Marked: Acknowledgements
AcknowledgementsAh. It seems it wasn’t enough to have a page for dedications before the beginning of the actual story; we also have to see the acknowledgements first.
The first one is addressed to some cheezit former student of P.C’s who apparently acted as a proof reader and researcher for her early drafts, giving feedback (but probably not a lot of criticism). Well, it’s more than Meyer cared to get, so I can’t complain too much. Then again, this university cheezit, John Maslin, was apparently so ‘invaluable’ that his name went on loan to a character I can only name now as ‘Mr Drippy Mows (the Mildly Offensive Walking Stereotype)’, for a reason I can only think of being that Maslin must have had something to do with the addition of QUILTBAG issues (I’ll talk about those much later in-story). His input has caused more harm than good, so I suppose having his name lent to a vehicle for ignorance and discrimination is some sort of karmic retribution - then again, you can’t help feel sorry for him, just for that
.
Of course, it says a lot in that P.C. trusted an inexperienced cheezit’s opinion on anything she was considering publishing at some point. Sure, this book is aimed at teenagers, so make sure to get a teen’s opinion, but still - don’t trust anyone more than half your age with less than a tenth of your writing experience to give you a good and fair critique (after all, he might have lied to get extra credit).
However, he is a former student, which can only mean P.C is a qualified teacher, and some irresponsible moron thought she was a person from whom students would benefit in learning anything. Not only that, but she, this teacher (in the loosest, most technical of the sense) went to a mere grasshopper to confide in and help her with this book of hers.
For P.C being a teacher, and me knowing what I know, and for her irresponsibility, I award this:
PARENTAL INFLUENCE PERVERSION: 2
The next one isn’t much better; it’s a ‘big THANKS GUYS’ to her Creative Writing class of 2005-2006 (the classes she taught, that is), wherein many lessons were given over to brainstorming for the book. Not only were their suggestions ‘helpful’ but also ‘amusing’.
Again, how irresponsible is this? Not only is she fishing for critiques and comments from a bunch of students quite possibly eager to lie to their teacher to get extra credits, but she is wasting her students’ valuable class time on her personal project. As much as this sounds just like the same writer who will drop the plot at any point for the sake of writing about petty little love-triangles, this still stinks.
And they let this time-waster teach…
PARENTAL INFLUENCE PERVERSION: 3
The next acknowledgement is for Kristin from P.C, for ‘making sure [they] sound like teenagers’. Yo dawg, teenagers are a different race! There isn’t much I can say about this except, why is her daughter the third acknowledgement, not the first (considering she’s co-author), and why does she feel obligated to end it with ‘she made me write that’? All I can say is that, since she’s the reason for the existence of Zoey as you know and love her, why does she have to force you to acknowledge her part in your joint success? What a brilliant mother that makes you look like.
The next is from Kristin, for her ‘lovely ‘mam’’ for apparently being so talented and so easy to work with. As a running gag, she apparently was made to write that, too, which reasserts my belief that if you’re going to make jokes in acknowledgements, you should get an FFN account or a Live Journal…
Oh yeah.
That acknowledgement? Sounds like the words of someone with a very, very narrow taste in literature and no idea of good writing outside of her mother’s own… ‘produce’.
Outside of that?
This just sounds like the world’s most perfect literary circle jerk.
I will leave you with that.
The last acknowledgement is to their father/grandfather, who came up with the whole scientific/physiological basis for the vampyres. It’s only thinly plausible, and would only work if A Wizard Did It, but seeing as how he has P.C and Kristin for relatives, I’m going to give him a pass. The sentiment actually seems to be there, so I won’t say much else.
All in all, this page was a waste of pulp, and what I learned from it was not flattering to either of them. Go home, you’re drunk.