Failure to launch: "What Would Buffy Do?"

We're starting this baby off with a whimper, not a bang. You see dear readers, Portland State University, my collegiate bit on the side, offered a class this quarter: "Exploring "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." As much as I love Buffy and her adventures fighting vampires (a refreshing change of pace from what teenagers do with bloodsuckers nowadays,) I love not spending $500 even more.

So instead I went to the local library and ran a search for Buffy the Vampire Slayer books. They had a lot. I picked this one:

She looks about as embarassed to be on the book as I did carrying it around.

 Don't get me wrong, I didn't go into this expecting Moby Dick, but I thought the fusion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with philosophy 101 would be entertaining enough to hold my attention. Instead it's a dull, schlocky, turgid mess. 

This is a good example of what this surprisingly dense book sounds like:

"For Willow, and also for us, the experience of having been forgiven is the best reminder of why we forgive: Giles' comment to Willow deserves repeating. We don't forgive because people deserve it but because they need it. And so do we. Forgiveness is a reminder of our own human frailty and imperfections; it helps us to cultivate compassion for each other, because we recognize that all of us hurt each other in seemingly unforgivable ways. As Jesus told the crowd that had gathered around the adulterous woman in the New Testament, only the person who is without sins has the right to cast the first stone."

More rubber monsters and dry witticisms, less "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" next time, k?