When we last saw the Dollagangers, they were escaping the attic in which they were locked up for almost four years, plotting revenge against their evil mother, and incest-kissing like it’s going out of style (has it ever ever been in style? No, it has never been in style). With their little sister Carrie in tow, Cathy and Chris lug their belongings into a bus to head down to Florida where they can have a new start and make their living as flying trapeze artists. Due to the heat, exhaustion, hunger, and all around weakness (not to mention the arsenic poisoning — spoiler!), the little tow-headed albatross starts throwing up. Cathy and Chris mop up the vomit with some napkins and are told they will be thrown off the bus by the driver when he catches them trying to stick the dirty napkins in between the seats (the disgusting pigs). Luckily, there is a magical and mute old obese black lady in there with them who sees the suffering child and offers to take them to the doctor with her (she carries a notepad around her neck with which she conveys her thoughts). At the next stop, the Dollagangers get off the bus with the old black lady who takes them to a perfect cookie-cutter house where she is the caretaker and housekeeper for a man she calls “doctor-son.” The doctor-son is a debonair, handsome, extremely kind, and lonely man called Dr. Paul Sheffield. If a man who is a complete stranger living in the middle of nowhere offered you and your siblings to live in his mansion-cottage in a lap of luxury, would you take it?

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Once upon a time, in a mansion deep in the heart of the South, a beautiful blond princess borne to a heartless, cold woman and a cold, soulless man, fell illicitly in love with a beautiful blond prince. This beautiful blond prince happens to be the very much younger half-brother of her father, which makes him a dirty uncle, though not quite so dirty, and yet dirty all the same. The parents of the princess who are very religious people are not so happy with this. They disinherit the princess and the uncle and throw them out of the mansion. The princess and the uncle, shamed and utterly humiliated, flee in the dead of night, never to be heard from in polite society ever again.

But fate is seemingly kind to pretty, blond people and the princess called Corinne and the dirty uncle called Christopher, change their last name to Dollaganger, manage to build a happy little life together, in love and utterly ensnared with each other’s remarkable golden blond looks. Genetics be damned, the two pretty pretty people make love like pretty pretty blond monkeys and produce two perfectly beautiful blond and blue eyed children with two arms, two legs, and are luckily intelligent and talented in their own special way. The blond girl-child is named Cathy and the blond boy-child is named Christopher, after their father. The two children are so utterly perfect and doll-like that they are nicknamed the Dresden Dolls. The girl-child is beloved by the father and shows signs of growing up to be one of those creatures seeking a man to marry who will love her the way Daddy had loved her. The boy-child is favored by the mommy. The mother Corrine, unsatisfied with her current lot and practically mocking fate to give her mutant deformed babies, gets pregnant again and has two more perfectly golden blond babies, fraternal twins called Cory and Carrie. Cathy pouts when she discovers she will no longer be the baby of the family and solicits a promise from her daddy that he will not love the new girl-child more than he loves her and as a testament to that promise, Daddy puts on a heart-shaped garnet ring on Cathy’s tiny doll-like finger.

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I cut my reading teeth on The Babysitters’ Club books by Ann M. Martin, R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series, Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High books (which I understand are supposed to be getting a makeover— no, the Wakefields are still assholes, but HEY! They’re slimming down from a size 6 to a size 4! Schyeah, ’cause they were so fat before. Anorexia is sexy!), and the awesome teen paranormal romance books by Annette Curtis Klause. I abandoned those books in favor of Jayne Ann Krentz, Linda Howard, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips when I turned 13. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I turned twenty-something that I re-discovered my love for Young Adult books. I mean, have y’all read Melissa Marr, the House of Night books by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, Stephanie Meyer, and Libba Bray? These kids are reading heavy-duty quality stuff! A Great and Terrible Beauty was frickin’ brilliant! The teens in these stories are definitely not worrying about what flavor lip gloss to use, who Logan Bruno— BMOC, natch— is taking to the winter formal, or how to effectively pop zits… they’re having to face real world issues like a father dying in Iraq, mini existential crises, drugs, being sexually harassed by a step-parent… awesome real stuff… and six of these stories are compiled in this very entertaining anthology by some of my favorite writers, the motiff of which is staying up all night, when you’re supposed to be in bed, dreaming about Logan Bruno.

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Grade: A-

Here’s an anthology that totally made me squee like I was a teenage girl creaming myself all over the new Ben Jelen CD or something (Ben Jelen, btw? SUPER-HOT). Meg Cabot, Michele Jaffe, Kim Harrison, and Stephanie Meyer IN ONE BOOK? OMG!!!!!!! And all of these stories were sooooooo good! I even liked the one by the girl whose name I’ve never heard of (her last name is Myracle? *scoff*). My favorite? Stephanie Meyer’s, of course! She’s got a delicious good boy hero (very, very, very good) and a very, very bad girl heroine (very, very, very bad). And it worked! The rest of the stories… well, I can’t pick the second best, either! But if I had to definitely pick the one I liked the least… I’d have to say… Meg Cabot’s. While the story itself was good, I’m so not a fan of dueling first-person narratives and I had to get past that to be able to enjoy it. On the other hand, Myracle’s is creepy, yet oddly poignant; Jaffe’s is hilarious and clever; and Kim Harrison’s is suspenseful, scary, and sexy. And the theme that pulls them all together? THE PROM, of course! If you’re a fan of 80’s American teen flicks, you know how important the prom is! Everything gets resolved at the prom! Damn, I can’t quite remember my own, but if it’s anything like these prom stories, maybe I shouldn’t remember. Heh.

Meg Cabot’s The Exterminator’s Daughter is about a teenage vampire slayer named Mary stalking the mysterious, ridiculously handsome new boy hanging around her best friend Lila with a crossbow in her hand. There is a reason for this. Sebastian Drake, according to Mary, is a vampire. And Mary should know. She comes from a long line of vampire slayers and was trained by her mother who was recently incapacitated and is currently not in the game. Because of this, it is now up to Mary to stop this vampire on her own. Too bad Lila is not at all worried about her new boyfriend being a vampire and wants to become a vampire herself. Enter Adam, the cute best friend of Ted, the boy Lila dumped for Sebastian. When Adam saves Mary from being torn in half by Sebastian, Mary is forced to tell him about her vampire-huntin’ activities. And why she’s got personal beef with Sebastian Drake. Yes, it’s personal. Naturally, Lila wants to take Sebastian to the prom and Mary figures she should go to the prom too… only to watch over Lila, of course. And if Adam wants to take her…
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Grade: A-

Beauty and the Beast has always been my favorite fairy tale. I just liked the idea of a beautiful, innocent young woman falling in love with a creature that is a little less than human and is more of an animal than anything. I even liked the Disney version with the dancing teacups and everything. That part when Beauty comes back to the Beast and he’s near death and she begs him not to die because she loved him and couldn’t live without him… man, gets me every time. Which is why it always pissed me off, even as a little girl, when the Beast turned into a handsome young man. I mean, it totally negates the whole “look beyond the surface” lesson of the story. Beauty fell in love with the Beast, not some pretty boy. I gotta admit, though, that I always got a kick out of Beauty staring at the transformed Beast in the end, like she’s thinking, “Who are you? I want the man I fell in love with!” Can you just imagine falling in love with someone just as he is only to have him yanked away from you and replaced with a beautiful man just because The Powers That Be can’t have a beautiful, innocent, young woman settling down with a man who isn’t conventionally handsome… someone different? But that’s a rant for another time. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley, who wrote the beautiful, elegant Sunshine, is more in the vein of the Disney version with the dancing teacups, but this time around, Beauty is a little more than a simpering fool. The Beast, on the other hand… well, he could have been a little more beastly, but he was adequately charming. And kind of boring. I wish he’d gone a little nuts at least and tore up some furniture. But he doesn’t. Sigh.

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