On secret diaries and space operas
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick
Twenty-four-year-old grad student Lizzie Bennet is saddled with student loans and still living at home with her two sisters-beautiful Jane and reckless Lydia. When she records her reflections on life for her thesis project and posts them on YouTube, she has no idea The Lizzie Bennet Diaries will soon take on a life of their own, turning the Bennet sisters into Internet celebrities seemingly overnight.
When rich and handsome Bing Lee comes to town, along with his stuck-up friend William Darcy, things really start to get interesting for the Bennets-and for Lizzie’s viewers. But not everything happens on-screen. Lucky for us, Lizzie has a secret diary.
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet takes readers deep inside Lizzie’s world and well beyond the confines of her camera-from the wedding where she first meets William Darcy to the local hangout of Carter’s bar, and much more, Lizzie’s private musings are filled with revealing details about the Bennet household, including her growing suspicions about her parents’ unstable financial situation, her sister’s budding relationship with Bing Lee, the perils of her unexpected fame, and her uncertainty over her future-and whom she wants to share it with.
Even though I was an avid fan of the fantastic, entertaining YouTube series, in all honesty I wasn’t expecting much more from the companion novel, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet. After a hundred episodes online, what more can be said? But I’m glad I listened to that niggling voice at the back of my mind telling me to give this book a shot, for it accomplished the unlikely: It actually deepened my appreciation for the original series.
This is a spot-on and very smart Pride & Prejudice retelling for the millennial era-i.e. my generation. Going even further than the videos, Lizzie’s diary entries take us deeper into her life and reveal the many complications in her life. From her worries about her parents’ finances to her mounting student debts to her unshakeable bond with her sisters, she is a young woman many twenty-somethings can relate with, and moreover, root for. I especially sympathized with Lizzie’s worries about her nebulous future: She captures the anxiety and uncertainty that I certainly have felt, especially right after college, about what all this expensive education is for. She is the perfect Lizzie translated for the twenty-first century, without being merely a cheap knock-off the original Austen heroine.
The book also adds depth to an already memorable supporting cast. My one quibble about the YouTube series was that it perhaps relied too heavily on Lizzie’s impersonations (hilarious as they were) to tell the story; sometimes, characters should be allowed to speak for themselves (such as Darcy, who memorably doesn’t show up until the last few episodes). But the companion “diary” gives them precisely that space, and even characters like Lizzie’s mother, who seemed more like caricatures on camera, gained a richer, more nuanced dimension. One of my favorite scenes is when, after Lizzie memorably rejects Ricky Collins’ job offer, her exasperated mother exclaims:
God, I am so sick of everyone in your generation holding out for something perfect…. And you think your ideals are so precious that when you step out into the world, everything has to be exact as it is in your head. Well, it won’t. You have to work for it. And taking a decent job-however unworthy you find it-is the first step (141-142).
It’s moments like that add a touch of realness to the story, and make a real person out of Mrs. Bennet, rather than just a hysterical, cartoon mother bent on marrying off her daughters (well, at least for only some of the time).
While it doesn’t add anything groundbreaking, per se, to the vlog series, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet is an enjoyable read and one that makes me want to re-watch such a memorable series… or for now, catch up on Emma Approved.
Saga: Volume Two by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
The smash-hit ongoing epic continues! Thanks to her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana, newborn baby Hazel has already survived lethal assassins, rampaging armies, and alien monstrosities, but in the cold vastness of outer space, the little girl encounters something truly frightening: her grandparents!
In my review of Saga: Volume One (my first-ever graphic novel), I commented on how impressed I was by the tight storytelling: Each frame, each panel added momentum to the story. Now that I have become more acclimated to the genre, this time around I noticed the easy fluidity of the storyline. Events flit back from the past to the present without hardly skipping a beat: For instance, we are introduced to how Marko and Alana first met in the prison where he was being held, and the unlikely circumstances behind their romance. Since both Marko and Alana hail from two enemy races, you’d think they’re simply an outer space version of Romeo and Juliet, but Vaughan and Staples slyly tweak such a classic pairing, throwing in unexpected moments of dark humor and irony along the way.
Another way Volume Two introduces the characters’ past is by introducing Marko’s parents, aka Baby Hazel’s parents, who first popped up at the end of Volume One. Since Alana hasn’t met his parents (or they don’t even know she is his wife, much less approve of her), there is plenty of “meet the parents” tension to lighten up the story. For all of Saga’s strange and out-of-this world trappings, it’s reassuring to know that at its heart it remains a story about family-albeit one that has to dodge alien assassins and be on the run through several galaxies.
Twenty-four-year-old grad student Lizzie Bennet is saddled with student loans and still living at home with her two sisters-beautiful Jane and reckless Lydia. When she records her reflections on life for her thesis project and posts them on YouTube, she has no idea The Lizzie Bennet Diaries will soon take on a life of their own, turning the Bennet sisters into Internet celebrities seemingly overnight.
When rich and handsome Bing Lee comes to town, along with his stuck-up friend William Darcy, things really start to get interesting for the Bennets-and for Lizzie’s viewers. But not everything happens on-screen. Lucky for us, Lizzie has a secret diary.
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet takes readers deep inside Lizzie’s world and well beyond the confines of her camera-from the wedding where she first meets William Darcy to the local hangout of Carter’s bar, and much more, Lizzie’s private musings are filled with revealing details about the Bennet household, including her growing suspicions about her parents’ unstable financial situation, her sister’s budding relationship with Bing Lee, the perils of her unexpected fame, and her uncertainty over her future-and whom she wants to share it with.
Even though I was an avid fan of the fantastic, entertaining YouTube series, in all honesty I wasn’t expecting much more from the companion novel, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet. After a hundred episodes online, what more can be said? But I’m glad I listened to that niggling voice at the back of my mind telling me to give this book a shot, for it accomplished the unlikely: It actually deepened my appreciation for the original series.
This is a spot-on and very smart Pride & Prejudice retelling for the millennial era-i.e. my generation. Going even further than the videos, Lizzie’s diary entries take us deeper into her life and reveal the many complications in her life. From her worries about her parents’ finances to her mounting student debts to her unshakeable bond with her sisters, she is a young woman many twenty-somethings can relate with, and moreover, root for. I especially sympathized with Lizzie’s worries about her nebulous future: She captures the anxiety and uncertainty that I certainly have felt, especially right after college, about what all this expensive education is for. She is the perfect Lizzie translated for the twenty-first century, without being merely a cheap knock-off the original Austen heroine.
The book also adds depth to an already memorable supporting cast. My one quibble about the YouTube series was that it perhaps relied too heavily on Lizzie’s impersonations (hilarious as they were) to tell the story; sometimes, characters should be allowed to speak for themselves (such as Darcy, who memorably doesn’t show up until the last few episodes). But the companion “diary” gives them precisely that space, and even characters like Lizzie’s mother, who seemed more like caricatures on camera, gained a richer, more nuanced dimension. One of my favorite scenes is when, after Lizzie memorably rejects Ricky Collins’ job offer, her exasperated mother exclaims:
God, I am so sick of everyone in your generation holding out for something perfect…. And you think your ideals are so precious that when you step out into the world, everything has to be exact as it is in your head. Well, it won’t. You have to work for it. And taking a decent job-however unworthy you find it-is the first step (141-142).
It’s moments like that add a touch of realness to the story, and make a real person out of Mrs. Bennet, rather than just a hysterical, cartoon mother bent on marrying off her daughters (well, at least for only some of the time).
While it doesn’t add anything groundbreaking, per se, to the vlog series, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet is an enjoyable read and one that makes me want to re-watch such a memorable series… or for now, catch up on Emma Approved.
Saga: Volume Two by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
The smash-hit ongoing epic continues! Thanks to her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana, newborn baby Hazel has already survived lethal assassins, rampaging armies, and alien monstrosities, but in the cold vastness of outer space, the little girl encounters something truly frightening: her grandparents!
In my review of Saga: Volume One (my first-ever graphic novel), I commented on how impressed I was by the tight storytelling: Each frame, each panel added momentum to the story. Now that I have become more acclimated to the genre, this time around I noticed the easy fluidity of the storyline. Events flit back from the past to the present without hardly skipping a beat: For instance, we are introduced to how Marko and Alana first met in the prison where he was being held, and the unlikely circumstances behind their romance. Since both Marko and Alana hail from two enemy races, you’d think they’re simply an outer space version of Romeo and Juliet, but Vaughan and Staples slyly tweak such a classic pairing, throwing in unexpected moments of dark humor and irony along the way.
Another way Volume Two introduces the characters’ past is by introducing Marko’s parents, aka Baby Hazel’s parents, who first popped up at the end of Volume One. Since Alana hasn’t met his parents (or they don’t even know she is his wife, much less approve of her), there is plenty of “meet the parents” tension to lighten up the story. For all of Saga’s strange and out-of-this world trappings, it’s reassuring to know that at its heart it remains a story about family-albeit one that has to dodge alien assassins and be on the run through several galaxies.