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Our Infinite Sadness #1
Life, Love and Our Infinite Sadness
Twilight, reimagined and retold. Edythe Cullen must fight for the affection of her beloved in this romance inspired by "Twilight" and "Life and Death." This story will be familiar to fans of Ms. Stephenie Meyer, yet also entirely new.
Fan Fiction, 56 Chapters, 490,453 Words, published on Wattpad.
Fan Fiction, 56 Chapters, 490,453 Words, published on Wattpad.
ebook
Published May 23, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 12, 2025
I'm trying very hard to finish this book, but the prose is so purple it is distracting. Jordan Ida insists on making the prose and dialogue unnecessarily wordy and long winded. The author makes it so hard for you to suspend your disbelief that these are teenagers in 2022.
For example: "as for being set up for success, relegating oneself to dreary and somnolent Forks, Washington could in no way be construed as a success, regardless the level of spiritual preparation. A concession at best, and a betray of his masochistic tendencies for its being self-imposed. Yes, this has been his decision, according to a circuitous tangle of realizations he barely understood himself." Ida, J, (2024) Our Infinite Sadness, Chapter 1a.
I'd be hard press to find a teenager in 2022 who thought or spoke like this. Heck, my profession (Litigation Attorney) is filled with professionals who think that purple prose = intelligence, and I still rarely see things as bad as Our Infinite Sadness.
I am not a theatre kid, so the first chapter was difficult to get through. In it, the male protagonist Ben is persuaded to put on an impromptu musical, during his farewell party. When three hundred (mostly) teenagers all joined in to sing the chorus of the musical, "they could be heard all the way to the high school, three and a half miles to the southeast." Id. I physically cringed. Like when you see people standing up and singing in the movie theatre, or spontaneously breaking out into song at a restaurant. I could understand a teenager being persuaded to sing or play an instrument during a party, but to put on an entire musical performance - on the fly - beggars belief.
Furthermore, Ben does not read like a teenager in 2022. He reads as a idealized combination of traits. He's an elite gymnast and rock climber. He inspires admiration and love in most people by simply existing. He's considered an excellent actor with an amazing singing voice. He is described by Alice Cullen as "Pavarotti reincarnated". I assume she is referring to Luciano Pavarotti, one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. The author makes it clear that Ben is the most intelligent and gifted human in the novel and the rest (especially those in Forks, Washington) are backwater barbarians who should be viewed with pity for not having a Drama Club.
"Invariably, the bravest and most forthright members of the student body would steel themselves and approach to chat him up with predictable and easily handled efforts to corroborate whatever factoids they'd gleaned from social media. By mid-morning...everyone in the school knew he'd been a star gymnast and rock climber back home, demanding physically perilous sports which they had difficulty squaring against his lifelong immersion in dance and musical theatre, challenged as they were...He weathered the interrogation stoically, having foreseen its inevitability." Ida, J, (2024) Our Infinite Sadness, Chapter 1e.
Overall, I'm really trying to finish it, given the female protagonist's apparently stellar depiction, but the book makes it so hard. The prose is unbearably purple and Ben is singularly unlikeable, despite the author consistently telling us how amazing Ben is.
For example: "as for being set up for success, relegating oneself to dreary and somnolent Forks, Washington could in no way be construed as a success, regardless the level of spiritual preparation. A concession at best, and a betray of his masochistic tendencies for its being self-imposed. Yes, this has been his decision, according to a circuitous tangle of realizations he barely understood himself." Ida, J, (2024) Our Infinite Sadness, Chapter 1a.
I'd be hard press to find a teenager in 2022 who thought or spoke like this. Heck, my profession (Litigation Attorney) is filled with professionals who think that purple prose = intelligence, and I still rarely see things as bad as Our Infinite Sadness.
I am not a theatre kid, so the first chapter was difficult to get through. In it, the male protagonist Ben is persuaded to put on an impromptu musical, during his farewell party. When three hundred (mostly) teenagers all joined in to sing the chorus of the musical, "they could be heard all the way to the high school, three and a half miles to the southeast." Id. I physically cringed. Like when you see people standing up and singing in the movie theatre, or spontaneously breaking out into song at a restaurant. I could understand a teenager being persuaded to sing or play an instrument during a party, but to put on an entire musical performance - on the fly - beggars belief.
Furthermore, Ben does not read like a teenager in 2022. He reads as a idealized combination of traits. He's an elite gymnast and rock climber. He inspires admiration and love in most people by simply existing. He's considered an excellent actor with an amazing singing voice. He is described by Alice Cullen as "Pavarotti reincarnated". I assume she is referring to Luciano Pavarotti, one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. The author makes it clear that Ben is the most intelligent and gifted human in the novel and the rest (especially those in Forks, Washington) are backwater barbarians who should be viewed with pity for not having a Drama Club.
"Invariably, the bravest and most forthright members of the student body would steel themselves and approach to chat him up with predictable and easily handled efforts to corroborate whatever factoids they'd gleaned from social media. By mid-morning...everyone in the school knew he'd been a star gymnast and rock climber back home, demanding physically perilous sports which they had difficulty squaring against his lifelong immersion in dance and musical theatre, challenged as they were...He weathered the interrogation stoically, having foreseen its inevitability." Ida, J, (2024) Our Infinite Sadness, Chapter 1e.
Overall, I'm really trying to finish it, given the female protagonist's apparently stellar depiction, but the book makes it so hard. The prose is unbearably purple and Ben is singularly unlikeable, despite the author consistently telling us how amazing Ben is.
Displaying 1 of 1 review