piatok, augusta 14

Beauty Gueens - Libba Bray

9464733

There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.




Dej
Personal motto: “God made me beautiful. The least I can do is share it with the world.”

Sú nádherné. Sú talentované. Sú mladé. A všetky chcú svetový mier.

Dámy a páni, privítajte Miss Teen Dreamers ako ste ich ešte nikdy nevideli!

And so our tale begins with a sudden fall from blue skies, with screams and prayers and a camera crew bravely recording every bit of the turbulence and drama: What a lucky break for their show! How the producers will crow! Ratings will skyrocket!
Najkrajšie - najlepšie a najjasnejšie hviezdy každého štátu v amerike sedia v lietadle.

The flight is on its way to a remote tropical paradise where the girls will compete against one another for the title of Miss Teen Dream. Oh, dear. Compete is a rather ugly word, isn’t it? After all, these are such lovely girls, pure of heart and high of spirits. Let’s say that they will be “drawing on their personal best,” and some girls will “proceed on a path of Miss Teen Dreamdom” while others will “have the option to explore other pageant opportunities elsewhere at an unspecified future time.” Ah. There. That’s much better, isn’t it?
 Rozprávač záčina idilicky a rozprávka je za chvíľu v plnom rúde. je to sarkazmus čo tam počujem? Vôbec nie. To by predsa bolo tak ... neženské ...
Ale my začíname hneď letom a to letom, ktorý pekne zletí dolu kopcom. 
“Are you dead?” Adina asked warily. The face above her shook from side to side, and then burst into tears. Adina relaxed, reasoning that she had to be alive, unless the afterlife was a lot more bipolar than she’d been led to believe.
Pristátie je chaos. Ale to potom? To je priam apokalypsa. Dievčatá - princezné krásy - čo si len počnú?

“Dear Jesus,” Taylor started. The girls bowed their heads, except for Adina.
“Don’t you want to pray?” Mary Lou whispered.
“I’m Jewish. Not big on the Jesus.”
“Oh. I didn’t know they had any Jewish people in New Hampshire. You should make that one of your Fun Facts About Me!”
Adina opened her mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say.
Ešteže nestrácajú nádej a aj zoči voči smrti myslia na svoju súťaž krásy. Nieže by to bolo len o kráse ... 
“Ahem. Dear Jesus,” Taylor intoned more fervently. “We just want to thank you for gettin’ us here safe —” There was a loud, gurgling groan. Somebody shouted,
“Oh my gosh! Miss Delaware just died!” “— for gettin’ some of us here safe,” Taylor continued. “And we pray that, as we are fine, upstandin’, law-abidin’ girls who represent the best of the best, you will protect us from harm and keep us safe until we are rescued and can tell our story to People magazine. Amen.”
Ale dievčatá sa vzdať nemôžu. Veď ich celý život je o výhre v ohrození.

Two teams were organized and, after much debate, names were chosen: The Sparkle Ponies would stay on the beach, tend to the wounded, and try to salvage whatever they could from the wreckage. The Lost Girls would soldier into the jungle in the hopes of finding survivors.
A napriek smrti a skaze naokolo, nestrácajú nádej.
 “Ohmigosh. No food at all.” Tiara sank down on the sand as if the full weight of their predicament had finally hit her. She blinked back tears. And then that megawatt smile that belonged on cereal boxes across the nation reappeared. “I am going to be so superskinny by pageant time!”
A nikto - NIKTO - im nemôže uprieť, že sa vedia prispôsobiť situácií.

“Miss Teen Dreamers, we can’t leave this body here. It will attract predators,” Taylor said. “You mean like those guys who NetChat you and pretend they’re a hot German pop star named Hans but who turn out to be some old fat guy in a house in Kansas?” Tiara shook her head. “My mom was so pissed.” “She means like tigers or bears,” Petra said. “Oh my.” Mary Lou made a face. “What … what should we do?” Taylor thought for a minute. “Put her in the fire.” Shanti swallowed hard. “Way harsh. I mean, it’s terrible.” “Yes, it is. But sometimes a lady has to do what’s necessary,” Taylor said. “From Ladybird Hope’s I’m Perfect and You Can Be, Too, Chapter Three: ‘A lady’s quick thinking can save a bad situation.’ She was talking about putting nail polish on a runner in your hose, but I think the same rule applies here.”
A s tým čo boli schopné zachrániť z lietadla 

“That’s the Miss Teen Dream spirit. Sparkle Ponies, report: What did y’all salvage from the plane?” The girls listed off their bounty: four hot roller sets, two straightening irons, a few teeth-bleaching trays, five seat cushions, three waterlogged beauty magazines, a notebook, laxatives, diet pills, a few suitcases filled with clothes, evening gowns, a collection of mismatched bathing suit tops and bottoms, various shoes, bags of pretzels, and bottles of water.

už niet pochýb, že prežitie nebude preblém. No nie?

No nie?!


Počiatky

Beauty queens mi prišlo pod ruku od jednej recenzie a ktovie prečo som mala pocit, že to bude postapokalyptická. Začiatok ma však presvedčil, že nemám najmenší dôvod byť sklamaná. Ten tón, ktorý dokázala autorka vložiť do každej vety! Ten nádherný sarkazmus skrytý za každým komplimentom! Ten neosobný štýl! A tie dievčatá!

Ach sa dá niečo povedať o tejto knížke čo sa týka žánru, tak to, že je to jej dokonalý príklad.

Chick-lit. Literatúra pre dievčatá. Toto by som neváhala dať každej americkej babe ako bibliu.

Lebo ak takto vyzerá amerika, tak spaste svoju duše. A ani nemyslite, že by ste tam šli.

Ten štýl to rozhodne roztočí hneď na začiatku. Nemáme tu ani žiadnu hrdinku. Ale toto moji milí, si priam žiada re-make do filmu, pretože celá kniha je poňatá takmer ako nejaký seriál, komplet s reklamami a odpoveďovým hárkom, ktorý predchádza vždy keď sa zameriame na inú postavu.

To čo zo začiatku vyzerá ako banda neschopných blondýnok s nulovým IQ, sebestrednosťou a veľkým problémom na krku

The girls sat in the sand, sapped of all energy. Two contestants had salvaged pieces of metal from the downed plane and were using them as tanning reflectors.

 sa však pomaly mení - zistíte, že táto chcela ísť do súťaže len aby získala peniaze na školu a hentá zase prišla z výchovno-nápravného centra. Tej ďalšej odišla mama, tá je imigrantka a nikdo ju nebere, tá je hluchá ale všetky sú presne to čo z nich rodičia či iný chcú mať - sú dokonalé američanky a toto je ich život.

I came to Miss Teen Dream via a new program for at-risk girls that takes them from juvie to pageants, or, as I like to call it, from one correctional facility to another.** My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do?

A nielenže majú pocity a charakter a históriu. Zrazu zistíte, že súťaže nie sú tak úžasné - že cena za krásu a to takú krásu ako majú oni, je obrovská

She knew what Mrs. Mirabov would say: “Comrade Singh, you must train yourself to be without. Being beauty queen is like being marine, only harder. Marines do not fight in four-inch heels.”
 a zistíte, že niekde počas tých rokov sa toho naučili tony 

"Look at those clouds.” Nicole nodded toward the darkening sky.“Tropical climate. Trade winds. This place probably has a monsoon season. We should scout out some higher ground just in case of flash floods.” Taylor beamed. “Excellent advice, Miss Colorado. Y’all hear that? That’s real Miss Teen Dream–thinking.” “Meteorology was another one of my extracurriculars,”
--------------------- 
“Well, I melted down some of our jewelry and made arrows,” Jennifer said, holding up the thin, homemade metal shafts. Petra admired one. “Wow. That’s cool. How’d you know how to do that?” “I took a smelting class at the Y one time. Well, it was between that and water aerobics with my grandmother, so I took the smelting class. It took me a few tries but I think these turned out pretty well. And Ohio gave us some of that tree sap nail polish to stick them to the wood. What up, O-hi-o!” Miss Ohio did a little dance. 


- všetky tie kurzy aby sa mali čím predvádzať zrazu skutočne potrebujú - skutočne ich využijú a zrazu - zrazu majú schopnosti prežiť, o ktorých ani nevedili že majú.

A veci sa tam riešia a rozpráva sa o nich, aj keby len nenápadne. Riešia sa tam vzťahu a jednoduchý pohľad na psychiku. Rieši sa tam história a tabu.

“You’re Indian?” Miss Arkansas brightened. “Oh my gosh, I bought the cutest Indian beaded bag at a gift shop in the Best Western outside Sedona.” “I’m not that kind of Indian,” Shanti said, her practiced smile never leaving her face, though it faltered just a bit, and in that slight wobble was something hard and angry, something that looked like centuries of colonial oppression boiling up into an I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-in-this-pageant-and-then-take-over-all-your-beauty-out-sourcing-needs hatred.
 A akokoľvek šialené sa zdá, že stále sa precvičujú na súťaž, začína vám dochádzať, že celá pointa leží niekde úplne inde.

„Tiara ...“ Adina had lost all the steam. „What´s you favourite color?“ Tiara’s eyes darted left and right in fear and her smile was strained. “Um. Thank you, Fabio. I personally believe that we have a duty such as … as Americans … to help other people who are not Americans such as the peoples of the China and the Alaska and the freedoms we enjoy in our great nation and such and that is my opinion which I personally believe will make us a stronger nation. Thank you.”
Adina squeezed her hands against her head. “What are you even saying? You just made my brain die a little. You know, people, just being beautiful isn’t enough.”
Tiara looked confused. „But ... it always has been.“
A cez všetky vážne témy - kniha je NESMIERNE vtipná.

 The strip of beach seemed to vanish within seconds and the girls were calf-deep in the sea. Nicole pointed out at the horizon. “Um, does that ocean look kind of high to you?” “How can the ocean get high? It can’t inhale. I know a lot about it. My platform is called Don’t Do Drugs Because They Make You Dumb,” Brittani explained.
-------------------------
“Poor thing,” Sosie said. “That poor thing tried to eat us,” Jennifer said. Sosie nodded. “Poor bitch.”
-----------------------------

“The first thing we really need to do is make sure we have drinking water.” “I forgot — why can’t we just drink the ocean water?” Tiara asked. “Because people pee in there all the time,” Brittani explained with assurance.  
---------------------
“It’s a solar hibachi,” Miss Ohio explained, serving up a perfectly done fillet. “I used a safety razor to descale the fish, rinsed it in a little of the freshwater, and now …” Using the handle of a hairbrush, she scooped up the fish and dropped it onto a mound of clean rocks. “Miss New Mexico?” Miss New Mexico took a bite and rolled her eyes in bliss. “OMG, this is so good, I’m not even going to make myself barf it back up.” “Tiara and I caught the fish with these!” Brittani said, brandishing a pair of straightening irons.
-----------------------
 “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest. Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of freaking awesome!” Adina said in a loud voice. She slurred a bit so that awesome came out more like aweshumme. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an inveshtigative journalist anymore. I want to be a professional rum drinker.” “There are people who do that,” Duff said. He’d barely sipped his rum. “Really? What do you call them?” “Alcoholics.” 

A čo by ste nepovedali, je tam aj nejaká tá akcia.

Jennifer leapt to her feet. “Holy {bleep bleep}12! Get your {bleep}13 out of the way!” Too late, the girl looked up just as the snake opened wide and swallowed her down in a giant gulp. “{Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep}14!” Jennifer said many, many times.

A tie vysvetlenia pod čiarou!

A ďalšou záležitosťou je napríklad obdiv k istej skupine a ich pesničky. Neviete či máte plakať alebo sa smiať.
“Ohmigosh, I LOVE that one!” Tiara said, clapping. “How about ‘I Only Want to Be with You’ or ‘I Just Need to Be Yours’ or ‘You, You, You’?” Nicole chimed in. “‘I Gave Up My Hobbies So I Could Spend More Time with You.’ ‘I Love You Like a Stalker!’ Or — ooh, I know: ‘Safe Tween Crush’?” “That one is so awesome!” Tiara began to sing. “Wanna rock you, girl, with a butterfly tunic. / No, I’m not gay, I’m just your emo eunuch. / Gonna smile real shy, won’t cop a feel, / ’cause I’m your virgin crush, your supersafe deal. / Let those other guys keep sexing. / You and me, we be texting / ’bout unicorns and rainbows and our perfect love.
 Kniha má hneď niekoľko zvratov a zistíte, že to nie je len o prežití pretože ostrov a tý vojaci tam v podzemí spolu s najpopulárnejšou spoločnosťou The corporation majú tajomstvo a dievčatá ho zrazu môžu odhaliť.

Through the breaks in the dense tree line, Taylor glimpsed men behind a barbed wire fence carrying guns. Their work boots and crew cuts said military to her, but they had no familiar identifying markers — no berets, no camouflage or flag emblems. Instead, they all wore the same black shirts, though one had pinned a Daffy Duck emblem on the back. It was odd. And unsettling. Taylor’s instincts, honed during countless pageants when the one who claimed to be sweet was the one to put Nair in your shampoo, came crawling up her spine and into her cortex. She hid herself.

Sú tam pohľady nielen na rôzne dievčatá ale aj na samotných vojakov na základne a je tu aj šialený idol LadyBird.

LADYBIRD HOPE: Barry, let me give you a history lesson, Ladybird Hope-style. When the Vietnamese got kids hooked on drugs and we had to fight a war to stop it, did we give in? BARRY REX: Uh … LADYBIRD HOPE: No! We said “Crack is wack!” and we made sure everybody could have guns instead of drugs. And that’s the reason we fought World War II, and why we keep fighting, because those freedom-hating people out there want to take away our right to be rich and good-lookin’ and have gated communities and designer sweatpants like the ones from my Ladybird Hope Don’t Sweat It line, and they want us all to learn to speak Muslim and let the lawyers stop us from teaching about Adam and Eve and that will be the day that every child gets left behind.
V tejt knihe je toľko patriotismu a toľko sebairónie na patriotizmus!

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 A to mi ani nedovoľte začať na tie útržky od ChaCha.

MoMo B. ChaCha was not happy. His favorite pajamas were not yet back from the cleaners. When MoMo was unhappy everyone was unhappy. With a sigh, he settled on a pair of cotton pj’s. In the morning, he would have the cleaners assassinated.
Nie. Nie je to chlapec - je to šialený diktátor bohatej krajiny.

Čo ma asi najviac presvedčilo, že kniha patrí na filmové plátno boli tie "reklamy".

 MOM It’s more than that, sweetheart. Every time you use new Lady stache off with triple beauty action™, you’ are contributing to our ecoonomy, our way of life. Don’t you want to be a contributor to our economy? Don’t you want to make sure we can have bikinis, cable, and porn? What are you, a communist?
...
However, it has come to our attention that there is a small safety “glitch” with the Git R Done 447, which might cause it too fire too soon or even randomly, accidentally killing someone you love. Awkward, we know. That’s why we are issuing a voluntary recall of the Git R Done 447 Personal Safety® handgun. Issuing this voluntary recall shows how much we care, and it is hard to dislike or take legal action against those who really care.



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Tak a to by boli k celej recenzii. Dúfam, že to nebolo príliš chaotické no myslím si, že najlepšie knihu charakterizovať práve cez tieto ukážky a keby máte nejaké otázky - stačí sa spýtať.

Vitajte

v hlave jednej začínajúcej ale nie úplne (dúfam) amatérskej spisovateľky. Toto bol môj blog o varení a čítaní - teraz sa tu chcem venovať svojej ďalšej vášni a tou je písanie.

Príspevky sú taký môj neformálny denník, kde sa môžem vyventilovať, podeliť o to čo robím (a malo by ma to aj dokopať každý deň k písaniu sa aspoň vyjadriť alebo ešte lepšie písať).

Zavediem vás do svojho myšlienkového procesu ohľadne stavania knihy, scén, postáv... pochválim sa čo som za deň stihla, prípadne pridám aj nejaký tip, ktorý niekomu bude pripadať očividný a niekomu možno aj nie.

Asi nemusím písať, že toto sú moje názory a skúsenosti a nemám na nič patent a bla, bla, bla.

Dúfam, že si tu každý spisovateľ nájde aspoň kúsok niečoho - či už je to spoločné trápenie, zaujímavá myšlienka, otázka alebo možno dokonca moje skromné rady.

Ďakujem za návštevu.