Book Review - Twilight Sparkle's Sleepover Surprise · 1:45am May 18th, 2016
The last time I read a pony book it was because it starred Best Human. Now I read this one because the SS SunLight is low on fuel and we need a pick-me-up to make it to the next movie. Also I hope the Sleepover Surprise involves kissing, I doubt it but I hope it.
We open on the end of Friendship Games, with Princess Twilight coming through the portal and meeting Sci-Twi. In a very short two pages, the cast fills in Princess Twi on the Friendship Games, Sci-Twi on Equestria, and Sci-Twi wonders how she can be expected to measure up to a Princess of Friendship when she's only just made her first friends. In the next chapter. Twilight goes back to Crystal Prep to clean out her locker, and is accosted by Sugarcoat, Sour Sweet, and Sunny Flare. In a scene full of mixed messages, they tell her they could have been her friends but she weirded everyone out by being a goody-goody, and give her some advice on fitting into the Equestria Girls that mostly amounts to finding one of them to be best friends with and figure out from there how she fits into the group dynamic.
The group meets up at Pinkie's for a sleepover. We get a forced token mentions of the Dazzlings that may as well be a footnote for how much they talk about it, and then they play a weird game where they randomly pick another girl's toenails to paint a random color.
The girls laughed, but Twilight Sparkle was so happy. She and Sunset Shimmer matched! It was perfect.
I'll take my fuel premium, please.
Over the rest of the night the girls play some games and take silly photos to post to social media. The three Crystal Prep girls message Twilight about them, asking if she's really okay with silly photos of her being taken and plastered on the internet, and suggest they're talking about her behind Twilight's back. Twilight's eyes well with tears but she explains it to the others as homesickness since this is her first sleepover. As she tries to get to sleep that night, Sunset calls out to her and reminds her what Princess Twilight said, that everyone learns friendship from each other.
The next day Twilight hits the library to research friendship and ends up grabbing a bunch of teen magazines. The Crystal Prep girls are around and notice, and read out a quiz about how to identify best friends, pointing out she hasn't done any of them with any of the girls. Twilight hears them talk in private about spending time with each other, and pressures, asks Sunset if she wants to come to her house to bake, because the quiz mentioned that. The two bake and just hang out together, and Twilight looks over the magazine quiz again, realizing her score has bumped. She also gets a text from Sugarcoat that Sunny Flare's cookies suck, but Twilight's looked good.
Twilight heads over to Fluttershy's house with Spike, and Spike does a bad job of reassuring Fluttershy Twilight had plenty of friends at Crystal Prep.
Fluttershy smiled at Twilight Sparkle. “Of course not.” She led them upstairs, where she had lit scented candles. The bathtub was filled with warm bubbles
wait wut
and plastic chew toys.
“Hooray!” barked Spike, diving in. The girls laughed as he splashed them. He paddled back and forth in the tub.
“We need to give him a good scrub,” Fluttershy explained to Twilight Sparkle.
Oh. No, seriously, I had to reread that passage because "wait, are they bathing together?" Twilight heads home and thinks she has a new friend, but how did that happen with Spike constantly bringing up her time at Crystal Prep and embarrassing her? The next day Twilight goes to meet up with Rainbow Dash to try the climbing wall, and of course the CP trio are there. As Twilight hopes the rope for Rainbow, the trio argue over who's climbing and what to do in their roles, and Sour Sweet storms off while Sunny Flare uploads a video of Sugarcoat botching the climb wall. That night Rainbow Dash calls up Applejack to talk that the girls don't know much about teamwork or friendship, but Twilight does, even if she doesn't realize it.
The next chapter is a sports event where Pinkie Pie is a cheerleader. They talk about Flash Sentry a bit and Twilight worries he only likes her because she looks like Princess Twilight, but Pinkie and later Sunset tell her they think he actually likes her. During the game Twilight gets into the spirit and lets out a corny cheer, and Sunset and Pinkie repeat it and get everyone else in the stands to join in.
Sunset Shimmer was beaming at her. “It’s funny,” she said. “You are different than Princess Twilight, but you share something magical with her, too. I can feel it.”
“You can?” Twilight Sparkle felt pleased.
“Yes,” said Sunset Shimmer. “I really can.”
The group goes to the cafe after the game and are chatting, and decide to have another sleepover at Rarity's place. Twilight notices the CP trio at the cafe, but sees they're looking around the room not talking to each other. She asks the group if she can invite them, since they seem to be having problems with friendship too, and they reluctantly agree. At Rarity's place the trio show up before Twilight and Sunset, and alternate bickering with each other and enjoying time with the Equestria Girls, in the process establishing they don't know each other very well. They make a very out-of-place remark that they wonder if Twilight will ever turn back into Midnight Sparkle, and right on cue Sci-Twi shows up. The group is down in the dumps after that bit and try to suggest things to do now, but the CP trio argue over what they want. They finally agree on making beaded friendship bracelets, and seem to be getting along. They suggest a game - Truth of Dare.
The Equestria Girls are unsure about the idea, because they tell each other everything anyway and have never played the game before. They play a version of the game with dares and truth questions written on cards, and they take turns drawing from either stack. The Equestria Girls aren't sure how sharing secrets about each other amounts to friendship, but go along with it. Rainbow goes first and picks truth, since she has nothing to hide: "name the person in the room you'd least like to be stuck on a deserted island with." Rainbow chickens out and says "myself" since she wouldn't want to be alone, and the group goes with that. Applejack picks next, "who is your best friend between Rarity and Fluttershy?" She's not sure what to say to avoid hurting feelings, and refuses to answer the question.
Sunny Flare protests how they're playing and picks a dare card: do your best imitation of Midnight Sparkle. She does, and no one is laughing, least of all Twilight who is on the verge of crying. Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat chew her out for her behavior, and Rarity tries to suggest Sunny leave when Twilight speaks up in her defense. The trio and Twi begin to argue while Sunset grabs the dare card Sunny drew, which says she has to do a stupid dance; she made up the Midnight Sparkle thing. Sunny protests Twilight is a monster, but Sunset replies everyone turns into a monster. What's important is that you're forgiven for it. Sunny apologizes and the group makes amends, and have fun the rest of the night after giving up Truth of Dare.
Twilight decides to throw her own slumber party for both groups, and we get mentions of the CP trio hanging out with the Equestria Girls. At Twilight's slumber party she's decorated the ceiling with stars with the names of the group written on them, because they're stars that have lit up her life. Gag me, I know this has all been teenage girl syrupy nonsense, but I have to draw the line at that nonsense. And the story ends with a brief epilogue recounting how Twilight is spending time with the girls, and we get a cameo with Trixie asking how Twilight has made friends so quickly, and Twilight invites her to hang out.
This book... it doesn't suck. But it is very, very lame.
I'm used to the very child-friendly writing style from Sunset's book, but here the technical aspects are even worse. There's far too much talking heads with very little narration, and when there is narration it's usually just a few lines. After the epilogue there's an excerpt from the Friendship Games novelization, and it's far better written. By contrast this one is just phoned in, at times it's almost like reading a transcript of an episode or movie.
Beyond that, the story is okay, but uneven. The first half is about Twilight trying to figure out friendship and how she fits into the Equestria Girls, then the second half shifts focus to her bringing the CP trio together with the girls. Twilight isn't radically mischaracterized, but she's not all that impressive, either. A small bit of praise is that there's no showstealing from Sunset, she may be Best Human but this is supposed to be Twilight's book, and in that it's firmly rooted in her growth and decisions, Sunset is just one of several side-characters she talks to. Though that said there's no Applejack chapter, hm.
What drags the book down is how it handles the Crystal Prep girls. To answer your first question, yes, they really never mention Indigo Zap and Lemon Zest. I can understand why, we're already trying to keep track of ten characters in this book, eventually all in the same room, and it's a challenge to juggle them properly, but still, where are they? The three they do use seem a bit inconsistently characterized, shifting between actually wanting to help Twilight and wanting to sabotage her. Looking back it's mostly Sunny Flare that's giving her the bad advice, but not always. And why her exactly? Sunny Flare was the Shadowbolt to get the least dialogue of all in the film, so maybe they felt using her as the antagonist gave them freedom to develop her as they wanted, but her wanting to sabotage Twilight's friendships because she's afraid of Midnight Sparkle just doesn't make sense. Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat are okay, though, and fit their film characterization.
The real problem with how it handles the trio is the idea that they aren't friends. Nothing in Friendship Games implies that's the case. We don't see them hanging out much, yes, but nothing indicates they dislike each other. Maybe that's why Indigo Zap and Lemon Zest were absent, they were the only Shadowbolts to try and be objectively friendly and the writer didn't want that to interfere with their idea of how they get along. That said, Crystal Prep has been dominating CHS in competitions for years. The idea that the Shadowbolts don't understand teamwork and friendship runs completely contrary to that.
I would have spun it that they get along fine in school when on teams, but outside of school they don't talk to each other. Or maybe they are actually friends, but their expression of friendship (gossiping, Truth or Dare, bickering, etc) is just different from the Equestria Girls, yet it doesn't mean they don't get along. There is no one universal way to express friendship with another person, so it could have been interesting to see these girls get along just fine in their own way that is incompatible with what Twilight sees from the other gang. But, credit where it is due, bringing the two groups together is a good idea and the book made an earnest but clumsy effort towards exploring that idea.
Again, it doesn't suck, but the book is rather lame. Nothing special to see here.
PS - the girls had three sleepovers in about a week's time. Could the writer just not think of anything else for them to do and kept coming back to that as the default activity to center chapters on?
It is just a story in the end. Not a great one, but not a bad one. Trying to do something like this is challenging for anyone, and this shows it. A decenntly good fan-fic would have been as good as this, and that means this isn't bad, but just there and liked by those that like it.
Does sound rather disappointing. Oh well, guess that's why we have fanficition.
It sounds like a rather pointless story.
I think I'll stick to fanfics. Especially the ones I write about things like this.
3952888 Do yours have kissing?
3952902 Not generally, no. Unless it's explicitly that kind of story, I usually don't write shipping.
3952920
3952943 Well, shipping isn't really my strong suit unless the ship already exists canonically (which is why I have a shitload of romance-flavored Miraculous Ladybug fics). It's not that I'm adverse to it, it's just that I'm weary of seeing it poorly done, and to be frank, most shipping fics in this fandom are poorly done. In that they're written in the tone of "You Should Ship What I Ship , So I'm Just Going To Assume You Ship What I Ship And Not Bother Developing The Ship Because That Gets In The Way."
I mean, SunLight, I can ship, because the subtext is so strong in canon it might as well just be text. I also ship SunShy just because it seems like a natural fit. But I don't go out of my way to write shipping...it just doesn't fit well into my usual writing style. It's not really in my wheelhouse. I'm better at teasing it than outright writing it.
SCREW YOU THIS IS THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
CATCHER IN THE RYE MOVE OVER THIS IS REQUIRED READING FROM NOW ON
Kind of sad how this provides the majority of all available Sunny Flare characterization. I always felt bad for how little she got in the movie.
I choose to believe Indigo Zap was too busy winning all the scorepoints in sportsball to participate in these shenanigans, while Lemon Zest was hanging out with Vinyl Scratch and her Cybertronian ally/sweet ride.