I haven't even let the whole OH, NEW CHAPTER, WHOLE NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS thing sink in yet; (if you did something like that NOW in a YA novel, the editor would gently laugh you out of the room. Writers aren't supposed to use quite as transparent literary devices nowadays, yet how can we not love the wholly manipulative feel????) because I have had to take the time to marvel, yes, MARVEL at The Power of the Dress (cue "By The Power of Greyskull!" He-Man voice).
I mean - this nurse is supposed to be a whole grown adult, and she STILL a.) worries about the selfsame stupidity a teen would, (which as a teen would have given me hives: Oh, NO, adulthood ISN'T ANY BETTER!?!?!? That's not information you're supposed to get until you're through the magic doorway and can't back out), and second, that her first concern about backless/strapless/spaghetti dresses isn't that those might be a little OTT for dinner at ANYONE'S HOUSE unless they live on the set of Dynasty or something.
I am always a little weirded out that religion does not equal anything actually about, you know, BELIEF? Your point about, "Hey, maybe not stealing is an idea?" is kind of, I don't know A THING, in faith circles, no? In the 80's were we even to the whole Religion Is A Political Maneuver, Apply Here For Inclusion Into Our Right Ideas Denomination yet?
The idea of a man "looking over" girlfriends has me mentally projectile-ing all of that paragraph. That's so truly gross that I'm too exhausted to do more than heave that NO ONE - not even the woman in question... questioned. Anything. Yes, I, too am overthinking this; we're not here to interrogate broadly accepted religious social mores of the 80's, but literally, DEAR GOD. Also, let's go ahead and say it now, because she's obv going soon:
I'm only halfway through reading this comment, but "Oh, NO, adulthood ISN'T ANY BETTER!?!?!? That's not information you're supposed to get until you're through the magic doorway and can't back out" made me laugh so much that I choked on a Tootsie Roll, so thanks for that, LOL.
Thinking about the spaghetti strap thing (STILL), and it's so funny, because less than ten years later, in the '90s, spaghetti straps were EVERYWHERE. Dresses, tank tops, etc., and YOU CAN ALWAYS WEAR A CUTE CARDIGAN OVER THEM THIS IS NOT THAT HARD. (Criminy, in the '90s she'd have been lucky to find a shirt with a BACK, let alone a super-modest Demure Dress.)
You're so right, too, that Felicia reads as a teenager, that hadn't even occurred to me.
I just looked it up and Moral Majority, the organization, was founded in 1979 and was shuttered in the late '80s, but obvs the cultural/political stuff continued. So that was def a social factor when this came out, but yeah: the strangeness of religion—or at least a certain flavor of Christianity—becoming more about, I dunno, spaghetti straps than about, like, BEING DECENT TO EACH OTHER? Looking over the girlfriends to judge them as Possible Mates is waaaaaaaaay more Handmaid's Tale than anyone needs in their life.
RIGHT??? Wear. A. Freakin'. Cardigan. A lot of us grew up with the no-bare-shoulders-in-church thing, so had nineteen coordinating cardis at the ready at all times. This chick thinks she wants to be a minister's wife and isn't already packing modest mouse crocheted shrugs?? Can this relationship be saved??? (A: No, because stealing, also stealing cursed objects...)
I didn't have the no-bare-shoulders thing in childhood, but I *did* grow up in a house that was solely heated with wood, so LAYERS have been part of my life literally forever. (And then in adult life, living and working with other people who run at different temperatures, I realized that it was MUCH easier to just always wear multiple layers than it was to squabble over The Perfect Ambient Temperature. Because it's different for everyone, LOL!)
I'm pretty sure that the 80s *invented* Religion is a Political Maneuver. I'd have to check with somebody who grew up Evangelical, but that's when the Moral Majority got started and all, right? We don't know that Mark is that kind of pastor in training, but...yeah, we do. Anglican mentors probably didn't check up on girlfriends. All I remember from my own experience at the time is being on the fringes of the Satanic Panic, which was quite a ride.
Oooohhhhhh, it covers Jay's Journal too. I well remember the day my seminary teacher told us the entire story and recommended we all read it because it was absolutely true. Which I still haven't done; I've never even seen a copy in person. But I'd probably feel too oogy about actually reading it.
(Seminary being a daily religion class for high-schoolers we had before school started. Most of it was a blast, actually; I have very fond memories, but also my hometown is ....I dunno, it's weird, and I have a lot of stories. That teacher was a lawyer in the DA's office, so he found out about his impending arrest for child molestation and skipped town before his spectacular arrest and jail sentence. He was a *perfect* example of the charming, popular, big-hearted guy everybody loves who turns out to be a predator.)
Oh, yeah, a good amount of it turns out to be REALLY infuriating—Beatrice Sparks was mining other peoples' tragedy for profit waaaaaaaaay ahead of the current true crime wave.
(Jeez louise, I am absolutely AGOG at the idea of someone finding out about their impending arrest that way—it's the kind of thing that would happen in a movie and you'd yell YEAH RIGHT at the television. (Or, well, YOU wouldn't, heh.))
Every so often I tell my kids a hometown story and they're like o.O 'Mom that is BONKERS' but I often don't realize that it is bonkers until they point it out.
Gaaah!!! Phyllis Whatsherface (Schlafly?) mouth-pieced that Moral Majority nonsense sometime late 70's/early 8's, so indeed, the current unholy coalition of Religions Serving Patriarchal Agendas, Inc (while trying vainly to make backmasking A Thing) was born sometime then. Bleh. Mark here was probably a charter member. Between that and The Power of the Dress, poor Felicia never had a chance...
Ooo, this is a new twist I was not expecting! The Dress is going to ruin another life. The Dress is going to have a CAREER! Go Cursed Dress go!
And, probably the nurse should take a page from Daphne's playbook and show up in a Shirley Temple dress with a blacked-out front tooth or something. I'm pretty sure Daphne is the role model we all need when the word 'demure' shows up.
I'm glad you're enjoying it! It's been quite the ride so far. (I don't read ahead, so I'm excited to see what happens in chapter five. I'm not hopeful about Felicia's near future...)
I'm DYING. Oh, my goodness.
I haven't even let the whole OH, NEW CHAPTER, WHOLE NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS thing sink in yet; (if you did something like that NOW in a YA novel, the editor would gently laugh you out of the room. Writers aren't supposed to use quite as transparent literary devices nowadays, yet how can we not love the wholly manipulative feel????) because I have had to take the time to marvel, yes, MARVEL at The Power of the Dress (cue "By The Power of Greyskull!" He-Man voice).
I mean - this nurse is supposed to be a whole grown adult, and she STILL a.) worries about the selfsame stupidity a teen would, (which as a teen would have given me hives: Oh, NO, adulthood ISN'T ANY BETTER!?!?!? That's not information you're supposed to get until you're through the magic doorway and can't back out), and second, that her first concern about backless/strapless/spaghetti dresses isn't that those might be a little OTT for dinner at ANYONE'S HOUSE unless they live on the set of Dynasty or something.
I am always a little weirded out that religion does not equal anything actually about, you know, BELIEF? Your point about, "Hey, maybe not stealing is an idea?" is kind of, I don't know A THING, in faith circles, no? In the 80's were we even to the whole Religion Is A Political Maneuver, Apply Here For Inclusion Into Our Right Ideas Denomination yet?
The idea of a man "looking over" girlfriends has me mentally projectile-ing all of that paragraph. That's so truly gross that I'm too exhausted to do more than heave that NO ONE - not even the woman in question... questioned. Anything. Yes, I, too am overthinking this; we're not here to interrogate broadly accepted religious social mores of the 80's, but literally, DEAR GOD. Also, let's go ahead and say it now, because she's obv going soon:
Bye, Felicia.
I'm only halfway through reading this comment, but "Oh, NO, adulthood ISN'T ANY BETTER!?!?!? That's not information you're supposed to get until you're through the magic doorway and can't back out" made me laugh so much that I choked on a Tootsie Roll, so thanks for that, LOL.
Srsly, though, if anyone would have told us the real, we would have refused adulthood like Felicia here is refusing the concept of THIEF.
Thinking about the spaghetti strap thing (STILL), and it's so funny, because less than ten years later, in the '90s, spaghetti straps were EVERYWHERE. Dresses, tank tops, etc., and YOU CAN ALWAYS WEAR A CUTE CARDIGAN OVER THEM THIS IS NOT THAT HARD. (Criminy, in the '90s she'd have been lucky to find a shirt with a BACK, let alone a super-modest Demure Dress.)
You're so right, too, that Felicia reads as a teenager, that hadn't even occurred to me.
I just looked it up and Moral Majority, the organization, was founded in 1979 and was shuttered in the late '80s, but obvs the cultural/political stuff continued. So that was def a social factor when this came out, but yeah: the strangeness of religion—or at least a certain flavor of Christianity—becoming more about, I dunno, spaghetti straps than about, like, BEING DECENT TO EACH OTHER? Looking over the girlfriends to judge them as Possible Mates is waaaaaaaaay more Handmaid's Tale than anyone needs in their life.
RIGHT??? Wear. A. Freakin'. Cardigan. A lot of us grew up with the no-bare-shoulders-in-church thing, so had nineteen coordinating cardis at the ready at all times. This chick thinks she wants to be a minister's wife and isn't already packing modest mouse crocheted shrugs?? Can this relationship be saved??? (A: No, because stealing, also stealing cursed objects...)
I didn't have the no-bare-shoulders thing in childhood, but I *did* grow up in a house that was solely heated with wood, so LAYERS have been part of my life literally forever. (And then in adult life, living and working with other people who run at different temperatures, I realized that it was MUCH easier to just always wear multiple layers than it was to squabble over The Perfect Ambient Temperature. Because it's different for everyone, LOL!)
Bye Felicia! I'm dying.
I'm pretty sure that the 80s *invented* Religion is a Political Maneuver. I'd have to check with somebody who grew up Evangelical, but that's when the Moral Majority got started and all, right? We don't know that Mark is that kind of pastor in training, but...yeah, we do. Anglican mentors probably didn't check up on girlfriends. All I remember from my own experience at the time is being on the fringes of the Satanic Panic, which was quite a ride.
LOL, jinx, I just looked up the history of the Moral Majority, hahaha.
Did you read Unmask Alice, about the history of Go Ask Alice and the ties to the Satanic Panic and so on? I really enjoyed that one.
I don't know that one, but I'll find it! That whole thing was so strange and had so many consequences...I'll read almost anything about it.
Oooohhhhhh, it covers Jay's Journal too. I well remember the day my seminary teacher told us the entire story and recommended we all read it because it was absolutely true. Which I still haven't done; I've never even seen a copy in person. But I'd probably feel too oogy about actually reading it.
(Seminary being a daily religion class for high-schoolers we had before school started. Most of it was a blast, actually; I have very fond memories, but also my hometown is ....I dunno, it's weird, and I have a lot of stories. That teacher was a lawyer in the DA's office, so he found out about his impending arrest for child molestation and skipped town before his spectacular arrest and jail sentence. He was a *perfect* example of the charming, popular, big-hearted guy everybody loves who turns out to be a predator.)
Oh, yeah, a good amount of it turns out to be REALLY infuriating—Beatrice Sparks was mining other peoples' tragedy for profit waaaaaaaaay ahead of the current true crime wave.
(Jeez louise, I am absolutely AGOG at the idea of someone finding out about their impending arrest that way—it's the kind of thing that would happen in a movie and you'd yell YEAH RIGHT at the television. (Or, well, YOU wouldn't, heh.))
Every so often I tell my kids a hometown story and they're like o.O 'Mom that is BONKERS' but I often don't realize that it is bonkers until they point it out.
Adds new book to teetering TBR...
hahaha sorryyyyyyy
Gaaah!!! Phyllis Whatsherface (Schlafly?) mouth-pieced that Moral Majority nonsense sometime late 70's/early 8's, so indeed, the current unholy coalition of Religions Serving Patriarchal Agendas, Inc (while trying vainly to make backmasking A Thing) was born sometime then. Bleh. Mark here was probably a charter member. Between that and The Power of the Dress, poor Felicia never had a chance...
i read this out loud to Josh and he about fell over laughing when i hit "Religions Serving Patriarchal Agendas, Inc"
Ooo, this is a new twist I was not expecting! The Dress is going to ruin another life. The Dress is going to have a CAREER! Go Cursed Dress go!
And, probably the nurse should take a page from Daphne's playbook and show up in a Shirley Temple dress with a blacked-out front tooth or something. I'm pretty sure Daphne is the role model we all need when the word 'demure' shows up.
"The Dress is going have a CAREER" made me laugh so hard I somehow accidentally burped? Anyhow...
LOLOL this also make me spit tea all over the circulation desk, thank you both
I am finding the Prom Dress deep dive series particularly entertaining. I have snort-laughed on more than one occasion. 😆
I'm glad you're enjoying it! It's been quite the ride so far. (I don't read ahead, so I'm excited to see what happens in chapter five. I'm not hopeful about Felicia's near future...)