The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Louise Rennison, �Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging�

Started December 24 � Finished December 26, 2003; 264 pages. Posted 04 January 2004

For those of you who aren�t a regular part of the sewing circle that is the Downtown San Jose nightlife, I just thought I�d mention that I am officially off the market. That�s right, your hero and mentor has a girlfriend. Oh, stop that crying, you had your chances.

Oh, I see. You were crying for her.

So the last three weeks we�ve been traversing the town and towns neighboring San Jose, making a spectacle of ourselves and getting other people in trouble by being WAY too affectionate in public. In the meantime, there is the coolness check.

I think most of you know what I mean, but I�ll explain. If you�re lucky enough to have a partner with a personality, they�ve discovered some little known gems of the world and they want to let you in on the secret. I have my Mystery Science Theater tapes, cult movies, and my obscure punk rock bands. But I�ve found and loved many other things that I would have never discovered if I hadn�t met some girl who I... well, found and loved. The Prisoner. Etta James. Tom Waits. J.D. Salinger. The Sandman. The Book of the Subgenius. Anyway, we�ve been doing our trades, and we had reached the �R� section � I showed her Repo Man. She showed me Rex The Runt. Instead of moving onto the �S� section (Shakes the Clown), I played Return of the Living Dead and she gave me this book by Louise Rennison, noting that bringing me a book was akin to bringing sand to the beach.

I was skeptical, what with the lime green cover adorn with cartoon lipstick traces. Plus, this was obviously a book geared for young adults, ages 12 � 15. (I should note that my girlfriend is NOT amongst these ages.) She was unapologetic when I gave her my skeptical look. �It�s popcorn,� she said. �Sometimes, I like popcorn.� Well, I can�t argue with that. Return of the Living Dead isn�t exactly Citizen Kane, though Shakes the Clown is the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies.

My first impression was that this was a Youth in Revolt, but replacing Nick Twisp with a 14 year-old girl who lived in England. The subtitle even reads, �The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.� But it was soon obvious that Georgia is no Nick Twisp. She has none of the sex drive, none of the complicated schemes, and none of the multiple personalities.

While I�ve never read Bridget Jones� Diary, I know enough about it to figure out that this was supposed to be Bridget�s precocious younger cousin from the East End. But like Bridget (again, going from what I know — I did see the film, but it wasn�t good enough to remember any of it), Georgia has no motivation to act, and thus becomes a whining little git. There�s entry after entry, written out like a diary about her life, but instead of burning down half of Berkeley, she only writes about how terribly embarrassing mummy and daddy are.

In addition, if this weren�t bad enough, this book being aimed at the youth market and specifically the youth girl market, plays the scenes with a kind hand, alluding back to a time long ago when 14 year-old girls only wondered about kissing, rather than wondering if the subject of her infatuation has been tested. As my parenting skills would probably involve showing Carrie to my daughter if only to avoid the �Plug it up! Plug it up!� embarrassment, I simply couldn�t relate to this at all.

So it looks like I�m single once again.


Rating: Worth library prices.

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