So some of you may be wondering, “What is with all this goopy relationship shit? Where is the incisive literary commentary? When will she finally post another Bayou entry? Where is my goddamn sandwhich?”
To which I say—why were the stats on my last entry so low? What, do you people hate charity? And teenagers? AND CONDOMS?
I think we’ve BOTH got a lot to answer for, really.
Anyway, the truth is that I’ve been short on book blogging simply because I lost track of my list. Yes. Yes, people, I have a notebook in which I write the name of every book I read and the date on which I finished it, but sometime in the middle of October I STOPPED UPDATING THE LIST. And the fact of the matter is that I A.) read so goddamn much; and B.) do not have a terribly good memory for these things. So I haven’t been posting about books cause I can’t remember which ones I’ve read.
As for the Bayou thing—eh. I’ve got more. I do. But that shit is so painful that I swear I’ll still be chipping away at it come this time NEXT YEAR.
And make your own goddamn sammich!
In any case, I can’t remember so good, but I’m pretty sure that I keep waking up surrounded by LJ Smith novels. Somehow I ended up with both the Secret Circle omnibuses and three of the Night World ones, and I have plowed through all of them. And you know that feeling, that feeling you get deep in your brain when you’ve watched too much of a crappy CW show, that feeling that’s all “Damn, there goes my will to live?” Yeah. That’s the feeling I got off those books.
Secret Circle is about a girl named Cassie who moves to a Massachusetts town VERY CREATIVELY named New Salem and finds out—SHOCKER—that all her neighbors are witches. And so is she. Only everyone keeps making this big deal about how she’s “half outsider” because all the other witches have been living in New Salem and interbreeding since the 1600s–but only one of Cassie’s parents is from this twelve-fingered enclave. Cassie feels all bad about being an outsider, but really? If it were me? I’d just be like, “Dude, I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO’S NOT INBRED. SUCK IT.”
In addition to being sad about the fact that her parents weren’t siblings, Cassie is also totes bummed because her true love, a guy she met on a beach one day and was INSTANTLY ATTRACTED AND BOUND TO, turns out to be her new bff’s boyfriend. Oh, and does she get over it and start humping the dark and mysterious hottie who opens up only to her? NO! BECAUSE HE’S NOT HER SOULMATE!
Ugh.
The Night World books have a similar problem: Smith seems to have fallen off the deep end and become OBSESSED WITH THE SOULMATE THING, because all twelve of the Night World books I’ve read thus far revolve around a mismatched pair who must be together because like, fate demands it. There’s a silver cord, see, and it BINDS THEIR SOULS TOGETHER. Or something. I don’t really get it. Anyway, it was cool the first two or three times she did it, but by book four I was bored out of my fucking skull by it. And yet I kept reading, because occasionally another book would be TOTES AWESOME and I had to continue (the putrid Dark Angel, for example, was followed by the rocktastic The Chosen). I know that Smith was trying to make a point about uniting the various factions—the shifters, the vampires, the witches, and the humans—through looooooooooove, but seriously. If love were as easy as finding your soulmate and feeling “PING!” an instantaneous connection, we wouldn’t have a sky-high divorce rate. True love takes time and effort and dedication and, oh, GETTING TO KNOW THE OTHER PERSON. You don’t love someone you just met. I’m sorry, but you don’t. How could you? For all you know, they’re a fucking serial killer!
I think in the end that’s what killed Smith’s ouvre for me: honestly, her depiction of love cheapens it. Because real love isn’t easy or instantaneous or total, and writing a total of SIXTEEN BOOKS AND COUNTING where you pretend that it is is a little…sick. Not to mention misleading to the target audience.
Recommended for: Unless you read them as impressionable young things and miss them unbearably, I’d skip these.
“Dude, I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO’S NOT INBRED. SUCK IT.”
I heard banjo music when I read this…
I heard banjo music the entire time I read the book.
Don’t think Smith thought the implications of that plot point through…
I remember absolutely adoring Smith’s books as a teenager, which is weird, because I was never particularly into romances. Have you read her Forbidden Game trilogy? It features an ethereally beautiful, otherworldly stalker called, improbably, Julian, who tricks the heroine into entering his world via a (forbidden) game as part of some creepily elaborate seduction.
I haven’t read the Forbidden Game trilogy, but I’ve heard of it and thought that Julian was not a particularly otherwordly name!
I actually got sucked in the LJ Smithverse with her King Arthur books–Heart of Valor and The Night of the Solstice. I don’t recall any romancey stuff in them, which is good, since they were about four siblings. I would say that I’d check out the Forbidden Game books, but, uh, I’ve had enough of Smith’s version of “romance” to last me until the end of time. Or at least two months. You know, whichever.
Whoa, I totally read those Secret Circle books when I was young! They’re the one’s where all of the hair/eye colors are described in loving and improbable detail, right? Like, one girl had peridot eyes, and Soulmate!Boy had hair that mingled the shades of garnets and holly berries.
I loved those books, which says sad, sad things about my literary taste whan I was 14.
I don’t remember too much about Soumate!Boy, which shows you how interesting I found him, but yeah. She was always waxing lyrical about SOMEONE’S hair or eye color, usually Diana’s. BECAUSE DIANA IS JUST SO PERFECT OMIGOD.
I loved those books, which says sad, sad things about my literary taste whan I was 14.
We don’t talk about those times. Seriously, I was on this one woman’s blog and she was listing all the horrible Newberry winners where someone dies and their cat drowns and then they become a burn victim and I just thought in this very small voice, “I read that book. And that book. And that book. AND I THOUGHT THEY WERE GOOD.”
What can I say? When I was fourteen, I thought anything sad was deep.