Stones To Abbigale
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Banana Says... |
[Original Cover] Stones to Abbigale is Greg's first published novel, released early 2015.
Plot
Stones To Abbigale is about a teenage boy named James, Greg's middle name. James falls for a troubled girl named Abbi and they face many tragedies and hardships together.
Pre-Release
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Release
Greg released the book on March 29, 2015 through Amazon as a self published kindle book. He listed "Onision" as the author, publisher, and editor. He also listed "Lainey" as an editor. He first announced it through twitter, not giving a link to the book or revealing its name because he was too afraid, despite his history of releasing literature to the web. (source)
Description Change
A few of the first Amazon reviews to trickle in the first couple of days complained that the Amazon book description gave away too much of the plot and was a turn off. Greg re-posted one of these reviews on his tumblr on March 30th. He complained the reviewer never even read the book. (STAreview1) Shortly after, Greg changed the book description to not give away any of the story at all. He reveal the story is not purely fiction, but loosely based on his own life.
Original
James is an analytical teenager who has yet to truly understand love until he begins talking to a girl named Abbi. Abbi is the same age and has a complicated past that James learns more about as their relationship progresses.
The two go through a number of challenges together, many more traumatic and difficult than most people experience in a lifetime.
James finds himself defending Abbi both verbally and physically. The depth of love he feels for her is tested repeatedly but James remains strong always standing with Abbi, through it all.
New
I want to be direct, my name is Greg. I go by
“Onision” online. This book is made up of events that occurred in my own life mixed with fiction from the made up life of James.
James is essentially a better version of myself. His home, his school & his life all resemble my own at his age. The people James analyzes and is surrounded by are not so unlike those I’ve known as well.
I have experienced much of the loss James has however his happier moments are more often than not also mine.
I want to share my story without it being purely non-fiction. I simply felt this approach would make for a far better book.
Stones To Abbigale is not a book I wrote, it is a piece of who I am.
Cover Change
[New Cover or physical book]On March 31, 2015, Greg posted a picture to twitter of him wearing a blood soaked white outfit, the outfit his character Seth wore to shoot up Lakewood High. He revealed he just completed a photo-shoot for the new cover of his book. That night, he revealed the new cover of the book, which would also become the cover to the hard copy of the book.
Reception
Stones To Abbigale received very mixed reviews, although a common complaint from fans and critics of the book was the constant grammar errors. Some readers loved the book, some going as far as to say it was the best book they have ever read. Others greatly disliked the book. Common complaints
Greg would re-post some of the Amazon reviews to his social media to say mostly negative reviews were made by people that did not read the whole book and to thank mostly positive reviews. He also would re-tweet all positive feedback on twitter about the book.
Many Facebook commentors watching Greg posting about Stones To Abdbigale were not pleased with what they believed to be narsassistic behavior on Greg's part. They beieved Greg could not take critisism and they pointed out Greg said he hadn't read a book in 14 years, except Stones To Abbigale. (source) They were also not impressed when Greg pointed out it was the best book some readers have ever read. Up until this point, his Facebook went relatively untoutched by Greg's censorship of critics possibly due to him concentrating on other social media platforms at the time. When Greg noticed the comments, he went on a blocking and deleting spree and posted many rants about how usless Facebook commentors are and how he does not care about hate. (Source) Greg lost a number of fans throuout the process of him calling out reiewers and Facebook commentors. Some believed Greg was being hypocritical because he critisises a lot of people and things on his channels, but he appeared not to be able to maturely take critisism of his own work.