Current mood:	calm
Entry tags:	aefb, heroes

Insert Clever Analogy About Celestial Bodies and Times of Day Here
Due to lack of writing lately, I am going through a phase where every word I put down seems to completely lack in meaning or style or anything good. But at least it's not Twilight, right? All this is stuff I wrote while reading, hence the page numbers.



Page 136:

This book does not seem so bad; I would call it more mediocre than terrible. I think/fear/know it will get worse.

The author has not written teenagers very well. On the one hand, the few with names she's written fine (though I think she's intended them to be kind of inane, I think that's okay, and let's face it, Bella is pretty inane too); on the other hand, she has said nothing about other teenagers at the school. Are Mike and Jessica the popular kids or the unpopular kids? Doesn't this school have cliques? Is it supposed to be too small for cliques? Also, I have to add that teenagers just don't care. They don't. In this scenario, no one would be so curious about Bella (possibly they would in such a small town, but I can't speak for that) that they just sit around staring at her. They would ignore her until she did something worth paying attention to: something embarrassing to make fun of, or something cool to admire. Just SITTING there is not worth admiring.

It is all very teen-angsty and the whole book revolves around Bella's growing obsession (she even admits to herself that it's unhealthy) with Edward.

I very strangely (considering my general aversion for vampires) like Edward. I mean, he's definitely a shadester, forcing her into his car and all that, and there's the angsty "We SHOULD NOT be friends but I really want to hang out with you more." Maybe because he's the only one with any character going on? (Oh God I hope that this is not what An Eye for Beauty is like. I had considered calling it Vantiller--must inject more personality!) And because he’s got a terrible secret that I already know? And his attitude is decent? And self-control is hot? Something?

(I claim to not like vampires, who tend to be elegant and angsty, and claim to prefer werewolves, who are animalistic and primal. And angsty. Yet here we are. I liked Interview with the Vampire, and I liked Sunshine (I especially liked the monster-esque vampires there) and I really liked I Am Legend and of course I loooooove the Discworld vampires, especially Otto in The Truth. Oh, and I liked Silas in The Graveyard Book, but probably mostly because he was a vampire parent. And didn't do a lot of vampiring.)

Honestly? I was expecting this book to be hilariously bad, but mostly I just find it bland. What I find more amusing is parodies/commentaries. Although knowing how it ends does make me think that at some point it WILL get hilariously bad--I mean, with that ending...seriously?

Page 189:

So I was reading the book, half-asleep, this morning and as I read about Edward and Bella and their gentle but somewhat forced bickering, and her constant obsession with him and his constant obsession with protecting her and I realized that this is basically a romance novel. It reads exactly like a cheap romance novel, the worst kind, the kind where the hero and heroine are attracted to each other for no reason (or possibly just because they are pretty) and the heroine is stupid. (From reading SBTB I understand that sometimes the hero is stupid too but most of the time, unfortunately, it's the heroine.)

The book clearly exists to put Bella and Edward together, and the plot twist thrown in to make it interesting enough to read about for five hundred pages (though the type is gigantic) is the vampire thing. And yet I'm more than a quarter of the way through the book and they are just now discussing the fact that he is a vampire, and she still has no personality. And in this book, unlike in vampire romance novels, the vampire thing is probably a substitute for sex, not a sexy addition.

Bella is freakishly clumsy (...is that supposed to make her endearing? Is that a character flaw?) (though honestly, she talks about being clumsy more than she is actually clumsy), she likes music and books, she's mature for her age, she can cook pretty well, and reading into the text where it's not stated outright I'd guess she's supposed to be somewhat shy, though the execution is awful.

What I have read is that Twilight is okay, all things considered--the heroine has no personality, it's badly written, but it's not bad, right? I mean, go back to the romance novel analogy--there are good romance novels and then there are the ones that are complete garbage, that you only read because your brain doesn't want to read something more challenging. And you know it's garbage but you don't care because that's all you feel like reading. That's Twilight.

And I've heard that the middle two books, New Moon and Eclipse, are AWFUL (love triangles or other shapes of love are never, ever good, I figure), and from what I've read, Breaking Dawn is the most cracked-out-in-the-worst-possible-way, effed-up, nine-million page thing to ever kill trees.

But Twilight? It's okay, under certain circumstances. I'm not sure why teenagers need romance novels without sex or personality, and I don't approve of Edward's overprotectiveness ("You have to be more careful! OMG THEY THREATENED BELLA! This could only happen to you, darling!") which excuses his stalkiness (she wonders if she should be mad and then decides she's not? WHAT?). But it could be worse.

Unfortunately, from what I understand, it gets worse.

Page 219:

I started reading this book in earnest yesterday because I was too tired to focus on reading Little, Big (though it is by far a superior book), and now, nearly halfway through it, I find that although I have no problems with it aside from the ones I have already outlined, I am tired of reading it. Tired of reading the angsty teenage fake romance thing. Lame.

Page 320:

I can’t believe this book is marketed for teenagers, or that parents think this is a Christian-friendly alternative to Harry Potter.

They love each other? After maybe a week (I was thinking more like two or three days) of spending time with each other? "You are my life now"? AND HE ADMITS TO WATCHING HER SLEEP AND SHE'S TOTALLY OKAY WITH IT. And he talks about how no one should be as tempting as she is--people, there is sex everywhere in this book; it's just cheaply disguised as vampirism.

I still kind of vaguely like Edward, but only because I suspect that he could be really badass if he tried, and also because he sometimes says really dumb and hilarious things like "You're white as a ghost--no, you're white as me!" (And that reminds me of Sylar, who on the one hand is super badass, almost on a Noah Bennet level, or could be if he ever stopped whining all the time, and on the other hand he does hilarious things like...I don't know, love pie.) Since the book pretty much revolves around him, I think he is the most fleshed out character. Which is kind of sad.

Finished:

Throughout, the book was bland, mediocre, and poorly written. I never found it downright bad; on the other hand, if I hadn't been purposely reading to find out what it was like, I probably wouldn't have finished, because several times it was so dull and bland that I had to make myself read on. The main thrall of the book is vampires/Edward, and if you are not into that kind of thing...well.

This book holds hints of the ridiculousness to come (I just CANNOT believe that ANYONE thought it would be a good idea to have SPARKLING VAMPIRES), and it gives off this great vibe that says it's okay to get stalked if the guy is really hot.

(An interesting notion brought up in the book was that vampires are that beautiful on purpose, almost like a built-in lure for prey. I liked the idea, because I get really, really tired of every vampire (well, almost every vampire) in every vampire book being jaw-droppingly gorgeous. You know what would have been a cool follow-up to that notion? Exploring the idea that Bella is so attracted to Edward because he is a vampire and she is getting lured in, even on accident. Yeah...that didn't happen.)

The book is bland because its narrator is bland. Bella's life revolves around Edward pretty much from the moment she sees him, and the few moments she has away from him are not very interesting. There's no plot until the last hundred pages or so, so the other nearly four hundred pages is just this completely boring angsty whining. Not cool.

I don't understand how parents can be okay with their kids reading this book. Even completely disregarding the whole "vampirism as sex" thing, Bella STILL spends four hundred pages mooning over some guy that she seriously barely knows, and they tell each other they will love each other forever. WHEN THEY ARE SEVENTEEN. I guess moms are figuring it's like a romance novel without the sex?

Whatever. It was pretty much the most boring and unappealing book I have ever read and I'm somewhat disgusted at its popularity. And I've heard that it only gets worse after this book in terms of plot, writing, and...horribleness.

In short, I was unimpressed by the book.

…links to better reviews than mine!

Cleolinda: I got most of my information on the books via her hilarious reviews. The Twilight one is not as hilarious as the others, but read the Breaking Dawn one (in three parts). Oh, and there’s a bit on Twilight in her review for Midnight Sun.

I thought this one, where the author of the review edits Meyer’s prose, was funny too. (This one has less editing and more commentary, but it has hilarious Squidward at the end!)

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books puts some good thoughts into their review. (Of course they do. Most of the stuff I know about “vampirism as sex” came from their awesome book Beyond Heaving Bosoms. And SBTB is awesome in general.)

This one has ridiculous and hilarious pictures and makes comparisons between Mormons and vampires. It's interesting.

Oh, and as a companion: fantasy rant on vampires.

On the one hand, it was a bland book, but on the other, all of these lovely snarky reviews bring so much hilarity...

And now, at 11:30 AM, it is time to start the day!