(no subject)

[skygiants]

Back in January, I was out in Denver with a bunch of other awesome people and agonistes and silveraspen decided to give out party favors.

SWEENEY AND ASPEN: Okay, who wants the Snuggie?
BECCA: ME! Me, me, pick me!*
SWEENEY AND ASPEN: No, Becca, you can't have the Snuggie.
BECCA: WHAT IS THIS INJUSTICE. >:O
SWEENEY AND ASPEN: We have a present picked out for you already! You get to read this YA romance novel and parodize it on your LJ. :D
BECCA: I am always glad to receive new books, and I am glad that you enjoy my parodies . . . . but I wanted the Snuggie.

* You laugh now, but you know you secretly want one too. I AM JUST NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT IT.

So that is how I ended up reading Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's Beautiful Creatures . . . but I have to confess, Sweeney and Aspen, I don't think I will be able to parodize it as much as you wanted me to! I mean, yes, it is super ridiculous in places, but it is also totally endearing in places. Tearing it apart would be like kicking a puppy!

So the book centers around Ethan, a high schooler in a Tiny Unchanging Southern Town who is really good at basketball (agonistes, when she gave me the book: it's the South and they're obsessing over basketball? LOL HOW RIDICULOUS bookelfe: Yes, yes, ha ha, how ridiculous! okay, mental note, basketball is not a thing in the South! GOOD TO KNOW) and hangs out with the cool kids but secretly despises all of them for their stupidity and shallowness. He eats with the popular kids at lunch and attends the obligatory two or three parties a year so they don't force him to hang out with them the rest of the time when he'd rather be rereading To Kill a Mockingbird for the umpteenth time and planning for his big college break! Oh, the hardships of Ethan's life.

Enter: LENA, who is mysterious and beautiful and angsty and wears all black and is the niece of the town local shut-in and shatters windows with her miiiiiiiiiind. Ethan has also been having dreams about her before she shows up. Pretty soon they have a mysterious mental connection and are going on random time-travel trips and also there are sirens and Incubi and snake-armed illusionists and secret libraries underneath the town and magical moon books written in terrible faux-medievalese and epic Dark and Light mythology and I don't even know because there are about five million plot twists going on and half of them make no sense, but Ethan does not even care about any of this. All Ethan cares about is omg does Lena like me? with an occasional dollop of if Lena turns evil, does that mean she'll dump me? D: A typical dramatic scene goes like this:

ETHAN: Lena I am coming to dinner! :D I am so excited you invited me! And, uh, your morally ambiguous cousin has come along too, is that okay?
LENA'S HOUSE: *transforms into a nineteenth-century manor*
LENA'S WACKY MAGICAL RELATIONS: *read minds, have visions, conjure snakes out of thin air*
ETHAN: Huh. Trippy!
LENA'S MORALLY AMBIGUOUS COUSIN: *hangs onto Ethan, makes ominous speeches about good and evil*
LENA: *OUT-OF-CONTROL MAGICAL TEMPER TANTRUM* LEAVE MY BOYFRIEND ALONE
WINDOWS: *shatter*
STORMS: *summoned*
VARIOUS PIECES OF FURNITURE: *fly around in a manic fashion*
LENA'S FAMILY: *collectively freak out*
ETHAN: omg she said boyfriend :D :D :D :D :D

I will also note that Lena writes emo poetry. It is exactly as terrible as you would expect. As part of her uncontrolled superpowers, when she is upset, her emo poetry writes itself on her bedroom walls. I literally laughed aloud. (Our POV character Ethan thinks her poetry is awesome, but Ethan also thinks Lena is the prettiest awesomest specialest amazingest girl ever to live, so this is only to be expected.) Basically I spent most of the book just wanting to pat them both on the head; I mock, but I also found it kind of sweet!

However, there are some issues with the portrayal of the South that even a 100% Yankee like me noticed. For one thing: okay, Marian the librarian. Marian was Ethan's mom's best friend and co-author, who keeps the town library and writes major academic work about Southern history. Marian is also apparently the only black person in town, but that is totally not why people don't like her; as Ethan portrays it Gatlin has no racism, only anti-intellectual prejudice. I am fairly dubious about the validity of this. Also, it is kiiind of awkward how every other student in Ethan's school (his best friend excepted; every non-Lena girl MOST EMPHATICALLY included) is stupid, shallow, clique-ish, devoid of dreams and ambition, possessed of an evil herd mentality and worthy to be despised. Way to validate Ethan's liberal white-boy elitism, book!

All that said, though, I did totally enjoy reading the book and I may read the sequel as well. Sweeney, Aspen, JUDGE ME IF YOU MUST.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

Oh my that sounds like a real summer read of a book.

[skygiants]

A summer read is an excellent way to describe it!

[agonistes]

Way to validate Ethan's liberal white-boy elitism, book!

INDEED. On all counts. >:(

Also, I do not in fact want a Snuggie. That is why it was the party favor!

[skygiants]

It was one of those things that did not bother me so much at first, and then bothered me more and more as it went on. (Especially the mind-control prom scene. >.<) I read a review somewhere else on LJ where the person was like, "I really hope Emily and Savannah kick ass next book!" I would also wish for this, but I do not find it likely. :(

I honestly do not understand how anyone could not want a Snuggie! IT'S CUDDLY AND KEEPS YOU WARM. Where is the bad? :O

[agonistes]

Me neither. >:(

(Also, another of the SIGNS A YANKEE WROTE THIS BOOK: it's not a ROUTE, numbskulls, it's a HIGHWAY. If it's a US highway, then US [NUMBER] or simply [NUMBER] is also an acceptable answer. YANKEES CALL THEM ROUTES. THEY ARE HIGHWAYS >:((((((((( )

It's bad because the terrible artificial polyester fleece was even cheaper than most good terrible artificial polyester fleece. If it hadn't been obvious that the fleece was terrible, it would not have been a party favor!

[aberration]

I am weirdly right now realizing that I also call them highways and not routes. BUT WAIT I AM FROM INDIANA. And we like basketball. I'm so confused O:

[skygiants]

Like shoroko, I also call them highways and not routes, and I am a total Yankee! But I also don't really drive, so I don't know how representative I am.

:O I did not know you were such a fleece elitist! . . . fleecelitist? Can this be a word?

[shati.livejournal.com]

Wait, you do? I mean, I call them highways, obvs, but I would say "route 9" or "route 128" to name a particular highway. :O (Well, or just "128.")

[skygiants]

I think I would just say "128", but I do not say it very often because nobody asks me for directions! For . . . good reason . . .

[wanderlustlover]

*giggles so much* I love these.

[skygiants]

:DDD then my purpose is validated! \o/

[wanderlustlover]

I also totally would have wanted a snuggie. And the wrath of god would have been invoked if it were blue, too.

[skygiants]

YOU ARE A RIGHT-THINKING PERSON and may join me when the Snuggie revolution comes. *dignity*

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

*shrieks* That sounds amazing.

If I read it, I will pretend that

a) Ethan is in epic denial about racism
b) the entire town is under a Sheep Spell that dampens their ambitions and powers of perception


*still dying* Emo poetry on the walls.

[skygiants]

b) hahaha Merc, the whole time I was totally pretending that Emily and Savannah, the Mean Girl cheerleaders who are omg shallow and lame and SUPER MEAN to Lena, were Brittany and Santana. They spend all their time clinging to each other and being smugly evil! THEY ARE IN LOVE. (And I don't even watch Glee!)

It is THE BEST. *_* Made more hilarious by the fact that the first time you learn she ~writes poetry~ Ethan is all "omg lemme see your notebook I wanna see your poetry pleeeease" and Lena is all shy about it, because she never lets anyone see her poetry, and then two days later it's magically all over her walls anyway. WHY EVEN BOTHER, Lena!

[rahkan.livejournal.com]

If Britney and Santana count as shallow, then depth is wayyy overrated.

Also, Snuggies are not comfortable...whenever you move your arms, it opens up blanket crevices and warmth seeps away...they're like big, loose, useless sweaters.

[skygiants]

Britney and Santana are AWESOME. I know this just from what I have gleaned from various commentary! This book's protagonist might not recognize their awesome though. :(

. . . but big, loose sweaters are wonderful!

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

*cackles*

[obopolsk.livejournal.com]

I also want a Snuggie.

And I really need to read this one of these days, especially since I have a copy of the second one now, too.

[skygiants]

Yes! SNUGGIES ARE AWESOME. Haters to the left.

And you totally should read it; I would be curious to see what you thought of it!

[aberration]

Also, it is kiiind of awkward how every other student in Ethan's school (his best friend excepted; every non-Lena girl MOST EMPHATICALLY included) is stupid, shallow, clique-ish, devoid of dreams and ambition, possessed of an evil herd mentality and worthy to be despised.

Not going to lie, this is also how I felt when I finally read The Catcher in the Rye. There were points when I was very, 'Oh god, shut up, Holden.'

[skygiants]

*cracks up* Dude, it is even totally canon that Ethan loves The Catcher in the Rye.

I mean, I am not being fair to him really! Overall he is not nearly as consistently judgy as Holden Caulfield; there are even a few moments when he is like "I am judging them but honestly I am not actually that different, wtf self." But there are noooot enough of those moments.

[silveraspen]

Basketball is a thing!

... it's just that it so completely pales in comparison to how football is regarded that I don't even have words.

Anecdotal example: my hometown. Average annual household income, $25k; per capita income $15k. One high school. Population 9,700. Largest town for about 45 minutes to an hour in any direction.

While I was in high school, the fieldhouse burned down.

... wait, do you know what a fieldhouse is? Er. Building in which to store training and exercise equipment and lockers and where football players could dress out and get ready before games. Just football players. No other sports players, I don't THINK.

The fieldhouse burned down -- not sure how.

Within one week, and I think it was actually within 3 days, a quarter of a million dollars was raised to replace it.

Yep.

ETA: Right, the point in context of the book -- so basketball was hammered on and talked about and all the cheerleaders were focused on and etc. etc. etc. etc.

Football was absolutely not mentioned, not even once.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA NO.

[skygiants]

*cracking up*

I AM DULY EDUCATED. (I have to admit, even I was surprised that there did not seem to be any other sports teams at the whole high school. Or social groups and activities that did not revolve around basketball, or very occasionally orchestra.)