Your father may never know for sure, but a mother always knows her children. Your mother knows you as no one else ever will. That's a fact she'll never let you forget, no matter how you got your mother, you're stuck with her. You can't give her back. not even through divorce. If you never speak with her, she's still out there...somewhere. You know it and she knows it. Even if she's dead, you hear her voice in your head and see her face in every mirror. Mothers' Days is a celebration of the love... and hate... and love that exist in any relationship between mother and child. Each scene stands alone as a complete one-act play. Performed together, they form a cohesive unit that pokes fun at that most holy of partnerships, that of mother and child. These are scenes and characters anyone can relate to. The full play can be performed with as few as five females and one male. Individual acts require two to six actors. Scenery can be minimal.
NOTE: My mother wrote this play, and I’m the editor! We worked really hard on it, so I’d really appreciate it if you bought a copy and gave it a read. (And maybe even put it on someplace...?)
I was asked to make this post and to say that it was challenging is putting it lightly. Thanks to Google, Tumblr, and Goodreads for helping put this list together haha.
she remembered something her parents had said to her when klaus was born, and again when they brought sunny home from the hospital. “you are the eldest baudelaire child,” they had said, kindly but firmly. “and as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don’t get into trouble.” violet remembered her promise.
THE SECRET DIARY OF LIZZIE BENNET, AKA, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: a book review
TITLE: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet
AUTHOR: Bernie Su and Kate Rorick
GENRE: humor, romance
PLOT SUMMARY: Lizzie Bennet is a twenty-four year old graduate student, majoring in communications, and she has no interest in finding a husband, despite her mother’s obsession with marrying her and her sisters off to rich men at the nearest opportunity. Lizzie would much rather focus on finding a job, finishing her degree, and changing the world, but as far as her mother is concerned, all that matters is that she’s single. When the wealthy Bing Lee moves to town, Mrs. Bennet is thrilled when Lizzie’s older sister Jane begins to fall for him. Although she’s scared about losing Jane and being left with only her wild and somewhat bratty younger sister Lydia for company, Lizzie is happy for them, too, finding Bing to be a really nice guy -- nicer than she expected. But with Bing comes his best friend, William Darcy, a snide, snobbish CEO who seems determined to antagonize Lizzie at every opportunity. Lizzie’s sure Darcy hates her, and is determined to hate him right back, but it seems fate is conspiring to bring the two together, whether they like it or not.
FIRST THOUGHTS: This book is, of course, a modern-day retelling of the literary classic “Pride and Prejudice,” but this isn’t the first incarnation of this particular retelling. The book is a companion to the webseries “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.” Retellings of “Pride and Prejudice” are nothing new, of course, but what makes “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” stand out is how it integrates social media and the internet into its narrative, both in-story and on a meta level. I LOVE the original series (of course, show me a work based on “Pride and Prejudice” and I’m probably all over it), and I’d definitely suggest it to anyone who’s a fan of Jane Austen, though you can watch it just fine without ever having read the original book. I liked this book a lot, but I don’t think I would’ve liked it as much had I not viewed the original series first, so I’d check that out before you start reading. It’s all on YouTube for free, so grab a couple friends and some snacks, and prepare for a bingewatching session. (Seriously, this is not a series you can just watch one or two of. You sit down to watch a couple and then watch the whole series in a day.)
THOUGHTS ON PLOT: I think the reason a lot of people aren’t crazy about “Pride and Prejudice,” or the reason they find it boring, is because it does sound like, on paper, the most formulaic rom-com ever written. The thing is, “Pride and Prejudice” invented most of the formulaic rom-com tropes in the first place -- people copied them and used them to death because “Pride and Prejudice” showed that they worked. They can still work, if done well, but it’s hard to put a new spin on tropes that are so ubiquitous in the romance genre. So even though this book’s plot isn’t the most original, I’m kind of willing to give it a pass because it’s literally an adaption of the original. And as far as a modern adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” goes, it works very well, changing the plot details that need to be changed for the story to work in a modern setting, but keeping true to the heart of the original work. It’s especially enjoyable if you have read the original novel and can catch all the little nods to it in the details and throwaway lines. This isn’t a plot you need to think especially hard about, but it’s a timeless tale and one that many will relate to, especially when the novel delves into the Bennet family’s financial instability, and Lizzie’s insecurity about what she’ll do after college. It really does read like the story of a completely normal middle-class American family. The book also provides some extra details for what’s going on in the YouTube series -- details Lizzie left out, things she didn’t feel comfortable discussing on the internet, and, in some cases, what I’m sure were retroactive cover-ups for plot holes the writers didn’t notice in the series until later.
7 / 10
THOUGHTS ON CHARACTERS: The real strength of the series -- and, by extension, this book -- is the characters and the way they all interact with each other. The characters are just as strong here, and definitely feel in-character compared to their on-screen counterparts, though I did miss watching them talk to each other on-screen -- it felt really organic and natural that way, and it feels like a bit of that is missing here. I did enjoy the extra look into Lizzie’s parents, since in the webseries we only saw Lizzie (and sometimes others) impersonating them. Lizzie’s mom in particular came off as more sympathetic, though still ridiculous enough that we understand why Lizzie is often annoyed with her. The book also adds a little extra insight into characters like Caroline and Jane, making them seem a little more complex than they did in the series. I also liked that we saw more Lydia in this book -- Lydia in the series is far more likable and sympathetic than the way Austen originally wrote her, and she’s not a fan favorite for nothing. All the characters felt like real people, many of them people you probably know, and they all had a nice little twist on their Austen incarnations. They’re still the characters you know and love, but just different enough that you can recognize them as separate imaginings of them.
8 / 10
THOUGHTS ON WRITING STYLE: One of the main problems with writing in a diary format is that there are instances when you have to stretch your reader’s willing suspension of disbelief. This happened quite a lot here, where Lizzie would repeat entire conversations word-for-word. (Though, to be fair, she did this in the series too, saying “I forget nothing!” whenever someone would question this. Maybe a super-specific memory is just one of Lizzie’s superpowers.) There were times her vocabulary felt more formal than what would go in a personal diary that no one else would ever see, but maybe that’s just me. I was willing to let it slide, since it’s fiction and sometimes you just have to let the little things go, but it did make me wonder at times why they didn’t just write it as a first-person novelization rather than frame it as Lizzie’s diary. That said, Lizzie’s voice felt incredibly authentic, and very true to how she was in the series -- I swear I could hear her actress’ voice in my head as I was reading. It helps that two of the writers for the series wrote the book, so they already had a feel for how Lizzie would talk. The other characters felt very true to their on-screen counterparts, Lydia in particular, so kudos to the writers for that. It’s a very fast read, with breezy, entertaining dialogue and some extra details for viewers of the original series. Perfect beach reading, or for when you just want something light.
7 / 10
THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL STUFF: I think the main advantage to bringing classic stories to the modern day is seeing how the politics of today verses the politics of back then changes how people view the story. For instance, by today’s standards compared to Regency England’s standards, Lizzie’s lack of a desire to get married for the money seems less impractical and naive, and in fact seems perfectly understandable. It’s interesting to see how this adaptation deals with the way women’s roles in society have changed -- and how they haven’t. Most of the main cast is female, and while none of them felt like one-dimensional stereotypes, I wasn’t a fan of how Lizzie seemed to think herself superior to Lydia because of her interests. (She does get better, though.) The book does a better job than the series of making it clear that Lizzie doesn’t mean to slut-shame Lydia and only wants to keep her safe, but it does come off that way sometimes. Slut-shaming and double standards in the way men and women are treated play quite a bit into the plot -- I won’t spoil how, but let’s just say a lot of problems could’ve been avoided without those double standards in place. The book takes advantage of being set in the modern day, adding more POC to the cast -- this is more obvious in the webseries, but here, Charlotte Lucas becomes Charlotte Lu and Charles Bingley becomes Bing Lee, their races changing and their families changing to match them. There is a gay character (who’s also black), and it’s mentioned he has a boyfriend -- he’s a relatively minor character, but it was nice to see that his sexuality wasn’t his only defining character trait. The financial issues and class differences from the original story are still in place here, and it was interesting the way the different characters handled those class differences, with varying degrees of politeness.
7 / 10
FINAL THOUGHTS: I really enjoyed this book, but I’d definitely recommend watching the original series on YouTube first. The book is a companion to the series, not a substitute. It’s a fast read (I finished it within 48 hours), and a nice supplement to the series, especially if you’ve bingewatched them all and are desperate for more. It’s a good update to a classic novel, and if you’re like me, bringing the story to the modern day made it much easier to understand and analyze, and the way the story naturally integrates itself into the 2010s shows how well the story still holds up. Some stories are timeless, and “Pride and Prejudice” is one of them.
To limit both population growth and crime, criminals are automatically entered into a death-lottery. The more criminal convictions an individual has, the higher the likelihood that they will be selected and killed.
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