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Nov. 9th, 2011 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOH GOD. Okay, look, I knew there was only a very small chance that So Shelly (Byron, Keats, and Shelly HIGH SCHOOL AU!) was going to be good. But I expected it to be really entertainingly bad! I did not expect it to be THROW THE BOOK AGAINST THE WALL IN A FIT OF RAGE bad!
The premise of the book: free spirit Shelly is DEAD . . . in high school! Unlikely partners Sexy Bad Boy Byron and Nerdy Poet Keats decide to kidnap her ashes and scatter them on an island in the wacky free spirit way she would have wanted, all the while talking about her life.
Which, okay, fine! I mean I'm already sort of sad that Shelly starts out the book pre-emptively dead, but at least everyone is going to be talking about her all the time, right?
WRONG.
About 80% of this book is about Sexy Bad Boy Byron and a dramatic past serial of Sexy Bad Boy Adventures, including Sexy Bad Boy Incest, Sexy Bad Boy Date Rape, Sexy Bad Boy Getting Involved In Violent Terrorism For The Lulz, and general all around Sexy Bad Boy Making Me Want To Murder Him.
(Well, he also has Sexy Bad Boy Adventures in publishing the AU version of Eragon, which is pretty hilarious and possibly the only real reason to read this book. That, and the fact that Shelly's favorite movie is Harold and Maude. IT WOULD BE.)
Meanwhile, Keats -- who is narrating the story -- occasionally gets a word in to talk about how he is DOOMED TO DIE YOUNG. But mostly he talks about how sexy Byron is. Sample Keats musing on Byron:
"I realized then for the first time that it was his mouth to which one was powerlessly drawn"
"an angel among angels is invisible, but an angel among men is a god"
"the rhythmic, gyrating torque of his body intermittently exposed his perfect ass to the moon"
The best/worst part is how we are somehow still expected to believe that Keats is straight.
The worst-worst part is how almost all Shelly does in the book is pine after Byron. (Claire Clairmont and Caroline Lamb and Augusta Byron all appear too. None of them do anything except pine after and sleep with Byron, and get narratively pitied for the fact that the poor things can't help being obsessed with him; he's just so sexy!) Keats explains it thusly:
"I hate it that so much of what should be Shelly's story is about Gordon [Byron]. But then, so much of her life was too."
DUDE, YOU WROTE IT THAT WAY. I hate to break it to you, but being fake remorseful about how you find it so much more interesting to talk about creepy sexy Byron than about your actual female lead does not actually get you off the hook!
There is one point of the book at which Shelly gets to do something that's not all about Byron. Unfortunately, the thing that she does is go to help a random Ottowa Indian attempt to reclaim a nearby island (!), announce that she's always felt she's Ottowa at heart (!!) and TEACH THE NAIVE-BUT-SEXY OTTOWA LEADER HIS OWN LANGUAGE (!!!). Then they make out. Then he dies, while Shelly is being conflicted about her feelings for Byron. Thanks for adding bonus racism to all the sexism!
But in case we were worried that there wouldn't be enough sexism, the other thing she does get to do is be raped by her father. And then generously forgive him. AWESOME.
In a note at the end of the book, the author explains that he was trying to make all the characters more likeable than they actually were historically. Then he adds that he was trying to spotlight the Romantics' "emphasis on energy, emotion, optimism, freedom, individual and social betterment, non-confirmity, and righteous revolution."
When Kate Beaton's Byron and Shelley are doing better on ALL THESE AXES? You're doing it wrong.
The premise of the book: free spirit Shelly is DEAD . . . in high school! Unlikely partners Sexy Bad Boy Byron and Nerdy Poet Keats decide to kidnap her ashes and scatter them on an island in the wacky free spirit way she would have wanted, all the while talking about her life.
Which, okay, fine! I mean I'm already sort of sad that Shelly starts out the book pre-emptively dead, but at least everyone is going to be talking about her all the time, right?
WRONG.
About 80% of this book is about Sexy Bad Boy Byron and a dramatic past serial of Sexy Bad Boy Adventures, including Sexy Bad Boy Incest, Sexy Bad Boy Date Rape, Sexy Bad Boy Getting Involved In Violent Terrorism For The Lulz, and general all around Sexy Bad Boy Making Me Want To Murder Him.
(Well, he also has Sexy Bad Boy Adventures in publishing the AU version of Eragon, which is pretty hilarious and possibly the only real reason to read this book. That, and the fact that Shelly's favorite movie is Harold and Maude. IT WOULD BE.)
Meanwhile, Keats -- who is narrating the story -- occasionally gets a word in to talk about how he is DOOMED TO DIE YOUNG. But mostly he talks about how sexy Byron is. Sample Keats musing on Byron:
"I realized then for the first time that it was his mouth to which one was powerlessly drawn"
"an angel among angels is invisible, but an angel among men is a god"
"the rhythmic, gyrating torque of his body intermittently exposed his perfect ass to the moon"
The best/worst part is how we are somehow still expected to believe that Keats is straight.
The worst-worst part is how almost all Shelly does in the book is pine after Byron. (Claire Clairmont and Caroline Lamb and Augusta Byron all appear too. None of them do anything except pine after and sleep with Byron, and get narratively pitied for the fact that the poor things can't help being obsessed with him; he's just so sexy!) Keats explains it thusly:
"I hate it that so much of what should be Shelly's story is about Gordon [Byron]. But then, so much of her life was too."
DUDE, YOU WROTE IT THAT WAY. I hate to break it to you, but being fake remorseful about how you find it so much more interesting to talk about creepy sexy Byron than about your actual female lead does not actually get you off the hook!
There is one point of the book at which Shelly gets to do something that's not all about Byron. Unfortunately, the thing that she does is go to help a random Ottowa Indian attempt to reclaim a nearby island (!), announce that she's always felt she's Ottowa at heart (!!) and TEACH THE NAIVE-BUT-SEXY OTTOWA LEADER HIS OWN LANGUAGE (!!!). Then they make out. Then he dies, while Shelly is being conflicted about her feelings for Byron. Thanks for adding bonus racism to all the sexism!
But in case we were worried that there wouldn't be enough sexism, the other thing she does get to do is be raped by her father. And then generously forgive him. AWESOME.
In a note at the end of the book, the author explains that he was trying to make all the characters more likeable than they actually were historically. Then he adds that he was trying to spotlight the Romantics' "emphasis on energy, emotion, optimism, freedom, individual and social betterment, non-confirmity, and righteous revolution."
When Kate Beaton's Byron and Shelley are doing better on ALL THESE AXES? You're doing it wrong.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 04:33 pm (UTC)Also, the author explains that he was trying to make all the characters more likeable than they actually were historically: then maybe, just maybe, he should use different characters? I freely admit that my particular specialization doesn't help me understand the obsession with The Author, but this seems bizarre even to me.
But yeah, the fail seems strong with this one.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 04:51 pm (UTC)See, I'm not even weirded out by that; what I'm weirded out by is the fact that, as far as I am concerned, he has only succeeded in making them much less likeable!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 05:17 pm (UTC)Take unlikable historical figures, add in desire to make them likeable characters, sprinkle in some Fail (multiple varieties), and the result is almost always toxic. Thanks for taking one for the team! (And by team I CLEARLY mean "all humanity." LOL.)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-10 02:09 am (UTC)