Stuff I've read and watched lately
In the category of things I've done lately, I have read the entire Mediator series by Meg Cabot. Now, Meg Cabot is someone I always find simultaneously delightful and frustrating. Delightful because she's funny, with likeable characters who end up in adventures that are fun to read about. Frustrating, because somehow her books always end up as some variation of "I'm clumsy and awkward and boys don't like me, and you won't believe what just happened!" Whether it's "I just found out I'm princess of Genovia" or "I just found a dead body in the dorm" or "I just had my brain inserted in a supermodel's body," the pattern's very similar.
One of the reasons I very much liked the Mediator series is because Suze Simon, the protagonist, isn't really like that... at least at first. Her voice is very recognizably Cabot, but Suze starts out too preoccupied with her weird reality to really pay much attention to whether or not boys like her (though California teenage life does feature). Suze can see the dead, and send them off to their next destination, and quite often that's a "whether they want to or not" kind of deal. This is a girl who doesn't mind punching a ghost in the face, or using a bit of exorcism if need be, and she'll quite happily hit the living too if she's not too keen on what they're doing. Her principal/priest/resident Giles, Father Dom, isn't too happy about Suze's approach, but there's no denying that she gets result.
Of course, there is a boy. His name is Jesse de Silva, he lives in her bedroom, calls her "querida", and has been dead for 150 years. So the problem is not so much that she's awkward and much more that he's a ghost.
The first couple of books are thus very firmly in the delightful end of the scale. Then things start to verge towards frustrating. It starts when Suze falls in love with Jesse and draws the conclusion that since he's acting weird about it, he must not care for her "that" way. This leads to a whole bunch of predictable misunderstanding, when it's perfectly clear to anyone who has ever read a book before that of course he loves her back, it's just that he's a fricking ghost and this complicates matters. To make things even more annoying, once they clear out the misunderstandings, the actual problems of dating a ghost get sideswept in no time flat. And that could have been really interesting, too.
But the main downside of this series shows up in book 4: Paul Slater, mediator and asshole, who doubles as a main antagonist and a romantic rival. You know how in Reaper, Ray Wise is funny and kind of likeable as the devil, and then at the drop of a hat he can be utterly menacing? Paul Slater is nothing whatsoever like that and wishes desperately that he were. I think Meg Cabot was aiming for dark allure, but somehow missed on both counts. (Someone call in Stevie!)
Now, if the issue was just with Paul's personality, I could write him off as a douche and be done with it. But unfortunately, Suze's reactions to him are downright painful. The girl who once threatened to break a girl's finger for saying something nasty about a classmate, and who has engaged in fistfights with both living and dead ghosts, is somehow incapable of forcefully telling Paul where to shove it, even after he sexually assaults her and she has to walk home barefoot on hot tarmac. Instead, she turns into a wilting flower, waffling about "Oh, what you did was so BAD and I love JESSE but why do I get the urge to kiss you BACK?"
At which point I just want to shake her and shout: "The problem isn't that you love someone else! The problem is that he tried to exorcise your boyfriend, and acts as if your consent is irrelevant to a relationship with you!"
All that means that if I had started the series with book 4, I probably wouldn't have grown to love it, but I started from the beginning, and so I love it indeed. If and when a seventh book appears, I will definitely read it, and I'd love to see a film adaptation, if it were a good one.
Speaking of, another source of frustration is the fandom's various fantasy castings, and their complete inability to pick a Hispanic guy for Jesse. I don't quite see how anyone can read about a Californian caballero who uses Spanish curses and endearments, and think "Oh, I know, let's fantasy cast Orlando Bloom!" Although to be fair, someone did cast Michael Trevino, who is Hispanic, even if he's wrong in all other ways. (The thought of him in tight trousers and a puffy white shirt is hilarious.) It has made me rather doubtful about delving deeper into that fandom, though I've read some of the fic.
***
I've also read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, which was lovely, though I had some trouble finishing it through the tears. I don't have a lot to say about it, but I'm happy that I loved it as much as I did, because I enjoy John Green's online presence very much (and his introduction of the situation in Syria has my dad's approval, which as you know is saying something), but the previous books of his I've read were both just in the firm like. This was a love.
I think the fact that it's narrated by a girl had something to do with it; in the other two books (Looking for Alaska and Will Grayson, Will Grayson), I felt more of a distance to the story, being both too old and too female. :-) Also, while the characters still have a tendency to pretentiousness, I felt that they were entitled to, what with dying of cancer and all. Besides, the most pretentious character was definitely Van Houten, who was openly acknowledged to be a blowhard.
Anyway, it's good to have a novel of his that I can point to and say, "I love this," rather than "This was pretty good." :-)
***
On the TV front, I've dealt with my Miranda withdrawal by watching Call the Midwife. I still have the Christmas special and season 2 to go, but I've enjoyed the first six eps very much! It's been a while since I had a mid-century British costume drama in my viewing habits, and I've always enjoyed those; there's a reason I own 40-something Agatha Christies, after all. :-) Indeed I had so much fun watching that it didn't even bother me that Miranda Hart doesn't show up until ep 2.
She's wonderful in this show too, btw. Much more subdued and a bit more posh, but still a bit clumsy and a disappointment to her mother, so I don't feel like she's strayed all that far from the role I've known her in. :-)
***
Season's fourth ep of Lost Girl was a bit uncomfortable, because Kenzi's story is one I recognize from numerous fanfics, and usually not very good ones. When the ficcer doesn't feel that character X is getting enough appreciation, they write a fic in which the other characters are horrible to X, who then suffers through various misfortunes. When the other characters realize how bad they've been and how much X has suffered, they're all terribly sorry and relent and bring ice cream (or whatever). It's a variation on the old "they'll be sorry when I'm dead!" and it's so id-vortexy that it's quite embarrassing to see it on screen, especially with my favourite character.
OTOH, Tamsin is growing on me, so that's nice. I loved her delivery of the "half lion, half eagle, and full asshole" line. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/607962.html and has
comments there.
One of the reasons I very much liked the Mediator series is because Suze Simon, the protagonist, isn't really like that... at least at first. Her voice is very recognizably Cabot, but Suze starts out too preoccupied with her weird reality to really pay much attention to whether or not boys like her (though California teenage life does feature). Suze can see the dead, and send them off to their next destination, and quite often that's a "whether they want to or not" kind of deal. This is a girl who doesn't mind punching a ghost in the face, or using a bit of exorcism if need be, and she'll quite happily hit the living too if she's not too keen on what they're doing. Her principal/priest/resident Giles, Father Dom, isn't too happy about Suze's approach, but there's no denying that she gets result.
Of course, there is a boy. His name is Jesse de Silva, he lives in her bedroom, calls her "querida", and has been dead for 150 years. So the problem is not so much that she's awkward and much more that he's a ghost.
The first couple of books are thus very firmly in the delightful end of the scale. Then things start to verge towards frustrating. It starts when Suze falls in love with Jesse and draws the conclusion that since he's acting weird about it, he must not care for her "that" way. This leads to a whole bunch of predictable misunderstanding, when it's perfectly clear to anyone who has ever read a book before that of course he loves her back, it's just that he's a fricking ghost and this complicates matters. To make things even more annoying, once they clear out the misunderstandings, the actual problems of dating a ghost get sideswept in no time flat. And that could have been really interesting, too.
But the main downside of this series shows up in book 4: Paul Slater, mediator and asshole, who doubles as a main antagonist and a romantic rival. You know how in Reaper, Ray Wise is funny and kind of likeable as the devil, and then at the drop of a hat he can be utterly menacing? Paul Slater is nothing whatsoever like that and wishes desperately that he were. I think Meg Cabot was aiming for dark allure, but somehow missed on both counts. (Someone call in Stevie!)
Now, if the issue was just with Paul's personality, I could write him off as a douche and be done with it. But unfortunately, Suze's reactions to him are downright painful. The girl who once threatened to break a girl's finger for saying something nasty about a classmate, and who has engaged in fistfights with both living and dead ghosts, is somehow incapable of forcefully telling Paul where to shove it, even after he sexually assaults her and she has to walk home barefoot on hot tarmac. Instead, she turns into a wilting flower, waffling about "Oh, what you did was so BAD and I love JESSE but why do I get the urge to kiss you BACK?"
At which point I just want to shake her and shout: "The problem isn't that you love someone else! The problem is that he tried to exorcise your boyfriend, and acts as if your consent is irrelevant to a relationship with you!"
All that means that if I had started the series with book 4, I probably wouldn't have grown to love it, but I started from the beginning, and so I love it indeed. If and when a seventh book appears, I will definitely read it, and I'd love to see a film adaptation, if it were a good one.
Speaking of, another source of frustration is the fandom's various fantasy castings, and their complete inability to pick a Hispanic guy for Jesse. I don't quite see how anyone can read about a Californian caballero who uses Spanish curses and endearments, and think "Oh, I know, let's fantasy cast Orlando Bloom!" Although to be fair, someone did cast Michael Trevino, who is Hispanic, even if he's wrong in all other ways. (The thought of him in tight trousers and a puffy white shirt is hilarious.) It has made me rather doubtful about delving deeper into that fandom, though I've read some of the fic.
***
I've also read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, which was lovely, though I had some trouble finishing it through the tears. I don't have a lot to say about it, but I'm happy that I loved it as much as I did, because I enjoy John Green's online presence very much (and his introduction of the situation in Syria has my dad's approval, which as you know is saying something), but the previous books of his I've read were both just in the firm like. This was a love.
I think the fact that it's narrated by a girl had something to do with it; in the other two books (Looking for Alaska and Will Grayson, Will Grayson), I felt more of a distance to the story, being both too old and too female. :-) Also, while the characters still have a tendency to pretentiousness, I felt that they were entitled to, what with dying of cancer and all. Besides, the most pretentious character was definitely Van Houten, who was openly acknowledged to be a blowhard.
Anyway, it's good to have a novel of his that I can point to and say, "I love this," rather than "This was pretty good." :-)
***
On the TV front, I've dealt with my Miranda withdrawal by watching Call the Midwife. I still have the Christmas special and season 2 to go, but I've enjoyed the first six eps very much! It's been a while since I had a mid-century British costume drama in my viewing habits, and I've always enjoyed those; there's a reason I own 40-something Agatha Christies, after all. :-) Indeed I had so much fun watching that it didn't even bother me that Miranda Hart doesn't show up until ep 2.
She's wonderful in this show too, btw. Much more subdued and a bit more posh, but still a bit clumsy and a disappointment to her mother, so I don't feel like she's strayed all that far from the role I've known her in. :-)
***
Season's fourth ep of Lost Girl was a bit uncomfortable, because Kenzi's story is one I recognize from numerous fanfics, and usually not very good ones. When the ficcer doesn't feel that character X is getting enough appreciation, they write a fic in which the other characters are horrible to X, who then suffers through various misfortunes. When the other characters realize how bad they've been and how much X has suffered, they're all terribly sorry and relent and bring ice cream (or whatever). It's a variation on the old "they'll be sorry when I'm dead!" and it's so id-vortexy that it's quite embarrassing to see it on screen, especially with my favourite character.
OTOH, Tamsin is growing on me, so that's nice. I loved her delivery of the "half lion, half eagle, and full asshole" line. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/607962.html and has
comments there.