Stones to Abbigale by Greg Jackson AKA Onision: a review

I want to start this by saying thank you to my flatmates who sat and listened to me reading this book. I definitely couldn’t have read this book on my own. I think I would have gone mad. So, guys, if you’re reading this, thank you, and sorry. I read this book because YouTuber Teya, known as StrangeAeons did a review on her channel, and I thought it would be funny to read it for myself. I bought this book. I paid £1.99 for it. I have since got a refund because I think that’s what I deserve. This is also going to be a long one, because I feel like I can’t just do a short review on this. I need to really get a feel of what I went through with this. The one thing I’ll give this book is that it’s memorable, but absolutely not in a positive way.

            Stones to Abbigale by Greg Jackson (AKA Onision) is something I can only loosely call a book. I’ll try to give you a plot here but there isn’t exactly one to follow. So, the book follows James, a 17-year-old high-schooler attending Lakewood High. He spends his time creepily observing his fellow students and really seems to think that this makes him something more than them. The way he judges them seems robotic or like a lizard person trying to learn how human beings are supposed to work. This robot/lizard person continues to show himself throughout the book. If I ever call this thing a novel, forgive me. It is not worthy of that title. Here’s a brief insight into James’ lizard person persona (also I have not edited any of the grammar. This is exactly what is on the page):

For as long as I remember I’ve enjoyed seeing how people move around and talk to each other, like they’re all animals at the zoo. I would try to deliver a more accurate analogy if I felt there was one […] Sometimes I felt like an alien who had a VIP pass to submerge myself in primitive human culture just for entertainment.

I think we all knew this person in secondary school. They were edgy for the sake of it, and thought they were amazing because they weren’t one of the “regular” or “cool” kids. I can’t say I was entirely exempt from this, and maybe that’s why I find this so cringe-worthy, however, Onision was around about 30 when he wrote this. I was about 13, and therefore was still lacking any sort of emotional maturity. I am aware that the character is much younger, but he’s 17. By that age you should not be thinking like this, and it is not a way to make your character seem likeable at all. You also don’t find out that James is 17 until much later, and until that point I thought he was 13/14 because that’s how he came across.

            Our exploration into his lizard brain is in his first class, which is history. Though the book opens in his bedroom, it isn’t entirely note-worthy. He’d arrived late to his history class. Now, I’m not American, and therefore have no clue about their school system. However, after asking around, I found that a few places have classes for an hour and a half, and I thought they were about an hour. This guy showed up to class with only 15 minutes left in class. Why would you even go to class at that point? He’s missed more than half the lesson. The class would be wrapping up at that point. Maybe that’s just my take on that though. I thought that maybe if classes were very short, and only about 30 minutes, that would be fine. Classes would never be that short, though. I suppose this is just another one of those things that annoys me in this book, and I’ve focused on it far too much. Unsurprisingly, this scene ends rather quickly. The teacher, Mr. Hanson, had asked to see James after class, but James simply states that he’ll be late for his next class, and puts his late note on the teacher’s desk.

            On his way to class he sees some jocks fighting and we get this gem of a line “as the sounds of flesh collided fist to cheek & chest quickly followed the howls from the surrounding students.” I couldn’t actually read that line. I felt my brain physically hurt, and had to get my flatmate to read it. He struggled too. This kind of aneurysm causing grammar makes its way into the book more times than I wish to admit. I made my flatmate read anything that I couldn’t. If he’s reading this, sorry. You deserve better.

            The class he goes to is art class. Throughout the book it appears that he only actually has two classes in total. You never hear about any other classes than these, and I really can’t imagine that this is in any way accurate. The art class is in a trailer outside the building from when renovation work was being done. This will become relevant later when we get one of the most ridiculous lines of the book. We’ll get to that later though. As he walks in, he sees the titular character, known as Abbi. We never find out how long they’ve been in school together, but he says that he’s always been somewhat infatuated by her. He sits in his seat just in front of her. He says “eeew” after touching gum and she looks up at him completely blank, and I can’t help but find this ridiculously funny. I know Onision probably didn’t mean for it to be funny, but her being completely stone-faced is far too funny. A bunch of jocks burst in. In this bunch are Jason and Alex. Jason is the most generic jock you’ve ever seen in your life. The only thing of note about Alex is that he once pissed in a jar under his desk. Mrs. Stanley, the art teacher, says that they’ll be working in partners for their next project, and Abbi says that she doesn’t want to work with Jason, and that she does want to work with James. Of course, James is ridiculously excited just because she uttered his bloody name. The project is bad. The students have to take something meaningful that they own and piece it together with their partner’s meaningful item. To me, that sounds wild, but I’m not going too far into this. It isn’t that important. You just need to know that James and Abbi pick stuffed toys to stitch together. This teacher, along with every other supposed professional in this book, has no clue how to be a proper teacher. Jason and Alex complain about not having the proper materials that they are able to just bring in off-hand. I think that this is absolutely fair, because not everyone can just cut up some personal item just for an art project. Mrs Stanley does not appear to realise that she is in a professional environment (once again, I am not editing. The formatting is just this bad):

“That’s fine Jason. We’ll supply you with a toilet paper rolls, we have plenty of extras around here.” Jason suddenly looked disturbed and sarcastically spouted “Freaking great!” Mrs. Stanley asked, “Are you sure? Your grade shouldn’t suffer that much if you two just take Alex’s piss jar and tape it to a toilet paper roll. You’re already failing this class.”

In what world would any of this happen? The entire class would inevitably feel uncomfortable about this, especially Alex. I am aware that Alex was gross, but I’m sure all of that has already faced repercussions for what he did. Maybe this could be funny if every other member of staff at this school seemed more professional, but they’re all like she is. The rest of the class isn’t really much, but Abbi leaves James a note at the end that says “NISEONE” that he later figures out to be her number.

            He gets the bus home, and sees Davis, who I can’t help but feel sorry for. He’s not entirely likeable, but his heart is in the right place. He’s very excessive in his love for James, and that’s all of his personality.

            He gets home and has a robotic conversation with his mother about school and it seems like it’s all just a lead up to him slut-shaming his sister. After dinner, he figures out that the note was Abbi’s number and they have a conversation about very little. I’m not dissecting everything, because this review is already going to be incredibly long.

            The next day he has history class, and afterwards he has to speak to Mr Hanson. It’s about a TA opportunity. James decides not to do it, just because it means that he’ll be in a different art class, and that’s his only class with Abbi. Despite them having only spoken twice, this is, of course, the worst thing to have ever happened.

            That night, he hopes to phone Abbi, or get a phone call from her. His sister is using the phone, though, so he can’t use it. This is one of those signs that this book is based on stories from Onision when he was 17. He throws in that James’ mum won’t get him a cell phone, but that feels like something to cover his bases. This section of the book is also another opportunity to slut-shame his sister.

            The next day, Jason (the generic jock) decides to get into a fight with James for no clear reason. James fights back about as well as you think he’d fight back. I think we’re meant to feel sorry for him here. I’m meant to have empathy, but there’s only apathy. Due to getting into a fight, he gets suspended for 2 days, but he’s allowed to finish up the rest of his school day. I can’t say that I believe that he’d be allowed to continue the day. The kids who got suspended at my school were sent off the premises immediately. I know I should have given up trying to apply logic to this book, but just when I think I’m over it, something like this happens. The book isn’t even that long. It just feels like it. All of this has happened in the first 30 pages. Nothing seems important. It’s all just happening. After the principal tells him that he’s suspended, James is left alone in the nurses’ room. He then says some faux deep nonsense about being sad. That’s pretty much the book. It’s all just fake deep shit about love and sadness. It’s like the ramblings of an angsty teen, except this was written by a grown adult.

            When he’s headed towards the school bus, he sees Abbi with her boyfriend, Seth. The couple are looking clearly uncomfortable and James takes it upon himself to see what’s up. This so clearly isn’t his place, but it’s all for Abbi, and in his head that makes it okay. He has no knowledge of boundaries at any point. The interaction is awkward and uncomfortable and results in Seth and Abbi’s breakup. James decides to walk Abbi home to make her feel better. The walk home is excruciating to read, because they’re both overly emotional. This would be fine if I was able to care about their emotions, but I can’t. I know how that must sound, but if you have £1.99 and nothing to lose, put yourself through this and try to empathise with these people. You won’t. You might be able to empathise with me though. He gets fake deep because the rain has washed her makeup off and revealed that she has bruises underneath:

            Makeup is just makeup, and skin is just skin. It is what it is.

I wish sarcasm could come through text, but it can’t, so I’ll be frank instead. This isn’t deep. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s the sort of thing people post as Instagram captions to look intelligent. It makes my head hurt. This book has a habit of being headache inducing.

            The next morning, he recalls a dream he had during the night. The dream is really weird, and he tries to deduce some deeper meaning behind it. It’s something about the pain he sees behind her eyes. He, therefore, decides to write her a letter saying that he wants to be there for her. Except he says it in a way that can only be described as terrifying. If I received this letter, I’d call the police. There’s this underlying tone of the sort of thing you’d expect to find a stalker sending to a victim. I feel threatened by it, and I’m not even the one receiving the letter. Actually, it’s not even a letter, it’s an email. He calls it a letter but then at the end sends it to her e-mail address. This was one of those peevish things in the book that doesn’t really matter but still managed to get under my skin.

            Things happen but none of it feels important. His suspension has been lifted and Abbi isn’t in art class, but she leaves him a note to meet her after school. Here’s another one of those pretentious lines that I’m sure Onision thought sounded really good, but honestly, it’s just laughable:

As I approached the church there was a strong forceful wind blowing behind me that made it feel as if I was being pushed to her by nature itself.

I know I’m meant to see that as beautiful, but I couldn’t help but laugh at it. It’s frankly ridiculous, and I don’t see how he thought it was okay.

            When he meets her at the church, she, rightfully, tells him that the e-mail was weird. She calls him out for assuming that she’s broken and just there for him to be fixed; this would be great if the plot of the book didn’t revolve around these two trying to fix each other and the trauma bonding continues and only gets worse later on. After calling him out for wanting to know too much and getting weird, she promptly tells her life story because none of this book is designed to make sense and these people don’t seem real. I know they’re fictional, but fictional characters feel real when they’re written well.

            The next chapter opens with James meeting his mum’s boyfriend, Rick. It’s an awkward and strange scene, but for all its strangeness, it does feel like one of the most genuine scenes in the book. That’s probably the closest this book will get to a complement. Rick is from a little out of town and that’s why James hasn’t met Rick before. It makes sense. It’s a little odd, but it makes sense.

            When he gets the school bus, James is once again weirdly praised by Davis. I can’t work out if I can’t stand Davis or just feel sorry for him. Chances are, it’s a little bit of both and it explains the mixed feelings later in the book.

            Once he’s at school, he has a meeting with the school counsellor, Ms. Robertson. She’s hugely unprofessional, but that’s no surprise in this book. She tells him to take the TA opportunity, but he still won’t do it because he doesn’t want to miss his class with Abbi. Ms. Robertson has a weird issue with Abbi, but still changes his class schedule so he can be a TA and have classes with Abbi.

            He then goes to his final art class with his old schedule. For no conceivable reason, he decides to make out with Abbi in the middle of the classroom. The only redeeming feature of this is that it produces the absolute funniest line in the book when the teacher says:

“If you’re going to suck or eat go find an alleyway. This is a trailer we have god damn

dignity.”

This will forever be one of the most memorable parts of the book. It’s so funny. This almost made it worth the £1.99. That’s not true, but this line truly killed me.

            The class he’s changed to is P.E. and Mr. Mack, their teacher, is one of the only teachers that seems like a real human being. At least, this is true while he’s teaching. The class is nothing memorable or important, but it might be worth pointing out that Mr. Mack is Jason’s (the generic jock) uncle. Oh, and Abbi rubs her arm on James’ neck when she puts her arm around him, and he absolutely loses it.

            After a couple of days, Rick announces that James’ mother and he will be moving in together. Rick’s is the only place big enough for them all to move into, and moving into his will break Abbi and James up. This is, of course, a travesty to James. For some reason, Rick says that they’ll sort something out to allow Abbi and James to remain together.

            When James gets on the bus, he’s greeted by Davis saying:

            “I love you so much! I wish you were my boyfriend!”

This is another one of those moments where I feel sorry for Davis. I know he’s too much, but James just laughs at him because he thinks it’s a joke.

            This next bit tackles something serious but it’s written so terribly, so I think you’ll be okay. It is worth saying that he writes about a school shooting, though. As they get off the bus, they hear popping, and assume it’s a car back-firing. James realises the truth and makes the truly stupid response of yelling out that there’s a school shooting. The bus driver crashes a couple of times trying to get away, but nobody is injured. James realises that he needs to make sure that Abbi is safe, because it’s Seth (Abbi’s ex) who’s shooting up the school. It’s already ridiculous that he decides to go rushing off into the school, but his way of getting into the school is truly beyond me. Rather than walking or running, he decides that roller skating is the sensible option. He realises quickly that these won’t work. He then ends up walking around in just his socks. He runs around to try to find Abbi and eventually sees Seth confronting Mrs Stanley with a gun. Jason comes along to save the day, and beats Seth brutally. James doesn’t find Abbi in the school, but does find her outside. He didn’t need to go into the school at all. It’s just another one of the things in the book that happens. Even something as dramatic as this is just a thing that happens. Nothing feels important. After they’ve been outside for a while, James mother arrives and tells them that Abbi can stay with them for the night. Him roller skating into the shooting was truly surreal to the point where one of my flatmates suggested that, Baby Driver style, James would have a soundtrack to go along with the sounds of the gun. I’ll never hear Saturday Night by Whigfield in the same way again.

            When they go back to school, they all have to go for a huge assembly. Before this, James talks to Abbi and gives us another peak insight into being a robot instead of a human in this:

            “You don’t have to worry about that Abbi, at this point, you’re basically a core section of my programming.”

            The assembly announces that the President of the United states will be visiting, and I can’t say that it sounds entirely unlikely that this would happen after a mass shooting, especially given that this would be the most devastating in U.S history. They also talk to Mr. Mack, who was hospitalised trying to take Seth out. This is the one bit where Mr. Mack doesn’t sound quite right. He doesn’t sound like someone talking after a trauma, but it does affect everyone differently.

            After school, Abbi and James meet up, and they have their first kiss. I suppose it’s momentous for them, but it’s hard to feel anything for these characters. I know I’ve said it before, but apathy truly is the mood for this book. After their kiss, James walks Abbi back home, and her dad is drunk and aggressive towards her. In another little contrived bit, a police dog gets her dad and the officer catches up and arrests him. This means that Abbi ends up staying at James’ house because she needs somewhere to stay.

            The President shows up the next school day, and it is way more uneventful than it should be. It’s only because I’m skimming through the book that I remember what happened in this scene. There’s a lot of bits like that in this book. There isn’t much to say why things happen in this book but here we are.

            When they get home, Abbi and Rick hear the news that they’ll be allowed to stay in the current home while James’ mum and sister move into Rick’s place. They’re then told that all their food, bills, and utilities will be paid for. In what world would this happen? How is this something that Onision thought could work in his piece? So much of this book is plain dumb but this really takes the piss.

            The next day, James goes to see Ms. Robertson who is still really weird about him dating Abbi and won’t tell him why. When James later talks to Abbi about it, she’s quite evasive and clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.

            When they get home, we get another weird scene that I’m yet to understand why it was written. That fairly much goes for the whole book, but there you go. Abbi goes for a shower, and makes James sit in there while they talk; this is entirely so she can step out naked and say “look at me” and tell him how little she thinks of herself so he can be the big hero and make her feel all better. They then make-out and it’s really weird because I can’t be sure that they’re 18 and that gets worse in later scenes.

            Nothing much of note happens for days until Abbi gives James a note that reveals the reason the reason Ms. Robertson hates Abbi so much. This is another section that deals with difficult topics such as rape, miscarriage and abortion. It doesn’t deal with it quite as horribly as the school shooting, but it still isn’t handled brilliantly. The reason that Ms. Robertson hates Abbi so much began because Abbi was raped, and got her pregnant as a result. Abbi told Ms. Robertson that she wanted an abortion. Being pro-life, Ms. Robertson was massively against this. When Abbi told Seth, he got angry and beat her. She later found that this beating caused her to lose the child. This letter should have left me heartbroken, but it was written with as much emotion as I recalled it to you there. I always want to feel something for these characters, but I really can’t. There isn’t enough to any of these characters to feel for.

            Don’t you just love a complete 180 in mood and tone? I sure don’t, but we got one anyway. James doesn’t understand the first thing about what it means to be a reasonable person, so he walks into Abbi’s classroom and just makes out with her there and then. He does this as if it’s a perfectly reasonable response to have being told that your girlfriend has been abused and has gone through torment most of us could never understand. I don’t understand what went through Onision’s mind when he thought that any of this was okay.

            I then had to read something that I could never wish on anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish the whole of this book on anyone but this scene in particular was genuinely horrific. I’m once again thankful for my flatmates, because suffering this alone would have been hell. I’m so sorry guys, and thank you. Onision decided to write a sex scene between James and Abbi. It was genuinely horrific to read. The descriptions are as terrible as you might expect, and I’m not going to put you through sharing any of it here. I’ve never read so quickly just to get through it. I needed it over and done with it. He mentions it again only a couple paragraphs later and I just cannot stand the thought of those two doing anything at all. Also, I’m not sure that they’re 18, which is gross.

            We find out that Jason groped Abbi in an art class, and the substitute teacher did nothing about it. James takes it upon himself to fight Jason for this and its one of the funniest fights I’ve ever read. Its not clear until the very end that he is, in fact, not on his roller skates. He also suddenly manages to fight better than he should ever be able to. Then, James and Jason have what I think is supposed to be a heart to heart, but is completely emotionless, once again.

            I just want to relish you with the line “the weeks passed by like a warm dream”, and I can’t help but feel like that either means he pissed himself or had a wet dream, but it certainly wasn’t the nice sentence that it was clearly meant to be.

            The next bit deals with death and suicide and, as you might expect, it does it terribly. James, Abbi, and Davis all go out for a drive. While driving, they see a man jump off a bridge onto the freeway they’re about to get onto. Even though the car is still moving, Davis jumps out to try to help the man. Unsurprisingly, Davis gets hit because he just got out of a car onto a busy freeway. Though the freeway hit Davis with ease, when James gets out to see his friend, he escapes being hit. This is frankly a shame, and would have been a great way for the book to end. Alas, James pulls Davis off the road on page 142, and there are 179 pages in this damn book. The police don’t even question James and Abbi, despite everything they just witnessed. I really wish I could remember to stop applying normal logic to this book, but I can’t. I just want one normal thing to happen in this thing.

            Davis’ funeral turns into an ego boost for James when Davis’ mum does her eulogy. There’s no need for it. That whole scene should have just been about Davis and then afterwards the mother could forgive James because she had earlier blamed him for the death of her son. That’s not what we got though. We got another excuse for James to look like an absolute hero and have his ego inflated beyond imagination.

            When he goes back to school, Ms. Robertson tells James that he should run for school president, despite him having beaten up a bunch of other students only a few days earlier. This is another thing that seems like it’s going to be important, but it really isn’t apart from once later in the book.

            Ms. Robertson confronts Abbi saying that she’s the reason for the school shooting. When James confronts her about this later, she reveals that it’s because she wrote a letter to Seth while they were still a couple. In it she said that she wanted everyone to disappear. While the rest of us can clearly see how this means nothing, James goes off in a huff, and has a shower. After his shower, he realises that he’s a fucking idiot and forgives her.

            Ms. Robertson had shouted the accusation at Abbi, so the whole school was pretty much against her. Someone throws black paint at her, and when they get home, they frame the shirt in some sort of statement. It’s dumb, but I can’t say that it’s completely unlikely that a couple of edgy teens would do something like this.

            The school bus doesn’t show up, so Abbi and James go home. They turn on the TV to see the news saying that their school is on fire, and after a few days they discover that it was Ms. Robertson because she’d been fired. A couple of days later, they visit the remains of the school and this gets us to the final line of the book:

            “Well, I guess this means I won’t be running for President.”

            There you go, that’s the book. This is the point where I’d usually say whether or not I recommend the book. If you can’t figure out how I feel about this book by now, I don’t know what review you’ve just been reading. Seriously though, please don’t read this book. I can’t say that I know anyone who deserves this kind of suffering. I want to give one final thank you to my flatmates who stayed with my while I read this.