Dracula wonders why this “Edward” and “Bella” are people he may know

I avoided bookstores last December because I’m prone to splurging more at the end of the year (and God knows I have entirely too many books waiting for me at home) but there was one book that I couldn’t pass up buying, because of its  sheer entertainment value (for me, at least).

It’s a book entitled, “Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook” by Sarah Schmelling, who catapulted to fame with her Facebook news feed edition of Hamlet.

For an impulse buy, it didn’t come cheap (it was P600+, or over US $12) which I rarely spend on a single book unless I’m fanatically compelled to buy it; but as soon as I read a few pages into this book I knew I had to get a copy.

The book is a treat for avid readers who are on Facebook, as it is a compilation of Facebook pages of various literary characters and even some authors, much like historical tweets or other social networking site parodies.

It’s pretty hilarious if you get them, but if you’re not much of a reader, a lot of jokes will probably sail right past you — uhmm, I tried passing the book around at the office because they were wondering why I was laughing so hysterically and the jokes fell quite flat because I had to keep explaining them.

Here are some snippets from the book:

From the "Odyssey" news feed

Inferno quiz

from the "Paradise Lost" feed

from the P&P news feed

message came too late

Scrooge being Scrooge

Christmas with Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy

Alice gets high

from "Gone with Wind"

from "Metamorphosis"

Dracula ad: Keeping the FEED in News Feed since time immemorial

Other than those in the snippets above, a lot more of the classics are covered in the book, including Hamlet, Beowulf, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, The Scarlett Letter, The Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick, Gulliver’s Travels, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse Five, Waiting for Godot, and many more.

I do wish the book was in full color — they could have hit it out of the ball park with a good graphic designer and a spoof of the Facebook interface as well as fabricated photos of the characters, but content-wise, I have no complaints, except that I’d love to read more!!! The book gave me a much needed cheer in the middle of a particularly stressful holiday season, and had me laughing from cover to cover (270+ pages) (and I was still laughing when I took photos for this review!).

All in all, money well spent, I say.

***

My copy: paperback

My rating: 5/5 stars

(Book #220 of 2009)