Once, a long time ago, I wrote a post titled Celebrities Writing Badly for my old blog. I had meant to make it a semi-regular thing, but then I didn’t. Recently, however, Cate and I were walking around a book store and I remembered that I’d heard Snooki had “written” a novel. This seemed the perfect chance to resurrect the idea.
You see, the thing with celebrities, especially the stupid ones, is that they generally can’t write at all. In most cases, they don’t even write their own embarrassingly bad books which means that not only can’t they write, but they can’t hire a decent ghost writer. Today, I’m going to mock Snooki’s novel A Shore Thing. The title, you’ll notice, is a double entendre. I’m sure Snooki would expound for tens of seconds on why she chose such a title if, you know, some PR person hadn’t chosen it for her.
The passage we’ll be making fun of comes from page 119 of the paperback edition (seriously, Snooki has a book with more than one edition. This kind of makes me want to die. Hey editors! I have a book. I haven’t been on TV though so never mind) and is brought to you by the “surprise me” button on Amazon’s Look Inside feature. I haven’t looked through the book trying to find an especially embarrassing part. I’m sure it’s all this bad. Here we go.
Bella and Tony sprawled on the red velvet couch. “I have never eaten so much in my life,” she said, her hand resting on her extended stomach. “I wonder if my food baby is a boy or a girl.”
“You think it’s okay to let Gia clean up,” said Tony, hearing a crash from the kitchen.
“First time for everything,” said Bella.
After the official judging, Rick left to meet some friends. Gia volunteered to clean up and “let you guys chill,” she said (not subtle, at all). Bella said, “Is your secret ingredient love? Because if it is, I should have won.”
“I do cook with love, but the secret ingredient is…”
He leaned in close to whisper in her ear, but kissed it instead.
The vibe was suddenly sizzling.
“Do that again,” she said.
Tony was built for speed. He was on her in a heartbeat, arms around her, lips on hers. He tasted like garlic and sauce. Which, to Bella, reminded her of home, cooking, love, passion.
Okay, I think that’s enough, don’t you? Now, where do we start? My favorite bit from the first paragraph is the part where Bella has an “extended” stomach from eating too much. My stomach bloats when I eat too much. You might even say it distends, but I’ve never seen it extended. What does that look like? Does she have a perfect column of stomach coming out of her middle? A sort of Pinocchio’s nose on steroids. Clearly, I must get to Jersey and check out this phenomenon.
Then we have a few lines of disappointingly ordinary dialogue before a parenthetical that says, in reference to something that is painfully, obviously, not subtle: “(not subtle, at all).” Wow! Thanks for that super helpful information. Now I know that wasn’t subtle when I was only 99.999999999999999999 percent sure that it wasn’t subtle before. I may be going overboard, though. It may be that this is a concession to the kind of person who would actually read a novel by Snooki (every time I type the words “Snooki,” “novel,” and “by” in a sentence, another part of my soul dies).
Now, after our very helpful parenthetical, we are treated to some line about love and secret ingredients that I think is supposed to be a come on, but makes no sense at all.
I am not going to address what his secret ingredient may or may not be. Gross.
Next we have another fabulous example of terrible writing. It goes thusly: “He leaned in close to whisper in her ear, but kissed it instead.” What’s wrong with that? This: He clearly did not lean in to whisper in her ear. If that’s what he was doing, he would have done it. No, he leaned in close AS IF to whisper in her ear.
“The vibe was suddenly sizzling,” is truly profound and obviously worthy of its own paragraph.
But my favorite of all is in that last paragraph. “Tony,” we are told, “was built for speed.” I do not think this means what she thinks it means. Ha, I say. Hahahahahahaha. Finally, we close with the knowledge that garlic and sauce remind Bella of “home, cooking, love, passion.” Home and cooking, okay, I can see that. Love, sure. Food and parental love go together. Passion? What? Passion? Really? She tastes garlic and suddenly her lady parts get all tingly? Snooki, with a line like that, you must be destined for literary greatness.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go weep into some Tolstoy.
