I can hear some of you rolling your eyes already. I don’t care! I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Love it love it love it.
Just finished my third rewatch of all of the TV series – and this time, with my daughter (her first watch – lucky!). There’s still so much to get from it. I guess some dismiss it as a silly, spooky show for teenagers, and sure, sometimes it goes down that route. But we’d do it a disservice to say that’s all it is. Buffy deals with huge themes, including grief, addiction, abuse, love, death, and everything in between – and makes it completely relatable. And it’s very funny too.
So this book came out around the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary. It has cast and crew interviews, insight into how the show was made, theories on how it gained its cult status, and brief overviews of what happens in each season. The author is an uber-fan (I mean, you’d have to be) and his devotion shines from every page. I do appreciate his willingness to acknowledge the TV show’s flaws, though – he readily admits that it’s not perfect.
The big thing this book deals with is the show’s creator Joss Whedon’s spectacular fall from grace, which has been widely documented in the media in recent years. The man is basically a horrid person, both personally and professionally – there are plenty of cast anecdotes to attest to that. Short of going into detail (read the book!) it does raise interesting arguments about separating art from the artist. My take is: I love Buffy, I do not love Joss Whedon.
In short…
If you’re a fan, you’re bound to enjoy this fascinating account of how Buffy came to be, and everything that followed. I thought it was great, 9/10
Books Fran Has Read 