle and I probably won't see the movie until it becomes available on Amazon prime or something.
Rating: 5/5
Hot Under His Collar By Andie J. Christopher
I saw this while scrolling through my library and internally "This looks awful, it's going in the pile." I burned through this book in about 2 days and while it entertained me it was...not good. It was fun to read, the plot was entertaining and I don't think I've seen this kind of priest/church member romance in mainstream media (not including those odd Amish romances your mom reads) besides the show Fleabag. The characters didn't feel like they had a lot of chemistry but it ended up on my "trash in a good way" shelf on Goodreads because of how entertaining it was to me.
Rating: 2/5
The Grace Year by Kim Ligget
I technically started reading this book in mid-June through the audiobook which I checked out through Libby but I returned It because I just wasn't listening to it enough. I ended up re-checking it out later in July and finally finishing it. My first comment on this book is that this isn't a great YA novel. There were very graphic descriptions of violence and gore. I am not complaining but I think that Kim Ligget would have made this an EXCELLENT adult novel. Beyond that, I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Tierney was kind of annoying to listen to (or maybe that was just the audiobook narrator) yet I still managed to root for her. I wish more of the social dynamics would have been explored and maybe some better explanations of the history of this society. The twist came out of nowhere and didn't make much sense and the ending left me guessing what happened (and not in a good way). I'm sure the author did that intentionally, but it just didn't work for me.
Rating: 3.5/5
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
Technically, I finished this book just as August 1st rolled into the year but I'm still counting it as a July read. I picked this up randomly and I guess that I need to do that with books more because I absolutely adored this book. I'm not usually a thriller reader and especially not a YA thriller reader. I absolutely loved Pippa and this book kept me entertained from start to finish. In other thrillers that I have read, the first 1/3 of the novel tends to provide background information and character development/info dumping. This novel added leads, new theories and it kept me intrigued in the story. I had a few theories thanks to the plethora of details the reader gets yet I couldn't have guessed the twists, yes plural. In the last 50 pages, there was this massive twist and I thought, oh that is kind of underwhelming but then another twist came right after practically slapping me in the face. Do you know that meme of Sheldon Cooper where he says "I don't need sleep, I need answers"? that was me for the last 100 pages of this book and I can't wait to read the rest of the series (although I'm not sure how it is a series).
Rating: 5/5
Edit: It was so late I forgot to sign off...
I'm so glad that July was such a great reading month for me. After the reading month that was June, I am glad that I actually enjoyed (most) of the books that I read this month. August TBR coming later this week, originally planned to put it in this post but I'd like to go to bed. Thanks for sticking with me even though I didn't post for a month or so, you mean the world to me.
Much Love,
June <3
Oh my god... this is sooo beautifully written... i cried😭😭
POV
Imagine as you lay across his lap, he breathes hums of your favorite song that he memorized just for you.
Imagine as your vision blurs because he’s such a pretty sight to fall asleep to.
Imagine as a warm smile spreads across your face and you whisper your love to him because he has to know.
You don’t know why the urgency of your feelings is there but the warmth of his hand sweeping your hair across your cheek is enough to halt any thoughts.
Imagine as his eyes grow teary because he loves you so deeply and he cannot picture life without you.
Imagine as he places a shiny ring on your finger because he never plans on leaving your side.
Imagine as you smile warmly up at him and whisper ‘yes’ before you fall asleep to his gentle humming.
Imagine being in love.
Now imagine his point of view.
Imagine as he cradles your head with gentle hands like he’s carrying glass.
Imagine him trying to steady his breathes long enough to hum your song because you look so confused and he just wants to settle your mind.
Imagine he watches your eyes glaze over and his body strains to hold his weight and your own without breaking.
Imagine him glancing away to wipe his tears because your smile is slowly tearing him apart and you whispering your love is the same as whispering goodbye.
Imagine his eyes growing teary because you’re getting colder and colder and he can’t do anything to stop the slowing of your heart.
Imagine him placing a shaky hand on your cheek to ground himself and hold you one last time.
Imagine as he slides a ring onto your finger, the ring he was supposed to propose with tonight at your birthday, the ring that promises you’ll be with each other until the end.
Imagine as sobs heave through him and he struggles to continue humming your song as you whisper ‘yes’, because he finally has his answer but this isn’t how he wanted it.
Imagine as his scream rips through the air when your eyes close.
Imagine being in love until death do you part.
Imagine breaking his heart.