Smith, L.J. - The Secret Circle trilogy

[oyceter]

(consists of The Initiation, The Captive, and The Power)

For some reason, I never read these when I was in high school going through my L.J. Smith stage, so you get my first impressions now!

Cassie is a supposedly shy and dreamy California girl who moves to the spooky New England town of New Salem so that her mother can take care of her grandmother. Her high school is run by a mysterious Club, and Cassie soon finds out that it's a coven of witches. However, she's soon entangled in coven politics. She's in love with the coven leader Diana's boyfriend Adam, whom she met previously, but she idolizes Diana and doesn't want to hurt her. Bad witch Faye is also taking advantage of this to blackmail her. And to top everything off, something or someone is killing off people in New Salem, and it might have to do with the crystal skull (!!) the coven has unearthed.

I say "supposedly" about "shy and dreamy" because in actuality, Cassie has zero personality of which to speak. You can tell because L.J. Smith has various other people describing her for us!

Back home, Clover had said once that Cassie was like a unicorn herself: blue eyed, shy, and different from everyone else.

Then we have a fellow coven member telling us how gorgeous Cassie was at the homecoming dance:

Don't be silly. It's you. You're a perfect little—gazelle. No, a little white unicorn, one of a kind. I think even Adam has noticed.

And even her rivals talk about how gorgeous she is! Conveniently, Cassie is positioned to overhear them.

She looks ordinary at first, maybe, but there are all sorts of colors in her hair; it changes depending on the light. [...] And she's got eyes to kill for [...] Not the color, so much—they're sort of grayish blue—but they're so big and sincere it's disgustinig. They always look like they're full of tears just ready to spill. Drives the guys crazy.

A unicorn, people! She is a shy, dreamy, TOTALLY UNIQUE UNICORN!

We get similar unsubtlety when it comes to other people's hair and eye descriptions, from Adam's red hair that's really got shades of every color imaginable to Diana's hair, which is apparently a combination of moonlight and sunlight. I mistakenly read the latter as "night and day" at first and pictured black hair streaked with white, which really would have been way more interesting.

However, what makes these books attractive even now is the focus on female homosocial (and barely subtextually homosexual) relationships. It's not only Cassie's relationship with the two rival head witches, Diana and Faye, but also her growing friendship with the other female witches in the coven and the shifting dynamics among all the female witches. There are five male witches as well, but the only ones who really stand out are chivalrous Adam and mysterious bad boy Nick ("He wasn't an iguana"). Even though most of the women are only briefly sketched out with fairly stereotypical traits—wise Melanie, nature-loving Laurel, sexpot Suzan, motorcycle-riding Deborah—some of them grow into more three-dimensional characters, particularly Deborah and Suzan.

I also enjoyed Faye in the end, although L.J. Smith very unsubtly characterizes her as wild, sexual, and on the dark side because... she has black hair! And wears black and red! You can also tell Diana is the source of all things good because she's blonde (or has hair the color of sunlight and moonlight, which I think maps to blonde) and wears white. Still, Smith tries not to demonize Faye. It doesn't always work, but she goes farther with it than I thought she would, and the resolution with Faye, Diana and Cassie pleasantly surprised me.

The heterosexual romance between Adam and Cassie is so boring. SO BORING. This is what happens when you take two characters who have no personality of which to speak and them put them together!

Spoilers have undescribable green eyes!

I now remember why I was so surprised when Daemon was the canonical love interest in Anne Bishop's Black Jewelstrilogy; it is because L.J. Smith had trained me from a young age to realize the bad boy would never win over the impossibly good and EXTREMELY BORING good guy! Thankfully, even Smith herself seems to realize her error by the time she wrote Dark Visions and Night World. Seriously though. Nick is so much more interesting, and I was at least hoping that the ending would pair him up with Diana, since clearly the ending had to reconfirm heteronormativity, deny the possibility of an OT3 or polyamory, and confirm the sanctity of a soulmate bond above all!

Still, I derived a great deal of glee from how Adam and Cassie both decide they love Diana more, how they don't really cheat, and that their turning into a couple is held off until the very end so they can have Diana's blessing. I especially love Diana going with Cassie swearing off Adam not for herself, but to give Cassie a chance to prove her own loyalty to Cassie.

I ditto everything Mely says about Smith's attempts to not demonize female sexuality and how she fails at the same time. And while I absolutely adored the scene of the naked older women, Smith simultaneously plays into their bodies as gross ("The other people wouldn't understand unless they were there," Cassie thinks to herself) even as she identifies the older women as a positive, strong force. Still, the combination of successes and failures makes L.J. Smith one of the more interesting teen writers, even a decade or so later.

Also, I love the triumvirate at the end SO MUCH.

In conclusion: vampire kittens!

Links:
- rachelmanija's review
- coffeeandink's review

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Ha ha ha! I totally didn't notice Cassie getting described as a unicorn!

This is one of the series where I see the flaws but I don't care because I love it SO MUCH. Vampire kittens! Faye and Suzan and naked old women, despite the issues you and Mely mention, being heroic and awesome exactly as they are! Deborah and Cassie's totally heterosexual throbbing motorcycle ride!

I don't think I've ever read a YA novel in which there's a non-evil threesome. Seriously, I cannot think of a single example. I can think of a lot of three-ness in manga and anime but nothing non-evil and explicit, as opposed to subtextually present.

Now you can read my story!

[oyceter]

I nearly died laughing when the first unicorn description came up! And it comes up more than once!

OMG I love the motorcycle ride. And I love Suzan.

(I read your story! I love it! Did my comment not get emailed to you? It's on the Yuletide site.)

[rachelmanija]

No, it didn't! Thank you very much!

[inkstone]

It IS such a flawed trilogy but I loved loved LOVED these books when I read them as a teen and I still love them now. (I do, however, still think Cassie is a fool for not sticking with Nick!)

One thing I particularly liked was that when Faye went evil, she became ultra-boring. lol

[oyceter]

I know! I love that! And Cassie's all "Did you want to be know as 'Faye: she was someone's secretary'?"

Usually I now roll my eyes at the bad boy romance interest thing, but seriously. Adam isn't even a cute puppy dog. He's just BORING! And Nick isn't even very bad boy. He's one of those manga characters who is grumpy but secretly as squishy as pudding on the inside.

[shewhohashope]

I think I said everything there is to say in the comments of coffeeandink and rachelmanija's reviews. I didn't catch the unicorn thing, though! That puts L.J. Smith's website design in a whole new light for me.

P.S. ADAM. OF ALL PEOPLE ADAM. When all of the girls and Nick (he's nothing like an iguana!) are so awesome?

And I'm still not sure what was up with his hair, or what kind of genetics is involved in having so many inbred people with such a variety of hair and eye colours.

I really need an L.J. Smith icon.

[oyceter]

The unicorn thing! I nearly died laughing! She is a shy and special unicorn!!!

ADAM IS SO BORING! Even with his red/yellow/orange/purple/whatever hair.

[rachelmanija]

I think they are all mutants! That, or witchcraftily altering their eye and hair colors.

[shewhohashope]

Well, Cassie's rival does comment on all of the 'colours' in her hair after she uses that special magical herbal shampoo.

[oyceter]

YES! I love how LJ Smith couldn't just stick with the normal metallic hair and jewel-toned eyes. No! They must be EVEN MORE SPECIAL!

[parallactic.livejournal.com]

The heterosexual romance between Adam and Cassie is so boring. SO BORING.

I have a theory it's boring because Cassie's mistaken her attraction to Adam's position for attraction to Adam himself. Also, the soulmates bond is really for the entire coven; she just met Adam first. Cassie girlcrushes on Diana so hard, and hates/respects/is fascinated by Faye so much that the femslash almost writes itself.

[oyceter]

I am so with you! And although Diana is kind of boring, she is still way more interesting than Adam! And they bond while sleeping over!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

So you can see why this, as my first LJ Smith, was a fine gateway drug!

[oyceter]

AWESOME! My gateway was, sadly, Forbidden Game, which I glommed onto HARD but it not nearly as cool.

[lnhammer]

Would it be better if Nick was an iguana?

---L.

[oyceter]

Bwaha! I think it would be cooler, but I suspect other readers might object. The original comment about him being an iguana was in reference to his kissing skills, I think.

[(Anonymous)]

It is SO EASY to read Deborah as a lesbian that I was in college before it occurred to me that that is technically subtext and not text. It still makes me very happy. Motorcycle!

-- Rush-That-Speaks

[oyceter]

I know! I can't see people reading it any other way! She is not interested in guys and... motorcycle! Card playing in the boiler room during school dances! I love her so.