Finn’s review of Rites of Spring (Break) by Diana Peterfreund
Contemporary Fiction released by Delta 24 Jun 08

Secret societies on college campus’s have always fascinated me. So when I picked up Rites of Spring (Break) I couldn’t wait for all the secrets it would reveal about those ultra exclusive clubs. I was mildly disappointed.

Rites of Spring (Break) is the third of The Ivy League Novels by Peterfreund. Unfortunately I did not get to read the first two and I was a little lost throughout the story. I am one of those people that like to read books in order. Besides being a little lost it was an intriguing story.

Amy “Bugaboo” Haskel is having a bad winter at Eli University. A rival secret society has launched a personal attack on her, not the whole of the Rose and Grave society but just her. She has had drinks spilled on her, crickets but in her couch, a virus set to her computer, all sorts of pesky things. Come to find out it’s all because her ex-boyfriend’s new girl (a member of the rival society) is pissed off because he can’t seem to stop thinking about Amy. Talk about using all weapons at your disposal to attack some one that annoys you!

Well Amy gets away during Spring Break to Cavador Key, the private island of the Rose and Grave society. Unfortunately the harassment doesn’t stop when she and her friends reach the island. What follows is a growing love between her and another society member, which the society, tongue in cheek, calls incest and random attacks on D177 (this years ruling body of Rose and Grave).

Grade: B

From “witty and endearing” to “impossible to put down,” the critics have given elite marks to Diana Peterfreund’s Secret Society Girl and Under the Rose. Now, in a wildly captivating new novel, Amy “Bugaboo” Haskel and her fellow Rose & Grave knights are trading cold, gray, hyperintellectual New Haven for an annual rite of spring (well, early March) in Florida.

For Amy, a week of R&R on her secret society’s private island should be all fun in the sun—and an escape from an on-campus feud with a rival society that’s turned disturbingly personal. But along with her SPF 30 and a bikini, Amy is bringing a suitcase full of issues to remote Cavador Key. Graduation from Eli University looms, not to mention buckets of unfinished business with a former flame and—most pressing of all—the sudden, startling transformation of a mysterious Rose & Grave patriarch from sheerly evil to utterly…appealing?

Just when Amy thinks Spring Break can’t get any less relaxing, a wacky “accident” puts everyone on edge. And that’s only the beginning, as Amy starts to suspect that someone has infiltrated the island. With some major Rose & Grave secrets to be exposed, and the potential fallout enough to take down one of America’s most loathsome figureheads, what she can’t know is that the party crasher is deadly serious about making sure “Bugaboo” doesn’t get back to Eli alive….

It was only a matter of time before Godwin’s Law was updated. For those of you not use to flame wars and/or internet stupidity, Godwin’s Law:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

god this brings a tear to my eye… oh yes it is a single tear…

If you are not playing the home game. Holly Lisle said something stupid, jane dared to blog her opinion about it, linking to Holly‘s own post, holly had kittens, jane posted regarding a demand for sorry’s, hugs and air kisses, which ended with holly doing one of the worst things in online netiquette.

The comments on holly’s post are golden and filled with wisdom. My personal fave being from pugh7755, who seems to really love bloggers which is shown in his comment

…The more comments they receive the happier they are. A sad excuse for a life really. They are the Al Qaeda of the blog world.

Although Diana Peterfreund’s comment does run a very close second. I guess she wouldn’t blink an eye if someone fell on her land and said something like… ‘wow – you have a dangerous situation here and I was hurt by it. I wonder what a lawyer would say.’

Hmmm well I guess Holly beats pugh because she links to herself, her own words and thoughts and then has no issue with blaming jane for how bookstores (not sellers because she never ever addressed people just the ‘stores’, we won’t even get into how she thinks bricks sell books) misunderstood her post. She says in her comments

These two somehow managed to, and have managed to piss off a number of other booksellers and a whole bunch of potential readers toward me for no reason at all.

So I guess that means not only does holly hate chain bookstores, she thinks booksellers are too stupid to read and form an opinion but can only be spoon fed info from jane.

Oh who knows which is the best comment… they are all comic gold. No worries you can make up your own mind. Really! I do wonder though, when the fuck did jane get all powerful and why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me? I feel so out of the loop. I wonder if this has shown up on fandom wank yet.