Tag: Los Angeles

Books

Book 731 & 732: Date Me, Bryson Keller – Kevin van Whye

Geoff W

It’s so nice I read it twice—no, seriously. I finished it and then the next morning decided I wanted to read it again. That’s twice this year (excluding illustrated/graphic novels)! The other double read this year was Two for Trust and the real connection of the two is that they could both be easily turned into one of those wonderfully cheesy made-for-TV movies that whenever you see it you just leave it on and inevitably get drawn into it.

You could definitely see where van Whye got his inspiration for this #ownvoices story. He acknowledged he was inspired by She’s All That (IMDb link) from the 90s, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. And this definitely deserves to be up there with these great coming of age stories.

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Books

Book 517: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet – Bernie Su and Kate Rorick

Geoff W

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

That counts as a review right?

There’s no real reason to review this book – I mean I loved it, but I also loved the YouTube series – see below for a link GO WATCH IT NOW! There’s a link to the playlist at the end of this post. Seriously, forget my review go get sucked into the drama that is Pride and Prejudice reimagined as a master’s thesis project in the form of a vlog: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I mean it was the FIRST digital series to win an Emmy. AN EMMY people—that’s like legit.

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Books

Book 365: The Brontë Project – Jennifer Vandever

Geoff W

I’m not sure what it is about Brontë fan-fiction, but they’re just not as whimsical as the Austen fan-fiction. Looking at the subject matters and general ambiance of the works and the author’s lives it is fairly obvious, but when you think about it the options for fan-fiction are limitless. I picked this book up in late 2012 and have finally gotten around to reading it.

The only other Brontë fan-fiction I’ve read include Solsbury Hill and The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë and they were both a bit ho-hum. I did enjoy the vilification of Charlotte in Michael Thomas Ford’s Jane Fairfax trilogy, but that could be the problem. Emily and Anne died so early and Charlotte had so much time to cultivate/purge their images in society that it’s all about Charlotte and not the rest of the family. (“What’s more, she [Charlotte] has become adept at spinning her own legend and constructing her image before the public.” (59) – and I would even argue spinning Emily and Anne’s images, obviously). Even this novel, whose main character, Sara, is in love with Wuthering Heights ends up being predominantly about Charlotte.

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Books

Book 311: Last Summer – Michael Thomas Ford

Geoff W

I’m so glad the guy I’m seeing loaned this to me (even if it did throw off my schedule a bit) and I was even happier to find out that I have a Jane Austen fan-fiction novel on my shelf he wrote, Jane Bites Back. I was hesitant to read it with the whole vampire thing, but I’m looking forward to it now I’ve read this one!

I’m confused (and sad) about why there aren’t more reviews of this awesome novel on Goodreads! On the other hand, I’m glad that there aren’t that many reviews because people would leave idiot responses (including gifs) about it and then I’d just be grumpy. Not only did I love this book because of Ford’s incredibly witty and hilarious one-liners, but I enjoyed it because of how many of the books he referenced that I’ve read. From Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Maupin’s Tales of the City. I’ve clearly earned my “gay-card,” according to some of the characters.

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