LBD5

In one of my earliest posts, I explained how the LIW genre came to be, citing the roots in the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Well, it's been 5 years since LBD aired. More than, actually. There was this big hype a few months back about a big LBD5 event, where there was going to be a live re-watch, complete with social media and bonus content. Although, what bonus content could there be left after all of the extras that were on the DVD?

Tangent: I still can't believe people actually bought the DVD when the entire show is available for free on YouTube. My best friend, Claire, was among the ones who did, so I did get to see the bonus features and whatnot. I know people wanted to support the show and make it so Pemberly Digital (that's the production company; it's Darcy's in-world, but they kind of just ran with it) could make more stuff, but why not buy something you can't get for free like one of the awesome posters or t-shirts or signed pages of the script.

Back to what I was trying to say. Claire (and I'm sure, fans far and wide) believe that this bonus content will be the culmination of the show with the Lizzie Bennet Wedding. We know there's a script, and that gave them an entire year to film and edit. It's feasible. I, for one, would love to get a Lizzie Bennet Wedding. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

So I was expecting the LBD5 celebration to start in March or early April at the latest. But when it hit mid-May and nothing had happened, I got sick of waiting, and I re-watched the entire series by myself. I took a few days to do it; Lizzie's videos alone run upwards of 6 hours, and then when you add on Lydia's and Maria's and Gigi's... it gets extensive. I did skip the Better Living videos from Collins & Collins. They never really advanced the plot or developed the characters, so I deemed them unnecessary.

It's cool to remember where the roots of the genre came from. Tropes of the genre found their start here: no one ever locking their doors and/or people always barging in, questioning the morals of putting something online, justifying the existence of the videos, multiple perspectives, the media being a part of the story, race- and gender-bending characters, oversharing, etc.

I just think, as pioneers of the genre, if Pemberly Digital were to do something like a Lizzie Bennet Wedding, it would invite others to do something similar down the line. The story doesn't have to be over just because the book ended. They did something small at the 1 year anniversary of the show's end- a mini story over twitter, plus 2 Q&A videos.

Not many have followed this trend. The only one I can think of is Twelfth Grade (or Whatever), based on Twelfth Night, had a video where Viola and Liv got together several months later. Several have tried to do sequel series, following a character or two into another story, as Pemberly Digital followed Gigi in Welcome to Sanditon. Some did this really well; The Better Strangers, which follows As You Like It, followed Rose, Jill, and Paulie, who had previously been in A Document of Madness,
based on Hamlet. To be honest, for me, this one sets the new standard. This went way better that even Pemberly Digital's attempt.

Some did not do this well. Lovely Little Losers, which followed the story of Love Labour's Lost, followed Ben, Balthazar, Peter/Pedro, and Meg from Nothing Much to Do, based on Much Ado About Nothing. Where did they go wrong? Perhaps it was the choice of plays. Love Labour's Lost doesn't have much plot to it. Maybe it was that the characters in Love Labour's Lost are drastically different than those at the end of NMTD. Forcing them into this plot undid all the growth they made in the first show. Maybe it was the absurd number of episodes of fan service of Balthazar and Peter/Pedro sitting in a bath. Long story short, the show was not what we hoped for.

To be fair, most of the creators and lead characters are much younger than those in LBD. Lizzie was a 26-year old grad student. Rose and Jill are college sophomores, Liv and Viola were still in high school. At 26, you're much more likely to marry the person you're dating now, 6 years down the road than if you were, say, 16 or 17.

Perhaps this will lead to more shows with older characters cropping up. Most shows tend to put the characters as students; this may be following the trend set by LBD or just be a reflection of the youth of the creators. Many shows are created by high school and college students and recent grads.

The two LIWs that I remember being outside of that student mindset are The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, based on Jane Eyre, and the Cate Morland Chronicles, based on Northanger Abbey. Both of the leads were recent grads in their first job after leaving school.

I no longer know where I was going with this. Anyway, the day after I finished my binge-watch of LBD, they announced that the LBD5 celebration would begin June 5. Only time will tell if I'll participate, but if you've never seen a LIW, LBD is a great one to start with, and there's no better way to watch than live.

The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett

I already wrote two posts that I could put up this week, but I read an actual book this week, so I thought that might be a little more relevant. I know. A post about a book? On my book blog? Shocking.

I was supposed to go dancing on Saturday night. There was this barnyard dance, but it was like an hour away, and I hadn't bought an advance ticket, and I wasn't sure if any of my friends were going... so instead, I decided to pick up a book. The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti. It was just published in January, and I managed to snag a proof copy from work, which was great because it looked super cute. Look at that cover! Adorable, young adult fluff.

The book wasn't exactly what I was expecting. There really no "lies" to uncover; just the lies Lizzie told to herself, making herself who she thought she was supposed to be, who everyone liked.

I really liked Hawthorne, the narrator. She had such a unique perspective on the world. At 17 she hadn't lost any of her childlike wonder. It was a refreshing and hilarious perspective to experience.

I think the most frustrating thing about the book for me was that Hawthorne was straight. She spent the whole book, and the years before it, obsessing over Lizzie Lovett. Wanting to be her best friend/kindred spirit, being jealous of her life, beauty, and charisma, and hating her. When Lizzie went missing, she spent hours obsessing daily, coming up with outrageous theories, getting Lizzie's old job, befriending her boyfriend.

When Hawthorne started questioning her feelings for Enzo, Lizzie's boyfriend, I was convinced that she was so in love with Lizzie that she wanted to experience being her, since she couldn't be with her. I was really hoping for some realization of that sort. Although, these types of books always try to set up the main character with someone, and none of the female characters would have been a good match with Hawthorne, and I could tell that the story arc was setting her up with Connor, her brother's friend, while she was all wrapped up in Enzo.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I sat down and read it in one sitting, something I haven't done in a really long time. It was an enjoyable, quick read, with three-dimensional characters and a fresh perspective.

Quarter-Life Crisis

So I'm not sure if I'm going to post this or not. If I do, chances are it will be a few days after the fact, when the light of day has brought some perspective.

I had a bit of a quarter-life crisis on my way home from work. I realized that my year is almost up.

I had almost forgotten that I had given myself a year. One year, upon graduation from DPI, to pursue my passion and try to get a job in publishing. Once the year was up, I'd look into a more practical application of my degree. Get a job in PR or something.

It's already May. I'm 9 months in. What have I done? Gotten a part-time job at a bookstore. Something I could have done in high school. And gotten an unpaid internship at a magazine that I disagree with the values of.

I'm unstimulated. I'm bored. I'm stuck.

I don't even feel like I've given it a proper go yet. I haven't flown out to NY, staying in an airb&b or at my uncle's or whatever. I was going to just go. Stay for a couple weeks or months and really look for a job. Go on informational interviews, be able to actually go for my real interviews.

But I didn't. It was self-sabotage. I'm a planner. I needed the security of a job before I uprooted my life. I was scared. I thought my mom needed me- she wasn't ready to empty nest yet.

And now I'm at a crossroads. My year is almost up. I've either got to fully commit and just go- or give up.

I'm not sure I can fully commit. My reasons are dumb. I'm still scared. I still need the security of a job. What if I quit my jobs, risk everything and try... and I'm just not good enough, and I have to come back home, tail between my legs, and start from scratch?

But I'm not ready to give up on my dreams either.

__________________________________________________

A note from a week and a half later, with perspective:

The next morning, I woke up and applied for a job at Medline. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but it allowed me to use some of the same skills and work in a corporate environment, which I much prefer to working at home or in retail. And for a while, it really seemed like I had a shot.

And then they offered it to someone before I got to do my 2nd interview.

The job market is so fickle, it doesn't matter if I pursue publishing or PR or something related- I've just got to keep applying.

5 Best and Worst Books I Read For School

I thought I'd do something a little different today. As someone who was in school most of my life, I had to read a lot of books for school. For simplicity's sake, I'm only including books from English classes in high school and college.

It should be noted that I went to a very liberal high school, where they put an emphasis on reading contemporary works by and/or about women and POC. They had this concept of windows and mirrors, where you read some things that provided a window into someone else's worldview, and some that you could see yourself in. This will probably skew my results, including titles that most schools wouldn't normally read on both lists.

The 5 WORST Books I Read For School
1. Ceremony by Leslie Marmo Silko. This is the only book I've ever read that I rooted for all the characters to die in a car crash to end the misery of reading it. Would have made sense too, since they spent the majority of the book driving drunk.
2. The Stranger by Albert Camus. This book is everything you hated about Catcher in the Rye, but worse, because the whiney brat is a grown-ass man. And what is up with white dudes and their fascination with prostitutes?
3. Utopia by Thomas More. Don't let the title fool you- it's not a novel about a dystopia disguised as a utopia. It's a novel-length description of More's vision of a utopia. Which, of course, is only utopian for white cishet males.
4. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury's a great writer, but this book was his stinker. To be honest, I never bothered finishing the damn thing. And considering I was the only one in my class to guess what happened on the last page correctly, I don't think anyone else did either.
5. The Odyssey by Homer. This epic is epically boring! So. Damn. Repetitive. We get it, dawn rose with her rose red fingers and you have a thing for braids! Meant to be heard, not read. Shouldn't have bothered writing it down.



The 5 BEST Books I Read For School
1. In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alverez. I thought this book was beautifully written, and the way it wove history and fiction together was amazing. I especially loved how Spanish was integrated into the text. I hardly speak a word, but even I could understand.
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Yes, the same guy that wrote The Kite Runner. The book was told through the perspectives of multiple women, who end up married to the same man. I enjoyed learning about another culture through the narrative.
3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. This is another one where I got to learn about another culture while enjoying a good story. There was some disturbing imagery about foot binding, but that was really my only qualm with the text.
4. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. You had to know one of his works was going to show up somewhere. To be honest, my teacher let us vote on which of Shakespeare's works we were going to read. I wanted Taming of the Shrew, but Midsummer is good too.
5. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. I don't really remember much about the book, save a scene where the Taylor decides that Turtle is hers now, and drives off. I do, however, remember liking it and it being short, a relief right after finishing The Odyssey.


I'm curious. Did you read any of these? If so, are they on the right list? What would be on yours?

Losing My Passion and Finding It Again

For someone who loves books, I don't read as much as I should. Or as much as I want to.

I always blamed school. Between classes and homework and extra curricular activities and weekend competitions and part-time jobs, there was almost no downtime left. So I only read on breaks. Winter break, summer, spring, didn't matter. If it was more than a couple days long, I'd pull out my never-ending to-read list, hit the library, and dive in. But as soon as school started up, reading for fun became obsolete once again.

Here's the thing. I graduated almost a year ago. And I have gone through these same phases without school as an excuse.

This last one has been particularly strange. See, I went on vacation in January. I hadn't been reading much, had been reading the same book for over a month- I only ever seemed to make time to read while on the train to and from job interviews. However, I brought that book and 3 extras for my week of vacation.

I finished the one I had been reading, The Heart of Henry Quantum, on the plane. Over the first few days, I read Spill Simmer Falter Wither. The last few days, I read Barkskins.

It's now May. I'm still reading Barkskins.

To be fair, it is over 700 pages, but if I really wanted to, I could read that in a day or two. As I took the plane back home, my motivation to read plummeted. Yes, I still read it on the train, but I went on significantly less interviews downtown in the following months. My reading all but ground to a stop.

But I wasn't going to give up. It was a matter of pride now.

I did read another book in February or March for my internship. The Champion's Game. It only took a couple hours. But then my focus went back to Barkskins, yet I did not read it ferociously.

It was only last week, when there was a particularly slow day at work, that I felt that passion and joy for reading come back to me. Someone left The Hate U Give at the register I was working at. I recognized the title, and was curious. I read the description. Definitely worth a read. Gave the first few pages a try.

The next thing I knew, I was 150 pages in and my shift was over.

The next day, I snagged a copy and brought it with me to the register, read the rest, and picked up another book.

While I still haven't finished Barkskins, I did read another hundred or so pages the other day (yes, while on the train) and am feeling a lot more of that old passion for books. Sometimes, it just takes a great read to bring that spark back.

I guess the moral of the story is it's OK to take a break from something. Try something new, look at it a different way. Find the joy again. Don't let yourself just burn out.