1. Has the gore genre become a euphemism for fetishishtic sex fantasies? 

2. Do you think the book could have been improved if the characters were female?

3. With new technology like Grammarly, are there really any excuses left for bad grammar and misspellings in published books? 

4. Authors often find inspiration in other books, movies, and tv shows. But where is the line between plagarism and inspiration? How much of a scene should be changed? 

5. Is Bluejay the worst book ever written? 

At first, I was hesitant to even write a review because I seriously cannot find a single redeeming quality. For lack of anything positive, here are the worst parts of Bluejay Ranked: 

10. The Juvenile Writing:

The Grammar. The Word Choice. I felt like I was reading someone’s first attempt at writing ever after they fell down a disturbing porn rabbithole. Worst Sentence: “Phil thought it was cooler than being a cop.” 

9. Unable to Write from the Male Perspective: 

Stockton makes no attempt to authentically write from the male perspective. It’s eye-rolling cringe at worst, and distracting at best. Seriously, what grown man is making cliche jokes about Diet Coke like a millennial Botox mom?  

8. Unwillingness to do Minimal Research:

I know Bluejay is a work of fiction but my suspension of belief does have boundaries. The repeated mischaracterizations of psychedelics was irritating. It takes two seconds to do a Google search. The blatant incompetence when writing action choreography was even more horrendous. Each “fight scene” was aggressively hacky. 

7. The Repetitiveness: 

Every action sequence includes someone getting tackled, someone hitting their head, and (oddly) urination. Rather than writing a new unique scene for each conflict, she just reuses and rearranges previously written scenes. It’s obnoxiously repetitive.

6. The Lack of Creativity: 

Given the ferocious premise: three men are choosing from a menu in an exclusive sex/torture club; you would think that Stockton could have come up with three markedly different scenarios. You would be wrong. 

5. The Cop-Out Ending: 

I was hoping the ending would tie all the unconnected elements together, but no. Copying a scene directly from Criminal Minds, Stockton ends with Jack, the lone survivor, sneaking into the backseat to kill the unsuspecting Vixxn. 

4. The Worst “Villain” Ever: 

Doing her best impersonation of a Bond villain, Vixxn admits she lures trolls from gore forums to have victims for her guests. Then she releases large attack dogs to hunt the trio down through the labyrinthine club. Despite originally being depicted as a vindictive woman expending great effort to capture them, Vixxn loses interest when they climb into the attic. The moment she has them corner, she loses interest. Later, as Vixxn is leaving at the end of her shift, she is completely unbothered the men are still running loose, having possibly escaped. As she walks out through the lobby, she magically doesn’t notice her deceased security men. Worst. Villain. Ever. 

3. The Plot Holes: 

Riddled with plot holes, Bluejay has so little continuity that the small amount it does have must be purely accidental. Large attack jobs are unable to jump a measly 4 feet in the air. A rant from Phil earlier in the book about minivan ownership is abandoned a mere 30 pages later. Noah, a fan of gore, had never seen anyone die before and didn’t know guns were lethal. Jack’s internal injuries are forgotten. 

2. Nothing is Original:

No part of the novella is Original. The entire book is simply a mix of scenes ripped from popular movies and tv shows interspersed with absurd sex scenes. Fingernails breaking off from clawing the floor is an iconic moment from Spiderman 2. Dying from being smothered by pussy is a scene from The Boys. Just to name a couple. 

1. Comparing A Chair to A Chair: 

“The girl who had been knocked down by the door was back on her feet now, and came at Noah with a folded chair… Beating the shit out of him like a wrestler with a steel chair.” What was meant to be a poignant analogy, misses the mark.