Jekel Loves Hyde -- Beth Fantaskey
Back when Beth Fantaskey's Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side first came out, it received rave after rave from the blogosphere. At the time, I was unable to read it, as I'd have rather poked myself in the eye than read one more book about vampires. But all that chatter put the author’s name on my radar, and so, when Jekel Loves Hyde came out, I snapped it up.
Because, how could I resist? A modern day re-telling of R. L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, set in a high school? What's not to love?
Turns out, unfortunately, a lot.
Jill Jekel and Tristen Hyde share the narration, and both of their voices are problematic. To be fair, my issues with Jill's voice are due more to personal taste than to technical problems. She’s so downtrodden, insecure and pathetic that I found her difficult to like, and her habit of using over-long art-related similes ("Because in the months after the dirt fell on the coffin, my life began to shift to shades of gray, almost like the universe had taken a big stick and stirred up the whole scene at that cemetery, mixing up everything and repainting my world.") was grating at best.
Tristen's voice, though, is inconsistent and, even accounting for his upbringing, completely unbelievable. He's supposed to be a British teenager, highly educated and raised by a highly educated man, which, I assume, explains his more formal mode of expression. However. When he describes his own actions, he sometimes sounds like Stephenie Meyer describing Edward Cullen ("My mouth began to twitch with amusement, and I arched my eyebrows."), and other times, he sounds like a thesaurus-happy essay-writing student, desperate to find "smarter"-sounding words:
I didn’t await a response. Of course they would follow me, their captain, because they knew that, should one of them pass me, it would be only a temporary state. I would let my lungs burst before I ceded my spot in front.
The inconsistency arises not in his use of profanity -- which actually worked¹ -- but in Tristen's occasional lapses into informality. Neither the line "Open up, huh?" nor the word "puked" sound right coming from a guy who both uses the term 'nurse a "crush"' AND puts the word 'crush' in quotation marks.
In general, the prose is stilted, wooden and unrealistic. In addition, much of the backstory is related in infodump format, from both Tristen’s father:
"I didn't suspend my practice in London--and your education at one of England's best universities--in order to sit in a rental house in the Pennsylvania countryside."
and Jill’s mother:
"Your father lied to us, Jill," she said through gritted teeth. "He stole out of the house in the middle of the night while I was working and you were sleeping! He stole chemicals from his employer!"
and there are subtle word choices -- in addition to Tristen's synonym problem -- that just don't work. Unsurprisingly, Tristen is guilty of it on a regular basis:
I wasn't sure why I abandoned cross-country practice to talk with Jill Jekel on a hot September afternoon.
"A hot September afternoon"? Like, it wasn't a specific afternoon? Wouldn’t it have made much more sense, seeing as it's all in the past, to say "that hot September afternoon"?
And sometimes Jill succumbs to it as well:
My other arm squeezed tighter around the box I'd taken after sneaking again into Dad’s office.
"After sneaking again?" Really? Doesn’t "after sneaking back" sound slightly more natural?
And then there are my questions about/issues with the plotting, which could easily fill another blog post: For instance, why exactly is it that the potion makes Tristen murderous, but causes Jill, in her own words, to get "slutty"?
Due to the similarities in character (shy, uncertain girl who does more than her share at home/ strong, brooding, massively over-protective guy who wants to take care of -- or possibly kill -- her), it’s a book that may appeal to the most die hard of Twihards. For everyone else, I’d recommend Stephen Moffat’s 2007 miniseries Jekyll.
Or, of course, the original book.
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¹Although it was surrounded by dialogue more overwrought than anything I've ever seen on Days of Our Lives:
Tristen was loud again, digging his fingers into his hair, practically roaring, like he was releasing years of pent-up frustration and anger. "All of the HORROR, Jill! The HELL that I live with every day INSIDE MY FUCKING HEAD! And you, Jill. Did you ever stop to think that maybe YOU are as corrupted as ME?" He laughed, a harsh, almost choking sound. "You come across so innocent, but your blood is as tainted as mine in its own, perhaps worse, way! Your family created a line of killers! Have you ever thought of that since we started this whole effort to save MY FUCKING SOUL?"