Yes, and I’m sorry, this post is about Twilight–but don’t stop reading, please.
For those of you that don’t know (and I’m extremely embarrassed to admit this), I recently finished reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. I made the mistake of going to see the film prior to reading the books (hey, at least it only cost me a dollar at the dollar theater in town).
(*Spoiler alert* not that anyone cares!)
I won’t talk much about the film, as it was pretty bad. Kristen Stewart (girl who plays Bella) had the same dumb look on her face throughout the entire movie, and it was enough to be distracting. Robert Pattinson’s voice just got to me–he has a creepy voice, but it’s not the right kind of creepy voice. Like, “awkward home-schooled kid whose dad died when he was 2 years old” creepy, instead of “I’ve been 17 years old for over 80 years and still have never gotten laid” creepy. At least the storyline followed the book fairly well.
My disclaimer for reading the books: My mom thought I would like them…? I really have no good excuse for myself here. I would start reading one of these books and would look at the clock, and magically, 2 hours had gone by. I compare reading the Twilight series to (and I’m going to look like a total loser for admitting to this too) watching 5-10 episodes of Sailormoon in one sitting. The series is completely mind-numbing, I know exactly what’s going to happen in every episode after watching 5 minutes, but for some reason the characters are irritatingly endearing so I get sucked in. Or like not really being hungry, but you have a can of Pringles in front of you so you start eating them and before you know it the can is empty and you feel bloated and guilty.
I will give Meyer credit for her use of imagery. It was great, for the most part–not the best I’ve read, but far from the worst. However, the second book (New Moon) is IMAGERY OVERKILL. Too much imagery to the point where she could have shaved 50 pages off of that already too-long book. Needless to say, this book DRAGGED, and didn’t really have a difinitive ending, so I can’t imagine what is going to hold the film together, other than “WHOA SWEET CGI WOLF EFFECTS” (and “OMG EDWARD CULLEN <3333″). 70% of the book is Bella wallowing in her own self-pity and all the while pulling Jacob around like a puppy on a leash.
I got through Eclipse relatively quickly. Quickly enough that I can’t quite remember the whole plot of that book. It was mostly centered around the vampire/werewolf rivalry (or really, the Edward/Jacob rivalry) but it’s not hard to guess who Bella favors in the end. The one thing I do enjoy about this book (and maybe the only thing I really took pleasure in reading out of the entire “saga”) was Rosalie’s backstory. In a nutshell- while she was still human, she was gang-raped, beaten, and left for dead by her fiance and his friends. Carlisle found her, turned her into a vampire, and during her “crazy newborn” phase she put on her wedding gown for dramatic effect and went back and slaughtered all those bastards. Kind of badass. They also kill off Victoria in this book, which was pretty anticlimactic after reading up to that point, but I also didn’t expect an epic battle (by then I had learned to not expect TOO much). I was hoping Meyer would delve at least a little bit into Victoria’s back story before killing off that character, but she didn’t- another disappointment.
Breaking Dawn took me the longest to get through. The novel is broken up into three(?) “books,” the second of which is from Jacob’s point of view. I started reading it on my flight to Japan and stopped shortly after the first book because the angsty werewolf point-of-view is one that is extremely annoying to read, but I can see why it was necessary for that portion of the book. I also stopped after the first book because apparently male vampires can impregnate human women…WTF? If you’re undead (particularly if you’ve been undead for over 80 YEARS), there isn’t ONE living cell in your body. That includes the baby-makin’ ones. I was irritated to say the least, but not completely surprised. To make a long story short, the baby is half-vampire (apparently it’s possible to be “kind of” a vampire; maybe Bella was also only “kind of” pregnant?), Edward performs a C-section on Bella using only his teeth, extracts bouncing, biting baby “Renesmee” then turns Bella into a vampire because somehow at this point she wasn’t dead (damn).
It was shortly after this that I realized one glaring flaw in this series. These vampires’ “venom” is what was responsible for the process that changes a human into a vampire. Obviously, this venom is found in their mouths, but is also in their other body fluids (or what’s left of them). When Bella would be visiting with her father, she would have to wear contacts to disguise her bright red irises. Her “sister,” Alice, warned her that the venom in her eyes would dissolve the contacts, so she would have to change them at regular intervals. Wait, don’t they have venom in their mouths too? …how the hell was Bella able to make out with Edward while she was human without at least getting third-degree burns in her mouth? And then there’s the matter of other exchanged body fluids…inconsistencies to say the least.
In closing, I’m glad I’m through with the Twilight series (I refuse to call it “the Twilight saga” as that word has a positive implication), but now I have nothing to read. Any suggestions? I would prefer something that actually exercises my brain muscle.
