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Carrie
read and liked
Sarah's
review of Twilight (Twilight Series, Book 1):
"Okay, I have to say that I picked this book up due to all the hype... I mean, so many people had recommended it to me and I finally got sick of hearing about it, so I picked it up and read it... or as least tried to.
Let me first say that I...more
Okay, I have to say that I picked this book up due to all the hype... I mean, so many people had recommended it to me and I finally got sick of hearing about it, so I picked it up and read it... or as least tried to.
Let me first say that I am a huge romance and vampire/supernatural fan, so when I first heard about the book I was really excited to read it because it combined two of my favorite genres.
But, I really regret ever buying and forcing myself to finish it (I hate not finishing books, even if I hate them), it was so bad. Though, let me tell you that I really wanted to like it, really I did... I'm one of those people who likes a lot of popular things, Twilight was popular, so I figured... I would love it just like everyone else, but I was very, very wrong.
A lot of fans wonder why I hate the book so much and here is my list and it's a pretty long one, so get ready:
1. Lack of characterization:
Bella- Okay... I absolutely hated this girl. She was the worst female protagonist I have ever read about! She's stupid, shallow, selfish and just plain annoying! Not to mention she's pathetically dependent on Edward... I mean, come on, NO girl should be that dependent on a boy, not only is that pathetic, but it is very unhealthy. She was also a clumsy little damsel in distress who was dumb enough to get herself into situations that she couldn't get out of. I would have loved for Meyer to have given her a backbone, so she could have done something useful instead of whining and doing stupid, idiotic things that no remotely intelligent teenage girl would actually do. Not to mention the fact that she is apparently very "plain" looking... if that's the case then why are there several guys fawning over her? She's a Mary Sue, simple as that. And I hate Mary Sues.
Edward- Okay, this boy is just way too possessive and stalkerish (it is not romantic of him to sneak into Bella's room and watch her sleep! It's creepy and wrong!) Oh, and "bad boys" usually, don't sit there and say "I'm dangerous, stay away" etc. all the time.... I also hated the fact that Bella described some part of his body every other page. It was completely UNNECESSARY!! Okay, we get the fact that he's hot, Bella... now MOVE ON!
I could go on and on about all the characters... every single one of them was a flat, cardboard cut-out that did not seem realistic at all.
2. Writing style:
Purple Prose- Ew... to this... seriously, all the purple prose made me want to throw the book across the room. Enough said.
3. Descriptions:
I know I said up there that I got sick of reading about how gorgeous some part of Edward's body was every other paragraph... and if that wasn't bad enough... what's worse than is the fact that even with all that unnecessary description of him and everyone else (though mostly him, since Bella is that shallow) I still had a hard time picturing him or any of the characters in my head, for that matter. I also had a hard time picturing a lot of the setting and the action in my head as well. It's kind of sad really... there was so much description, you would think that everything (Edward especially) would be embedded into my brain, but no. That's what makes me wonder why so many fans find Edward so "hot", I never got a clear picture of him in my head to even begin to form an opinion about whether he was "hot" or not.
4. Plot:
Okay, the plot gets it's own category because it pissed me off so much. I mean, seriously... where was it?! It was nothing but sappy, gag worthy fluff between Edward and Bella until page 400 or so, when something finally happened. And, even then... it went by so fast and was not explained well at all. It seemed to me that Meyer just threw it in there, and it was only put there in the first place, so that she could point at it and say, "Look, there's a plot right there.", when people like me came around and said otherwise. But that's not a plot!! The plot should not take 400 pages to start! And no the whole "romance" between Bella and Edward is not the plot!!
6. Plot holes
The one thing that drove me absolutely CRAZY was the the fact that no one in the small town of Forks noticed that the Cullens never aged! And the "children" never graduated and went on to college. I mean, if they've been there for more than four years, than I'm assuming that someone would have noticed! I mean, the town could not be full of that many morons! Speaking of school, why in the world would they willingly choose to take high school over and over again? I know they need to "fit in", but seriously.. . that's just stupid... someone is bound to figure out sooner or later.
Oh, I love the fans response to this, it usually goes like this: "Well it is a fictional book." That's a stupid reason. Just because it's a book with vampires doesn't mean it's exempt from having to be realistic and having glaring plot holes.
7. Vampires
Like I said before, I'm a big vampire fan. But, this book is an embarrassment to vampire fiction. The vampires are pathetic, sweet, innocent, almost "misunderstood" creatures. I know that Meyer has every right to create her own idea about vampires, but come on! Sparkling vampires?! Vegetarian vampires? That's just ridiculous! All the other myths about vampires are nonexistent. The whole sparkling vampire idea just seemed to be there because Meyer wanted a reason as to why the vampires could even walk around in the daylight to begin with. The idea was just a convenient way for her to write the vampires... who, were way too human like for my tastes. Oh, and not to mention the fact that they had all the good things when it came to being a vampire, but none of the bad things (ex: they don't burn in sunlight, they sparkle, they all have certain powers, but none of them have the bad things that come with them, etc.)
I don't like my vampires to be blood thirsty monsters that kill everything in sight. But, I also don't want them to be so pathetic and innocent either. The only two vampiric qualities that are there are the ones that are well known among everyone: drinking blood and being immortal. Otherwise, the Cullens are disgustingly human like.
I think the thing I have the problem with the most is the fact that Meyer has never seen any vampire movies/t.v. shows are read any vampire novels. If she had, I would have been able to respect her ideas more because at least then she would have done her research. It's quite obvious that she had no idea what she was doing when she created the vampires in this story.
Where the vampires are concerned, this novel is an embarrassment to vampire/supernatural fiction.
8. Messages
I am somewhat appalled at the messages that this book sends out.. they are so anti-feminist, it's disgusting:
1. It's perfectly okay to have no goals or aspirations or even an education, just get yourself a man and he'll take care of you.
2. It's also perfectly okay to like someone because of their physical features... this is not love people, it's lust! They have nothing in common! He likes her because she smells nice and she likes him because he's hot.
3. When you have several guys fawning over you pick the hottest one of them all because looks are so very important.
4. It's okay if the guy you love sneaks into your bedroom and watches you sleep at night... that's completely normal and romantic... not the the least bit creepy or stalkerish.
9. The Obsession:
Well, this gets its own category, mostly because I just don't understand what all the obsession is over... it's a book, and a poorly written one at that. I run across girls all the time arguing over who Edward "belongs" to... it's pathetic and kind of scary. He's a book character... he doesn't belong to anyone, but Meyer, since she's the one that created him.
This was obviously a fulfillment story that I would expect a preteen to write on her livejournal. This is not a book I would expect a thirty something year old women with a
college education to write and actually attempt and then succeed in getting published. And, it was a degree in English... seriously, I would have expected much better from someone who had that degree... since she spent college studying books and analyzing them etc. you would think that she would know how to write one the proper way...
Meyer could have made this book great, but no... instead she took the easy way out: a cliched, simple, overused plot and added vampires to it(as if that made it any different).
Honestly, I've read better over on fictionpress.com... and that's really sad, because most of the authors over there are between the ages of 14 and 26 and are amateurs in the field. Maybe, if Meyer had posted this up there first, it would have been a much better story because the good writers over there would have set her straight. Maybe then, I would have been able to get through the novel, because it might have actually been good!
And, oh just for the record... Twilight is NOT the next Harry Potter, nor is it better than Harry Potter... I say that not only because JK Rowling actually has talent, but also because they are in completely different genres and can't really be compared.
Though, it does make me sick to see Harry Potter even mentioned in the same sentence as this piece of crap... (unfortunately, that couldn't be avoided in this review) and it's an insult to JK Rowling to have her amazing writing compared to the horrible writing of Stephenie Meyer....less
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Carrie
read and liked
Nicola's
review of Twilight (Twilight Series, Book 1):
"I really enjoy lively details. There's nothing better than knowing an author has really thought about her characters and situations, and come up with some surprising and delightful detail that makes the whole reading experience fuller. Lively ...more
I really enjoy lively details. There's nothing better than knowing an author has really thought about her characters and situations, and come up with some surprising and delightful detail that makes the whole reading experience fuller. Lively details, you understand -- pointless details are a nightmare to read. I don't need to know that Bella ate a granola bar for breakfast. I REALLY DON'T. (Notice that I remembered the granola bar. I think this is partly because I was fervently hoping it would have significance. Like, she would spectacularly choke on her oatmeal the next day and think, "AH, I should have had a granola bar like yesterday!")
"Show, don't tell" is not the be-all-and-end-all of writing. There's a little thing called summary narrative. It's beautiful; it facilitates plot progression without having to follow your narrator through 24-fucking-hours of a day... and "watch" as she eats a fucking granola bar for breakfast.
I've seen this novel accused of Mary Sue-ism and um, yeah, any character named Isabella Swan seems destined to be a Mary Sue. But honestly, I wouldn't begrudge a semi-autobiographical story if it actually had any of the realism of autobiography. All the high school/teenage stuff honestly made me boggle. Because... that's not what high school is like! That's not what being seventeen is like! Twilight reads like... well, it reads like a thirtysomething who has no recollection of being 17. Bella has all the emotional maturity of a 32-year-old and that's just not remotely believable.
Meyer is not a bad writer. She has the ability to string words together. Unfortunately, she lacks any kind of flair. There was no original description; no truly evocative language. Twilight reads like Meyer has read a lot of mediocre novels and regurgitated the same kind of language onto the page. There is just nothing exciting to the language. The dialogue is awful: not only uninspiring and lacking in wit, but... it's all the same! There's no difference in speech patterns to the characters; no awareness of personal tics. The characterization is wafer-thin (see above, re: Mary Sue). The plotting is terrible: the novel trundles along at a slow pace for 250 pages and then Meyer seems to suddenly realize she needs a climax and the gears shift abruptly and the reader is caught up in a series of ridiculous contrivances that set up Meyer's final set-piece (which, by the way, I saw coming a mile away).
This is such a profoundly antifeminist novel. And it's funny, because I think Meyer has no idea that it's antifeminist. I mean, she has a female heroine! A heroine who reads Austen and writes essays about misogyny in Shakespeare! Surely she's kicking butt for all womankind. Um... no. She cooks, she cleans, she looks after the man in her life! She needs male characters to protect her from the big, bad, scary world! She falls headfirst into a disturbingly dysfunctional relationship with a man 90 years her senior without the slightest amount of worry!
Seriously. Bella/Edward. What's that all about? I don't get the attraction. He has her in his thrall. She is, let me quote, "unconditionally and irrevocably" in love with him -- and after, like, a week. o__O She's consumed by him; she's willing to sacrifice her life for him, and that's... romantic? I just think it's a bit sick, really. You know what I find romantic? Human warmth. Not sweeping, dramatic statements of everlasting and overarching love. Little, sweet moments of connection that ring true. That's something Twilight's apparently epic love story is sorely lacking in. (Did I say Bella has the emotional maturity of a 32-year-old? Well, except when it comes to Edward. There she has the emotional maturity of a dumb dog.)...less
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Carrie said:
"Another wonderful read by Jhumpa Lahiri. I can't get enough of the worlds she creates in her stories.
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