Innocents by Mary Elizabeth and Sarah Elizabeth

1 Star

 

This one might get a bit ranty.

After reading Fangirl last year, I found myself fascinated by the world of FanFiction and began searching Goodreads to find a “good” FanFic in order to see what all the fuss was about. I realize there are plenty of fics which have morphed into bestsellers (although for the life of me, I can’t understand why), but I wanted an honest-to-goodness written from obsession love, can’t get enough of these people so I’ll do it myself, with a good “what if” scenario to mix things up from the inspiration. You know, kind of like how my good friend Tina Belcher rocks it.



Long story short, I ended up stumbling upon Dusty and decided to give it a go. At over 1,200 pages, this was obviously a labor of love and I was digging the premise (i.e., what if, rather than being a sparkly bloodsucker – Edward’s darkness came from drug addiction), but it’s not like I’m one of those “TwiMoms” or anything. Okay, full disclosure, I totally went to see “Twilight” at an over-21 movie theater and got hammered on “blood bags”, but that just makes me a girl who likes to get her drink on, not a fangirl.



Anyway, I muddled through Dusty and thought it had potential should it ever come under an editor’s red pen. When I saw that Innocents had been created, I figured what the hay and clicked the old one-click. What did I find?



So. Much. Teen. Angst. And guess what? This mother*^%$r hasn’t been edited AT ALL. Rather than cutting any of the hundreds of unnecessary pages, Innocents is just the first 4,572,619 282 pages of Dusty.



It’s pretty horrible . . . and (for me, at least) not horrible in the ways others have stated. I didn’t mind reading about EdwardThomas/Dusty’s downward spiral into drugs or the progression of Bella Leighlee and Thomas’ relationship into a sexual one. The problem I had was the writing – for the love of god the writing is sooooooo bad.

First, we have the excessive nicknames for our female MC:

“Princess kid”
“Sunny side”
“Pretty girl”
“Princess Blissy-bliss”
“Princess baby”
“Strawberry-blonde”
“My cherished”

Did you barf yet? My apologies.

Second, we have the obligatory references to how everything/everyone smells:

“Chocolate chip cookie and playtime scented”
“Cotton candy, corn dogs, and just-cut grass”
“Unlawful” (I bet Old Spice is ALL OVER this one)
“Baseball sweat and dirty play clothes”
“Smoke and lily flowers”
“Sweet grass, trouble, and vanilla”
“Pure, unreserved mischief" – be careful about enjoying this one too much

“The scent of teenage boys: sweat and clay-dirt, cut grass and leafy green.”Uhhhhh, I have a teenage boy – he don’t smell like that. It’s more like:

“Marshmallows, summertime, and cake, dark rain and wet grass”
“Vanilla and pot and nighttime and meadows and smoke and Thomas”

Finally, there are these giant, rambling paragraphs about “love” (I flagged a shitton of these, but I’ll only post one – don’t say I never did you any favors):

“Love is indescribable, cumbersome, silly-selfish, consuming, life-changing, goose bump-giving, knowing-all-the-words-to-the-song exciting. I-can’t-think-straight-without-him-overwhelming, sigh-swooning, laugh-out-loud-for-no-reason anxious. It’s a rule-causing, jealousy-inducing, leg-kicking, dream-giving, wonderful, filling, shake-trembling, wonder-where-you-are-always obsessive, necessary, requiring, joyful flow.”

Hold your horses, it’s not over over yet, kids.

“Our love is secret-keeping, late-night sneaking, gift-giving, cream-soda loving, vanilla, trouble, and princess-pie-duty incomparable.”

Needless to say, Innocents did not make me feel all “lemon-sunshine and dizzy dazzly.” Oh, and if you’re looking for a big payoff in the “losing of the V-Card arena” – you’re going to be disappointed.



VERY DISAPPOINTED.