Creek Freaks: Still Crazy After All These Years

[BreezyK]

So I finished the book and I didn't think it was that good. Like I said above, removing the characters from their DC backgrounds robs us of a lot of motivation. Without Joey's tragic backstory and the fact that her pseudo-family in the Leery's turned their backs on her for her relationship with Pacey, there's not a lot given for why she would be so scared of committing to him. And Juliet makes Matt's family the neighbors in this one, with his parents and brothers completely welcoming to her. If she was going to have commitment issues due to her father abandoning the family, then this needed to have more weight, rather than several loooooong paragraphs examining feelings.

IIRC, the original fanfic was sort of a corrective to the finale - there's a bunch of friends returning to Capeside, Joey has a boyfriend, Jen is pregnant and Jack and Doug are living together, there's a wedding - but with a definite emphasis on P/Jo, which makes sense. Without that context, it just reads as a mess. ESPECIALLY the flashbacks which a) don't go in chronological order b) have Rory/Matt getting back together and splitting up a million times and c) don't include an initial break up scene from their relationship in high school - he drops her off at college, they're lovey-dovey and then the next time we hear from them (which is confusing, because of the non-chronologicalness), he's picking her up from college with his brother and she has a new boyfriend.

I liked the story a lot when it was fanfic, but it needed stronger support to stand on its own. It's also frustrating because I know that she can write great ancillary original characters and has in many stories. I'd like to have seen more of that here - the parents are non-existent, and the friends/brothers are just lightly sketched out.

I would save your money, Laa.

[Laura]

Sadly, I have to agree with everything you said. I was disappointed but thought maybe I wasn't judging fairly because I was too invested with the original source. The best bit was working out who was who from the Creek. It didn't make any sense that Rory would keep dumping Matt, he was too good to be true and their story had none of the angst, problems and flaws necessary to make it work. Juliet should write something completely original next time, it would better.

[LaaLaa]

I so appreciate you, BK! I'm such a slow reader that I would've been pissed to spend time on a lesser version of the same story. Sounds like Juliet should've started from scratch plot-wise with her Paceyesque and Joeyesque characters instead of Frankensteining old things.

[IssieCol]

I'm like 85% finished with it and I totally agree with you, BK. I just don't feel the same level of attachment to these characters and I think trying to shove Pacey and Joey into these new bodies made for some clunky storytelling.

The flashbacks not being in chronological order bothered me. Something like that would have worked better on a TV show, but it was too randomly jumpy for a novel. And she did try to inject some daddy angst into Joey's life in order to give her a source of mistrust, but as perfect as Matt was and as much as Rory depended on him throughout their childhoods even before they started dating, it just didn't make sense that she'd keep thinking he was gonna eventually fuck her over like her dad did.

I really liked a lot of Juliet's original characters so I hope that if she writes more novels, she'll have more confidence to use her own peeps in them especially since most of her fanfic was so super canon. It'd be near impossible to make something like SOS into a story about 3 other teens from New England.

[LaaLaa]

That's it exactly. Even she can't reverse her powers of extreme canon.

[LaaLaa]

So...this is great.


“Do I look like I’m in the mood to go get pancakes?”

[isadora]

Those are GREAT.

13. “People are saying that soon VHS tapes won’t be a thing, and that makes me so sad.”

[NeoMaxy]

Ha, buzzfeed hates Dawson.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepste...inale?s=mobile

[ophy]

Holy beekola, why did they have to do this.



*sob*

[Laura]

Hee

[isadora]

BWAH!

This is AMAZING:

[LaaLaa]

Hah! The comments on ONTD are all "Fuck you, Earl!" but being frustrated with that moment doesn't make you a D/Jer, it makes you a person.

[isadora]

Right? I took it as Earl being dick-teased and not liking it. He wanted them to fuck, obvi.

[Linda]

That made me laugh.

[isadora]

This is hilarious! And the KH and JVDB dogs are especially amazing.