So I finished Snooki's book a couple days ago. I've been busy and kind of down and wondering if I should even continue this business of blogging, so I have been letting this roll around in my head for a while.
The first thing I should probably say about "A Shore Thing" is that when I picked up the book, I thought "oh, man, it's gonna be a great excuse to unload with both barrels of snark on this book." I was kind of expecting the kind of poorly written pap a dumber, even more morally bankrupt version of Sarah Palin would churn out. Sadly, this book was just dull, so there's really not much to find here in terms of stuff an OMG moment that you get on the actual "Jersey Shore". I guess art can't imitate life when it comes to drunken idiocy?
Basically, this book should have been called "Snooki and J-Woww do some stuff that is sort of interesting but not really". There are characters that are stand-ins for them, but you can't read the book without inserting their names in the place of their literary doppelgangers, so I won't even bother here. The Snooki and J-Woww characters are cousins who lead the typically MTV lifestyle that you see on every show on MTV. They're in their early '20s, seeking out their path in life, live with their parents, and are overprivileged and over-indulged by said parents. The two ladies rent a house on the shore for the summer, get some jobs to pay the rent and what must be an enormous bar tab, and then proceed to go on a search and destroy mission to hook up with any man with steroid muscles, bad tribal tattoos, and spiky, gelled hair.
There are 2 sets of main antagonists in the book, a couple of jealous frenemies from the Snooki character's high school, and a pair of rich kids from Connecticut (it really doesn't matter that much, really). The jealous girls hate the Snooki-ganger because she lives a life free of worry and eats junk food and doesn't mind that she isn't model skinny (the body acceptance message is one small redeeming thing in the book, even though it's so manufactured it comes off like an after school special). They try to wreak havoc on Snooki-ganger's life giving her the ol' "laxative in the jell-o shots" trick. I'll tell you, if I had a nickel for every time this has gone down in real life, I would have an imaginary nickel.
The dudebros from CT are pretty artificial as villains. They have a game they play every summer, where they go slumming in Seaside Heights and compete for the "affections" of an unsuspecting Jersey girl. Essentially, it's a date rape competition. The rich boys are pretty horrible people, setting up hidden cameras in their rooms to tape their conquests. Of course, they end up getting what's coming to them, by way of rounds from a paintball gun in some sensitive spots.
Largely, this book is intended to be beach reading, something to pass the time while you're getting your G.T.L. on. The fact that it was probably 97% the product of a ghost writer is probably for the better, even though the ghost writer should not quit their day job, for reals.
"A Shore Thing" is essentially something any semi-literate high school student with a passing knowledge of the TV series would be able to churn out. It's more fodder for the MTV meat grinder, another bit of lore to add to the tapestry of unreality and unhealthy sexual attitudes that they're trying to create. I'm not someone who thinks that we should bury the sexual part of human nature, and treat it as a shameful, dark secret. I am someone who believes that more time spent explaining how this part of our lives is something for sharing with someone who you love and respect. Hook up culture is alarming, and shows like "Jersey Shore" and "Skins" are troublesome. Ultimately, shows like these only work to enforce shameful stereotypes while masking them behind liberation, continuing a male dominated fantasy that is more destructive as time goes by.
OK. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I feel like I owe you guys something vaguely entertaining. Andy Milonakis is still alive.
4 comments:
I had no idea this was "fiction". It just shot up to #4 on my 2011 reading list.
I am interested to hear what the other 3 books are.
I need to read Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" and "Farewell, My Lovely", because somebody loaned them to me and I have to get them back to him. Then Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" because it's one of my all-time favorites, I haven't read it in ages, and I just picked up a copy.
Snooki is only #4 because #1-#3 are sitting on my desk already.
I would definitely recommend the other 2 books I've reviewed before you even attempt this pile of garbage.
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