"Twilight," by Stephenie Meyer

The Chick: Bella Swan, a girl who moves to live with her dad in Forks, Seattle ("The Rainiest Place on Earth") from Arizona, in order to give her mother and her new hubby more space. Needless to say, she doesn't take kindly to having to adapt to this new climate.
Shady Past: She's whiny, has low self-esteem, and both of her parents are self-centred, oblivious morons.

The Dude: Edward Cullen, a super-hot, super-emo vampire capable of reading people's minds who treats Bella like shit for half the book and spends the next half playing yo-yo with their relationship.
Shady Past: Was sired by Dr. Vampire (Carlisle Cullen) when he was dying of influenza in the early 20th century. Is sparkly. Likes to eat woodland animals. Can't make up his mind worth a damn.

The Plot:Bella: I hate Forks! I hate rain! I'm such a nice person, but I hate Forks! And rain!

Mike, Jessica, Various Other Forks Residents: Hey Bella! Let's be friends! Sit at our table! Cheat off our homework! Can we bake you cookies?

Bella: Anyone who could possibly like Forks must be an idiot. Sure, I will deign to sit at your table and let you shower me with friendliness, but I will remain in my comfortable depressive funk and will continue to think that you are all hicks. Who's that?

Edward: *SHUNS*

Bella: Wow! You're the perfect guy for me! Date me!

Edward: NO.

Bella: What?

Edward: Yes.

Bella: Yay!

Edward: We musn't!

Bella: Uh...

Edward: I can't resist you!

Bella: Wait...

Edward: NO! This is WRONG! I am too dangerous and sexy for you!

Bella: Well...

Edward: I love you!

Bella: Great...

Edward: I'd love you for DINNER! NO! NO I MUSTN'T!

James, The Tracker Vampire Who Gets to the Point: Ooh, human girl. TASTY. *tracks, catches Bella*

Edward: *kicks fucking ass!*

James: *DIES*

Edward: Bella, I love you! But I'm dangerous! But you're so pretty! But I'm a monster! But you're so...

Bella: You could just, uh, MAKE me a vampire. That'd make things easier.

Edward: I can't do that! Then there wouldn't be any sequels, silly!

Romantic Convention Checklist1 Conflicted Vampire Hero
2 Careless Parents
1 Romantically Lackluster Rival
1 Efficient Villain
1 Clueless Best Friend

The Word: M'eh. I'd heard so many things about these books, but I never got around to reading them. Writing for Green Man, I was often given a lot of paranormal romances with vampires and demons and crap (Working for the Devil, Blood Ties Book One, and Moon Called) and I just got sick of them. Tired out. Vampires are almost universally gloomy, sad, sober characters and I HATE those, quite frankly. You rarely get a vampire character with a happy, devilish sense of humour or who's cheerful or anything - they're always conflicted, boo hoo, "I hate myself because I'm a monster," blah blah, "our love can never be but while you're here we might as well have hot kinky sex," yadda yadda.

But Twilight just got so much hype, and for once, I didn't hate the vampire characters - Edward Cullens and his adopted family (or "coven") of vampires run by Carlisle Cullen, or as I like to call him, "Dr Vampire." Edward was pretty good - conflicted, hell yes, and pretty much completely indecisive (every second sentence out of his mouth towards Bella that isn't "I love you" is "we totally shouldn't be together because it's stupid and wrong"). His yes-and-no game can get tiring, but he's wry and heroic and has that cocked-eyebrow thing going for him so he's fine by me.

Actually, it was Bella I didn't like. I nearly put the book down after the first hundred pages because she's such a wet blanketed bitch. I mean, she earns goodwill points by doing a pretty selfless thing (moving to a town she's always hated to give her mum a chance to have fun), but she flushes those points down the toilet by acting incredibly selfish in Forks. Everyone in Forks pretty much bends over backwards to be friends with her and she brushes them off and acts peevishly uncomfortable with all the positive attention. I get it, she's in a town she hates, but when she's so determined to remain unhappy that she treats the genuinely nice people in town like dirt for having the gall to try and cheer her up, I nearly gave up right then. Even worse, she blows off all the genuinely nice people in town to hang out with the guy who treats her like dog shit right off the bat. Oh, it's going to be one of those stories, is it? I thought.

Eventually Bella warms up to people, but throughout the book she continually treats Edward like the only person worth living and everyone else like lesser annoyances she has to deal with. It's a little easier to understand her aloofness once you realize that she's had to be independent, since both of her parents are those irritatingly airhead-neglectful types who never talk to her except the occasional obligatory, "You're not pregnant are you?" and are obviously too obsessed with their own lives. It's still incredibly hard to relate to her, though. She has a few reasonable faults - like clumsiness and low self-esteem and, but really, she doesn't actually demonstrate a whole lot of positive points either.

The main reason Edward ends up falling for her is because he's can't read her mind like he can everyone else's, so she has that air of mystery. But she has nothing else. I like a good hero as much as the next romance gal, but the heroine has to be worth loving too, and Bella gave very little back to the relationship, in my opinion. So, while the vampire characters were well-written and most of the book relatively pleasant, this isn't a keeper by any means, and nor will I read any of the sequels. Unless Bella finally decides to get her head out of her ass and treat people like people. B-.

Free at last! Free at last!

I finished my last exam yesterday, my last exam FOREVER (unless I go back in the distant, distant future as my mum keeps on insisting I do) and on TOP of that, I was able to snap up an impromptu but still very successful job interview with the University library. If I get it, I'm set for eleven months at a job that's a) easy to get to, b) has regular hours and no evenings or weekends, c) encourages a casual dress code (so long as you don't dress like a slut), d) starts up right after tour, and e) pays more than minimum wage.

I'll still have to get a job after this one expires at the end of March '09 if I get it, and while it'll cover tuition it won't cover all my living expenses, it's probably the best job I can hope the get and the one I'll enjoy the most. I was still worried at the end of my exam that I might not find a job, but the interview (especially since it went so well) really relaxed me. Now I can go back to writing and preparing for UAMC tour!

The Ride Has Ended...Please Pick Up Your Adulthood at the Door

Yesterday was my absolutely LAST day of my degree. My LAST. Mum thinks I should go into academia, seeing as I got straight A's on all of my term papers, but my experience with graduates has been pretty negative - I might read a book and say, "I loved the circular narrative structure." A graduate student might read a book and say, "I loved the book's use of repetitive feminist allegorical space" or some crap like that. I don't want to pick apart books like that into tiny sterile pieces, and I don't think that's how many books are written, either.

Anyway, I'm done except for exams (and three of those require no studying, really) and I've got great grades. I kept my eyes open on the last day of my degree, my last day of education really until I go to VFS. I don't know, I guess I thought something significant would happen, but nothing really did. I didn't go to the beergardens. Someone didn't just up and offer me a fantastic fulltime job. It was just an ordinary schoolday, when I was expecting it to be somehow different from all the others. It wasn't different, it was just over. I don't know if I'm disappointed or elated.

"Rapunzel," "Rapunzel," Go Down in Flames

Disney and Pixar revealed their slate of animated movies until 2012, and Rapunzel, sadly, is still a go. I shouldn't be sad, it'll probably be awesome and have wonderful visuals and music and it's better than all that Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons shit they've been peddling.

But it won't be my Rapunzel - the animated screenplay I was (slowly) outlining and working on and animating in my head while listening to Alan Menken. It was original! It had a nerd inventor shut-in heroine! It had a witch stepmother who was actually misunderstood - and her demon familiar who totally wasn't because he was totally evil. I had a handsome prince with flaws! FLAWS! It dealt with bullying and being yourself and gave the notoriously difficult fairytale a relatable context! ARGH!

That's not to say I don't have another ideas for when I work for Disney. I put a lot of personal stuff into my story for Rapunzel, so I'm disappointed that I couldn't write it and get famous fast enough to show Disney how brilliant it obviously is. I mean, I've seen some of the early pictures for Rapunzel. Blonde, again? Pink, again?? Seriously, there are different colours out there, and Punzie doesn't have to be blonde. Can you imagine how dingy her hair would look like after a few climbs if it's so light-coloured? Ew!

Anyway, sad sad sad - but maybe I should get my ass on writing The Six Dancing Princesses, The Frog Prince, The Princess and the Pea, and The Seven Swans screenplays before Disney snaps all those ones up too.

Writing for Me! And only for Me!

As of last Friday, March 28th, I handed in my absolute FINAL essay for my English degree -- it was an essay for History 297: History of Christianity. It was on the ideology behind the Second Crusade as expressed in The Song of Roland, and compared to the ideology of the Second Crusade promoted by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. But now I'm done - NO MORE ESSAYS! I am writing only for me!

Yes, yes, I still have that Comp Lit exam I have to write for my Romance class, but as my exam is going to be a work of romantic fiction that rewrites Chretien de Troyes' The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot), and it's turning out to be one of the prettiest things I've ever written, it's much too fun to write to consider it really work, and once I'm graded on it, I'll probably submit it hither and thither as it should count as both a fantasy and a romance.

Even though I'm finishd with that final essay, it certainly wasn't the easiest to write. It's as if God, or Fate, wasn't quite finished screwing with me and didn't want to left me off that easy -- the day before my essay was due (and at that point the essay was only half typed) the transformer on my old laptop that was a high school graduation gift abruptly died on me. I bought a thumb drive and managed to get most of my work onto it before the battery life on the old thing sank into Hibernation mode, but it was still terribly inconvenient. I now had only half a day to finish a 3000-word essay. For the first time ever, I actually stayed up until 1:30 finishing it. I've never had to do that before, so I find it kind of funny that this sort of stereotypical "university scramble" had to happen to me on my last essay.

The good news is, I handed it in on time, and today my parents decided to give me my University graduation present early: a shiny new laptop, which I am writing on right now! The keys are all in slightly different places so I'm going to have to get used to that, but I can make my windows bright pink if I want to and choose a new beautiful background and still write all of my stories. I have a feeling that transferring all my iTunes is going to be a chore, but I'll get it done.

My writing (for ME!) is also full-steam ahead - with most of my focus being on the CompLit exam and Reading The Willow King. I will make myself work on my screenplay, I will, but currently it's the hardest thing to work on nowadays because I'm still not 100% sure of the format and nothing I write feels right for it - it's just bits and pieces of scenes. That's probably because I haven't been focusing on it - I always need to write a few crappy sentences for my creativity to warm up and really get cooking - but with such a new format (and one that I plan on using to provide me with my career), I'm having less tolerance for those first few crappy sentences.

But I'll keep working on it -- my parents also bought me a beautiful pink bound journal notebook from Notables, so that's a huge encouragement for me to scribble my way through the tiny fat scribble notebooks I have now so that I can start writing in that one. It would be lovely to have all my longhand drafts collected in beautiful bound journals, don't you think? It'd be terrible for my budget, but once I start doing it for a living, maybe I can write them off as tax deductible, hmm?

"Order of Protection," Kathleen Creighton

The Chick: Joy Lynn Starr (yes, that's her real name - and she has siblings with worse: Jimmy Joe and Sammi June apparently show up in previous novels), a five-foot-nothing forty-something wannabe mystery novelist, believer in psychic powers, and all-round selfish, air-headed moron who can't get anyone to believe that her fashion-reporter friend has gone missing (what?? A cop won't believe that her friend is an "infant soul" because she's an Aries? What is this world coming to?).
Shady Past: 3 miscarriages, 2 failed marriages, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The Dude: Scott Cavanaugh, a sheriff's deputy who is charged by Joy's brother Roy to take care of his "ditzy sister" (thankfully, his own words), to keep her from flying off the handle. He's also a father to a 14-year-old son who insists on acting like he's ten.
Shady Past: His ex-wife divorced him because she couldn't stand the attention he paid to his job and not to her -- but still calls him once a day to get him to do her housework.

The Plot:

Joy: My psychic powers tell me my friend is in trouble! WHY WILL NO ONE BELIEVE ME?

Scott: You are a moron, and manipulative to boot.

Joy: Moi? That's impossible! *sexy eyes*

Scott: ...I feel a sudden urge to investigate your concerns! *investigates* Looks like your friend shacked up with a Latin mafioso's son, and is probably on that private island that they own, that is heavily guarded because they have more money than God, along with several shady ties to international terrorism and drug-running.

Joy: Great! Now I can go rescue her all by myself because I'm way too cute to get hurt and the cops are big stupid meanies!

*island explodes*

Joy: Oopsie, my bad!

Scott: I want to love you, but you DO SUCH STUPID THINGS!

Joy: I want to love you, but my karma's out of whack!

Scott: We found your friend, but let's let the FBI handle it. Just to make sure... *handcuffs Joy to toilet*

Joy: Handcuffs are no match for my totally natural, non-manipulative, perfectly-morally-okay wiles. *sexy eyes*

Ryan, Scott's teenage son: Will you be my mommy? *unlocks cuffs*

Joy: *rescues friend*

Scott: Wow, and they would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling woman!

Romantic Convention Checklist:

1 Hot Cop

1 Mafia Connection

2 Moments of ESP (fer real)

3 Heroine Rescues by Hero

1 Romantically Lackluster Ex

1 Southern Drawl (used intermittently)

The Word: I had low expectations for this book to begin with -- this was literally a book I picked out at random from a black garbage bag my Romance Literature prof provided for his class. Last week: romance comics. This week: harlequins! Or to put it more accurately, Series Romances - mine's a Silhouette Intimate Moments. The writing was actually a bit better than I was expecting -- I dunno, I guess I was expecting something egregiously bad that would make it instantly recognizable as different from Single Title Romances (i.e. Nora Roberts - Lisa Kleypas territory). As I kept reading, though, I definitely saw a LOT of flaws.

First of all, Creighton uses similes way too often - such as ALL THE TIME. I don't mind a good simile, and I don't mind people who use them all the time if the similes match the mood or the job or the thinking patterns of the character in some way (i.e. an accountant describing a mysterious hero like an "algorithm she couldn't solve" or something). Creighton's, however, are just plain inane - she plasters lame, obvious, or weird similes as descriptions all over the place (worst example: "her heart melted like a chocolate bar in the sun"), which has always been an indication to me of lazy writing.

Secondly, her CHARACTERS. As you may have guessed from my previous descriptions, I absolutely despise the heroine. She's an annoyingly self-centred nutjob. I guess it must be one of my pet peeves, but I can't stand stories where some feather-brained twit with no forensic experience defies everything that trained law enforcement officials tell her to do and ends up saving the day. I HATE those. I don't mind characters who contribute to a case with their natural intelligence or ingenuity, but Joy puts herself in harm's way for absolutely NO reason other than selfishness.

Her character (who, hilariously, wants to write mystery novels but hasn't bothered with ANY research other than watching CSI once a week - yeah, good luck with that honey) believes her roommate is missing. Fine. She has this sort of extra-sensory intuition that her friend is in trouble, and her friend said she'd call but she didn't, so Joy is worried. That's fine and reasonable. Her concern is understandable, as is everyone else's skepticism.

However, she INSISTS on rescuing her friend, Yancy, herself - even after things blow up to the point where nearly every law enforcement agency in the country is looking for the same thing she is: she doesn't care that she has no training, she doesn't care that she's putting her best friend's life at risk, she doesn't care about the hot cop who cares about her - this book is all about her and her own pathetic problems. Wah, wah, her daddy died, wah, wah, she's had miscarriages - boo hoo, that totally gives her an excuse for doing inexplicably idiotic things that endanger other people's lives to satisfy her own personal missions, because if she isn't the one who saves her friend, personally, by her own hand, than by some measure she's failed. I have no idea where such a narcissistic character acquired the delusion of grandeur that convinced her that she is in a better position to save her friend from a CRIME SYNDICATE other than FBI agents and cops.

Joy's not only annoying, however - she's poorly written. All her plans for rescuing her friend are: "Wander onto restricted Mafia area. Play stupid. Jiggle my boobs. Use my psychic powers to grab friend and ride into the sunset on my magical unicorn." Not only that, but the author TELLS us about Joy rather than shows us - and she tells us poorly. We're told Joy believes in psychic powers - but it only really comes up when it's important. It doesn't affect anything else she thinks about, and seems to be put there just to be a sickeningly cute irony ("Oh! She believes in spirits but she doesn't believe in love! How adorable!"). We're told Joy is an aspiring mystery writer - yet she doesn't show any interest in writing, any creative thought, or any desire to research. If I was an aspiring mystery writer and found myself being babysat by a cop for three days, I'd be asking a shitload of questions - who knows when I might get another chance? Nope - Joy's "writing" aspect only comes up when it's convenient to the storyline, and then vanishes. There is no aspect of her character that SHOWS us she's a writer.

The worst thing, though, is that we have to be TOLD that Joy is 42 years old. I didn't know she was 42 until she explicitly said so 50 pages into the novel. That's 50 pages of me believing she must be in her early twenties because there's no way such a basketcase who acts so irresponsibly and is so self-absorbed could survive to be 42 and still have friends. All the descriptions that Creighton lavishes on Joy show her to be younger than the book tells us she is - and that's a BAD thing, by the way. Joy is descriptively compared to babies, children, and kittens (at least 9 times in the novel she's compared to a kitten - ugh) -- all young, small, vulnerable, cute things. Give me a break. Either she's a cute, vulnerable, doe-eyed naif or she's a go-get'em rescuer, Creighton. You can't have both.

The only redeeming factor of this novel is Scott -- because, for one thing, he actually calls Joy on her sexually manipulative bullshit. From the get-go, he outs her for using the seductive gestures she "unconsciously" uses to have men do what she wants (like looking out at people from under her lashes - a move she uses about once every two pages). Secondly, after the first time that Joy breaks her promise to him to not get into trouble by grabbing onto a ludicrously arbitrary loophole, Scott isn't retarded enough to fall for it again. My favourite part of the novel is when he actually handcuffs her to a toilet to keep her from running off and ruining the FBI's stakeout, because he knows that if left unchecked, she'd go and do it because (say it with me) it's all about her and no one else matters because she's the one with the boo-hoo personal demons.

Still, he ends up loving her anyway, and I can't imagine how. Joy Lynn Starr disrespects everyone she meets and has no consideration for other people's training or intelligence and endangers other people to fulfill her own needs and everyone just shakes their heads and chuckles, "that's our Joy, it's just her nature, ain't she a cute free spirit?" Gag me with a tarot card. D+.

"Devil in Winter," by Lisa Kleypas

The Chick: Evangeline Jenner, a voluptuous redhead whose beauty is buried underneath terrible-fitting clothing, awful maternal relatives, and an almost complete lack of self-esteem. Kept under lock and key by her deceased mother's family, the only thing she has going for her is the enormous fortune she stands to inherit from her dying gaming-magnate father. However, she decides that if she wants to be free of her relatives' clutches once and for all in time for her to see her father before he dies, she proposes to the only man powerful enough and yet desperately poor enough to consider marriage to her at a moment's notice -- Viscount St. Vincent.

Shady Past: Um, how about neary twenty-five years spent locked up in a house with relatives willing to beat her, insult her, marry her off to her own morbidly obese cousin, and very possibly murder her for her inheritance? Shady enough for you?

The Dude: Sebastian St. Vincent -- after making an abysmal hash out of his attempting to kidnap and forcibly marry Lillian Bowman in It Happened One Autumn, he's not only cut off from his spendthrift Duke of a father -- now he's broke and friendless, because, well, the Earl of Westcliff has a weird thing against people who try to steal his girlfriends. So when Evie shows up, willing to trade control of her soon-to-be-inherited gambling fortune in return for the husbandly protection of his Viscountcy, how can he say no?

Shady Past: A lifetime of debauchery. Oh, and "lady issues" stemming from the deaths of his mother and four sisters during his childhood to spice up the mix.

The Plot:

Evie: I'll trade you One Inheritance in return for a Quickie Marriage, please.

St. Vincent: Done and done.

Evie and St. Vincent: *Scottish Elopement! Och Aye!*

Evie's Daddy: *dies*

Evie: *MONIED*

Evie's Evil Relatives: You can't have her!

St. Vincent: *punchedinface*

Evie's Pox-Maddened (Possible) Half-Brother: Die, Evie, die!

St. Vincent: *shotinback*

Westcliff: The cure for bullet wounds - a renewable of friendship!

Westcliff and St. Vincent: *friendship renewed!*

St. Vincent: *somewhat better*

Evie: I've got a better idea...

Evie and St. Vincent: *sickbed sex!*

St. Vincent: *REVIVED!*

Romantic Convention Checklist:

1 Righteously Redeemed Rake

1 Delightfully Debauched Virgin

1 Miraculously Vanishing Speech Impediment

1 Family of Eeeeeevil Relatives

1 Inconveniently Large Inheritance

1 Inconvient (pox-ridden) Bastard

1 Quickie Wedding

1 Romantic Use of Protagonist as Human Shield

1 No-Sex Agreement Doomed to Failure

1 Fake-Out Sequel Setup (Daisy + Rohan = NO WAY)

The Word: Aaah, I've heard so many raves about Devil in Winter. At first I thought I would enjoy this even more than It Happened One Autumn. One of my reasons for loving Autumn was because it was an especially well-written example of the complete-opposites attract combo, and so I assumed Winter would be even more so. I mean, St. Vincent actually threatened to rape Lillian in the last book (although in this novel he and Evie conveniently come to realize that his character would never have allowed him to do such a thing) -- now, imagine him being paired up with the almost pathologically-shy and abused Evie? Shouldn't this be awesome?

Don't get me wrong - for the most part, the novel is wonderful. As usual, I love Lisa Kleyas' dialogue and description, but there were parts of the plot and characterization that seemed a little...easy, if you know what I mean. Evie shows a little spunk in the earlier novels, but for the most part she was kind of the weak link sandwiched as she was between the fiery Bowman sisters and the can-do Annabelle. However, she recovered a lot of spunk very VERY quickly for this novel that seemed a bit at odds with her supposed history of near-constant abuse. I don't doubt that with the gumption borrowed from her fellow Wallflower friends, she would have proposed marriage to St. Vincent, but I kind of doubt that after that she would keep calling the shots as confidently as she did and was so ready to trust a man so obviously sexually threatening.

The book also picks up plot points only to discard them rather quickly -- there's the ill-fated attempt St. Vincent makes to convince Evie of the dangers of germs that's quickly abandoned, her evil relatives vanish after only one attempt to get her back which seemed kinda lame considering the lengths they'd gone to to break her spirit and steal her money, and Evie's whole "no sex after marriage cause you're a mean libertine who's not gonna break my heart, oh no, oh no" deal is pretty easily (and very willingly) set aside after a very short amount of time.

That's not to say this book didn't contain its own charms - Evie in many ways is the perfect match for St. Vincent - her moments of fragility throughout the novel serve as potent reminders of just how much of an ass he's been with women his whole life, and his humour serves to keep her from falling into a pit of despair. Also, the fact that St. Vincent isn't just redeemed, but finds a job that he does well and enjoys doing well, also contributes mightily to his character development. Plus, the reaction of the fellow Wallflowers to Evie's quickie marriage is almost worth the price of the book itself. B.

Rejected Again

This time I just got the vanilla "not for us, thanks" rejection from Strange Horizons for my story "The Middle Child." I'm starting to feel the perfectly normal but no less painful writer's frustration. Does NO ONE like what I write? Am I completely DELUDING myself into thinking I can write? Am I going to have to WAIT until I'm OLD (like 35!) for me to be finally GOOD ENOUGH to be PUBLISHED? I mean SERIOUSLY. How many times am I going to have to try?

Maybe I should find a better writer's group - the one I'm in, I get maybe two critiques per story, and one is always this idiot newbie who responds with an e-mail that says, "wow, yur really good u should have it published!" Like, really? How about something actually constructive?

New Ideas at Bad Times

If you check my "Projects I'm Working On" Column, I've added another novel - Dark As Night, a fantasy-romance idea I dreamed up over the last few days. I'd love to start writing a romance novel, but first - I have another novel to write as well (Reading the Willow King, which will not die on me, thankfully), and secondly, this is also DEATH MONTH.

I'm taking History, English, and Comparative Literature in University, which means once a semester (November in Fall, March in Spring) I have a bunch of enormous papers all due at the same time, so I have to try and focus all my creative energies on that.

I don't want my creative enthusiasm for Dark as Night to die out before I'm finished, but it's something I have to do. This is my last Death Month, after all (I graduate this year), and after that I'll have loads of time to write when I'm not at my day job.

This also means I won't be posting for a while, even though I have several Romance Reviews to post.

Submitted "The Middle Child"

...to Strange Horizons. I got some very positive comments from one of their editors in their rejection of "House Hunting," so they were first on the list when I decided to submit "The Middle Child."

I personally think "The Middle Child" is one of the best things I've written (along with "House Hunting"), so I hope they like it.

"It Happened One Autumn," by Lisa Kleypas

The Chick: Lillian Bowman - the second-oldest of Lisa Kleypas' Wallflowers. She's richer than God, not bad looking, and smart as a whip - so why is she overlooked? Because she's a crass, sass-talkin' American, that's why. She and her younger sister Daisy desparately need a noble sponser to instruct them enough in proper English manners for them to land husbands, but so far, Lillian's hellfire temper sets her apart from her British competitors.
Shady Past: She and her sister invited their Wallflower friends to play Rounders (essentially baseball) with them in the previous novel. In their undergarments. Outside. On Lord Westcliff's estate. On which they were discovered in said undergarments by Lord Westcliff.


The Dude: Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool-aristocrat with ancestry going back practically to the Middle Ages, Lord Marcus Westcliff already knows that the power of the aristocracy is dwindling so he spends most of his time shoring up his noble fortune with actual industries and investments (with the help of Simon Hunt from the previous novel). Despite his liberal policies, he has frankly misguided ideas about sex ("One doesn't need it more than once a week" - words he eventually eats) and very traditional ideas about marriage (both his sisters married Americans, so he's under pressure to produce a proper English bride to continue the family name).
Shady Past: His mean ol' daddy abused him and his mean ol' mummy's a witch.


The Plot:
Lillian: I hate you because you're arrogant and conceited!


Westcliff: I hate you because you're uncultured and chaotic! *sniffs* You smell nice. *gropes*


Lillian: Okay, you're not so bad.


Westcliff: Argh! I'm too full of angst for us to have a happy relationship! I must leave!


Lord St. Vincent, Rake-For-Hire: Hey, if you don't want her, can I have her?


Westcliff: Wha...?

St. Vincent: Too late! *steals*


Westcliff: *ULTIMATE CAN OF PAIN IS OPENED*


St. Vincent: *RECEIVES HEARTY SERVING FROM THE ULTIMATE CAN OF PAIN* Ow...guess I'll just limp my way into the sequel, then...


Westcliff: I was wrong - let's get married.


Westcliff and Lillian: *elope*



Romantic Convention Checklist:
1 Interclass Romance
1 Unscrupulous Sexual Rival
2 Very Bad Parents
2 Very Accepting Siblings
1 Obvious Sequel Setup (St. Vincent + Evie)
1 Ether-soaked Handkerchief
1 Victorian Equivalent of a Vegas Wedding


The Word: Now, I like all the books in this charming quartet, but my favourite by far has to be It Happened One Autumn. It's probably because of all the couples in these novels, Westcliff and Lillian are the most tempestuously matched, to the point where their attractions run far ahead of their own brains. Westcliff seems so surprised and appalled to find himself suddenly making out with Lillian, that it's a terrific scene and one of my all-time favourites. Westcliff and Lillian are both very extreme characters - Lillian is almost anachronistially, violently feminist, and Westcliff is such a strict adherent to the aristocratic code that it sometimes overshades his perception of reality. Lillian hates hates HATES being dominated in any way, shape, or form, but Westcliff is so used to being obeyed that he gives her orders without realizing that's the perfect way to get her to do the exact opposite of what he's ordered. So naturally, when they get together their meetings are destructive.


The story is once again chock-full of wonderful Kleypas details of the scenery, cutlery, food, and humour. Despite the ending which smacks of Pride and Prejudice crossed with Without a Trace, the characters for the most part are fun to read about - especially St. Vincent, who after his disastrous mistake in this book gets a chance to redeem himself in the next one (The Devil in Winter). Basically, the greatness behind It Happened One Autumn lies in how Kleypas creates two vivid, very opposing characters and realistically shows how they could come to be the perfect match - which is what romances are supposed to do, aren't they? A-.

Submitted "House Hunting"

...To Weird Tales magazine. I thought it an appropriate last hurrah for Reading Week before I become too busy to do any writing.

"Secrets of a Summer Night," Lisa Kleypas

The Chick: Annabelle Peyton. One of the four "wallflowers" who decide to combine their feminine wiles to find husbands for each other, her excuse for her dreadful luck with the menfolk is that despite being gentry, her family's dirt poor, and there's a whole flock of unscrupulous noblemen waiting for her to sink low enough to consent to being a mistress, rather than a wife.

Shady Past: Annabelle's mother consented to an affair with a repulsive lord in order to pay the bills, and that same lord's got eyes for Annabelle...

The Dude: Simon Hunt - who, despite being a butcher's son, has managed to climb out of the middle class and become an insanely wealthy industrialist. Despite doling out priceless financial favours and investment advice to the economically-challenged aristocracy, he's only invited to the fancy parties out of condescending gratitude and is still seen as little more than a peasant. In response to constant snubbing, he does away with tact and tradition altogether, which makes him come off as something of a boor to the ladies.

Shady Past: Despite being rich enough to purchase a thousand butcher shops the equal of his father's, his parents still sniff about him abandoning the family business and working with intangible things like investments and stocks.

The Plot:

Annabelle: I need money!

Simon: What a coincidence! I have money!

Annabelle: You willing to buy the whole cow, or do you just want some milk?

Simon: Milk would be nice.

Annabelle: Wrong answer!

Simon: Only a matter of time.

Lord Hodgeham: *various inappropriate sexual advances*

Simon: Alright, I give! I drink your milkshake! I DRINK IT UP!

Annabelle: Huzzah!

*well-within-the-bounds-of-wedlock-sex!*

Peerage: *SNUB* PEASANTS.

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Interclass Romance

1 Unscrupulous Sexual Rival

1 Harmless but Boring Sexual Rival

1 Life-saving (or at least comfort-saving) Act On the Part of the Hero

1 Obvious Sequel Set-Up (Earl Westcliff + half naked Lillian Bowman = Romance?)

2 Inappropriately Public Groping Sessions

The Word: People in the romance blogger community have called Lisa Kleypas' books "romantic novel crack," and HOLY CRAP ARE THEY RIGHT. I picked up this book during Reading Week since I figured I was far enough ahead in my university reading to do some fun reading of my own, and I kept picking this novel up to read more ("just one more chapter - ONE more chapter? Then I'll get started on my essays, yeah...").

Lisa Kleypas builds strong, interesting characters and infuses her Victorian settings with a wealth of colourful detail, particularly on fashions and food. I also like the idea of four girls teaming up to find husbands for each other one by one -- I mean, we've had what, fifty years of ninja movies and the ninjas never think to attack the hero all at once instead of one at a time, only to lose each time? This is progress! The ending is also fairly realistic -- Simon Hunt's social problems don't all blow away in the wind just because he marries Annabelle. Annabelle has to come to terms with the snubbing she receives from both side of the class line -- the nobles think she's married down, and Simon's folks think she's a gold-digging aristo. Still, despite all the "reality" that seeps into this novel, it's still a terrifically fun read. B+

"The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men," By Christie Ridgway

The Chick: Eve Caruso, the sexually-aggressive Party Girl who keeps the Palm Springs gossip mills running with her spicy society columns. She's sexy, she knows it, and she's also the granddaughter of a mob boss. Unfortunately, now she's also broke and being investigated by the SEC for taking an illegal insider trading tip from a vindictive ex-boyfriend.

Shady Past: She's the product of the mob boss' son and his mistress - but spent her formative years being raised by his wife. Was abused by a former boyfriend (also with Mob connections) and retains a terrifying claustrophobia from a traumatic encounter with the FBI in her childhood.

The Dude: Nash Cargill, a monster truck driver (for reals) who comes to Eve's Palm Springs resort to keep an eye on his movie-star sister when a former stalker disappears from the radar. His nickname is "The Preacher," after his admirable moral restraint. Has a soft spot for damsels in distress that he repeatedly tries to ignore.

Shady Past: His father hit him as a child, and after one of his white-knighting antics lands a man in the hospital, he's terrified that he'll turn out to be a violent man, too.

The Plot:

Nash: I like morals and responsible living!

Eve: I like sex!

Nash: That, too! Hey, now I like you...

Eve: Oh no you don't! *doffs clothes*

Nash: Holy Conversation Deflection, Batman!

Various Evil, Scheming Men: Hey, Eve, watch as we act on the expectation that since you're hot, you're a slut!

Nash: Now I want to hit something just like my mean ol' dad!

Eve: Oh no you don't! *doffs clothes*

Nash: I'm cured!

Romantic Convention Checklist:

3 Precocious Siblings

1 Romantic Subsplot Not Involving Protagonists

2 Romantically Lacklustre Exes

1 Relationship-Aiding Pet

1 Inconvenient Phobia

1 Catholic Schoolgirl Outfit

3 (at least!) Wonderfully Accepting Relatives

The Word:

Wow - I wasn't expecting this novel to be good. I literally just picked this book out at random to use up a $25 gift card I'd received for my birthday. I was expecting this novel to be sudsy and cheesy and guilty pleasure fun - instead, while not quite as enjoyable as my favourite romances, it was unexpectedly complex and very well-written.

First of all, this is the second book in a series, which I didn't know -- and it doesn't really matter. The characters from the first book appear here (as their wedding is being planned), and they're given their due, but they're still totally scenery which is just what they should be in a story that isn't theirs.

Secondly - I loved the characters. Flat-out, well-drawn, three-dimensional characters. Especially Eve - she's got so many skeletons in her closet it could double as a Tim Burton movie set. On paper it sounds like she has so many personal problems that it seems impossible she isn't a raving nutjob, but somehow Ridgway pulls it all together. Eve's a pretty interesting woman -- she responds to her relationship insecurities by being very sexually aggressive, by taking up the traditional man's role in a relationship. She's not afraid to use her smokin' body to get control of a situation (which involves some outlandishly seductive situations, some of which are hilarious), and she's always the one to break off the relationship before it threatens anything resembling intimacy. She responds to requests for intimacy with sexual temptation - a "if-he's-looking-at-my-breasts-he's-not-looking-at-my-heart" kinda deal.

She has several problems all going on at once that she has to juggle but she can't ask anyone for help - she has a wonderful, loving family with her father's wife and her half-sisters, but she can never forget that she's the daughter of her father's mistress. She's the illegitimate brat that the wife had to raise and she figures she's brought enough shame into the family without bothering them with her petty problems.

Nash, as well, is intriguing -- a white knight who's tired of being a white knight. He's had too many girlfriends who just used him as a means to fend off a nasty ex or help their kids or pay their Visa bills (all of which could fuel a romantic novel of their own), that he just wants a "normal" woman, one who's not a total basketcase, which I feel is a funny quirk on a lot of romantic cliches. He's also, you know, "The Preacher," so is a little disturbed by Eve's "sex first, probing questions later, or better yet, never" approach.

Given Eve's phobias and problems you'd think Nash would be the absolute worst person for her, but the way they finally come together and find areas that complement each other, I felt was very insightful and entertaining. The only thing I had trouble figuring out about this novel was the title, which really has no bearing on the characters or the plot of this story at all. A-.

"An Offer from a Gentleman" by Julia Quinn

The Chick: Sophie Beckett, the "ward" of an Earl who dies and leaves her in the care of his shrewish new wife and her two daughters, who promptly turn her into an unpaid servant in return for room and board.
Shady Past: Uh, by "ward," I mean illegitimate by-blow -- which makes the Countess her Wicked Stepmother, natch.
The Dude: Benedict Bridgerton, second son of the fabulously wealthy, liberal, and all-round respected Bridgerton family. Yet, despite being wealthy, liberal, and all-round respected, he is mysteriously unfulfilled.
Shady Past: Enterprising ladies and their marriage-hunting mamas are so focused on his money and family name that they don't bother learning his given name, which results in him being relegated to nicknames like "Number Two."
The Plot:
Benedict: Marry me!
Sophie-in-Cinderella-disguise: No.
Benedict: Be my mistress!
Sophie-years-later-as-servant: HELL no!
Benedict: NOW marry me!
Sophie-returned-to-solvency: Okay.
Romantic Convention Checklist:
1 Interclass Romance
1 Vicious Romantic Rival
1 Very Bad (Step-)Parent
9 (!) Anachronistically Wonderful and Accepting Relatives
1 False Accusation
1 Previously Undiscovered Inheritence
1 Obvious Sequel Setup (look out, Colin Bridgerton)
The Word
This was my first foray into the Bridgerton series. I didn't read it under very pleasant circumstances - I was in the hospital over two days just before holidays, which was why I'd had my exams deffered. Anyway, I'd heard a lot of good things about the Bridgerton series, and I'm a sucker for Regencies, so I thought I'd give it a try.
First of all, while the Cinderella setup of the first chunk of the novel was cute, the actual Fairy Godmother part was too abrupt for me. The author did a great job setting up the situation with the stepmother and the stepsisters and Sophie's rotten situation, but the helpful housekeeper and the servants who all drop what they're doing to suddenly drape Sophie in glamour came right out of the blue. The fairy godmother character was never explained nor really given a proper motive for her actions which really weakened the opening act for me. Honestly, I felt it could have had a bit more lead-in.
That said, Sophie's character is tough and practical without being totally anachronistic. She has a realistic knowledge of her place and an understandable reluctance to leave it and risk everything. Benedict is interesting in much the same way - when he meets Sophie again when she's a servant (instead of disguised as a noble at the start of the novel), he's fully aware of the social implications of his desire for her, which is why he asks her to be his mistress and not his wife. It's also equally well-written why Sophie refuses. I thought Benedict's social malaise ("boo hoo, true love doesn't exist, women are only out for my money") was a bit whiny, but thankfully he gets over it soon enough. As well, his family members are all loving and affectionate, and don't totally take over the story, although their total acceptance of Sophie is either incredibly naive and anachronistic or else they must be REALLY rich not to care, in which case, way to go Sophie!
In any case, It was an enjoyable read and it kept the fairy-tale ending without completely doing away with actual Regency social norms. B.

Rejected!

By Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show for "House Hunting." *Sigh*

I wish I could post more, but I seriously have no time.

Disney's Enchanted

It’s been a week, I know. More than a week, actually. I saw Enchanted on Friday last and am only now posting to tell you about it.

Your brains must have been all a-flutter, I’m sure, dear readers. Whatever could this mean? Was Enchanted really that terrible?

NOT AT ALL. The reason is that it took me a week to completely absorb the joy and wonder I experienced watching what I currently consider to be my favourite movie of all time.

Enchanted begins with a lavish, musical animated sequence, where Giselle (voiced and later acted by Amy Adams), a pure Disney princess from the top of her flowered tiara to the singing mice dancing at her feet, falls in love with Prince Edward (James Marsden, singing at the bottom of his range) after about 1.5 seconds of introduction. The marriage is planned for the next morning, but before they can tie the knot Edward’s evil stepmother Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) pushes Giselle down a magic well that leads to live-action New York.

The premise is reminiscent of Don Bluth’s A Troll in Central Park - in both of these films the villain sends the protagonist to New York because the Big Apple has somehow garnered a reputation for being the absolutely worst place a cartoon character could ever hope to end up. In Troll, the green-thumbed sprite is exiled there because New York isn’t supposed to have any greenery (which is why he hides out at Central Park), and in Enchanted, Narissa understands New York to be a place where “there are no happy endings.”

Giselle’s fish-out-of-water tale could have been cheesy beyond belief -- especially if they’d gone the expected route and had Giselle adapt to the real world. No - part of the magic of Enchanted is that while Giselle does learn a few things about reality, a good chunk of the movie concerns how the cynical, rational New Yorkers adapt to her. This is especially apparent once she is rescued by Robert (Patrick Dempsey) a single dad and seasoned divorce lawyer who is only too aware of how “true love” can go bad.

I’m parroting so many other reviews that say “Amy Adams is this movie” so I’ll go into more detail. She never abandons her persona as a Disney princess. She never steps out of character. New York doesn’t stop her from wearing flowing gowns sown by rodents and breaking into song. She is a character of such open innocence and goodness that she never comes across as cloying and overly cute.

My mother expressed a desire to see this movie from the first time she saw the trailer, but I remember her expressing concern over Giselle falling for Robert. “How old is Robert supposed to be? And how old does Giselle act? I think I can still enjoy the movie but that’s a little disturbing.” At first I thought it would be the case too, especially in a scene in which Robert and Giselle are caught in a seemingly compromising position by Robert’s girlfriend.

Robert: God, she thought we were --

Giselle: *wide-eyed* Kissing?

Robert: Uh, something like that.

This was another part of Enchanted that could have potentially ruined the film if they hadn’t handled it the way they did. If you don’t want a bit of a spoiler, stop reading this review RIGHT NOW -- but when Giselle does experience a sexual awakening, the scene in which she does is one of such subtle, unspoken potency it was like something out of Pleasantville. No talking birds, no sung explanations, just Amy Adam’s stellar performance.

This was just one of the facets of this movie that made it intellectually entertaining as well as being a family-friendly satire. Another part that really made this movie for me also involves minor spoilers, so you’ve been warned -- was an intelligent scene where Robert talks about his daughter’s mother with Giselle. I was completely expecting Robert to explain how his wife died -- and by Giselle’s reaction, you can tell she was, too -- because in my experience it’s incredibly rare for single fathers in family movies to be divorced.

There have been a growing number of divorced single moms in children’s films, but for family-friendly movies a single father has to be a widower. A divorced man with sole custody of a child suggests a) something negative about the mother, who would usually be taking care of the child, and that’s a dark element many family friendly movies see fit to do without; or b) that he’s romantically imperfect -- there’s a double standard when it comes to understanding divorced characters in films. When a woman divorces a man, it’s seen as female empowerment for freeing herself from an abusive spouse. When a man divorces a woman, it’s viewed as abandonment.

So the easy choice for Enchanted would have been to make Robert a widower, and I was fully expecting this, but (spoiler!) they didn’t. He reveals how his ex-wife, unhappy in their marriage, left him and his daughter, and in my surprise, I realized how hypocritical of Robert’s character it would have been to make him a widower. He’s the yin the Giselle’s sparkly yang -- her “true love is true” idealism is continually countered by Robert’s “true love is impossible” cynicism, and such a belief system would have been severely undermined had they made his relationship with his daughter’s mother one of love cut short by fate rather than love worn away by stress and mutual pain. After this scene, all I could think was “Good for you, Disney!”

And as I’ve been dithering on, I’ve been forgetting all about the satirical aspect of Enchanted - the central premise is a definite spoof of the Disney Princess movies, and the narrative homage, visual homage, and musical homage are all spot-on. Giselle and Edward’s speedy discovery of true love evokes the simplicity of Sleeping Beauty, Giselle’s helpful animal friends could have come straight out of Snow White and Cinderella, and Giselle’s colourful wardrobe throughout the movie evokes the classics in a way that is at once satirical and reverent. As well, Alan Menken and Steven Schwartz’s songs (they worked together on Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame previously) are toe-tappingly original and lyrically clever on their own as well as they are reminiscent of past songs (“True Love’s Kiss” is particularly funny as an example of a romantically operatic Disney finale all the funnier for being placed at the film’s beginning; “Happy Working Song” is a hilariously off-kilter parody of “Whistle While You Work” with a particular New York flavour that has to be seen to be appreciated; and “That’s How You Know” works with a steel drum beat reminiscent of Menken’s earlier classic, “Under the Sea”).

As I write this, I’ve read in the newspaper that Enchanted has been the #1 movie at the box office for two weeks running, and I’m not surprised. This well-written, layered movie works on so many levels I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t enjoy it. Even as it spoofs Disney Princesses, Giselle’s performance makes Enchanted a Princess Movie in its own right -- and that will hook the younger set, while the in-jokes and subtle adult humour and homage will entertain the mothers and older sisters and aunts who’ve grown up with Ariel and Belle and Jasmine. Boyfriends, dads, and husbands will enjoy the gentle snarking on Disney tropes, as well as the lovely Amy Adams. I think even Disney-haters would be tempted to smile at the well-worn clichés Enchanted flaunts so casually.

Enchanted walks the line that Shrek missed entirely. Shrek, while poking fun at fairytales (with pointed jabs at Disney), did so in a way that, while funny, was funny in the mean way, like a good “yo mamma” joke. Shrek pointed out the absurdity of fairytales to make them easier targets for ridicule, but Enchanted jokes about the clichés of Disney movies in a way that reminds us of how much we need stories of fantasized, naïve romantic idealism to counter the darker side of real life.

Waiting for an "Enchanted" Evening

Dear readers,

Yes, I know it's been a while. A long while. I've had a lot of work, but as of today it's start to slack off. I still have to polish one of my essays for tomorrow, and I have another minor essay due a week later, but my reading is done, the hardest projects are over, and all I have left to do is study for my exams, which I really only have to do for History since the others are all English finals.

So I planned a night out for myself, some of my friends, and the Sci-Fi club to see Disney's Enchanted tomorrow. As some of you may know, I've been waiting to see Enchanted for months going on months. I'm a huge Disney fan, huge princess fan, huge Alan Menken/Stephen Schwartz fan, huge Patrick Dempsey/James Marsden fan and having all of these things mashed together into one great movie is almost too much for me. I'm so excited!

So excited, that I seem to have reverted to the age at which I first enjoyed animated Disney films. I've seen enough trailers and TV spots for movies in general to know they often show the best, funniest parts of the movies, and I've wanted to see Enchanted for so long that I'm determiend to see it as pristine and un-spoiled as possible, aside from watching the first trailer for it.

That means whenever a TV spots comes on for it I close my ears and hum Disney songs, to the consternation of those around me. It also means that while I search out the interviews with the stars on Youtube, I mark them for later but don't watch them because I don't want to see the clips or hear them talking about things that happen in the movie before I get to see the movie.

I also made a huge effort NOT to read any reviews - when I like a movie enough, I don't want to be influenced into thinking it's bad by seeing bad reviews. I got a little antsy with this movie, though, and while I didn' t read the actual reviews, I did peek at the headlines - and so far they've ALL been positive, from my city's paper, from Entertainment Weekly and several from Ain't It Cool News. So while I don't know what happens in the movie, I do know it's going to be great and now I'm more excited than ever!

It also means that while I just bought the entire soundtrack on iTunes, I refuse to listen to it until I see the movie first. Why can't Friday come faster??

ACCEPTED!

FINALLY - after MANY rejections, my poor battered tale "Parasite: A Love Story" has been accepted by fait accomplit magazine (the Comparative Literature magazine for the University of Alberta). There's no money, but it's a publication credit, I'm invited to the release party, and there will be readings and conversations with other writers, so THAT'S bound to be awesome.

Plus, I get a copy! Hurray!

I'M IN!

I'M IN! I'M IN! I'M IN! I'M IN!

I've been accepted into the Vancouver Film School's 2009 Writing for Film, TV & Interactive Media program! HOORAY! I'm going to be a SCREENWRITER!

...on a similar note, the WGA's just gone on strike. SHIT.

Uh, um...YEAH! Fight for the residuals screenwriters deserve, Tina Fey, Josh Schwartz, and John August! Fight for the money! YEAH!

...and try to win before 2010, mmkay?