Neptune Noir Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars by Smart Pop,2007]

by Rob Thomas

Neptune Noir Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars by Smart Pop,2007, Paperback

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Pop Culture, Mystery, Tv, Anthologies, Noir

Unknown Binding

First published April 10, 2007

About the author

Robert James "Rob" Thomas is an American author, producer, and screenwriter, best known as the author of the 1996 novel Rats Saw God, creator of the critically acclaimed television series Veronica Mars and co-creator of 90210 and Party Down.

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all the Smart Pop series, the word "unauthorized" is displayed twice prominently on the front cover and again on the spine, but make no mistake: show creator (and frequent episode writer) Rob Thomas edited this collection of essays, penned the opening piece, and provided a half- to one-page response to each chapter. The CW owns the show, but Thomas was its heart and soul, so this is as authorized as most fans care about.

If you haven't seen the show, a few of these essays will seem pointless, but even then most of them will read as well as any media analysis out there. Authors vary from media studies professors to critics, writers, fans, and psychologists.

As expected, the essays are uneven but none fall to embarrassing levels and a few stand out as excellent. Thomas' responses are highlights of the book. He provides the expected anecdotes and "aw shuck"-ing but he adds context that helps interpret the essays.

The book is handicapped by having been published between seasons two and three. Since the show ended after season three, waiting a year would have provided a complete view of the run. As it is, many of the essays are left pondering if or how future seasons will challenge their thesis.

Over those first two seasons, the same episodes and the same lines from the theme appear repeatedly in the essays. This is good: it gives multiple views of the most-effective episodes and draws the (carefully chosen) theme song into most of the character elements in the series. But because of this, these episodes are discussed in detail and the finales of both seasons one and two are the most popular. If you haven't seen these, be aware that you'll know (almost) everything about them by the time you've finished the book.

Whether you like the show, are interested in its popularity, or are interested in media studies and screenwriting, Neptune Noir is a worthwhile read.


Specific comments on a few of the essays:

"Introduction: Digressions on How Veronica Mars
Saved My Career and, Less Importantly, My Soul" by Rob Thomas is the obligatory "How I created the show" reminiscence. It's a fine read, but doesn't add anything to the show itself; it's really about Thomas. It has the expected amount of self-congratulatory tone (how he fell from grace into the writing schlock, how VM was his last, best hope to write something he cared about, yadda yadda yadda) but isn't overly sanctimonious. I was pleasantly surprised.

"Welcome to Camp Noir" by Lani Diane Rich finally provides a term to describe the show. I'd argue that "arch" is more appropriate than "camp," but it's a good term that most people who haven't seen the show can "get." Thomas' reaction (about how much he hates camp) is interesting. The essay does a good job identifying which characters bring the camp/arch elements and which supply the noir (and how the major characters balance or meld the two). A high point of the book.

"Story Structure and Veronica Mars" by Geoff Klock. I was very excited about this one, but it turns out to be a first-year walkthrough of one episode of VM. Not bad, but not what the title promised.

"Veronica Mars: Girl. Detective." by Evelyn Vaughn suggests that VM herself is allowed--in TV culture--to get away with her behavior because of her "girly" elements. Not quite a feminist analysis, this is worth a think.

"Daddy’s Girl" by Joyce Millman is the obligatory Freudian analysis of the show as Electra complex. Had to be here and Millman does a credible job with it.

"Daddy Dualities" by Amy Berner is a better analysis of the Kieth/Veronica dynamic. Berner contrasts all of the recurring fathers on the show (including Duncan).

"On the Down-Low" by Lynne Edwards is very short, but provides the most interesting view in the book. Edwards discusses the use of race in the show, from the lynching symbolism in the pilot to the appropriation signifying from American black culture.

"The Duck and the Detective" by Chris McCubbin addresses the question of why VM has so many avowedly conservative fans. I noticed a conservative bent while watching the show (in the traditional, Goldwater Conservative, sense) and McCubbin tries to identify elements of the show that appeal to that demographic--as well as to explain why these don't turn off more liberal viewers.

"I’m in Love with My Car" by Lawrence Watt-Evans discusses the use of cars and motorcycles in the show. VM shows people in cars more than almost any other show on the air and Watt-Evans describes their use of vehicles more as costuming than props, with the model, age, and look of each car chosen to match the character and scene. Certainly Logan's bright yellow SUV/Jeepy thing is a significant part of his character, but the other observations Watt-Evans makes would never have occurred to me.

"Boom Goes the Dynamite" by Misty Hook is the obligatory Veronica/Logal "shipper" essay. Enough said.

"Innocence Lost" by Samantha Bornemann hypothesizes that "teen girl drama" began in 1994 with the much-lamented) Claire Danes vehicle My So-Called Life and contrasts VM with that and Buffy (of course). It's a shallow comparison and a shallow premise (readers older than 25, or who have seen television from before 1990, will certainly challenge the claim that MSCL was completely unprecedented), but Buffy is the elephant in the room of any 20-oriented drama circa 2000, so someone had to do it.


Overall, a good read that helps enjoy the show. It also makes a more informed viewer for other shows in or near the genre.

Just be sure you've seen all of season 2 first.

[Sean Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a must for any Veronica fan as there is so little merchandise out there, and although this is stamped with "unauthorised' over the cover about three times (probably to appease the CW lawyers) Rob Thomas has compiled and bookended the essays within.

It proves for some interesting reading, although the quality of each contribution varies. There is one particularly embarrassing ode to the 'love' of Veronica and Logan which sounds like it was written by a Buffy/Spike fan, so blind are they to their total inappropriateness for one another and the amount of gush would put the Niagara to shame. One essay also claims to show how Veronica Mars can be enjoyed from a Republican viewpoint but doesn't really show much evidence why (although it makes a cracker of a good argument for South Park). And finally, there is one that just makes me think, Rob Thomas, what the hell? Including an essay in which the writer compares her drama-less teen break-up to the pain Veronica feels about her rape? I know Veronica is a fictional character, and this is a fictional rape, but to have it written off so easily by someone is flippant and disturbing: "That's how I felt, just like Veronica did. Soiled, ashamed, besotted, befouled, adrift." Um, clueless, writer, just fuck off.

It's a shame that this essay is the last one in the book, it actually made me angry and coloured the whole book for me in the end. Veronica Mars would have hunted your arse down for that one.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fair warning - this was written before season 3 aired. And way before the movie. That being said I enjoyed almost every single entry. The 5th star, I will say, is for Boom Goes the Dynamite by Misty Hook. That one is for all of us LoVe fans out there!

[Mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the introduction and notes from Rob Thomas more interesting than the actual essays in most cases, although that could be because I was expecting a more critical, analytical look at the show and characters. That said, I thought "Daddy's Girl" and "I Cannot Tell A Lie..." were the particularly interesting. "Daddy's Girl" analyzes the relationship between Veronica and Keith, focusing on the way it changes from season one to season two. "I Cannot Tell A Lie..." illustrates the various ways that lies are perceived in Neptune and why viewers are able to forgive Veronica for lies that we'd never forgive in the real world.

Any fan of Veronica Mars will undoubtedly identify with the opening of "Lawless Neptune," which addresses the difficulty of describing the show to someone who has never seen it. (Most fans have probably gotten the 'Nancy Drew' comparison thrown back at them when they tried, too.) The essay then segues into why the picture of a corrupt criminal justice system is integral to making the viewer believe in the show and not see it as a fluffy, contemporary update of Nancy Drew.

[Joy Urban · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know how when you have to read an academic paper on something you REALLY don't care about, it just drags?
But when you get to read a paper on something you really, REALLY enjoy, you feel so much smarter after reading it and it gives you an entire new perspective on what you love? Drawing parallels, noticing themes, etc. Well that's how this collection goes.
It's "Unauthorized" so far as the CW, who owns the rights to VMARS, did not authorize, but Rob Thomas does the foreword and has commentaries on every essay. And sure there were some I didn't agree with - the surrogate "marriage" between Veronica & Keith - as well as one pompous essayist describing a scene as "climatic." I'm PRETTY sure he wasn't talking about the weather and instead meant "climactic," but I'm willing to let it go, since apparently no one else caught it. Good book. Highly recommend to big VMars fans.

[Abbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read! As an avid marshmallow, it was cool to read different perspectives on the show and its themes, especially since the theories came in real time amidst the show airing.

My favorite article was definitely the one about Veronica and Logan, and the best part overall was Rob Thomas’s commentary on each essay.

[Melliane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mon avis en Français

My English review

I confess that when I saw the book, I immediately thought that I could find stories of Veronica Mars but in written form. Yes because younger I took a great pleasure in following this series and I was very sad when it was stopped, leaving us full of questions. With the release of the movie, the appeal of the show came back and it is true that I was curious about this novel too. Yet it was not at all what I expected. I expected as I said before some nice short stories about Veronica (yes I do not know why ), but we finally find several authors who dissect the series or at least the first two seasons according to their feelings.

Firstly, the novel introduces the story of Rob Thomas, father of Veronica Mars and eventually his life as well. From his successes but also failures, to the idea of ​​this series and how he came to give life to it, but also the choice of castings including the Kristen Bell one. I admit that it was quite interesting to see as this isn’t a world I know about and I was impressed enough to see how it would all unfold. Once past this introduction we go a little deeper into the heart of the matter, alternating authors, journalists and other people who tell us what they see in this show. And it’s true that it’s quite impressive to see the details that some managed to emerge from the series. It thus covers many topics that I would not have thought possible. Yes, because we can find some on cars, on the conservative side of the story or how lies are easily established. But that’s not all because ultimately, some themes recur repeatedly, whether the rape of Veronica and how she faced it, or rather her symbiotic relationship with her father, no mother, but of course as well on her relationship with Logan and Duncan. As you can see, many points are discussed here although some are repeated a bit, which is a shame as it was quite interesting. By cons I have to say something, even if I enjoyed the show, I think the novel is perhaps a little too much. I had the impression that this was really the series of the century. It was fine, but you must still understand that it is only that. And although it is very interesting to see what people were able to find behind all these episodes, I think sometimes we just need to watch it and appreciate what we have in front of our eyes.

To conclude, I think that I can say it was a pretty interesting book, very different from what I usually read and even if it is perhaps not something I’ll particularly read again, it’s always interesting to be able to learn more that way.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing to see here, just me indulging my Veronica Mars obsession 🫣

[Mythili · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into Veronica Mars pretty late (in fact it was around the time the movie was going to release) and as a person who isn't living remotely close America, I never paid much attention to 'teen drama' aspect of the show. I had seen other teen drama shows that were shallow and they seemed completely unreal. I treated Veronica Mars as a detective show in which the characters had their own traumatic back stories which, in turn, aided the plot somehow.

But as I went further into the episodes, the characters started shaping up and I could finally let myself delve into their life, stories and the interplay they had with other characters.

After reading this book, I definitely did get a better insight to the show and its characters. Especially when it comes to the high school teen drama aspect. Like I mentioned before, I am not from America and I am not very familiar with the high school culture that exists there. Where I come from things are very different and the only insight on American teen life I had was other TV shows, movies and books. Which is why I started noticing the differences between Veronica Mars and other TV shows. And this facet has been touched upon in most of the essays in this book.

Even though Veronica Mars is a teen drama, it touches upon real themes like rape, murder, blackmail, racism, child abuse, etc., which anyone can relate too even if they haven't been exposed to it first hand. Even if we, on the other side of the world, may not necessarily have the same teenage problems as that of an American, we do have most. And that is extremely relatable.

The book started off with a little preface by Rob Thomas, which was mildly interesting and quite predictable, especially the whole part where he says Veronica Mars was his last hope and yada yada.

The very first essay by Lani was by far the best one. It answered a lot of questions that I had had about the realism in Veronica Mars. She provided the term 'Camp Noir' and went on to explain what it means and how 'camp' and 'noir' are balanced throughout the show.

The others pretty much spoke about similar facets, like Veronica losing her 09ner status, her rape and her ultimate exclusion from the so-called 'normal' crowd of Neptune High. It was an interesting read but got a little monotonous. There were some essays, which weren't particularly striking and some that really helped polish my perception of the show.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as pseudo/pop-academic books go, this was more pseudo than I thought it would be. The first chapter read more like a blog than an essay, with parenthetical asides every few sentences (as it turns out, the writer is also a blogger, hmm). Once I got over that things improved vastly. The chapter topics were varied and at times intricate. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on cars as extensions of a character's personality. Since my personal tastes lean more towards academia than totally pop, I got somewhat frustrated when writers brought up an interesting point and then either didn't pursue it or went in a superficial direction. If I had the book with me I'd look up one or two, but I've already lent it out to another VM fan.

I particularly enjoyed Rob Thomas's mini-intros to each chapter, after I realized that it was him writing. In these half-page "asides" Thomas relates some behind the scene tidbits that relate (sometimes tangentially) to the following chapter. Any VM addict will eat these up. He talks about stuff that could have been in the series but was changed or how things weren't planned but got incorporated in a big way (like to Logan/Veronica relationship; imagine THAT never happening!).

And now a moment of self-advertising-- I wrote a more academic essay about the first season of VM that will be published in an anthology of student essays, The World is a Text (3rd ed.). It comes out in August! I wish this book had been out when I wrote that paper...*sigh*

Anyway... if nothing else, this collection of essays will make you want to watch your favorite episodes of VM (or all of the eps). I think right now my favorite season is #1, but we'll see.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much required reading for any V-Mars fan. I read it in an entire weekend, which probably isn't advised; I had all the first two season's plots swimming in my head for a week.
The "Smart Pop" series compiles essays on TV shows written by fans that either analyze it to death, give it a historical context, or view it from a certain scholarly lens.
My favorite essays included:
- Geoffrey Klock's breakdown of the first season finale's story structure (which reminded me to read some Robert McKee)
- Evelyn Vaughn's analysis of Veronica's voiceovers
- Lawrence Watt-Evans' catalog of the characters' cars
- Misty Hook's love letter to the Logan-Veronica pairing
- Samantha Borneman's comparison of V-Mars to My So-Called Life and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a show I should probably watch sometime...)
The one out-and-out terrible essay is Deanna Carlyle's "The United States of Veronica," which turns the show's premise into an anti-American polemic.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoiler free.

I'm not really sure what to rate this collection of essays because each of the essays offers a different perspective and opinion about Veronica Mars. After reading all of the essays I found that while most of the essays had interesting points that I never thought of there were only a few that I really and truly liked. I rated the collection a 4 stars simply because the essays that I did like were fantastic and had me obsessing over them to everyone I know who liked Veronica Mars.

The essays in this collection range from political stuff, the cars used in the show, the relationships, to the creative process of writing a screenplay. Before each essay is a note from Rob Thomas about the essay with interesting information.

My two favourite essays in this collection are Veronica Mars: Girl. Detective written by Evelyn Vaughn which explains the effectiveness of the voiceovers in the show, and Daddy's Girl written by Joyce Millman which talks about Veronica and Keith's relationship as well as Veronica and Logan's relationship and how they're similar.

I would like to mention another essay, Boom Goes the Dynamite, written by Misty Hook which talks about Veronica and Logan's relationship. It goes into detail about their own qualities and how they make such an explosive and believable couple.

Overall, this collection of essays is worth the read for Veronica Mars fans, however you may find yourself skipping through many of the essays.

[Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veronica Mars is one of my favorite TV shows ever. When I heard about this book, I immediately bought it.

The essays were written after the first two season, which I thought were definitely better than the third. They contain many spoilers, so you need to have watched the show first.

By the end, I was feeling like I'd read the same things over and over. However, there were some really great essays (the ones about Logan & Veronica, cars in the series, and noir v. camp) and I'm feeling like I need to watch the whole series again. I'd give several of the essays 5 stars and some 1 star (The Importance of Not Being Earnest, which was unfortunately the last essay and didn't end the book on a good note for me.) I also enjoyed Rob Thomas's, VM's creator, introductions to each essay and the insight he gave.

If you love Veronica Mars pick this up, but only after you've picked up the series on DVD.

[Alysa]

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm abandoning this book that I was SO excited to dive into.

It's strange reading these essays that are so 'of a time', a time when Veronica Mars was in the middle of season 3, with no apparent end in sight. Reading them now everyone seems so cocky and overconfident and like they're practically jinxing it all.

60-odd pages in, and some of the essays had been vaguely interesting while others were just self-indulgent drivel. But I lost it completely when contributor Joyce Millman suggests a subconsciously sexual relationship between Keith and Veronica. I just have no interest in reading that, no matter what sort of argument you can make.

[Emilia P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't care if it wasn't quite as deep or as comprehensive as it could have been. I was able to read it in a day, and it reminded me of why I love Veronica Mars and why I miss it and how I should probably watch it again. I like the different takes on the moral grey area VMars inhabits--maybe the exploration of why she appeals to the red states most of all.
And also, it did some thinking about her relationship with her dad that I wouldn't have done myself but that I found fairly spot-on.

Thanks, book.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good for my Veronica Mars withdrawal. This book explores all things Veronica. From her relationship with Logan to the relevance of the choice of cars on the show. Camp factor to the father figures. Everything is covered in reference to the first two seasons. Thankfully the third one is not included as this publication was prepared too early on, and this season officially led to cancellation.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few very interesting essays, including, but not limited to: a first season episode-by-episode breakdown of camp vs. noir, the obligatory discussion about dads and their portrayal, and a really interesting take on the role of cars in the series. Very interesting, with some cool takes on the subtext and relationships. Contains spoilers for the entire first season and parts of the second.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection of pseudo-scholarly essays on Veronica Mars. I realized a few new things about the series, and it has made me start rewatching from the beginning. Some of the most useful info in the book comes in the form of Rob Thomas's (creator of Veronica Mars)comments on the essays.

[Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly academic, but some of these provide interesting insight into the remarkable complexity of the show. Worth more, if anything, are the side notes by Thomas which accompany each text. Still, the cars one was rather stupid. Who can't identify a Ford Taurus?

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any anthology, some entries impressed more than others (and a couple were just plain stinky), but who cares, they're ALL ABOUT VERONICA MARS! I devoured them. It was fun. What's not to like about fun?

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any Veronica Mars fan. I loved the articles in-depth look at the show and my favorite factors, Veronica, Veronica and Wallace's friendship, and the exploding relationship of Logan and Veronica.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read. It's titled "unauthorized" but show creator (and writer) Rob Thomas edited this collection, contributed a piece, and has personal comments about all of the others. Mostly it made me want to watch Veronica Mars again.

[Patience · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it almost as much as the show! I completely disagreed with about 1/3 of the essays, but that was part of the fun. It was cool to see people deconstructing, with love, a smart and complicated show.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I loved it. How can you go wrong with analyses of Veronica Mars, one of the best TV shows of the decade?

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cross-posted at: http://mgbookreviews.wordpress.com/20...

Synopsis and Background

Before I can talk about the book, I have to talk about a TV show: Veronica Mars. Long story short, go watch it. Go watch it right now! I am not generally a TV person, but Veronica Mars is one of my absolute favourite stories. It’s a noir mystery series with a spunky teenage girl as the protagonist. It’s dark, morally challenging, and has a complex and imperfect female main character that drives the show forward. The show ran for three seasons, but was cancelled in 2007.
So why talk about a TV series that was cancelled several years back? In 2013, a massively successful Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund a new Veronica Mars movie, and that movie was released on March 14, 2014 (check your local theatres!). The movie takes place several years after the series when Veronica is a fully fledged adult coming back to Neptune to help out an old friend. I went to see it on opening night, and I can guarantee that fans are going to enjoy this new addition to the Veronica Mars canon!

But what about Nepture Noir? This book is a compilation of essays written about various literary and social aspects of the series with commentary from Rob Thomas, the creator of the series. The essay authors, fans of the series themselves, explore many different aspects of the show, including the symbolism that it uses, and discussions about why the show worked so well.

The Good

If you have not watched Veronica Mars, this book is not for you (yet). But for fans, it’s an interesting addition to the series that celebrates some of the best aspects of the show.

Some of the essays are quite unique, and I really quite enjoyed Chris McCubbin’s piece on why Veronica Mars has a surprisingly big conservative fanbase, and Lawrence Watt-Evans’s character analysis of the cars used in the show. I was also a big fan of the two essays from Joyce Millman and Amy Berner on the role of fathers in the show, particularly the focus on Keith Mars who is one amazing fictional dad. While there was nothing truly ground-breaking presented in this volume, the authors caught onto little details that add quite a bit to one’s experience of the series.

The Bad

Despite my enjoyment, there are some downsides to the book. For one, the pieces were all written before the third and final season came out, so there is a lot of speculating about future development that is no longer relevant as the show moved forward. But since I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2 quite a bit more than season 3, this didn’t bother me at all.

For people looking for more critical academic work on this show, Neptune Noir is more of a lighter, analytical look at the show. This isn’t a fault unless you come in looking for something deeper than you will get, so don’t expect scholarly quality and depth. Just enjoy a series of essays produced by a bunch of articulate fans of the series.

There was only one essay that I truly did not like in Neptune Noir, and that was Heather Havrilesky’s “The Importance of Not Being Earnest”. Before I explain my discomfort, I should give readers a MAJOR spoiler warning for the show and a trigger warning for content involving sexual assault. One of the most controversial plot elements of Veronica Mars is that the main protagonist is a rape survivor. It’s an integral aspect of her backstory, and part of the reason that she is so driven to root out the evil in Neptune. In Havrilesky’s essay, she concentrates on talking about Veronica as a world-weary teen that has crossed into adulthood too soon, specifically in relation to her views on love. She applauds Veronica’s maturity in understanding that love isn’t this perfect state of being, and that the people you love can hurt you. She then goes on to talk about her first high school breakup. However, this comparison is pretty tasteless when one realises that Veronica’s issues with love arise out of the fact that her first love dumped her without telling her why (and she later finds out that it’s because they might be half-siblings), shortly thereafter, her best friend was brutally murdered, the entire town then turned on Veronica and her father for attempting to solve the crime (Veronica’s dad was the sheriff at the time), she was drugged and raped at a party when she tried to fit back in with her former group of friends, the new sheriff refused to believe her when she reported the assault, and her mother ran off when her father lost his job. In short, Veronica’s views on love have been affected by some severely violent and emotionally disturbing events that are not equal to an average high school breakup. To compare to the two diminishes the severity of the harms that Veronica suffered, so the essay, despite saying some interesting things, left me uncomfortable and frustrated.

Final Thoughts

If you like Veronica Mars, Neptune Noir is probably going to be a fun and thoughtful addition to the series as you wait for what Rob Thomas is going to produce next (and fans should know that the Veronica Mars movie continues in book form with the release of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line on March 25th!).

[Audra Gayle · Rating 5 out of 5]

So...I'm officially a Marshmallow...Veronica Mars is a show you must binge! And then I found this sparkling gem. Other Marshmallows - very smart Marshmallows, I might add - wrote some fun essays about pop culture and the societal influences of the show. If you're a fan of the show, this is a must read.

[itchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

i was very much mistaken

plus my copy was just ugly

[Alyssa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read: March 2014
Where It Came From: Digital review copy from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: Academic-ish-pop-culture-essay-collection
Rating: 2.5 Marshmallows

Because I was so excited for the impending release of the Veronica Mars movie, when I saw Neptune Noir on NetGalley I immediately snatched it up. Maybe you’ve seen examples of this genre before in your trawlings around Amazon, and already know about the existence of books dedicated to essays analyzing aspects of pop cultural institutions, usually ones with a solid (read: rabid) fanbase—your Game of Throneses, Twilights, Harry Potters, and the like. This is one of those books.

Not for dilettantes or casual fans, it’s a collection of critical essays and analyses (all written by Mars enthusiasts) that range from the academic in flavor (or that at least aspire to such) to ones that happily have the balance of fun and insight that you might expect in the pop culture coverage on your favorite blog or website. Most seem to have been written in the interim between the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show, so they’re spoiler-rife for seasons 1 and 2, and the third is obviously not addressed. Despite the fact that it’s “completely unauthorized,” this collection has the added cachet of being edited by the creator of the show, Rob Thomas. His introduction chapter about screenwriting and how Veronica Mars came to be is one of the most enlightening and fun to read in the whole book, and his mini-intros preceding each of the essays are easily the most consistently good part of the collection. They feel kind of a like Pop Up Video/peek behind the curtain at the show. As for the essays themselves, some are funny, some are enlightening, and some raise interesting points, but for me most of them landed in the space between my ears with a resounding meh.

There are a few worth the thinking geek’s time, though. There is a cool essay about the role cars play in the show and how the vehicles characters drive are a reflection of their personality and situation. There’s another one that very amusingly discusses the balance that the show strikes between noir and camp. Yet another addresses Veronica’s disillusionment and world-weariness through the lens of a humorous account of the author’s own experiences of teen disillusionment. While these examples succeeded in being both insightful and entertaining, this was unfortunately not the case for many of the rest. I found the majority of the essays to have an at best tenuous grip on academia, that many had theories that were on occasion interesting to momentarily entertain but of which I remained unconvinced, and some were downright boring. This collection is only for the hardcore VM fan, and even then, of the 18 essays included, I didn’t enjoy enough of them to be able to give the collection my full endorsement even for that subset of the population. Mostly, it just served to whet my appetite for the real thing when the movie comes out.

The tl;dr, long story short version: The TV show is amazing and you should probably watch it if you haven’t, but only a few of the essays in this collection live up to the awesomeness of their inspiration. I will be seeing the movie tonight and looking forward to trying out the new series of Veronica Mars mystery novels that will debut later this month, but this essay collection will not be joining my bookshelf.

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.


Originally posted on Read This / Eat That

[pianogal · Rating 3 out of 5]

My family has a saying - "You can either analyze it or enjoy it." I enjoyed all three seasons of Veronica Mars very much, so I figured that I'd also enjoy a collection of essays about it as well. Um...well... They weren't bad essays - but if you haven't seen the show and still plan on watching it, A) what are you waiting for? and B) this is not the book for you (lots of spoilers). There was a lot of repetition in the essays (i.e. citing the same parts of the same episodes to make the same points). Also, some of them went WAAAAYYY too far into academia. Claiming that there's sexual tension between Veronica and Keith? Come on. I didn't realize that Dr. Freud was a co-writer on the show. There were a few bright points - the essay comparing Veronica to Angela Chase (MSCL) and Buffy Summers, by Samantha Bornemann was interesting, as was the one about Veronica and Logan by Misty Hook. In the end, though, I think I'm just going to stick to enjoying the show and let the academicians analyze it all they want. Without me.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never knew that there is a genre out there that consists of books devoted to television shows. I suppose it makes sense that they are out there, but this is my first experience. If you are a Veronica Mars fan who cannot deal with the fact that the show is over, you might enjoy this book. I didn't love every essay, but there were several that I found very insightful or at least funny. It was comforting for me to find that there are other adults (and highly educated ones at that) who are as obsessed with VM as I am. Obsessed enough, even, to write an essay about it. (I confess I have started several such essays in my own head.) A few of them delve a little too deeply into intellectual levels that I am not sure the show really has--although it is one of the smartest shows I've ever seen on television. If you are reading this review and you haven't seen Veronica Mars, start there! I haven't found a show for a long time that stole me away from reading as this one did.