#reviewception

Reviewing the reviewers in the edfringereview house.

Before this goes any further, I must declare that this review is written with a degree of conflict of interest. Since I lived in the house also, it is probably quite a large degree:  so here is my un-impartial review. I am still going to write in the third person because I can’t think of a simpler way…

Startlingly realistic was the docudrama taking place in the Ed Fringe Review student flat. Starring ten student reviewers, we get an insight into the regular goings-on of the house – or at least as regular as house of ten strangers can be. For six days, we see them eat, sleep, bond, and most importantly – review.

The most striking thing about this piece was the mix of personalities within the group. To those that have not seen it, here are some visual aids to shed some light on why they should:

The editors of the Ed Fringe Review house were not the highly strung, pushy editors that you see on television. The audience immediately warmed to Georgiana and Emily for their on-stage chemistry, as well as their utter lack of the ‘mean boss’ persona.  

  Zack was constantly costumed in a flat cap, which this picture tries, and possibly fails, to depict. Zack would evoke the jealousy of many audience members due to his constant social activity and extreme proficiency at flyering on the Royal Mile.

Lucy’s character was acted with impressive versatility. Her despair at losing her phone to the toilet bowl was convincing and deeply felt by the audience, whilst she also provided moments of hilarity during her slightly tipsy insistence upon RECLINING in the hay at the bar with all the hay.

  Anna was presented as the perfect person to tag along with if you want to make the most of the fringe. Armed with maps and an impressive list of shows to see, this character was not going to miss out on any of the fun. She also made some yummy-looking  eggy bread.

David was definitely the most organised reviewer, the one that real-life reviewers aspire to be like.  Unfortunately for the other reviewers, his efficiency led to an early finish which gave him plenty of time to distract everyone else with the wonder that is youtube. Audience members laughed away as everyone else tried and failed to resist the allure of acapella videos and stand up.

 Easily the best named character, Xavier, or ‘Xav’ seemed to be always right, whether this was in regards to directions, word choice or star ratings. The only area in which he was wrong was his love of the Great Gatsby, which is a truly awful novel.

    Lily was not voted ‘nicest housemate’ for nothing: she was really, really nice. If off-stage housemates were like this, it would make in-house reviewing a much easier process. Saying that, the eye mask that she slept with must have been extremely creepy for the reviewer sleeping next to her if they had received no warning about said mask. It had eyelashes ad everything.

Henry was the king of the random occurrence, ending up on multiple occasions in unexpected places, such as a midday folk-funk performance in a cellar bar. This made him one to watch amongst audience members. I just hope for his sake that he was not drinking real wine during the performance, because there was a lot.

 All in all, it was the varied and wonderful characters in this piece that made it a must see. If they really existed, I am sure that they would have made the week an unforgettable experience.

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This was my first book of 2013 and it was an interesting read but I was not thrilled with the fact that the Dear America book about the Japanese internment of WWII in America was told from the point of view from a white girl.

This review from the goodreads page really sums it up for me (written by Bill Campbell):

This book represents so much of what I hate about racial representation in American pop culture. Fences is about a young white girl whose father ministers at a Japanese Baptist church during World War II. When the Japanese are interned after Pearl Harbor, he moves with his daughter to Idaho to continue to minister to his flock in the camp. Piper Davis is his daughter and the book is her diary. My problem is that, while the preacher is based on a real person. Piper is not. This story simply did not happen. It is yet another attempt to insert a white person and a white perspective on what is essentially a non-white story.  Stories like this simply "white wash" American history. We have countless stories of white people's imagined stories during the Civil Rights movement, the extermination of Native Americans, and now, with this story, it's Asian Americans' turn. As a minority, I find these stories offensive as they attempt to erase our own presence from our own stories. As a writer, I don't get it because it's purposely ignoring the real drama in these historical events. Isn't it more compelling to hear from the actual victims of oppression? What it was like to be Japanese-American, viewing yourself as an American, and then suddenly having your family uprooted and jailed and then having the government that jailed you ask you to fight for them in their war. What was that fear, anger, resentment, and counter-intuitive display of patriotism like? That's what I want to know. Instead, we get to see what it's like to be a privileged witness to the horror that the Japanese-Americans experienced. Oh yeah, that's really rough. Also, since this is part of the "Dear America" series, which offers fictional portrayals of what it was like being a teenage girl during different eras in different regions of America--this Anglo angle on Japanese-American internment is even more insulting. Just like the American government during the War, this series, in giving the internment story to a white girl instead of an Asian one, implies that to be of Asian descent in America makes you somehow NOT American.

I could try to put my feelings about that part of the books better, but I couldn't.  So thank you, Bill Campbell :) The original review can be seen on the book's Goodreads page.

Overall, it was an interesting story.  I thought it was well written, but I remember Kirby Larson's other book (Hattie Big Sky) being slightly better, so perhaps that's the one to start with.