So I have a confession to make. I'm sort of between reads right now. Most of the stuff I'm reading on here is being written as we speak, and I have opinions on a lot of it, but since it isn't finished, I can't review it. And doggone it I need material! So here is something I started reading some months ago, stopped because I realized much better stuff existed, and finished recently because I needed to murder some minutes.

And let me tell you right off the bat, I wasn't a big fan.

Basically, Nerd in Disguise is the story of Shay Ricca, the vaguely young adult daughter of Giovanni Ricca, notorious mafia boss. When the book opens, Shay is "undercover" at an elite prep school in the middle of nowhere in the California mountains. I use air quotes because it's not the word I would have chosen; she's actually hiding there for her own safety.

You see, the Ricca family is the most powerful mafia family in their region. They rose to that position of power through a lot of intrigue and violence, and now they run large territories in and around Chicago. The key to that power is information, top secret blackmail that they gathered for years against the other families. That information is stored in a vault that, as far as the other families are concerned, may in fact be little more than a rumor. And the key to that vault is with Shay Ricca.

Why does she have it, you ask? Well, she stole it out of spite. Always a reluctant mafioso, Shay's patience with her cold, domineering father runs out when his suspicion turns on her mother, his wife. There's a new family in town, you see, named the Acerbis, and someone has betrayed the Riccas' secret vault of goodies to them. And now, they want the Ricca's power, and they're willing to kill to get it. Giovanni Ricca, a paranoiac (as I imagine many criminal overlords are), suspects her mother. Fearing for her safety, Shay's mother flees, and Shay, fueled by an impulsive Italian rage, flees with her, and on her way out, steals the key to the vault. And so the hunt begins; two mafia families. One Skeleton Key, the key to power. A family destroyed by gang war. And it all comes down to this

As I describe this, I am immediately struck by how cool it sounds. I'm looking over what I described right now and thinking to myself, "I would so totally watch that as a Netflix show!" Think of where we could go with this premise! Why did Shay's mother marry a mafia boss? How did she raise Shay differently so that she despised her father for the monster he really was? Does she choose family loyalty, or revenge? And of course, how awesome will the action be? Unbelievable, am I right?

Sadly, it falls flat on its stupid face.

Allow me to introduce Jacob Smith, the hot new boy at her school (yes, we're going there). There's something suspicious about him, specifically his interest in Shay. She's cleverly disguised herself as an ugly nobody, but he immediately shows interest in her. After doing some digging on her own, she finds out that he is in fact the son of the director of the CIA. And also a field operative. And super hot. Turns out, the CIA is having a bit of its own internal turmoil and Jacob is on the run too, and wants Giovanni Ricca's help.

Now, I've said before, I'm actually okay with cliches and tropes, so long as they're used well. Throw a hot boy into the action with Shay, and I'm on board. He can even be related to some sort of intelligence background. But Jacob is not the right hot boy. He's a boy with his own agenda, his own contacts, his own mission that we don't even get to see most of. In a story set up like this one, the hot boy should play second fiddle to Shay Ricca. She should be the driver of this story's action. But Jacob doesn't play second fiddle, he tackles Shay to the ground and tries to steal first fiddle from her. He fails, but on his way, he snaps that same fiddle in half. It's too bad, really. It was a nice fiddle.

Now, before I rip this story apart, I want to clarify something. I've noticed recently that many authors on this site don't write seriously. In my last review, the author kindly joined the conversation and mentioned that he (he? I apply the gender neutral in case I'm wrong) had written Against the Tide mostly as an exercise in world-building, without as much attention to plot. It was also intended to be as more fun than literary. It was written without so much a grand plan as a "what comes next" mentality. I suspect Nerd in Disguise was written with the same intention. I don't mind that; what else is Wattpad for if not for some fun writing? And the question that surfaces in my mind is this; should I criticize something written for fun the way I would criticize something intended as a serious artistic expression? One wouldn't criticize Independence Day, my all-time favorite stupid movie, the same way  that he would criticize Arrival, would they?

In this case, there are a few reasons that I will say yes. First, it is clear that there is a discrepancy between the quality of stupid movies. Independence Day is way better than Independence Day: Resurgence, not because the one is less stupid than the other, but because the one thinks that you, the audience, are stupid, and treats you as such. Second, because writing something for fun does not excuse bad writing. I'm writing 2175 C.E. for fun, but I'm really doing my best to make it something good. The thing is, most of us, having not experienced everything there is to experience, use fiction in some way to help us frame the world around us. Which little kid among us didn't see Luke Skywalker or Obi-wan Kenobi and think to ourselves, "that is a hero"? That makes a difference. It stays with you. Third, because this collection of reviews is partially intended as a learning experience for all of us, and in learning, we must all see something that doesn't work and understand why it doesn't work. Fourth, the author asked specifically for criticism in the comments.

Finally, because it has 12.6 million reads! Yes, you read that right; MILLION. Anything with that much affection deserves a second glance. And, if necessary, a beating.

So let the beating begin.

This book is terrible for a number of reasons. It has terrible characters, a terrible plot, and some of the lowest quality of writing I've seen in a project this expansive, at least from someone with English as a first language. But my biggest issue with this story is that it goes absolutely nowhere. There are no consequences. You remember that Netflix-worthy setup I just described above? Well, it doesn't matter in the end. Or halfway through it, for that matter. Spoiler alert if you need it for the rest of this paragraph: Shay Ricca is eventually reunited with her family after being chased around and interrogated for several weeks by the Acerbis. And you remember that whole bit about the Skeleton Key, you know, the part that set the whole thing in motion? Well, neither does her father or her four brothers. Yeah, you think that she'd be in some deep trouble after that whole fiasco. I mean, she was on the run and all. But no. It's forgiven and forgotten. Why? Because we have a new event to get to, and four new characters to play with, from what I can tell.

And it's not just the main plot points that get forgotten; minor plot points also get forgotten. Let me give you one example; late in the book, there's a chapter in which Shay is fighting hand-to-hand with the head of the Acerbi family, Alfredo. She flies into a rage and nearly kills him, but is stopped unexpectedly by Jacob, who says that revenge won't get her what she wants. Okay, great. But then in a later chapter, Alfredo is captured by the police. Jacob for some reason gets it into his head to take revenge on him and flies off to kill him, and Shay runs onto the plane after him to stop him. Again, okay. I like parallels. So, Shay and her brothers track him down and tie him up so he can't carry out his revenge plot. But then, get this, the brothers were ordered to assassinate Alfredo Acerbi themselves. And when Shay hears about this, she's like, "meh. Let's do this." She turns a complete 180 in under a chapter.

What?

And what about the whole "reluctant mafioso" thing? Does she really have a moral objection to the life of crime her family has chosen? Well, not really. I mean, they have lots of really sweet vehicles and guns, so why worry about the fact that that fortune is probably built off of smuggling heroine and murdering anyone who objects? At the end, she's a happy mafioso, married to a CIA department director (that's right, Jacob got himself a freaking department). And super rich. So who cares?

All over the story we see examples of this. Shay has a hacker friend named Sky, but she got his grandmother killed when she briefly gave her the key to keep. But at the end, Sky is like, "meh, it wasn't really your fault though, was it?" The Acerbis went to great length to get the key, but at the same time they murdered every house except for the Riccas, so I doubt they needed it. The gang finds out that Shay's mom didn't betray them to the Acerbis, so she just comes back. She and Shay speak about once, and then it's over. Wasn't she going to be one of the most consequential characters in this freaking book? What happened to all that mother, daughter connection that I was promised at the start? Why did you set that up if you weren't going to deliver on it?

At the end of the day, I can forgive stupid. I can forgive lazy. I can forgive disorganized, I can forgive plot holes, I can even forgive fundamentally wrong philosophical backgrounds (as we saw with Espresso Love). But I cannot tolerate a blatant disregard for everything that has already been established and written. You cannot get Frodo and Sam all the way to Mordor and then have them say, "You know what? This ring really is just a piece of jewelry. Maybe a peaceful resolution with Sauron is possible," then have them go to Barad-Dur and walk right into an episode of Middle-Earth Madam Secretary. Why? Because that's not what The Lord of the Rings is. It's not about politics, it's about good and evil. But that's exactly what Nerd in Disguise does.

It's not like the characters and prose make up for it, either. Shay herself is a caricature, a "tough girl" stereotype with a bad attitude towards the entire story and almost no redeeming features. Her brothers are interchangeable hooligan types that may be appealing, or hot, or something? Jacob was so difficult to get a read on that I'm tempted not to try, but I guess he was supposed to be a "bad boy?" I don't know; they betray each other so often it's hard to say what their relationship is. The prose was simplistic and unimaginative at best.

Final score for Nerd in Disguise: Blood Bound is two out of five #mafia Wattpad works. Let me put it this way. A lot of the things on Wattpad amount to nerd fantasies, authors like me who fantasize that we are heroes in a made-up world that conforms to our expectations and empowers us to act beyond our insecurities and self-doubt. I do it too. Billy Aucaman in 2175 C.E. is pretty much a slightly OCD version of me with some extra skills thrust into a world that drastically needs his peculiar brand of heroism. When it's done well, you can get some good stuff, like Against the Tide or, I think, Espresso Love. But you can also get rote, unsatisfying stuff like this. It's the result of having a world in which you are the master rather than a world which is master of your pen. Maybe that's why it's called Nerd in Disguise despite NEVER HAVING A NERD IN DISGUISE ANYWHERE IN THE STORY!

Sorry. That got heated.

Thank you so much for reading and voting like I know you just did! If anyone was offended by this particular review, I do apologize, but then again, I did advertise my services as an asshole. If you did like this, please do tune in for my next review! I think it might just be New Elysium, but we'll have to see. Sincerely, the real jonbrain!