First off, can I just say how sorry I am that you had to go through THIS BOOK all by yourself? No one deserves that kind of pain... and to think you were brave to rehash the entire thing for the greater good. I APPLAUD YOU, my friend. Here, have a Sterek Cookie for your troubles *hands over cookie*. Secondly, I'm done.I thought I could but I made it as far as "Chap. 10 Pg. 124" before my brain literally started screaming for it to end. So... so long and thanks for all the fish!
*chews thoughtfully on cookie* Thanks for this. I like cookies.
Yanno, a lot of people have found this blog since I completed it several months ago. I don't know how or why but I am glad it brought you some amount of pleasure.
And maybe it's just time and distance, but when I think back to the experience of reading this book--like, it's still not GOOD but does it make more or less sense than the stuff we've got in the latest season of TW? I can't answer that because I kiiiiiiinda stopped watching after a few episodes. But from what I've seen on the internet, the backstory that Derek has been given (or hasn't? Maybe it's not really the truth??) sounds even more nonsensical than the events of On Fire.
Anyhoo, that's not to say you can't enjoy it, just like I somehow enjoyed this book (or the act of blogging this book) enough to finish it! This is just to say I don't blame you for quitting because quitting is GREAT when your brain cannot handle anymore of the thing you need to quit. :)
At first I thought this was an excuse to fangirl over the teen wolf novel. HOW I WAS WRONG. This is actually the fairytale all teen wolf fans must remember. So, don't trust strangers, don't break and enter, beware of tv novels, and DON'T BUY ON FIRE. I can now sleep at night knowing I did not fork out money for a book that is only interesting because you have made fun of it! Yay for social media! AND that was a pretty anti-climatic fire, was it not? I have so many questions about THE STUPID FIRE
WHICH anti-climatic fire? The one that Kate set in the flashback that we didn’t even get to see, despite having multiple sections told from her point of view?
Or the one that Not Happy Funtimes Uncle Peter set to…make Scott…do…something?
OR THE FIRE THAT STILES AND DEREK HUDDLED NEXT TO FOR HOURS IN SILENCE WHEN THEY COULD HAVE BEEN CONFESSING THEIR UNDYING FUCKING LOVE THERE WERE A LOT OF STUPID FIRES IN THIS BOOK OKAY
I'm so confused about Teen!Book!Derek, you'd think Holder would at least keep things somewhat logical (about this seemingly most crucial part of the book, the whole flashback about derek's manpain) But we're told Derek is distrustful of humans, he doesn't seem to care for girls, but Kate shows up, this woman in her, late twenties, and suddenly he's forgotten his basic personality? Also Why does the POV change IN the flashbacks!? Why does Kate co-opt them!?
I ask myself these questions late at night. I sit on the rooftop with a half-empty bottle of brandy, take a drag from my clove, look at the starless sky and whisper
Was there actually a point to writing this book, do you think?
The point…
The poooooooint….
Yes I think there was. I think the point was to try and get the Teen Wolf brand in front of the same people who normally frequent the YA bookshelf at Barnes & Noble. That was MTV’s point. Simon and Schuster’s point was to publish a book that would sell at least 7K copies to turn a profit, and I bet they did that, given how few things pop up in Amazon when you type in “mtv teen wolf.”
Maybe that sounds very jaded and sour of me. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Viacom/MTV owns S&S. This may make you sad, but every major publisher is pretty much owned by a global media conglomerate (HarperCollins = NewsCorp/Fox; Simon & Schuster = Viacom/MTV/CBS; Hyperion = Disney/ABC) and synergy is the name of the game. Got a TV personality? Use our publishing arm to give them a book deal. Got a hot book? Pitch the idea to our TV/movie production arm. Keep it in the family. Keep all the profits. Keep the giant, useless machine grinding away until all original ideas are too risky to take on.
we never get a name for danny's exboyfriend from season 1, canonically. i think the actor's name is damon.
You are correct! Danny’s ex was played by Jeff’s assistant, Script Coordinator Damon Jackson. Who…may have 2 characters named after him. What a badass name though. Can we just take a minute and…? Damon Jackson. Jesus. Rob a bank, kid, get that name out there.
HOWEVER. This means that either Nancy Holder was told who was cast as the boyfriend prior to writing this book, or it was just a huge coincidence that she chose the name Damon. And since I refuse to believe in Nancy’s coincidences, this means that even though Nancy Holder knew who was picked to play Damon, she didn’t even bother to tell us what he looked like, never mind flesh out his character!
Thank you for reading! If only I had discovered this blog before I read the book. Anyway, I always got the impression that Kate and Derek had a somewhat lengthier relationship---that Kate earned his trust over time and that's why her betrayal was even more devastating. Youthful naivete, I buy for Derek (first love!) but plain old horniness causes him to forget all the rules? Even Scott knew better than to tell most people what he was, including Allison and her shiny, shiny, hair.
I agree, Anon. Teen!Derek was 10 times more failwolf than Scott ever was. The book says he and Kate have a sexual relationship of only a few weeks, like maximum 3, because when he first meets Kate he says that Wolf Moon is “next month” and he wastes the first week of knowing her not ever speaking to her. I do think a longer relationship would have been more effective and painful but writing that would also be a lot of WORK, so…
I would argue, though, that Derek didn’t believe it was plain ol’ horniness that caused him to sleep with a human. I think book!Derek truly believed he had fallen in love at first sight. Whether there is a difference between that and letting your dick do the thinking, well, that is up for debate.
jackrabbit-lovesong replied to your post: An Incomplete List Entitled What the Fuck Just Happened in the Book On Fire?
I have a question! Maybe I missed that part, but what do you man ‘revenge against the Stilinskis’? Also, brava for reading all that and not puling all your hair out. I wish you many single malts.
Hmmm I don't think I said revenge, but this on the topic of Derek's flashback when he sees the Stilinski family at the hospital and, because of that, decides to return to Kate's house to bone. I wondered why Derek doesn't realize the Stilinski family (whose names he heard!) = Stiles Stilinski, because it's clearly a detailed memory that stays with him (he is recalling it for us in prose from his POV after all). And why, if he DOES realize, he's not giving any indication of that realization, either in his thoughts or in his treatment of Stiles.
Damon actually isn't a new character. He was Danny's date at the prom and then his ex at the gay club. He's never actually named in the show but apparently that is his name... and I completely agree that his presence is for no reason.
Thanks anon! I wondered if Damon was the same boyfriend we see in season 1 at the dance, but I couldn’t remember if we ever got a canon name for Danny’s date. And since Damon is never described physically I could not compare.
An Incomplete List Entitled What the Fuck Just Happened in the Book On Fire?
I'm sure you have a lot of questions. So do I. Before we get to them, let's recap what happened in this book in the quickest, least painful way possible.
The problem with TV tie-ins is that, often, the adventure can't be too exciting. Because the story has to follow canon, and we know what happens in the later part of that canon, only original characters can die or be really hurt, no crucial information can be discovered, there's no character growth, nothing that could stand alone. So I feel for our author, Nancy Holder. Her job isn't easy. She tried to do her best to make things interesting by using The Flashback to fill up a lot of time, but besides a few tidbits about Derek's family and werewolf social structure, we don't get anything out of this story that we couldn't have gleaned from the show.
And yet, despite all the care taken not to rock the canon boat, we still get all these bullshit loose ends. Let's count 'em up:
1. Why did Jackson have to go to that motel? Why didn't the robbers sack the house while he was at the motel? Are we supposed to think they saw Lydia's car at the house that first night and changed the plan to a more complicated one involving keeping Jackson busy in the woods for another 24 hours while they robbed his house? Why did they continue with their plan the next night even though Lydia and Danny's cars were parked in the driveway, clearly indicating that the house wasn't empty? What kind of shitty robbers are these? Why didn't they just rob the house during the day, when Jackson and Lydia would be at school/lacrosse practice? The house is in the middle of nowhere so it's not like neighbors would see them!
2. Why introduce a new character in Damon? What purpose did he serve on their quest to find Jackson? Danny already had a vested interest in finding his missing best friend, so why include this other guy with the flimsy excuse of needing to borrow a CD? Danny also takes care of the robbers by himself; Damon doesn't play lacrosse, I assume, because Danny was the one shooting balls at the robbers. So, why? Just to show that Danny had a boyfriend? Is that...homophobic, a little?
3. What the fuck was the point of Cassie? Was she placed in the woods in an attempt to distract Jackson with sex appeal and then decided at the last minute she didn't want to go through with the plan? Why did she make up the story about living in a car? For pity? Or are they really that bad at being robbers, that they're homeless? Why the red herrings about her being stronger than normal and a "predator?" For KICKS? To take up some word count???
4. Derek picks up a piece of paper with numbers written on it when he's tracking Jackson and keeps it, but we never find out what that's about. Were those the security codes for Jackson's house? Why did Bailey/Hunter have them, when he wasn't part of the crew that was going to the house?
5. Why doesn't Derek connect the Stilinskis that moved him to make the worst decision in his life with the Stilinski he is working with at this very moment? It would have been, you know, INTERESTING to see Derek take out some of his aggression on Stiles without Stiles realizing why Derek holds a personal grudge against him. Or are we supposed to think Derek is already doing this without realizing it?
6. Why does Kate have sex with Derek after confirming he's a werewolf, even prodding him to wolf out so she can murder him right there in her apartment? Wouldn't that be a small hiccup in her plan to kill all the Hales? Surely if she killed Derek before the fire, the Hales would come looking for their boy and Kate would be up shit creek. And why does she freak out and move the fire plans to Friday when she's sure nothing's been discovered? Is she just the worst hunter of all time?
7. Derek finds Kate's ring in the ashes. Did she arrive, see he wasn't there, and leave the ring as a taunting message to let him know she was responsible? How could she have been so sure he would find it and not an investigator? Or did she drop it on accident because she's terrible at her job? Without finding the ring, would Derek have even figured out she was behind the fire, or would he go to her apartment, find her gone, and then figure it out, which I think sounds more tragic and INTERESTING??
8. If only the wolves were denning together in the basement, why were all the humans down there too when Kate set the fire? Surely if she had to round them up and force them down there, that would have tipped off the wolves with their super-hearing and they would have run.
9. If Derek and Laura go to the burger joint every day after school, wouldn't an easier plan to confirm their werewolfism have been to get a job at the burger joint and put the mysterious werewolf castor oil in their food? Seems, like, I dunno, easier than becoming a lifeguard, getting a job at a school that keeps records under your real name, seducing a teenage boy, bringing him back to your place for snacks, and then skipping town and leaving behind a job that you secured under, again, your REAL NAME. Plus what was Kate's backup plan if Derek hadn't immediately been attracted to her? What if Derek had been gay? Didn't Kate do ANY research on him before showing up? Didn't she see how he avoided girls? Why did Kate assume this would work out the way it did?
10. DOES Stiles have rope in his Jeep, though?
11. Why WAS Kate driving by just as Allison was coming out of the woods? For no other reason than a painful run-in with Derek in the book's "resolution" scene?
12. So we don't actually get to see Derek and Scott escape the fire, but I assume they make it out just as the fire trucks arrive, which is why they're both there at the trucks at the end. Derek isn't being looked at by EMT's or anything, and he's probably healed all his wounds, so why is he still there? Is he, like, waiting for a ride home? Wouldn't he just take off as soon as fucking possible? Or is the only reason a painful run-in with Kate?
13. Who the fuck left that arrow in the woods for Jackson to find? Shitty hunters who don't cover their tracks? Allison? Why have Jackson find it at all, why not just have him be drawn by the baby bird's crying?
14. If Derek never actually reveals himself as a werewolf to Kate, and she only confirms his werewolfism by poisoning him, why does he feel guilty about what happened with her? Maybe it's all the fanfic I've read about possible interpretations of their affair, but wouldn't it have been more heartbreaking for Derek to have trusted her with his secret and then seen what a mistake that was? Why pull the punches, Nancy? Twist that Hale knife.
15. What the hell happened to Allison's car keys? Are we really supposed to believe Peter somehow snagged them from her purse without being seen or smelled by Scott? Or did she really just drop them herself, which would be an AMAZING coincidence that she did that just as everything was coming to a head in the woods?
16. Why the fuck was there a ton of mountain ash located in that very strategic spot at the base of the cliff? Did someone PLANT it there? Surely the Hales would not allow such plants to flourish in the wild on their territory, would they? But if someone DID plant it, who? Peter's nurse? And how did they know that Scott would stumble into this weird trap so perfectly?
17. Why does Peter go to Whore Motel? I ASSUME it's not to give Alan Seber a heart attack because 1) how would Peter even find out about Seber's peripheral, unknowing involvement in Kate's plot and 2) if he did know and wanted vengeance, he would have attacked him, not just shown up like, yo. So did Peter go to the motel because he was tracking Jackson? Why? And why stop tracking him once he leaves to go to the woods?
18. So if Scott saw Derek's memories about the day of the fire, did he also see the truth about Derek's affair with Kate? I assume not, since he never reacts to her when she shows up at the end. So what was the point of Scott receiving those memories? Because they sure didn't make book!Scott any more sympathetic to Derek! We don't even get to see his reaction after getting this flashback, everything from that point is in someone else's POV.
19. The Alpha Pack is alluded to (I THINK???) a couple times in the book, most notably in the final lines. But does that imply that the Alphas are just hanging out in Beacon Hills since season 1, waiting for the right time to fuck shit up? Why does Nancy Holder say they are coming for revenge (I assume on Kate and the other hunters) when they don't show up for that vengeance at all? Or are we supposed to think PETER is the one howling, and the "us" he's alluding to is the pack he hopes to form with Scott and Derek? If it is supposed to be Peter howling, it seems a bit premature of him to be planning all this before he can even get some Betas to fall in line! Why would he even be howling about this anyway, when he's in his Happy Fun Times Wolf form???
20. Why do the robbers need to find any footage of their crime on Jackson's nonexistent nanny-cam? If they're worried about their names and faces being identified by police, then why don't they immediately kill Lydia after she's seen their faces and heard their names? They discuss what to do with her after the robbery is complete, as if there's any option!
NONE OF THESE QUESTIONS WILL EVER BE ANSWERED EXCEPT IN FANFICTION.
Do you have any questions for me? Anything I missed or maybe misread? Be gentle, this book made me crazy.
I feel like we've been through a lot together, you and I. Thank you for reading this silly blog about On Fire. If you actually still want to buy the book, here it is at B&N. It's also available on Google Books and Amazon and I'm sure you can borrow a copy from someone who's already read it and thrown it across the room multiple times.
My personal tumblr is here, and you can read my (hopefully better than On Fire) Teen Wolf fanfics here. I'll see you guys around, maybe!
We're with Allison now. She's thinking how odd it is that Aunt Kate happened to be driving by at this crucial moment (are we supposed to think she has something to do with the fire and Peter, or...?) but she doesn't care. They've reached the staging area with the ambulances and fire engines. Allison jumps out of the car and races to Scott's side. Scott is receiving oxygen. Stiles is there and tells Allison Scott's going to be okay. Scott and Allison laugh about how they're totally BUSTED and then make out. Stiles sighs.
POV change! Derek is sitting alone on the back of a fire truck a few yards away, watching all this. He locks eyes with Kate as she ambles over to Allison. Kate winks and says, "Seems like old times, doesn't it, lover?"
Literally, feet away from Allison, Scott, and Stiles. And no one hears this?
I'll just recreate the final lines here.
Derek studied her with the eyes of a predator, and burned with such hatred that he was practically on fire.
ON FIRE? Why, that's the name of this very book!
And somewhere, not too far away, the howl of a wolf echoed in the night. The howl was a promise: There are more of us, bent on payback. And domination. And death.
And we are coming.
That's it! End of book!
One last post and then I will be taking questions. Oh god, and drinking. Heavily.
Glad to know someone else didn't like the book. There are much much better fanfics in the TW world.
AGREED. As a whole, I think most TW fics are more inventive, better thought-out, and have more 3-dimensional characters than On Fire does. There are some really bad fics out there, but at least you don’t pay $6 for them!
If anyone has recs for Pre-Fire, Hale Family, or teen!Derek fics, let me know. Maybe I’ll start a rec list for Those of Us Who Need a Palate Cleanser after Reading this Book? Because I think fics on those subjects excel where this book fails.
We're still with Scott, getting Derek's flashback memories when we should be escaping this inferno!
Okay, so in italics we get a very jumbled version of events the day of the fire when Laura and Derek are told what happened. They arrive at the house and Derek for some reason can feel the residue of the pain and somehow feels all the stuff the victims went through. He is particularly sensitive to how the "little ones" burned. Oh geez.
Laura and Derek stand literally in the ashes of the house, "insane with grief" but not shifting because they're surrounded by police and fire fighters. Someone tells them Uncle Peter will probably die. That...seems like something no one would ever say at this moment ever for any reason???
The flashback ends there, but I'd like to just say: this scene, where Derek and Laura come back to the burned down house, is one we've seen in fanfics again and again. And I was really looking forward to getting a quasi-canonical version of events, because the idea of these two surviving family members coming back to their house is such a powerful one. And I wanted answers: how does Laura inherit their father's Alpha status once he's dead? Who allowed them to return to this scene when the fire was still being put out and the bodies were still being removed? Does this book answer any of that? NO. It's all super vague and rushed, and I get it, they probably didn't want Nancy Holder to get too detailed because they had plans for this scene in later seasons and didn't want to get Jossed. But come on. "Insane with grief?" What does that LOOK like on Derek and Laura? Show meeeeeee.
Sigh.
Scene change. Jackson is in an ambulance with Lydia, who insisted on riding with him to the hospital. Jackson hears over the radio that Cassie died in the explosion. The other thieves have been caught. Jackson doesn't know if the story about his bio dad was all a ruse or what.
Then we're left with this fucking bizarre exchange between Jackson and Lydia:
"You're in big trouble for everything you've done, and there's a small box of punishment in your dresser drawer," Lydia told Jackson. "But you're going to be okay." And even though he was a little confused, he smiled wryly, because her words weren't intended for comfort. They were an order.
What the fucking hell. After both of them are nearly KILLED, Lydia STILL wants him to wear the fucking glow-in-the-dark condoms???
Derek and Scott are still fighting at the bottom of the cliff with fire encroaching. Derek can hear the fire engines approaching. He needs to get them out of there so they don't see Scott wolfed out. He sees some boulders that fell when the cliff crumbled and formulates a plan. But he needs Scott's help to move them.
He shouts at Scott to remember Allison. Then he slaps him across the face. More shouting about Allison. Finally Scott de-wolfs and asks if Allison is okay. Derek is like, sure, whatever, let's move these boulders. They shove a boulder into the mountain ash to create a bridge that they can walk across to safety. Wait, all a wolf has to do to cross a line of mountain ash is to...put something on top of it? What the fuck...?
Derek climbs up first, wolfs out for some reason, and reaches for Scott's hand to pull him up. He accidentally claws Scott's wrist when they do this, which for reasons unknown triggers Scott into seeing Derek's flashback scene. He sees Derek's memory of Laura receiving the news about the fire.
Uh, okay. This is awkward. Why does Scott need to see this? And why claw him now to jumpstart it? Couldn't this have happened in the course of their fight, which seems more likely? Oh, but then ALLISON wouldn't have been the reason Scott was shocked out of his wolfiness, it would have been concern and compassion for Derek which is just NOT GONNA HAPPEN because THIS IS DEREK HALE.
We're still with Stiles, trying to save Scott and now DEREK from dying in a fire!
Stiles tells the 911 operator to send fire trucks. Derek shouts at him not to do this. Stiles just hopes that the pain Scott is enduring will cause him to shift back to human before the firemen get there. Scott and Derek continue to fight.
Scene change! Allison is running through the woods screaming for help. She trips and falls. She senses some evil animal looming over her. It's breathing on her neck. She whispers Scott's name and suddenly the animal seems to move away. Allison opens her eyes and sees the real fucking wolf standing 10 feet away, watching her.
LIKE OKAY I AM GLAD TO SEE SOMEONE ADDRESS THE FACT THAT WE NEVER SEE PETER IN HIS TRUE WOLF FORM LIKE WE SAW LAURA BUT THE IDEA THAT HE SOMEHOW TURNS INTO THIS BENEVOLENT ANIMAL SPIRIT WHEN HE DOES-- ARGGGGH IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE!
Anyway. God. Whatever. Allison's hurt her ankle (ANKLES, MAN) and can't walk so well, so Peter the Happy Times Wolf leads her out of the woods, oh my fuck.
Allison finds a road and flags down a car COINCIDENTALLY driven by her Aunt Kate. Kate asks Allison why the fuck she's in the woods and Allison has, like, no good answers.
Scene change! We're with Jackson again! The van explodes! He makes it to the road and COINCIDENTALLY sees Danny's car.
We're with Derek and Stiles, arguing about how to save Scott from a fire, and Derek has just taken a swing at Stiles!
Stiles pushes Derek away, some rocks give way, and Derek falls over the cliff. LOL. Stiles freaks out.
He watches Derek plummet to the bottom of the cliff, still in human form, and get knocked out very close to the fire. Stiles undergoes an existential crisis.
So many times, Stiles had wished for Derek to up and die. But he hadn't meant for him to really die. Except he had meant for him to really die. Just maybe not in pain, and not in front of Stiles.
Uh okay? Whatever, Stiles is such a little jerk in season one when it comes to making cracks about leaving Derek to die, so I GUESS it fits. But is this--and maybe I am desperately trying to squeeze some happy shippiness out of this clusterfuck of a novel--Nancy Holder trying to tell us this is the MOMENT when Stiles realized he doesn't actually wish Derek any harm? Is this that moment that drives Stiles to save his life, like, a LOT? I dunno, man.
Scott, who is insane with panic at this point, attacks Derek. Stiles yells at him to stop. Just as Scott is about to tear Derek's throat out, Derek comes to and wolfs out. Stiles cheers, then wonders why the hell he's cheering when Derek could hurt Scott.
(Because you loooooove him.)
Scott and Derek fight. At one point, Scott throws himself at Derek. Derek could have moved aside and let him leap into the fire; Stiles KNOWS that. But Derek stands his ground and stops Scott from hurting himself. You're welcome, book!Stiles, you ungrateful twerp. Saved your best friend's stupid life, grumble mumble.
Stiles shouts down a suggestion that Derek just throw Scott up and Stiles will catch him. What!? How does that even--? But Derek is hurt. His jacket and shirt catch fire, so he tears them off. Now both Scott and Derek are fighting bare-chested and I guess Nancy Holder did what she was hired to do!
HALF-NAKED WEREWOLF FIIIIIIIGHT
Stiles screams at Scott to try and remember Allison. Scott shows no sign of hearing. Stiles says screw it and calls 911.
