Something that has been bugging me...

[aerofish.livejournal.com]

Hello, all. I'm new to this group and this is my first post. I figured I'd introduce myself with this peeve of mine.

I was reading the sample chapters for the next Anita book, and it was mentioned Anita is 27. This made me back up and go WTF(well, more than I already was). I know Anita is supposed to be in her twenties, yet that fact just never seems to stick, and I constantly find myself envisioning her as mid-30s with the mind-set, perhaps, of someone much older, if not the maturity. And giving her the age of 27 in this upcoming book really drove home the point to me, as that is my age.

Anita does not act like any twenty-something I know. For any of you around Anita's age, do you feel the same way? And I know I'm making a sweeping generalization about how a 25-30 year old should act, but shouldn't there be some consistencies with the popular culture for this age group? I have so many examples, but here's two obvious ones:

-Does she dress like someone my age dresses? Maybe if it were the 80's or early 90's, with her silk shell blouses and pantyhose and power jackets. Maybe she's going for a retro-ironic hipster thing, and I'm too dull to see it?

-She speaks with none of the slang commonly used. And while yes, "nifty" is a, well, nifty word...it's not exactly the cornerstone of a young person's vocabulary, right? Doesn't she, in one book referencing her brother's opinion of her line of work, even say something like "he says it's cool, or whatever the kids are saying these days?" Uh. Right.

In general, this is such a minor pet peeve, what with the many many MANY issues with her books I am having these days. But still, shouldn't there be a least a few references here and there anchoring Anita to the age she is supposed to be?

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

There was a blog where LKH watched some movie with Tommy Lee Jones in it and it had regular "teenagers" in it, and she had to ask Jon "Is that what girls are wearing these days?" and she was so utterly shocked that girls would dress like hookers. In public.

So, my guess is no - she doesn't watch the television with its tiny people inside, dancing just for her.

[vanity-lost.livejournal.com]

First: I'm sooo glad I wasn't the only one who was thinking that the preview of Ronnie and Anita was like reading some acid-laced, badly-spelled version of Thirteen. The girls in my middle school were the bitchy unholy terrors of which parental and societal nightmares are made. And Ronnie and Anita were acting exactly like them.

As a midwest kid myself, nothing but nothing explains Anita's out-of-touch attitudes and fashions. St Louis is not anywhere near as passe as LKH-land would make it seem.

On the other hand, the whole issue of fashion-not-keeping-up-with-the-times is an issue with other longer running series. The Stephanie Plum books? The clothes, lack of technology, etc, are somewhere perpetually around 1995. 1999 in the more recent ones. The author only seemed to notice the issue when some fans started commenting on it.

Maybe Laurell just hasn't noticed. There's a lot in the books she hasn't noticed recently though, so I guess the fashion throwbacks are something we shouldn't be surprised by.

[aerofish.livejournal.com]

Hello, she could even just watch Oprah and get a pretty decent handle on how people are dressing these days, you know? Doesn't surprise me a bit she'd say that about current teen trends.