Now A Major Motion Picture (Rant) Review: An Irritating Character In A Ridiculous Mess

Unlike the rest of the world, Iris doesn’t care about the famous high-fantasy Elementia books written by M. E. Thorne. So it’s just a little annoying that M. E. Thorne is her grandmother—and that Iris has to deal with the trilogy’s crazy fans.

When Iris gets dropped in Ireland for the movie adaptation, she sees her opportunity: if she can shut down production, the Elementia craze won’t grow any bigger, and she can finally have a normal life. Not even the rascally-cute actor Eamon O’Brien can get in her way.

But the crew’s passion is contagious, and as Iris begins to find herself in the very world she has avoided her whole life, she realizes that this movie might just be amazing…

 

This book has been likened to Fangirl, which is one of my all time favorites!! It also shares many similarities to Geekerella, in my opinion, another book I just adore!! But this book… I do not adore. And here’s why.

The main character, Iris, is the most spoiled, irritating, egotistical, whiny, bratty character I’ve ever met. (Well maybe not THE worst @Anna from Anna and the French Kiss, but definitely close!) Since she’s a whole lot of pain, I’ve decided to list all the irritating things she does in handy dandy list form for you!!

1. Complains relentlessly about getting a dream vacation to Ireland and getting to hang out with movie stars. And also it’s her little brother’s dream vacation. Still–complaints.
2. Complains about not being able to spend time at home playing her guitar. Even though she brought her guitar with her. And it’s two weeks. She can’t bear to spend 2 out of 52 weeks in the year not holed up in her room playing guitar (even though she’s just holed up in her trailer on a movie set in Ireland playing guitar).
3. Abandons her responsibility of looking after her little brother to schmooze with movie stars. When said little brother gets lost, she screams and yells at and publicly humiliates him even though she’s the one who lost him in the first place.
4. Then threatens to cut the vacation short RIGHT THEN. That’s right, she wants to cut her little brother’s dream vacation short because she wasn’t being responsible.
5. Throws and breaks her brother’s iPad because he’s showing a video of her playing guitar. Even though she spends all her time cooped up with her guitar and people are obviously going to be curious. For that, she breaks a something like $500 iPad and if that doesn’t say spoiled rich girl, what does?
6. Tells her brother that he ruined her life just by being born. Like, what?? Telling him she wishes he wasn’t alive?
7. Complains about being called “Jaded Iris.” When she obvious is lol.

Despite all her flaws, Iris is still somehow superhuman!! She’s incredible!! Here are some of her unrealistic accomplishments.

1. Manages to save a movie trailer by on a whim finding perfect music when people who’s job/get paid to do that fail to.
2. Talks a movie star into staying on the movie when a bunch of people who knew her better/longer fail to.
3. Manages to compose an amazing hit guitar song/movie soundtrack song on a whim.
4. Is able to perform said song, and harmonize perfectly, also on a whim on the same day that she on a whim came up with it.

So if this doesn’t irritate the heck out of you, I don’t know what will. But fear not! I’ve come up with another list of annoying things about this book!!!

1. There are random excerpts from the fantasy book in this book that I really couldn’t care less about, similar to Fangirl. I skimmed those there, and I skimmed them here. So if you liked that in Fangirl you might like this, but I sure don’t!
2. Total instalove. She repeatedly says that she’s there for less than two weeks, but she totally jumps into a relationship with this movie star that’s amazing and committed and lasts long distance…why? I mean, she gets together with him after just a few days I think, and I really couldn’t pinpoint the personality reason why.
3. The movie is always on the verge of being cancelled until Iris saves the day and I for the life of me don’t understand it or why. It seems super contrived. Not to mention annoying. Like producers are going to cancel it until Iris saves the trailer, until Iris talks a star into staying, until Iris (view spoiler).
4. I don’t even remotely understand why all the fans hate the movie so much. It seems like they just do as a plot device so Iris can keep saving the day. Seriously, some 50000 fans petition for the movie to be cancelled. In my experience as a booknerd people usually LOVE hearing that their favorite book is being made into a movie! These fans are…weird.
5. I feel like it’s going to be a terrible Percy Jackson-esque movie lol. It clearly states that in the book the movie is based off, the characters are 13, but their ages are changed to add romance, and are being played by a 21 year old who is getting married? (On second thought maybe this is why the fans hate it lol). This just sounds terrible. I mean, it’s a fictional movie based off a fictional book in another fictional book why don’t you just make the fictional book have older characters so it doesn’t seem so weird.
6. Someone who was supposedly from California called it Cali. Please. Stop. It makes me cringe just writing that. NOBODY in California calls it Cali. That’s one of the best ways to spot a tourist actually. And then we locals laugh about you and your Cali saying behind your back so just don’t say it. (Okay not really about the book itself but I just had to put that out there haha.)

Anyways, at this point you may be wondering why this isn’t a one star. And that’s because there are some amazing messages about sexism, racism, and homophobia! The female movie director talks about how hard it is for her to be taken seriously as a female, and we have a couple of Filipino movie stars talking about how hard it is to land a role as a POC (especially as a biracial–too light for some roles, too dark for others). We also have a queer actress talking about how hard it is to land roles in Hollywood because of her sexuality. I feel like there were some amazing messages here!! Honestly, with these messages, the book had potential to be really great. It’s just too bad that Jaded Iris had to come along and ruin it.

2 out of 5 stars