Questionable Media Month Part 2
Dec. 25th, 2018 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amatyultareChapter 2 - New Species
Sadie doesn’t see Alex the last week of school because he’s decided to try out for the soccer team. Their town is obsessed with soccer? Okay, sure, whatever.
Then Alex drops a bomb: because of soccer, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to do the fall play. And she freaks out because “we’ve done every show together!” Except…for that show…that you just finished three weeks ago?
“Some kids at school called me a theatre snob because I insisted on spelling the word ‘theatre’…instead of ‘theater’.” I have to ask, how often do you write the word ‘theatre/er’ in front of your classmates? Is it really something that comes up often?
Our Heroine’s life plan: drama club at Crudup High School and Dayton Community Theater, then college, then Yale School of Drama (?!?) and then she’ll be an actor. Or a playwright. Or both. *sigh*
Having digressed for A FULL PAGE, the character “unwilling pull[s her] attention back” to her friend’s “heinous decision” to play a sport for one season rather than be in the play. Seriously, Sadie, stop being so possessive. I know you’re a teenager but even for a teen this is obnoxious.
Sadie bewails the fact that her best friend isn’t a girl, because a GIRL would never abandon her. Uh…huh.
“I huffed down on the cracked vinyl seat.” This is probably as good a time as any to remind y’all that yes, this book was self-published.
Re: her friend not participating in the same club as her, for a semester: “Already I felt ghost pains starting, as if I’d lost an arm or a leg instead of a cast mate.” DRAMATIZE MORE.
Okay, I legitimately like the part where she lapses into stage direction instead of just describing things. It’s a neat trick and a nice bit of characterization.
Aaand then her newly hot guy friend gets swarmed by all of the ~popular kids~ at school. Including a girl named Lucey – she teases Sadie and she’s got ‘Barbie-doll looks’ and she touches Alex’s arm omg, so I’m guessing the extra ‘e’ in her name stands for ‘evil’.
Sadie, I don’t care about what fashion styles you’ve experimented with from the fifth grade onwards. I really, really don’t.
Excitement! There’s a new music teacher who…had a cameo in the Twilight movie. So he’s a frustrated actor turned music teacher? Who plays his promotional DVD for the class after “five minutes of dodging questions about the stars of Twilight.” And this is not played for laughs, but is the beginning of Sadie’s crush on her teacher because he starred in some off-Broadway musicals? Oh, and he openly flirts with his students. Go ahead, cue up The Police, I’ll wait.
Here comes the exchange student mentioned in the last chapter. Okay, no one from England (or any English-speaking country) ‘studies abroad’ at a small, unimportant school in Massachusetts, in HIGH SCHOOL. Unless he’s a complete screw-up/drug addict/what-have-you and his parents have placed him in a small town where he can’t get in trouble. (My high school had a couple of those.)
One of Evil Lucey’s henchgirls tries to monopolize English Nigel! But he and Sadie bond over their knowledge of 80’s rock! And then she ‘grasps’ for something to say! I don’t think that’s quite the word you wanted to use, author!
Ah, the story is apparently that Nigel’s rooming situation in Boston fell through and so he had to switch which school he went to. Except that boarding schools (and exchange programs in general) DO NOT work that way. At all.
“ ’I feel your pain’ I sympathized.” I usually try not to get on an author’s back for using unnecessary dialogue tags, but come ON.
Sadie doesn’t see Alex the last week of school because he’s decided to try out for the soccer team. Their town is obsessed with soccer? Okay, sure, whatever.
Then Alex drops a bomb: because of soccer, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to do the fall play. And she freaks out because “we’ve done every show together!” Except…for that show…that you just finished three weeks ago?
“Some kids at school called me a theatre snob because I insisted on spelling the word ‘theatre’…instead of ‘theater’.” I have to ask, how often do you write the word ‘theatre/er’ in front of your classmates? Is it really something that comes up often?
Our Heroine’s life plan: drama club at Crudup High School and Dayton Community Theater, then college, then Yale School of Drama (?!?) and then she’ll be an actor. Or a playwright. Or both. *sigh*
Having digressed for A FULL PAGE, the character “unwilling pull[s her] attention back” to her friend’s “heinous decision” to play a sport for one season rather than be in the play. Seriously, Sadie, stop being so possessive. I know you’re a teenager but even for a teen this is obnoxious.
Sadie bewails the fact that her best friend isn’t a girl, because a GIRL would never abandon her. Uh…huh.
“I huffed down on the cracked vinyl seat.” This is probably as good a time as any to remind y’all that yes, this book was self-published.
Re: her friend not participating in the same club as her, for a semester: “Already I felt ghost pains starting, as if I’d lost an arm or a leg instead of a cast mate.” DRAMATIZE MORE.
Okay, I legitimately like the part where she lapses into stage direction instead of just describing things. It’s a neat trick and a nice bit of characterization.
Aaand then her newly hot guy friend gets swarmed by all of the ~popular kids~ at school. Including a girl named Lucey – she teases Sadie and she’s got ‘Barbie-doll looks’ and she touches Alex’s arm omg, so I’m guessing the extra ‘e’ in her name stands for ‘evil’.
Sadie, I don’t care about what fashion styles you’ve experimented with from the fifth grade onwards. I really, really don’t.
Excitement! There’s a new music teacher who…had a cameo in the Twilight movie. So he’s a frustrated actor turned music teacher? Who plays his promotional DVD for the class after “five minutes of dodging questions about the stars of Twilight.” And this is not played for laughs, but is the beginning of Sadie’s crush on her teacher because he starred in some off-Broadway musicals? Oh, and he openly flirts with his students. Go ahead, cue up The Police, I’ll wait.
Here comes the exchange student mentioned in the last chapter. Okay, no one from England (or any English-speaking country) ‘studies abroad’ at a small, unimportant school in Massachusetts, in HIGH SCHOOL. Unless he’s a complete screw-up/drug addict/what-have-you and his parents have placed him in a small town where he can’t get in trouble. (My high school had a couple of those.)
One of Evil Lucey’s henchgirls tries to monopolize English Nigel! But he and Sadie bond over their knowledge of 80’s rock! And then she ‘grasps’ for something to say! I don’t think that’s quite the word you wanted to use, author!
Ah, the story is apparently that Nigel’s rooming situation in Boston fell through and so he had to switch which school he went to. Except that boarding schools (and exchange programs in general) DO NOT work that way. At all.
“ ’I feel your pain’ I sympathized.” I usually try not to get on an author’s back for using unnecessary dialogue tags, but come ON.
