Thanks to an actors’ strike, Disney World is desperate enough to hire a bunch of teenagers on an open casting call. For a summer, until the strike is settled, the park becomes an awkward summer camp for people who get paid to dress up as Goofy and Cinderella — and, just like summer camp, spend most of their off hours trying to get in each other’s pants.
I expected this book to be far lighter than it was, and for a rather younger audience. There’s a lot of drinking, and more “mature themes” than I expected from the pink, glittery cover. Not so much for my 6th graders after all.
Bad things first, because they’re always more entertaining (and because they largely outweighed the good):
Sometimes the prose sounds like emo poetry from a high school lit mag:
And it’s in that final moment, as the snow settles back down to the bottom of the globe and the last few flakes drift lazily down, that you can really see everything clearly. Can see what has become of the figures inside. The ones locked in their dance, unable to change anything. It’s then that you realize that’s all there is, just the flip and the shake and the settle. And there’s nothing beautiful in that at all.
I started groaning out loud every time a character “cuts his/her eyes” at another character. It’s an unusual enough expression to be noticeable, and it happens every other page.
The strike is just a plot device to get all the characters together at Disney, which in turn is just a metaphorical device so they can talk about “making dreams come true” a lot. None of the characters — including intelligent, thoughtful main characters Ella and Luke — ever consider even for a minute whether it’s ok to cross a picket line. Am I ridiculously old-fashioned to be bothered by that?
And of course, Ella and Luke are clever, funny people who are clearly good together. So why the hell does it take them the whole book to figure that out??
Good things:
Other times (usually when the characters are talking instead of ruminating), the prose is hilarious. And there’s some real, fairly original discussion of how we should construct our future, and how we might deviate from the path laid out for us. I like seeing success-bound teens choose options other than the standard success choices of college or family business.
Overall, I found it entertaining, but skippable.
I agree with bob, pretty much. You tell him to mind his tone, but in your own review you say, “Bad things first, because they’re always more entertaining.” How snarky is that? I know alot of book bloggers are really just frustrated writers, so maybe that explains the snark. All in all, I find your blog entertaining, but skippable.
Thanks, Ali! It’s always nice when someone makes such an effort to make the internet a kinder, friendlier place.
You are fully within your rights to disagree with me about the book, but there is no reason to make it personal. In future, please consider your tone before commenting on this or any other blog.
If you are worried about bad writing, you might look first to your own blog. Let’s see….you complain that the voice sounds like something from high school, and yet the first-person characters are in high school. Did you want them to sound like 40-year-old PhD’s? And you really think that a high-school kid would worry about whether it’s “ok” (according to whom?) to cross a picket line? Ridiculous. You completely overlooked one of the most enjoyable parts of the book, which is all of the insider “behind the scenes” info we get about life at Disney. As for your being caught off guard by the content, I would think that one in your line of work would understand the truth behind the old adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover. I guess that never occurred to you either. Perhaps before you set up shop to review books, you ought to learn how to read them closely.