DayDreamer's Reviews > The Edge of Everything

Like, seriously, this is sooo totally, frigging awesome. There are, like, so many stereotypes jammed into the first 100 pages (did not read past 102) that, like, are totally fetch! Oh, wait, Regina’s telling me to not make fetch happen – it’s not gonna happen. Oh, teens don’t talk like this? Texting and speaking are two different things? Oooohhhhh…..insert shit emoji.

I can understand if “bae” was being used in this teeny-pop drivel, but "dawg"? Really? Okay, here are the stereotypes and painfully flat characters:

The annoying bestfriend:

“And he’s so hot I can’t even,” she [Zoe] said.
“You can’t even?” said Val.
“I can’t even begin to even,” said Zoe. “Ask me about his shoulders. Ask me about his arms. I mean it – pick a body part!”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” said Val. “Just because I think heterosexual sex is gross and immoral doesn’t mean I don’t understand what a hot guy is.”
Zoe laughed. “It’s immoral now, too,” she said.
“Hello, overpopulation! Hello, world poverty!” Val said. “But I’m trying to be open-minded. Say more about the alien.”

Now imagine the shitstorm if that one word was changed to homosexual. Not so funny now, is it, Zoe?

The “other” guy who is a total dumbass (and who acts like a perpetual pothead):

He was a good guy. He was muscly and dimply in a baseball-player kind of way – cute, but not exactly Zoe’s type. Also, he had a tattoo that used to kill the mood whenever he took his shirt off. He’d apparently gone back and forth between Never Stop! and Don’t Ever Stop!, and the tattoo artist had gotten confused and the tat wound up reading, Never Don’t Stop! Dallas, being Dallas, loved it and high-fived the guy on the spot.

Except for the shitty tattoo guy, I hold out hope that this is what would have happened if he had tried to high-five someone who isn't a lamebrain:



Zoe texted him back in Dallas-speak: I’m solid, dawg! Thx for checking. You rock on the reg. (Did I say that right?).

WHY? Why would you create two total morons like this?

The brother who serves no purpose (other than to have the rugrat be in harm’s way so we can see how heroic the main character is):

Zoe wasn’t thrilled to be in charge. It was partly because Jonah was a spaz, though she was not allowed to call him that…

Right. Nice word to refer to your brother, who has ADHD. But I suppose it’s because she tries to be funny on every page, spewing sarcasm and sass, that it somehow makes her jump off the page as a well-rounded, super-interesting, complex character? Err, no.



The best friend mother (who cannot “parent” for the life of her):

Dear Lord, the woman has no parenting skills whatsoever. She treats Zoe like her best friend and ONLY her best friend. Even X has to step in at one point to take the motherly/fatherly/parenting-ly role.

So the police are there, it’s a serious case, and the mum says stuff such as you are pissing me off and “This is totally unacceptable,” she told Baldino. “You’re harassing a girl who’s talking to you of her own free will. You think because I do yoga, I can’t find a lawyer who will kick your ass?”

Aw, did your precious snowflake daughter melt upon police questioning? Aw, diddums. And why the fuck is she talking like a teen?

And we get more adults, in this case a 27-year-old (who will literally always be 27), talking like a teenager:

“Or what?” said Banger. “You gonna hit me? Oh, that’s right: you can’t. Because your job suuucks. Do you even get health care? You obviously don’t get dental.”

Sigh. He’s in a prison cell in hell…at least I think it’s so, but I have no idea now. This is hell to me.

“Bad dream, dude?” he [Banger] said. “Heard you freaking out.” "Dude", you’re 27!

“Jeez,” said Banger. “Way to be a dick.” Way to be a grown-ass man talking like a little prick.

But we do find a character that sees through this bullshit:

Baldino shook his head and said, quietly for once and to no one in particular, “These people are not normal.”



“First of all,” her mother told her, “I would never tell you to shut up, because those are uncool words.”

Please. Please can we have someone acting and speaking like they’re not twelve?

“Stop it, Mom,” said Zoe.
“Do not censor your mother on my account,” said X. “This is her home. She has shown me nothing but kindness.”
“Thank you, X, “said Zoe’s mother.

Do not? Surely, when addressing this princess, you should use “please do not” or “It would be kind of you not to” since her own mother failed to grow a backbone.

And she supposedly tells her mum everything, yet when asked what happened, she strangely misses out the story about the dead people? Witnessing it (albeit not first-hand) really has not affected her in the slightest? The girl may as well team up with Stan the Man and go on an epic hunting spree. Speaking of…

Mwahhaha killer; AKA Stan the Man:
Yes, a middle-aged man also talks like a prepubescent boy. He calls himself Stan the Man!

He talks like this: “I came here lookin’ for money, but apparently I gotta kick a little doggy ass first.” And no, he really isn’t speaking on the phone to a girl from babestation. He also says motherfreakin’…A middle age man says this? He had no problem using “shit” numerous times – mostly with “chickenshit.”

It’s also important to know that he ran over a dog that didn’t die. Zoe didn't die either, even though she sweated profusely in the blistering cold and started to go crazy. Neither did the little boy who lay unconscious in the snow.

“Hey there, little guy, I’m Stan the Man,” he said.

And then, as if this guy doesn’t sound crazy enough, what does this dumb bitch do? She shouts: “DO NOT TALK TO MY BROTHER, YOU PSYCHOTIC DICK!” Ah, yes. Just scream at the guy and hope he doesn’t kill you right there and then, you little twerp.

And she gets even dumber.

Zoe couldn’t help it; she took a photo to put on Instagram later.



1) Why take a photo of a magical man on a lake, especially doing crazy shit which you’d have to explain later?
2) You say you were going to put it on Insta later. It is never mentioned that you did upload it – and why would you? What on earth was spiralling around that chicken-shit brain of yours?
3) The police officer just happens to have a daughter a year older/younger than you. And, because the stereotype is that police sit around eating donuts all day, he has time to stalk (or follow – which is worse) his daughter on Insta to find that she just happened to comment on the picture of the "superhot" guy. And what did she comment? YASSSS.

So, Zoe witnessed a killing of a couple and everything is hunky-dory after that. No mental scars. No, shit, that image, those screams, damn…Nope. Just pretty much an “I don’t give a shit about those irrelevant characters.” They served no purpose other than to make Stan the Man look like a bad person; he isn’t. He didn’t even try to kill Zoe, her brother, her mother, and all the other punch-worthy characters.

Because the story has a hero-complex. There are many references to heroes in the first 100 pages.

Stan the Man really is the man. He says what we’re thinking:

Zoe heard Stan’s voice spreading like dye in her brain: “You barely knew who he was. And then he died in some goddamn cave? And nobody even bothered to go get his body? What the hell kind of people are you?”

THANK YOU, Stan! And dead bodies have been retrieved in some very difficult places, so why did the police not bother getting the body out? Gets in the way of the plot? I assume there is a reason as to why they did not want to retrieve the body, other than the "too dangerous" excuse, but still. Everyone goes shouting out to the papers now. They could have easily gotten other people involved. Plus they give up too easily and bleat, It’s a filter, it must be a filter, there really can’t be anything more sinister going on here even though I’m well aware that two people have died and the main lead to this case is a suspicious-looking brat...

By the way, get used to seeing similes everywhere!

The “romance”:

It happens all in the first 100 pages. They even admit that they trust each other. Here are some quotes:

Why wasn’t X chasing him, Zoe wondered. Why was he doing what she wanted? Why would he care what she wanted?

Err, I dunno. Beats me. You have a vagina? He’s a straight man. Boom. I now pronounce you Lustful X and Lustful Y. You may continue piling on the cheese.



“Who are you? What are you?” said Zoe, after an agonizing silence. She paused, and laughed to herself. “Do you skateboard?”

Hargh. Hargh. Hargh. We’re all laughing here, I promise.



Her excuse is “Sorry, I have a blurting problem.” Oh fuck off already.

And then right after:

“Zoe,” said X, wondering if had the energy to speak the words swarming in his head. You must abandon me. I am not like you. You have seen what I am capable of – and creatures even more dangerous will come after me soon. They will demand that I recapture [name], and they will destroy anyone whose shadow falls across their path. Zoe, truly, I can offer you nothing but peril.”

DUN, DUN, DUUUUUUNNNN! Where have we read this before?



“Are you bailing on us?” she [Zoe] said.
“Bailing?” said X.
“Leaving. Are you leaving?”
“No, I assure you I am not.”
Zoe seemed not to believe him.
“Because enough people have left us already,” she said. “And Jonah likes you.”

What? None of you know anything about this guy! I can understand the kid liking him, but come on!

“I told you because I trust you.”
“And I you,” said X. “Yet still I stand here, dumb as a stump.”

A match made in Heaven, then!

After they nurse him back to health, they write questions on bits of paper, put them in a hat, and make him pluck them out and answer them. Yeah…or you could, you know, just ask him the question? Which they have to do anyway, since he can’t read…

Every single character in this book talks and acts like a stereotypical teen. Even this Rufus guy, who's some other adult, says “Carving ice is epic, man” he said. “It’s a rad, rad journey.”

She also calls her dog “girlfriend” which I’m a little worried about...

So yeah, unrealistic dialogue. Flat characters. Dodgy villain(s). Boring romance. Utterly devoid of any complexity…Shocking.