SparkNotes

Chapter Thirteen: Newborn
Better Title: Wasted Paper

This chapter is reminiscent of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back in which Han Solo pulls the Millennium Falcon over and says, "All right. Now we're going to meet Lando. But before we go, I need to tell you about all the wild adventures he and I had. This may take a while, so get comfy."

You remember that part, right? No? Of course you don't. It wasn't in the movie. Do you know why? Because there was no need for Han Solo to explain his life story. We understood that Mr. Solo had been through some crazy escapades. And just as we didn't need to hear Solo's story, we don't need to read Jasper's origin. But since I'm snowed in, and my jigsaw puzzle is being a jerk, I might as well continue reading.

You guys know Jazzy, right? AKA villanous_mwaha? Welcome back to her Thursday column! —SparkNotes editors

In every fantasy book, there is a main character who usually gets all the credit, praise, and swooning women when he "saves the day." But does he deserve all the glory? No, dear Sparklers! No he is not! For there is always a sideline character, without whom the world would be, well, dead. And so this article is to commemorate those unmentioned heroes, and remember those who died  in the process of doing heroic deeds.

*WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!*

Sparkler lmaonaise is hilarious and has made us very hungry. —SparkNotes editors

Anyone who's read YA fantasy novels knows that many follow the same basic plot and include the same key points and themes. The only elements that really change are the characters’ names and the mythical creatures.

And so, careful deliberation and hours of painstaking research has led me to create *drum roll* The Recipe For a Bestselling Teen Fantasy Novel:

If your blind date spoke exclusively in quotations, would you run away, or propose?

Chapter Twelve: Time
Better Title: If You Marry a Vampire in High School, You Might be a Redneck

After blogging Chapter Eleven, I was exhausted and on the verge of giving up. But I'm not a quitter. I may be lazy, tiny-wristed, stubborn, loud, tall, roguishly handsome, and sometimes thirsty. But I'm not a quitter. So I shall push on. For the sake of motivation, after I complete each blog, I will reward myself with ten minutes of free time and a bowl of celebratory ice cream soup (recipe: Slowly mash regular ice cream into a thick paste. Eat.)

Mr. Literary's grandpoppy is our favorite.

"All the world's a stage," mused Shakespeare as he finished watching Jersey Shore, "and all the men and women merely players." But wait! Don’t look around for a stage director or worry that you've apparently forgotten your lines; this was merely a metaphor, a device smart people use to compare two separate ideas in order to win over the ladies.

You can do this too, as long as you're careful—whether you're using so-called dead metaphors (clichés like, "It's raining cats and dogs!") or constructing baffling similes ("The raindrops plopped heavily to the ground, like an inexplicable downpour of wet falling cats,") comparative language has its dangers. Dodge the following dangers like an agile Simile Fox, and the world is your oyster. (Metaphorically.)

Because we at SparkNotes are enormous nerds, it makes sense that our favorite joke in the world is about J.D. Salinger—the famous, and famously reclusive, author of The Catcher in the Rye. The joke goes like this:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Not J.D. Salinger! He's a recluse!

See? Hilarious!
...Or at least, it is if you're an enormous nerd. But now, funny or not, we won't be able to tell that joke anymore; today, J.D. Salinger is absent from our doorway not because he's a recluse, but because he passed away.

Which, of course, is not funny at all.

If you're between the ages of 12 and 20, and you've ever spent time unsupervised in a library, classroom, or other area that contains reference books, then you are undoubtedly familiar with a little game that we like to call “Dirty Dictionary”—the delightful practice of surreptitiously flipping through the pages of your friendly neighborhood Merriam-Webster in search of naughty words, and then giggling uncontrollably at the definitions.

Look, don't even try to pretend like you've never done this.

Chapter Eleven: Legends
Better Title: The Legend of Smart Air

There are no fireworks at the Werewolf Party. No trucks launching off ramps. No cakes. No dynamite. No rockets. There are no sword fighting tournaments, or chainsaw duels. No one soared in a hot air balloon, jetpack, or stealth helicopter. There may have been a game of kickball, but it was not mentioned, and it's not likely that the game was played with a ball made of fire and spikes. There were no rhinoceroses, not even a baby one. If Weezer was rocking out live on stage, Stephenie Meyers failed to tell us. All in all, the Werewolf Party was rather bland. I've been to banks that were more intense.