BOOK REPORT: DISJOINTED NOSTALGIA
I am sure that I have many things to say, and all of them are important, but really, I am bored with all that. Instead, I thought I would discuss a book that I finished a while ago, and which I am still thinking about. In fact, I had meant to talk about it earlier. I even dog eared pages while I was reading it, thinking, "LJ is gonna love this."
What is this book?
Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later
LEFT: This is Elizabeth. You can tell because she's all plain and shit.
So, I'm not going to bother talking about the plot. Well, maybe a little. What I wanted to share was this feeling if nostalgia and the sense of reading trash for the sake of trash.
I mean, it's not trash. I would never stand in front of Francine Pascal and say, "your books blow." Not when she could hire fifteen Bruce Patman clones to blow me away.
[Now is a good time to tell you that if you never read the books, you might get a little lost with the references.]
What I am saying is that it's not, uhm, literature by any stretch of the imagination. It's something more, though. It's like, 90210, or Smallville. You get something out of it that is less to do with quality and more to do with...continuity. I suspect that there is a whole subset of fiction that we indulge in like this, and we call it guilty pleasures. For example, I don't claim that either of Laurell K. Hamilton's series are classy. Indeed, I am more tolerant than most people, and even I have started to notice a general...degradation in "quality", whatever that is these days. BUT, I have not stopped reading them, because it's not the quality that I'm looking for. It's the ongoing grind of the characters moving forward.
RIGHT: This is Jessica. You know it's her because the diamond necklace demonstrates her gold digging whore status. That, and she's obviously used a curling iron.
I don't like the idea that we have to label these things "guilty pleasures" and more than I like the whole "refusing dessert because you're trying to be good". It's this idea that you're doing something bad by participating in these things. Read what you want to read. Obviously these authors are doing something right because they have tapped into something that many people identify with.
And how do we identify success and quality and purpose anyway? Back in 1993, I loved Salt N Pepa. I also loved Metallica, and "Whoomp! There It Is." Not all of them have withstood the test of time. Whoomp is gone to the forgotten worlds, Metallica is still played, and Salt N Pepa is what you listen to if you want nostalgia. But it was pretty fucking awesome, and I still listen to it, just like I still think about Sweet Valley High (I wish they had an omnibus, with like books 1-10 in one book, 11-20 in another, etc. Wouldn't that be the shit? OMG REMEMBER WHEN REGINA DIED IN BOOK 40?!)
All of this disjointed crap is just to make me feel better. Or something. Anyway. So. TO THE MEAT OF THE THINGS.
I want to wallpaper a bathroom with this pattern.
SYNOPSIS STOLEN FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The plot begins with Elizabeth in New York, where she is working on a magazine called "Show Survey," described as "a sort of Zagat for Off Broadway." Through flashbacks, we learn that Jessica and Todd had been having an affair off and on for the last 5 years, and that 8 months ago Elizabeth discovered their duplicity, and has not spoken to either of them since.
A few characters from the original series pop up, most notably Winston Egbert, who invested in a dot-com venture with Bruce Patman (also a major character in this book, Bruce's personality changed dramatically when both of his parents passed away suddenly, making him a more caring, sensitive person). Winston's money turned him into a major jerk, and he no longer has any friends. He dies mid-way through the book from an "accidental" fall from his 20-story balcony.
Jessica and Todd still live together in Sweet Valley. Jessica has a very successful career for a cosmetics marketing company called "MYFACEISGREEN" and Todd is a sports writer. They are very much in love, but haunted by what they have done to Elizabeth and by the vicious gossip that surrounds them.
The twins are expected to attend their grandmother's 80th birthday party. Elizabeth is torn, not wanting to see her sister and Todd again, but wanting revenge for what Jessica has done to her. She goes to the party, bringing Liam, a handsome bartender she has met in New York. Liam is very attracted to Jessica and flirts with her during the party, causing a rift between Jessica and Todd, which escalates into a free-for-all between all the members of the family (including older brother Steven, who has recently discovered he's gay).
Alice Wakefield, the twins' mother, desperately tries to keep the peace, repeatedly asking the staff to serve the cake, finally losing her cool and screaming to her husband, "Ned! Bring out the fucking cake!" Later that night, lying in bed, Jessica realizes that in order to get her sister back, she has to give up Todd. She packs a bag and heads to New York to see her sister.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been doing some serious thinking on the plane, and comes to the realization that she had fallen out of love with Todd a long time ago, but was too much of a "commitment freak" to admit it to herself. Elizabeth finds Jessica on her doorstep, and at first is very unforgiving, but finally relents and the sisters hold each other, sobbing, and make up. The epilogue takes place at Jessica and Todd's wedding, which many of the characters attend. Bruce Patman professes his love for Elizabeth, and the two of them presumably live happily ever after.
HAAAHAHAAAHAHAHA. BUT THE BEST PART WAS THE WRITING.
And what faces they were. Gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. The kind you couldn't stop looking at. Their eyes were shades of aqua that danced in the light like shards of precious stones, oval and fringed with thick, light brown lashes long enough to cast a shadow on their cheeks. Their silky blond hair, the cascading kind, fell just below their shoulders. And to complete the perfection, their rosy lips looked as if they were penciled on. There wasn't a thing wrong with their figures, either. It was as if billions of possibilities all fell together perfectly. Twice.
HAAAHAAAHAHAHAAAHAHA. HA.
Jessica thinks about Enid Rollins, who apparently has become a class A bitch:
Jessica felt she had been right about Enid all along. Underneath that humble, self-effacing, best-friend disguise, there was a pretentious, egotistical shit who only wanted to steal Elizabeth from her.
THE WORD SHIT IN A SV BOOK.
All {Elizabeth] could remember now was now much they had hated each other, Jessica and Todd. They hardly spoke. There weren't even Facebook friends.
OH HDU JESSICA I AM FACEBOOK FRIENDS WITH MAC N CHEESE. HOW CAN YOU NOT "LIKE" TODD.
Later, we get Todd's POV:
Actually, having Jessica in the house should be good discipline. It should keep me locked away in my office, where I have no choice but to work. Or YouTube some old game or watch porn. Wouldn't be the first time.
STFU TODD I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT YOU WATCHING PORN.
Guess why this paragraph made me lol:
Elizabeth stood, shoved her chair out, grabbed her purse, and, leaning into his face, said more in a hiss than a whisper, "Fuck you!"
AND I BRING YOU THE BEST SEX SCENE EVER:
But this kiss was no silly romantic nonsense. It was real! And it was wild!
It reverberated right through her whole body. Before she knew it, Elizabeth threw her arms around Bruce as if she had just returned from a million years away from the man she loved. [???]
At last Bruce had the love of his life in his arms, the unattainable woman he had adored for ten years, the woman he watched loving someone else. He'd known their love was wrong, But her couldn't tell her the truth because he cared too much.
They were both overcome, out of breath. Bruce stood up and held out his hand. And as she did ten years ago in that hospital waiting room, Elizabeth slipped her hand into his. Together they walked up the steps to his bedroom.
Once there, they just held each other. The Bruce put his hands on her shoulders and moved her back slightly, only far enough to see her completely. To make certain she was absolutely there.
Gently, he unbuttoned her silk blouse. She didn't move. He slid it down over her shoulders, deftly unhooking her bra and allowing her breasts, with their taut nipples, to be free. He just stared at her, drinking in the sight of the flesh and blood of years of longing. [???] Still she didn't move, waiting for him to slip her skirt and thong down over her hip[s and reveal her total nakedness to him.
With the excitement of standing in front of this man whom she had known for so long from the distance of friendship, of being completely exposed to him, it took all her willpower to keep from closing the space between them and feeling the heat of his body against hers.
But now it was her turn. Elizabeth reached out and began to unbutton Bruce's shirt. She moved her hands to his belt, unzipped his pants, and with a gentle push, allowed them to drop to the floor, exposing his smooth, almost sculpted body and his desire for her.
Bruce let his shirt drop from his arms, kicked his legs free of the clothes, and took his love in his arms, pressing so hard he feared he would break her, but he couldn't stop himself and she didn't break. Together, they fell to the bed.
When they made love, it was completely loving, full of such deep tenderness that the passion almost played second to the adoration.
But the passion was there, and once the love had been established, the excitement took over and spun them out into the wild reaches of the glorious.
At last Elizabeth knew the splendid, the marvelous, the amazing, the spectacular!
The over the top!
YES IT ENDS LIKE THAT. OVER THE TOP. OVER THE TOP!
Well, there's a shitty epilogue about Jessica and Todd's wedding that is so bad I want to scream (Jessica walks down the aisle to Phantom of the Opera's 'All I Ask Of You'), BUT OVER THE TOP! AMAZING! SENSATIONAL!
Damn.
What I learned: If Anita Blake ended tomorrow, and then in ten years Laurell wrote a Anita Blake Confidential: Fifty Years Later, I would totally buy that shit.
What is this book?
Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later
LEFT: This is Elizabeth. You can tell because she's all plain and shit.
So, I'm not going to bother talking about the plot. Well, maybe a little. What I wanted to share was this feeling if nostalgia and the sense of reading trash for the sake of trash.
I mean, it's not trash. I would never stand in front of Francine Pascal and say, "your books blow." Not when she could hire fifteen Bruce Patman clones to blow me away.
[Now is a good time to tell you that if you never read the books, you might get a little lost with the references.]
What I am saying is that it's not, uhm, literature by any stretch of the imagination. It's something more, though. It's like, 90210, or Smallville. You get something out of it that is less to do with quality and more to do with...continuity. I suspect that there is a whole subset of fiction that we indulge in like this, and we call it guilty pleasures. For example, I don't claim that either of Laurell K. Hamilton's series are classy. Indeed, I am more tolerant than most people, and even I have started to notice a general...degradation in "quality", whatever that is these days. BUT, I have not stopped reading them, because it's not the quality that I'm looking for. It's the ongoing grind of the characters moving forward.
RIGHT: This is Jessica. You know it's her because the diamond necklace demonstrates her gold digging whore status. That, and she's obviously used a curling iron.
I don't like the idea that we have to label these things "guilty pleasures" and more than I like the whole "refusing dessert because you're trying to be good". It's this idea that you're doing something bad by participating in these things. Read what you want to read. Obviously these authors are doing something right because they have tapped into something that many people identify with.
And how do we identify success and quality and purpose anyway? Back in 1993, I loved Salt N Pepa. I also loved Metallica, and "Whoomp! There It Is." Not all of them have withstood the test of time. Whoomp is gone to the forgotten worlds, Metallica is still played, and Salt N Pepa is what you listen to if you want nostalgia. But it was pretty fucking awesome, and I still listen to it, just like I still think about Sweet Valley High (I wish they had an omnibus, with like books 1-10 in one book, 11-20 in another, etc. Wouldn't that be the shit? OMG REMEMBER WHEN REGINA DIED IN BOOK 40?!)
All of this disjointed crap is just to make me feel better. Or something. Anyway. So. TO THE MEAT OF THE THINGS.
I want to wallpaper a bathroom with this pattern.
SYNOPSIS STOLEN FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The plot begins with Elizabeth in New York, where she is working on a magazine called "Show Survey," described as "a sort of Zagat for Off Broadway." Through flashbacks, we learn that Jessica and Todd had been having an affair off and on for the last 5 years, and that 8 months ago Elizabeth discovered their duplicity, and has not spoken to either of them since.
A few characters from the original series pop up, most notably Winston Egbert, who invested in a dot-com venture with Bruce Patman (also a major character in this book, Bruce's personality changed dramatically when both of his parents passed away suddenly, making him a more caring, sensitive person). Winston's money turned him into a major jerk, and he no longer has any friends. He dies mid-way through the book from an "accidental" fall from his 20-story balcony.
Jessica and Todd still live together in Sweet Valley. Jessica has a very successful career for a cosmetics marketing company called "MYFACEISGREEN" and Todd is a sports writer. They are very much in love, but haunted by what they have done to Elizabeth and by the vicious gossip that surrounds them.
The twins are expected to attend their grandmother's 80th birthday party. Elizabeth is torn, not wanting to see her sister and Todd again, but wanting revenge for what Jessica has done to her. She goes to the party, bringing Liam, a handsome bartender she has met in New York. Liam is very attracted to Jessica and flirts with her during the party, causing a rift between Jessica and Todd, which escalates into a free-for-all between all the members of the family (including older brother Steven, who has recently discovered he's gay).
Alice Wakefield, the twins' mother, desperately tries to keep the peace, repeatedly asking the staff to serve the cake, finally losing her cool and screaming to her husband, "Ned! Bring out the fucking cake!" Later that night, lying in bed, Jessica realizes that in order to get her sister back, she has to give up Todd. She packs a bag and heads to New York to see her sister.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been doing some serious thinking on the plane, and comes to the realization that she had fallen out of love with Todd a long time ago, but was too much of a "commitment freak" to admit it to herself. Elizabeth finds Jessica on her doorstep, and at first is very unforgiving, but finally relents and the sisters hold each other, sobbing, and make up. The epilogue takes place at Jessica and Todd's wedding, which many of the characters attend. Bruce Patman professes his love for Elizabeth, and the two of them presumably live happily ever after.
HAAAHAHAAAHAHAHA. BUT THE BEST PART WAS THE WRITING.
And what faces they were. Gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. The kind you couldn't stop looking at. Their eyes were shades of aqua that danced in the light like shards of precious stones, oval and fringed with thick, light brown lashes long enough to cast a shadow on their cheeks. Their silky blond hair, the cascading kind, fell just below their shoulders. And to complete the perfection, their rosy lips looked as if they were penciled on. There wasn't a thing wrong with their figures, either. It was as if billions of possibilities all fell together perfectly. Twice.
HAAAHAAAHAHAHAAAHAHA. HA.
Jessica thinks about Enid Rollins, who apparently has become a class A bitch:
Jessica felt she had been right about Enid all along. Underneath that humble, self-effacing, best-friend disguise, there was a pretentious, egotistical shit who only wanted to steal Elizabeth from her.
THE WORD SHIT IN A SV BOOK.
All {Elizabeth] could remember now was now much they had hated each other, Jessica and Todd. They hardly spoke. There weren't even Facebook friends.
OH HDU JESSICA I AM FACEBOOK FRIENDS WITH MAC N CHEESE. HOW CAN YOU NOT "LIKE" TODD.
Later, we get Todd's POV:
Actually, having Jessica in the house should be good discipline. It should keep me locked away in my office, where I have no choice but to work. Or YouTube some old game or watch porn. Wouldn't be the first time.
STFU TODD I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT YOU WATCHING PORN.
Guess why this paragraph made me lol:
Elizabeth stood, shoved her chair out, grabbed her purse, and, leaning into his face, said more in a hiss than a whisper, "Fuck you!"
AND I BRING YOU THE BEST SEX SCENE EVER:
But this kiss was no silly romantic nonsense. It was real! And it was wild!
It reverberated right through her whole body. Before she knew it, Elizabeth threw her arms around Bruce as if she had just returned from a million years away from the man she loved. [???]
At last Bruce had the love of his life in his arms, the unattainable woman he had adored for ten years, the woman he watched loving someone else. He'd known their love was wrong, But her couldn't tell her the truth because he cared too much.
They were both overcome, out of breath. Bruce stood up and held out his hand. And as she did ten years ago in that hospital waiting room, Elizabeth slipped her hand into his. Together they walked up the steps to his bedroom.
Once there, they just held each other. The Bruce put his hands on her shoulders and moved her back slightly, only far enough to see her completely. To make certain she was absolutely there.
Gently, he unbuttoned her silk blouse. She didn't move. He slid it down over her shoulders, deftly unhooking her bra and allowing her breasts, with their taut nipples, to be free. He just stared at her, drinking in the sight of the flesh and blood of years of longing. [???] Still she didn't move, waiting for him to slip her skirt and thong down over her hip[s and reveal her total nakedness to him.
With the excitement of standing in front of this man whom she had known for so long from the distance of friendship, of being completely exposed to him, it took all her willpower to keep from closing the space between them and feeling the heat of his body against hers.
But now it was her turn. Elizabeth reached out and began to unbutton Bruce's shirt. She moved her hands to his belt, unzipped his pants, and with a gentle push, allowed them to drop to the floor, exposing his smooth, almost sculpted body and his desire for her.
Bruce let his shirt drop from his arms, kicked his legs free of the clothes, and took his love in his arms, pressing so hard he feared he would break her, but he couldn't stop himself and she didn't break. Together, they fell to the bed.
When they made love, it was completely loving, full of such deep tenderness that the passion almost played second to the adoration.
But the passion was there, and once the love had been established, the excitement took over and spun them out into the wild reaches of the glorious.
At last Elizabeth knew the splendid, the marvelous, the amazing, the spectacular!
The over the top!
YES IT ENDS LIKE THAT. OVER THE TOP. OVER THE TOP!
Well, there's a shitty epilogue about Jessica and Todd's wedding that is so bad I want to scream (Jessica walks down the aisle to Phantom of the Opera's 'All I Ask Of You'), BUT OVER THE TOP! AMAZING! SENSATIONAL!
Damn.
What I learned: If Anita Blake ended tomorrow, and then in ten years Laurell wrote a Anita Blake Confidential: Fifty Years Later, I would totally buy that shit.