This is Why I Hate You by Greg 'Onision' Jackson

Well, I set you a goal, and you smashed it. You hit that 200 mark, and now I have suffered the consequences. So, let’s go. Let’s chop these onions. Also, I must apologise to my flatmates again. You’re all so welcome. 

            I’ll be doing this review like I did the last Onision review where I go through each major plot point, and talk about my thoughts and feelings throughout.

            While I trust that you won’t read this book, I want to put a trigger warning here for just about everything. Violence, abuse, sexual abuse (assault/rape) racism, sexism, anti-religious sentiments, fat-shaming. There’s probably more that I haven’t thought of too.

            If you aren’t aware by now (oh, how I envy you) Greg ‘Onision’ Jackson is a YouTuber who has had a career full of controversy. I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about his ventures into a writing career. If you’ve ever encountered any of his writing before, you won’t be surprised to learn that he is self-published. While self-publishing can be a way for authors to make a start during the early days of their career, it can only work if you employ an editor. Onision does not employ an editor. This is abundantly clear throughout the book. I don’t want to talk about his appalling grammar every time I see it because it’s visible in almost every line. His refusal to use commas at all meant that so many sentences were almost impossible to read, and this was possibly made so much worse because I was reading it out loud.

            This is Why I Hate You by Onision follows Arthur Gale using a journal format. The introduction to his character immediately lets you know that this book is going to be peak cringe throughout. He’s 17, but has the whiny attitude of a 14-year-old who’s just discovered that listening to heavy metal might piss off his parents. He’s mad at his dad, his dad’s girlfriend (we’ll come back to that one), his dad’s religion, his dad’s diet, and just generally mad at the world around him because he’s not like other girls, he’s worse. It’s also worth pointing out that when I said, “chapter one” after reading the introduction, one of my flatmates said something like, “that wasn’t chapter one?” which really tells you how long that introduction felt.

The introduction chapter lets us know that Arthur is a nihilist, and he really does his best throughout the book to remind you of this. However, as soon as he gets the slightest attention from a woman, you can see that slip. Arthur, you’re not a nihilist, you’re just lonely. Get a grip.

Chapter One opens with Arthur complaining about his cliché suburban life and that his dad won’t let him tack posters to his wall, so he has to have his walls “lined with massive picture frames containing [Arthur’s] morbid and gothic posters”. You have to know that he’s a moody goth. It’s important (it’s not, but Onision really wants to pander to a young audience who are mostly 13-year-old emo kids).

Throughout, Arthur reminds us that his dad is bad, but not for any reason that actually means anything. The two times his dad is shown doing something actually reprehensible, it seems so forced, but I’ll get to that later. The main complaints from Arthur at the beginning of this chapter is that he has to eat a vegetarian diet, he has to be driven to school, and that his dad is religious. The Christianity of his father is a real sore spot for Arthur. I can only assume it’s because he’s an edgy teenager (although Onision was in his thirties when he wrote this, he’s pandering to a young audience). I know that a lot of edgy teens had anti-religious sentiment, but didn’t really know how to express it. I know that I was a bit of a dick when it came to religion when I was in secondary school, but as an adult I would never want to write a character so misguided. It comes across as arrogant and cruel. Also, while it does show you the main character’s background, it doesn’t actually serve much for the plot. An author and their writing should generally be separated. However, Onision admits that his protagonists are fill-ins for himself. I can therefore safely say that Arthur’s anti-religious sentiment is nothing more than Onision shoving his own opinions down the throats of the readers.

He does the thing where he calls people “humans” again. So, once again, we have protagonist-bot, rather than somebody that we can empathise with. Though, even without this whole calling people “humans” thing, I cannot imagine how you could empathise with this man. The way he talks about people, even the ones he cares about, is so disgusting. There are people who are completely pointless to the story that he still decides to be gross about. He calls this one kid, Chris, a “dysfunctional failed abortion”, and there’s someone else, Jessica, who has “the brain of an 11-year-old child”. He tears these people apart, and talks about acting out violent fantasies on them. Am I supposed to dislike Arthur? It’s been done before in books where you follow a lead character who’s the absolute worst. American Psycho does this really well. However, I really think that I’m supposed to like Arthur because the characters who care about him are somewhat easy to like. They’re a bit plain, but the partners and love interests (who are pretty much the only people who care about him) do actually make the reader feel real emotions when something happens to them, but Arthur always manages to ruin the moment.

So much of the story before he joins the military is pointless. It reads a lot more like Stones to Abbigale. There’s little to no plot. Things just sort of happen. There are some threads that tie together, but those threads are thin. Plot points A and B are linked. Points B and C are linked, too. However, it isn’t necessarily so easy to see how A and C are linked.

He has a girlfriend called Ashley. She’s there as a tool. She isn’t a character in herself. Onision does not know how to write women as people at all. She’s there in the early part of the story to be groped by some guy so Arthur can beat up the guy that assaulted her. Except, he doesn’t just beat up the guy; he snaps the guy’s arm by stomping down on it. This excess violence continues throughout the book, and only gets worse. Luckily for Arthur, he has the world’s best plot armour, so he can get away with almost everything. The only time he doesn’t get away with something, it’s so Onision can have the excuse to send Arthur to the Airforce. Ashley also exists so that Arthur can manipulate her. He makes her dress as a goth just to please him. While this doesn’t sound like much, it is a sign that Arthur is somebody who needs a partner who he can mould into his perfect shape.

“Gratify myself”. Here’s a phrase that shows up far too many times throughout this book. If it wasn’t clear, he’s talking about masturbation. Firstly, I don’t want to hear about a character wanking, and secondly, the phrase itself sounds so awful. This phrase, and others just like it, shows up so often, and every single time it felt disgusting to say out loud.

Once again, nobody talks like real people in this book. When Arthur and his school principal are having a meeting, it sounds like the dialogue of a bad fanfiction. It sounds like the arguments you play out in your head where you get to sound really cool. Onision really does love a strawman.

Earlier on, I said I’d talk about the language used to talk about the girlfriend of Arthur’s dad. Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that she’s never given a name. If she’s not being insulted, she’s referred to as his dad’s girlfriend. However, she’s usually being insulted when she’s being talked about. Arthur’s anger towards her is supposed to be because this woman stole the father too quickly after his mother died. The insults aren’t about his anger though. It’s almost always an excuse to fat shame her, and when he’s not fat shaming her, he’s being sexist towards her by calling her things like a “genital puppet”. There is one insult that stuck with me until the end of the book. It’s one of the weirdest things I have ever read, and ever said aloud. She is referred to as a “walking pile of fat crotch puppet vagina with legs”. I cannot figure out what went through his head when he wrote that down.

Arthur, his father, and his father’s girlfriend get into a fight in their family car. It’s the two adults against Arthur, but because Arthur has to remain the most powerful being in the universe, he kicks his father’s head in and runs away. He ends up in juvenile hall for a weekend while he awaited the judge’s verdict on the situation, but the reason he isn’t seen for a whole weekend is so wild to me. Maybe I’m just ignorant but apparently “the judge only worked weekdays”. His time in juvenile hall gets him expelled, and it’s this expulsion that leads to him joining the military. He signs up for the Airforce, and somehow gets in. Leaving for the military also means leaving his girlfriend, Ashley. It seems drama filled at the time, but means next to nothing for the overall plot.

When he gets to Texas, (where he spends the first part of his military career) he meets Sergeant Johnson. He refers to her as “a gorgeous little firecracker of a woman”. This statement is symbolic of the absolute lack of respect he has for all the women in the military, especially those more powerful than him. He is far more likely to be derogatory towards women, and he’s more likely to intentionally disobey them. I’m not going to talk about every time he does this, but know that it happens far too frequently. I’ll cover it once again briefly when he meets Rachel.

There are some decent metaphors in here, but they are few and far between. If I’m honest, they aren’t anything special, but seeing some semi-decent writing makes me think that, if he had an editor, this book might work. It wouldn’t be anything to rave about, but I feel like, with edits it could be readable. These sections wouldn’t be noticeable in a good book, but they’re a fucking relief in this. Though, there is inevitably something really stupid afterwards just to bring you back to the sad reality of knowing that you’re reading this book.

Arthur meets Corey, and their bonding really starts when they complete a suicide prevention exercise. Of course, the two of them are the only ones to be successful in the simulation. It’s completed in the most basic way possible, and I cannot imagine anybody actually being saved by words like that. The two of them form a close friendship, but when Arthur makes a move on her, she rejects him. He later finds out that she’s gay. The first time we meet Corey, she’s little more than a device for something to come later. Onision establishes a friendship between them so it can be used for different ends later.

There’s a misunderstanding with military code. This feels like it’s going to mean something, but it serves absolutely nothing to the plot or character development. There are a lot of plot points like that. I said a couple of times while I was reading this that it felt like it had more of a plot than Stones to Abbigale, but I realise now that it’s just the way I’d been reading it. Sure, each plot point ties together a little bit better in the second half, but I think it’s only because I was reading it a few chapters at a time that it felt like there were more threads holding it together.

Ashley, Arthur’s ex-girlfriend, calls him while on the base. Her brother died, and she wants Arthur to come home. On its own, that’s fine, but Onision decides to have the brother killed in a school shooting. So, in Stones to Abbigale, we had to see school shootings trivialised by James roller-skating in, and then we see school shootings trivialised in a whole new and pointless way here in This is Why I Hate You. If he wanted a death to bring two people back together, then fine. That’s not uncommon, but there was absolutely no need to use school shootings like this. There are incidents like car crashes that could maybe be used in an off-handed fashion; while traumatic for survivors, and relatives of those involved, they are far more common, and would not be as note-worthy.

Arthur takes short leave to spend time with Ashley. It’s mostly Onision writing about the two of them having sex, and it was excruciating to read. Not only was it just gross reading about these two slapping together, but Arthur is such a dick in this situation. He knows that he’s manipulating her grief, but still decides to sleep with her anyway. She’s literally crying through sex at one point, and he still continues with shagging her.

Arthur is then stationed in South Korea. I think it’s from this point where I felt like there was an actual plot forming, but I could very easily be mistaken. Maybe it’s just the hope of a plot that made me think of a plot. I can’t lie to you, by this point my brain had started to feel like it was falling out; I’d sometimes get headaches while reading, and that was the point where I had to stop. I’ve read such good books this year, and now I’m stuck with this stain on a perfectly good run. I really hope the book I’m reading after this is decent; I couldn’t do two bad books in a row. Although, anything is better than this.

There is a slur used against Koreans in this book. From what I could gather with some rudimentary googling, it seems to be a slur used against all eastern-Asian people, but is especially common with military folk. I refused to say it while reading it aloud, and I’m not putting it in my review, but I want it known that racist slurs went into this book.

There’s a red man suit exercise. Basically, they fight a someone in a suit that looks like those things they use to train police dogs. Everyone else gets beat by the red man, but not Arthur because he’s able to unleash his beast mode. He goes way too far and drives a baton through the bars on the red man’s face guard, then he snaps the guy’s leg. This inability to control his aggression should be a sign to the military that Arthur is a man not fit to be around dangerous weapons, but Lt. Col. Hoss loves Arthur, so he lets him off for absolutely everything. The red man’s suit might not have been good protection, but Arthur’s plot armour could protect him from absolutely anything.

Arthur meets a fellow airman called Rachel Norman, but you can forget her name for a while because she’s only referred to as ‘Booty’ for the longest time. Apparently, “if you saw her, you’d probably understand why”. I don’t have to tell you why this is gross, do I?

A senior airman called Austin is seen by Arthur sexually assaulting Rachel. He gets into a fight with Austin. This might be fine if Arthur had any sort of self-control. He blacks out during the fight. When he wakes up, Rachel tells him that he managed to take out Austin’s eye, and even left his fingernail behind. He still doesn’t get reprimanded at all because Hoss loves him. Not only is he completely let off the hook, but his given extra training for use with high calibre weapons. No, I don’t understand how this could ever work either.

He gets back from training to find out that Rachel has a new roommate. Surprise! It’s Corey, the girl he tried it on with, but found out she’s gay. Not long after, Arthur goes to a combat zone. Turns out that Corey and Rachel get on really well. They suggest that Rachel dates both Corey and Arthur. If you know anything about Onision, you won’t be surprised by this.

This book is set when don’t ask don’t tell was still in place, and a guy called Asher sees Corey and Rachel holding hands. He reports that to Austin (the one who lost his eye earlier) and Austin uses it as blackmail.

Asher comes up to Arthur, Rachel, and Corey in the chow hall, and asks them some inappropriate questions. Arthur doesn’t go beast mode for once.

The three of them leave the chow hall, and they see Austin, Asher, and two others. Arthur sends Corey and Rachel back to their dorm. Before any beast mode nonsense can start, a patrol car pulls up and they have to disperse.

Corey has been told she’s being discharged for her sexuality. Unfortunately, because the focus is on Arthur, I had to listen to him whining about this for a while until he decides to threaten Asher with a knife. He doesn’t cut him, but he does knock his teeth out. No consequences for this, as per.

Absolutely nothing happens for a good while until the book goes absolutely batshit. I have seen review videos of this book before, so I knew about the ending. There were certain things I didn’t want to read. There’s a rape scene in this book. I refuse to go into detail with it. I did not read it. I skimmed over it. I only started reading again when Arthur unleashes beast mode. This time, it’s the ultimate beast mode, and he starts killing the assailants. Ultimate beast mode appears to actually have consequences because he ends up with a hatchet to the back of the head. Is it wrong to celebrate the death of a character? It felt so satisfying.

The last chapter is written from the perspective of Corey because apparently Arthur had asked her to do so, but we never heard about that. This isn’t the only backtracking that happens in the final chapter. Clearly Onision realised that there was no real reason for Arthur to hate his dad. Rather than go back and edit the first part of the book, he decided to make the father a sex offender right at the end. I wish I was surprised by how tone deaf Onision is, but at this point, I can’t be surprised by anything.

If you decide to read this book after reading this review, then I hope you enjoy being a masochist. Don’t read this book. It’s garbage. It’s gross. I never want to read anything by this man again, but I know that, now that I’ve read the first two, I’m inevitably going to have to read the third. I’m going to be setting challenges for it though. Not just a one review goal either. You guys are going to have to work. I’m also not setting any of these goals for at least a month because I need a bloody break. I hope you had more fun reading this review than I did reading that book. I’ll see you next time!