Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer(s)

[Steven]

What did you all think of the book/episode?

I’d recommend the novella “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” to anyone who wanted to read something actually interesting about the psychology of turning into a vampire. From what I remember it was pretty decent.

Also, I nearly screamed “BECAUSE SHE’S MORMON!” at my phone every time they wondered why the author’s outlook on sexuality, heteronormativity, vampire souls, the importance of marriage, consent and victim blaming is so conservative to the point of being backward. Stephanie Meyer seems like a woman fully on board with the patriarchy to me but I’d love to hear from someone with a different opinion.

[Mrin]

This book is where Jacob begins his descent from "clearly the only romantic option" to a. Not so great guy.
And it’s great seeing them slowly lose faith in him.

[Craig]

Lotta folks recommending the Bree Tanner novella! Not sure if/when we'd get around to it, but it seems like enough people dug it that it could be worth investigating.

And you're right, Steven, about where some of her views are coming from. I honestly can't remember right now how much of that we talked about it in our first Twilight episode, but I do think we mentioned *some* of it. But yeah, the presumed values of the Twilight world definitely overlap with a lot of religious conservative thought.

As per this episode's conversation, I think both of us having read the books means we spend more time than usual talking about specific story beats or scenes because we both want to react to it. If it were a normal, one-person-reads-it experience, I imagine one of us would be bringing more of Meyer's background to the discussion. I reckon we'll come back to some of this stuff in our wrap-up on Breaking Dawn.

Glad everyone's enjoying the episode!

[gabymck]

Steven, I like your book discussion questions. Thank you for doing that.

I was not caught up in Twilight Fever when the book was first published.

IMO, this is a case where an Overdue Podcast about the book is better than the actual book. I imagine that is a very difficult thing to do, but these guys "have a lot of fang" now...

(I'm sorry I couldn't help myself, in Mexico we would say somebody has a lot of fang when they have done their job for so long that they are actually pretty good at it, bad joke I know)

[David]

I think they mentioned that she's mormon in one of the previous episodes, didn't they? Didn't they bring up the idea of an ideal mormon man being someone who controls his own sexual desires or something to that effect? I'm like 95% sure I learned she's mormon from this podcast, so I'm pretty sure they're aware, but maybe they forgot.

Also, yeah, Stephanie Meyer does not seem like a woman who has the most enlightened view about women or relationships. There are a lot of great scifi/fantasy mormon writers out there (Brandon Sanderson, for instance), but I just don't see how mormon + vampire is a good match. They are almost without exception quite prudish people (afaik Sanderson has never written an explicit sex scene in any of his books, it's always implied, or happens off-page), and I've never seen a good piece of vampire fiction that doesn't lean hard into the sex, the gore, or both. PG13 vampires are just boring.

[Cara]

Excellent episode as usual. I never read any Twilight growing and was firmly in the “devote a lot of time to hating on it” camp when it was at its height in pop culture. I’ve really enjoyed these episodes because I think they also reflect to me how much I have grown since high school, where now I’m like maybe I should read them, they sound like just fine reads. But not the toxic garbage books that I was so sure they were when it was big. Also I’ve seen someone else in this group mention her before, but Lindsay Ellis did a great video called “Dear Stephanie Meyer” that unpacked a lot of her negative opinions about Twilight during its peak and why she doesn’t agree with her original opinions which also really made me rethink my position as well: https://youtu.be/8O06tMbIKh0

[Renn]

Should I listen to Overdue’s Twilight episodes or read the Twilight books myself and form my own opinions? Are the books worth my time?

[David]

Sarina wrote: "Should I listen to Overdue’s Twilight episodes or read the Twilight books myself and form my own opinions? Are the books worth my time?"

Having listened to the episodes, as well as my girlfriend talk about the series back in the day, as well as seen all the twilight movies, as well as read most of the first book, I really can't see how they're worth anyone's time, tbh. Cara is right, Stephanie Meyer got a lot of hate that was uncalled for. It's not like she set out to write a bad book, or a book with a toxic relationship that some people idolized in real life. She actually seems like an incredibly sweet woman, but her books are trash. Just based on the quality (or lack thereof) of the prose, I would recommend watching the movies instead if you MUST experience the "story," firsthand. From what I've been told they're fairly faithful adaptations, although films will always change a few things here and there.