I would marry this dress
Not going to lie, I read this book a long-ass time ago, and all I really remember about it was that I loved the creepy gothic southern setting, but I was totes pissed off at the ending. The entire book was a giant countdown to the main character Lena’s 16th birthday, a day on which basically the fate of the entire universe hinges, because she’ll either be a nice witch and save everyone or be evil and destroy mankind. But then you get to her birthday in the book and you’re all like NOW THINGS WILL HAPPEN MWAHAHA and she’s like “and then I did a magic spell and delayed my birthday.” …. Huh?
BUT to be fair, that was probably more the publishing board going AHEM EXCUSE ME why isn’t this a trilogy, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MORE MONEYS WE COULD MAKE? And so I shall try not to blame the authors for this let-down.
I didn’t read the rest of the series, and I mostly was a bit annoyed at the trite themes in the first anyway (it’s another sexy relationship with a supernatural being who may potentially kill you if you continue to date them). Except this time, TWIST, the possibly-evil-one is the chick and it’s the dude who hangs around despite threat to his person. Okay I guess, nothing super innovative.
So when the movie debuted, I was like, meh. Maybe I will see that. But then you know how it goes: your friend is in need of a shitty movie to distract them from sadness, you are bored and it’s late at night and you’re near a theater, you happen to have bottles of alcohol sitting in your purse which you can’t drink at a bar…
And possibly it was because of my incredibly low expectations for how Hollywood would make this alright story even worse. Or it might be due to the 2 (okay 3) bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade smuggled into the theater with me. Could be that Hollywood seems to have trimmed down the trilogy into a single movie, which clearly had plenty of time to sum up the plot (hence why I think maybe it was supposed to be a standalone title all along). Or maybe it was just the magic of Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson… But I actually did not hate this movie!
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing especially unique or genius about it. The British actors for some reason faked a Southern accent far more convincingly than the American actors, and if you’re from the south and not a Bible-thumping die-hard extreme right-winger, you might want to skip this one, as you will probably be SUPER OFFENDED. Also the only black woman in the movie (HI VIOLA DAVIS) is a voodoo priestess. Just saying.
BUT. You know. It was enjoyable. There were unrealistically, definitely not 17-year-old hot girls who employed the usual bitchy-cheerleader snark. Lena and her book-loving boyfriend (WHERE CAN I ORDER ONE OF THEM BTW) dish as much bitching as they take. There was much “YOU GO GIRL”-ing from some drunk middle aged man a few rows behind us. And I was super pleased by the ending, in which (pseudo-spoiler alert) the characters do not decide that true love is more important than possibly destroying the entire world and tons of innocent bystanders. The very very last scene kinda ruined the wonderful effect of the rest of the ending but HEY IT’S HOLLYWOOD, I can forgive it. It was almost poignant this time.
Anyway. All that was great. But my personal favorite had to be Ridley, Lena’s cousin/sister-type-gal-pal-turned-evil-witch. You may or may not (in my case) recognize her as the lovely, talented young 19-year-old from The Phantom of the Opera movie (SHE WAS ONLY 19 THEN WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE), but in this movie she shows that even in a role with no singing involved (though she is a Siren, TEEHEE), she can fucking rock out. She seduces her way across town, and I am totally like, I WOULD HIT THAT AND I AM STRAIGHT.
And, I mean, just look at that dress. Admit it. You would kill for that dress. And those boots. And also the sexy sunglasses she rocks. And the red racecar. Mmm, the racecar.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go sign up to join the dark side, because those bitches be sexy as hell.
Drunken YA Book Reviews 
Hollywood has this thing about taking mediocre source material, like THG, and trimming off the stupid and distilling it into something mildly entertaining.
We’re in a brave new world now where YA movies are usually better than the YA books they’re based on.
Also, that thing about Brits doing Southern better than Americans is totally true. See: The Walking Dead.
Yeah, I think it worked well because they edited it down to 1 movie, as opposed to stretching it out across 3 books.
Now if only Hollywood could have stuck to that plan with, say, The Hobbit…
That’s seriously their justification for stretching this damn story across four books? Wow. Color me doubly glad I never picked it up.
I actually kinda want to see this movie now. Before my only compelling reason would’ve been Jeremy Irons, though. I’d watch him chew up scenery anywhere. :3
Wait, it was 4? Damn. Well maybe the other 3 have moar plotz… I def feel like there was some combining/condensing in the movie though. Maybe it’s the first 2 books? Idk. Too lazy to google.
Ugh, Jeremy. He will always be Humbert Humbert to me. And I’d totally be his nymphet.
Ha ha, this is a hilarious review! I haven’t seen the film yet but I read the book and was kind of on the fence. The main thing I loved about it was the gothic imagery like you!