Wednesday: A Novelisation of Season One
Adapted by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Based on Wednesday Season One episodes written By Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Kayla Alpert, April Blair, Matt Lambert
Based on the characters created by Charles Addams
Reviewed by Zewlan Moor
This novelisation of the hit Netflix series is incredibly well done. The author, Tehlor Kay Mejia, has witty dialogue and excellent plotting to work with, but they add more to the story, by developing Wednesday’s arch, sarcastic voice for us to enjoy.
Wednesday’s teen angst is perfectly expressed in her sullen personality and behaviour, her snide remarks and her detestation of her parents. Dismissive of her father, it is particularly her mother who riles Wednesday. Her mother doesn’t not have friends, only sycophants. She wears her “showstopping black gown she’s infamous for” (177) and casts imperious looks in her daughter’s direction. For her part, Wednesday is quite self-aware that theirs is a model of teen mother-daughter relationships:
“I abhor a cliché, but certain adolescent experiences, I suppose, are universal, and there’s nothing I detest more than being told who I am or what’s good for me by my mother… She doesn’t even deign to respond, just smirks in that way of hers, nonverbally suggesting that everything she thinks is objectively correct. Baiting me with that knowing silence.” (3)
The book has all the twists and turns of the television series, and is a fast-paced, witty read. It is to be hoped that viewers who are obsessed with the show will read the book, and hopefully it will become a gateway book for them!
Readers would be well-placed to explore the author’s body of work, which includes middle-grade and young adult fantasy, romance, horror and dark academia.
Zewlan Moor is the author of Nothing Alike and The Bill Dup and Our World: Philippines
