Twilight: A Review
This was originally posted on my Facebook, but I figured I should share it with you folks too. If you're a Twilight fan, read with caution. It's kind of, well, mean.
Warnings: strong language, excess sarcasm, one or two mentions of TEH SECKS.
All right, I've finally done it. I think I deserve a round of applause. They said it couldn't be done, but I've showed them!
I managed to sit down and make it all the way through the first Twilight book.
And holy crap, what a load of shallow, mythologically inaccurate, mysogynistic bullshit, wrapped in a cleverly written package and tied up with a bright pink pseudo-romantic bow.
Okay, that's not entirely fair. But let me start at the beginning.
The book opens with Bella, a seventeen-year-old girl, moving in with her boring, stolid father so that her flighty mother can travel with her new stepfather. It is a difficult, self-sacrificing decision, and I'm sure it's meant to make us like and/or sympathize with her, but unfortunately the ploy is transparent and the character is not nearly as interesting or sympathetic as she is presented to be. She makes some dinner, drives her truck around, and is hit on by every boy at school, despite being antisocial, clumsy, and unnecessarily smarmy. This section of the book is close to excruciating; absolutely nothing happens for the first three or so chapters, and we are forced to live out the daily life of this individual, which is slightly less interesting than watching a laundromat dryer go round and round. The only thing that could possibly be construed as a plot point is that she is assigned seating next to a very attractive young man who mysteriously can't stand her. Ooh, I wonder what is going to happen next!!!
Once we have made it past this gruelling ordeal, we meet Edward. Edward is (guess who!) the insanely sexy fellow from Bella's biology class. He alternately cruelly mocks and angrily avoids her, yet apparently the fact that he is impossibly hawt negates all of this, because Bella is immediately obsessed with him.
At this point, it is apparently time for our first traumatic near-death incident (after which Stephenie Meyer apparently discovers her favourite new plot twist, because that's ALL THAT HAPPENS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES). Bella almost gets hit by a van. The key word, disappointingly, is 'almost'; Edward breaks a few laws of physics to save her and then immediately disappears again. When Bella confronts him, he dismisses her, with condescension, manipulation, and wrath, then stalks off angrily. Gee, I don't know about you, but this sounds like exactly the kind of guy I want to spend eternity with.
The next few weeks pass without incident. Edward angrily avoids Bella some more. Bella makes some more dinner, is hit on by some more boys, dreams about Edward, and hits herself in the head with a shovel. Wait, that last part was me, not Bella.
Then, inexplicably, Edward starts being nice again--if you call carrying her places against her will, using his good looks to manipulate her, and mocking her serious blood phobia "nice". Personally, I prefer "sociopathic" or "Machiavellian" or maybe "BPD", but that's me.
Let me make a momentary aside. For all her failures at plot, character depth/development, and not being crazy, Stephenie Meyer's style is actually very readable. Her syntax is pleasant, her vocabulary (or her thesaurus) is moderately large, and the flow of her phrases is surprisingly hypnotic. I am willing to consider that with a couple of hardcore writers' workshops and a large bottle of meds, she might be a half-decent writer. She'll never be J.K. Rowling, of course, but then again, who will? However, I can sort of understand how someone not as anal-retentive literary as I am could enjoy the rhythm of the story without noticing the gargantuan plotholes swallowing all human reason. Kinda like you'd do Jessica Simpson if you could duct-tape her mouth shut first.
But anyway.
Bella and her circle of brainwashed followers friends get bored, because they're teenagers. But instead of doing what real teenagers would do (i.e. get smashed and fuck) everyone goes to the beach. At the beach she meets Jacob Black, a Native American fellow. And because Native Americans obviously know everything about the mysterious and supernatural, Bella decides that Jacob is the key to her puzzle. But it would be boring to just say she was interested and ask him. In either an amazing ego trip or a brilliant shattering of the fourth wall, she decides to bank on the fact that everyone is in love with her and flirt with him until he tells her that her abusive crush is a vampire.
Which, of course, no one saw coming at all.
Skip forward past some incredibly subtle foreshadowing (shhjacobisawerewolfdon'ttellanybody) and Bella goes to Port Angeles, a nearby town, for a girls' night out with some friends from school. (Speaking of which, I'm not sure if Ms Meyer knows this, but Useless Background Character #6 [Angela] is a lesbian.) Which brings us to Bella's second traumatic near-death experience; her sphere of irresistibility attracts some shadier characters than she meant it to. The hazards of being a Mary Sue apparently include gang-rape and murder. Except Edward drives up in his sexy, shiny, exotic new Volvo (snicker) and saves the day. Again.
Why is Edward in Port Angeles, you ask? Well, that should be obvious, replies Stephenie Meyer. He followed her there to watch over her. How fucking creepy romantic is that?
But Bella does not bother to dwell on the implications of the fact that she's being stalked by a vampire. Instead, they spend the next few days or so having the following conversation:
Bella: You're a vampire, right?
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: Stay away from me before I eat you. And not in the fun way.
Bella: ...I love you!
Edward: [sigh]
Bella, being the incredibly logical and sane person that she is, decides that the best idea she's ever had would be to spend a day alone in the middle of nowhere with him. This whole excursion is at his suggestion, which makes me hopeful that maybe he's planning to do what every real vampire who found himself in this extremely fortuitous position would do. But no such luck. Instead he takes her to a very romantic meadow and reveals to her that instead of burning and dying in the sunlight, he sparkles. Like glitter-glue.
...
...
...
Then Bella hits herself in the head with a shovel. Wait, did I say Bella?
Edward decides it is the perfect time to reveal that Bella's blood tempts him like none other he has ever smelt. Which, again, cruelly gets my hopes up, but no such luck. Then they exchange my favourite lines in the entire book, which are more concisely summed up by the movie's version:
"You're my own personal brand of heroin."
God, junkie metaphors are so sexy.
They lie around and touch each other a lot. But not in the fun way. He drives her home. She (wait for it) makes dinner.
Then we abruptly discover that HE HAS BEEN LISTENING/MINDREADING IN ON HER CONVERSATIONS AND WATCHING HER SLEEP THROUGH HER WINDOW AT NIGHT SINCE THEY MET.
Okay. Time the fuck out. So far, if I suspended my disbelief as far as I am capable of (which is, in fact, quite far), I could accept that maybe he really was just a tortured, sexy, good vampire who is doing the best he can to not eat the extremely tasty woman he is rapidly falling in love with, and I could also accept that in the hands of a better author (and less the sparkling) it could almost be entertaining, and maybe a bit romantic. I could maybe have stretched my mind that far. Until now.
Stalking is creepy in all fifty states, you whiny controlling bitch. You too, Bella.
Oh yeah, and they can't have sex. Ever. Doomed to eternal virginity. Ha ha! How sad. Show of hands, who thinks Stephenie Meyer comes up with a way around it in order to get Bella pregnant?
The last quarter of the book is so uninteresting it's barely worth mocking. Bella meets Edward's "family". They all love her. Except that one bitch, but fuck her. (I had absolutely no ironic glee over the fact that her name is Rosalie. Not even a little bit.) Edward's a great pianist. (Heh heh.) Alice sees the future. The Cullens play baseball. I think about ponies and doodle Tolkien poems in the margins.
I think Ms Meyer is finally trying to get around to the plot, three-quarters of the way in, but her skill at action and suspense very nearly rivals her skill at character development. It pretty much goes like this; Some vampire wants to kill Bella. She runs away. Good vampires try to protect her, but she's too dumb. She gets caught. She almost dies. Edward saves her. He takes her to the prom against her will. She wants to be a vampire.
Oh, is it the end already? Gee, I was having so much fun I barely noticed that I will NEVER GET BACK THOSE SIX HOURS OF MY LIFE.
I almost wish I was a thirteen-year-old girl. Because I'm sure I would have somewhat enjoyed the book, were I not hopelessly analytical. As I stated before, Meyer's style is well-crafted and smooth; unfortunately, it is the bait to drag you into a world where vampires have teen angst, Mary Sues control the world, and borderline personality disorder is romantic. Our main character is, to put it delicately, a dumb bitch. She spends her life being adored and wallowing in false humility, which is supposed to be interesting. Then she repeatedly throws herself into the most dangerous situation possible--a relationship with a vampire who desperately wants to drain her body of blood. He makes every decision for her, completely ignoring her wishes; when she protests, he manipulates her until she acquiesces. The only actual plot points in the book involve Bella putting herself in danger and Edward saving her. And all of this is the best book ever written because...they're in love and that makes it all okay.
I beg to differ. Marketing this view of the world to lonely, outcast teenaged girls is not only bad literature, it's dangerous. The power of this woman's words is impressive and a little scary. What happens when your fifteen-year-old emo-kid Twilight fan turns down perfectly good Mikes and Jacobs and Tylers because she's waiting for her Edward, and when he turns up he's a serial killer? Because that's the character Meyer wrote. He's not a sexy angsty hawt romantic hero. He's an abusive sociopath who just happens to be suave and pretty. And that does not cover a multitude of sins, no matter how many drugs he compares you to.
Shame on you, Stephenie Meyer. I hope someone medicates you before you do any more damage.
Warnings: strong language, excess sarcasm, one or two mentions of TEH SECKS.
All right, I've finally done it. I think I deserve a round of applause. They said it couldn't be done, but I've showed them!
I managed to sit down and make it all the way through the first Twilight book.
And holy crap, what a load of shallow, mythologically inaccurate, mysogynistic bullshit, wrapped in a cleverly written package and tied up with a bright pink pseudo-romantic bow.
Okay, that's not entirely fair. But let me start at the beginning.
The book opens with Bella, a seventeen-year-old girl, moving in with her boring, stolid father so that her flighty mother can travel with her new stepfather. It is a difficult, self-sacrificing decision, and I'm sure it's meant to make us like and/or sympathize with her, but unfortunately the ploy is transparent and the character is not nearly as interesting or sympathetic as she is presented to be. She makes some dinner, drives her truck around, and is hit on by every boy at school, despite being antisocial, clumsy, and unnecessarily smarmy. This section of the book is close to excruciating; absolutely nothing happens for the first three or so chapters, and we are forced to live out the daily life of this individual, which is slightly less interesting than watching a laundromat dryer go round and round. The only thing that could possibly be construed as a plot point is that she is assigned seating next to a very attractive young man who mysteriously can't stand her. Ooh, I wonder what is going to happen next!!!
Once we have made it past this gruelling ordeal, we meet Edward. Edward is (guess who!) the insanely sexy fellow from Bella's biology class. He alternately cruelly mocks and angrily avoids her, yet apparently the fact that he is impossibly hawt negates all of this, because Bella is immediately obsessed with him.
At this point, it is apparently time for our first traumatic near-death incident (after which Stephenie Meyer apparently discovers her favourite new plot twist, because that's ALL THAT HAPPENS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES). Bella almost gets hit by a van. The key word, disappointingly, is 'almost'; Edward breaks a few laws of physics to save her and then immediately disappears again. When Bella confronts him, he dismisses her, with condescension, manipulation, and wrath, then stalks off angrily. Gee, I don't know about you, but this sounds like exactly the kind of guy I want to spend eternity with.
The next few weeks pass without incident. Edward angrily avoids Bella some more. Bella makes some more dinner, is hit on by some more boys, dreams about Edward, and hits herself in the head with a shovel. Wait, that last part was me, not Bella.
Then, inexplicably, Edward starts being nice again--if you call carrying her places against her will, using his good looks to manipulate her, and mocking her serious blood phobia "nice". Personally, I prefer "sociopathic" or "Machiavellian" or maybe "BPD", but that's me.
Let me make a momentary aside. For all her failures at plot, character depth/development, and not being crazy, Stephenie Meyer's style is actually very readable. Her syntax is pleasant, her vocabulary (or her thesaurus) is moderately large, and the flow of her phrases is surprisingly hypnotic. I am willing to consider that with a couple of hardcore writers' workshops and a large bottle of meds, she might be a half-decent writer. She'll never be J.K. Rowling, of course, but then again, who will? However, I can sort of understand how someone not as anal-retentive literary as I am could enjoy the rhythm of the story without noticing the gargantuan plotholes swallowing all human reason. Kinda like you'd do Jessica Simpson if you could duct-tape her mouth shut first.
But anyway.
Bella and her circle of brainwashed followers friends get bored, because they're teenagers. But instead of doing what real teenagers would do (i.e. get smashed and fuck) everyone goes to the beach. At the beach she meets Jacob Black, a Native American fellow. And because Native Americans obviously know everything about the mysterious and supernatural, Bella decides that Jacob is the key to her puzzle. But it would be boring to just say she was interested and ask him. In either an amazing ego trip or a brilliant shattering of the fourth wall, she decides to bank on the fact that everyone is in love with her and flirt with him until he tells her that her abusive crush is a vampire.
Which, of course, no one saw coming at all.
Skip forward past some incredibly subtle foreshadowing (shhjacobisawerewolfdon'ttellanybody) and Bella goes to Port Angeles, a nearby town, for a girls' night out with some friends from school. (Speaking of which, I'm not sure if Ms Meyer knows this, but Useless Background Character #6 [Angela] is a lesbian.) Which brings us to Bella's second traumatic near-death experience; her sphere of irresistibility attracts some shadier characters than she meant it to. The hazards of being a Mary Sue apparently include gang-rape and murder. Except Edward drives up in his sexy, shiny, exotic new Volvo (snicker) and saves the day. Again.
Why is Edward in Port Angeles, you ask? Well, that should be obvious, replies Stephenie Meyer. He followed her there to watch over her. How fucking creepy romantic is that?
But Bella does not bother to dwell on the implications of the fact that she's being stalked by a vampire. Instead, they spend the next few days or so having the following conversation:
Bella: You're a vampire, right?
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: [stony silence]
Bella: I love you!
Edward: Stay away from me before I eat you. And not in the fun way.
Bella: ...I love you!
Edward: [sigh]
Bella, being the incredibly logical and sane person that she is, decides that the best idea she's ever had would be to spend a day alone in the middle of nowhere with him. This whole excursion is at his suggestion, which makes me hopeful that maybe he's planning to do what every real vampire who found himself in this extremely fortuitous position would do. But no such luck. Instead he takes her to a very romantic meadow and reveals to her that instead of burning and dying in the sunlight, he sparkles. Like glitter-glue.
...
...
...
Then Bella hits herself in the head with a shovel. Wait, did I say Bella?
Edward decides it is the perfect time to reveal that Bella's blood tempts him like none other he has ever smelt. Which, again, cruelly gets my hopes up, but no such luck. Then they exchange my favourite lines in the entire book, which are more concisely summed up by the movie's version:
"You're my own personal brand of heroin."
God, junkie metaphors are so sexy.
They lie around and touch each other a lot. But not in the fun way. He drives her home. She (wait for it) makes dinner.
Then we abruptly discover that HE HAS BEEN LISTENING/MINDREADING IN ON HER CONVERSATIONS AND WATCHING HER SLEEP THROUGH HER WINDOW AT NIGHT SINCE THEY MET.
Okay. Time the fuck out. So far, if I suspended my disbelief as far as I am capable of (which is, in fact, quite far), I could accept that maybe he really was just a tortured, sexy, good vampire who is doing the best he can to not eat the extremely tasty woman he is rapidly falling in love with, and I could also accept that in the hands of a better author (and less the sparkling) it could almost be entertaining, and maybe a bit romantic. I could maybe have stretched my mind that far. Until now.
Stalking is creepy in all fifty states, you whiny controlling bitch. You too, Bella.
Oh yeah, and they can't have sex. Ever. Doomed to eternal virginity. Ha ha! How sad. Show of hands, who thinks Stephenie Meyer comes up with a way around it in order to get Bella pregnant?
The last quarter of the book is so uninteresting it's barely worth mocking. Bella meets Edward's "family". They all love her. Except that one bitch, but fuck her. (I had absolutely no ironic glee over the fact that her name is Rosalie. Not even a little bit.) Edward's a great pianist. (Heh heh.) Alice sees the future. The Cullens play baseball. I think about ponies and doodle Tolkien poems in the margins.
I think Ms Meyer is finally trying to get around to the plot, three-quarters of the way in, but her skill at action and suspense very nearly rivals her skill at character development. It pretty much goes like this; Some vampire wants to kill Bella. She runs away. Good vampires try to protect her, but she's too dumb. She gets caught. She almost dies. Edward saves her. He takes her to the prom against her will. She wants to be a vampire.
Oh, is it the end already? Gee, I was having so much fun I barely noticed that I will NEVER GET BACK THOSE SIX HOURS OF MY LIFE.
I almost wish I was a thirteen-year-old girl. Because I'm sure I would have somewhat enjoyed the book, were I not hopelessly analytical. As I stated before, Meyer's style is well-crafted and smooth; unfortunately, it is the bait to drag you into a world where vampires have teen angst, Mary Sues control the world, and borderline personality disorder is romantic. Our main character is, to put it delicately, a dumb bitch. She spends her life being adored and wallowing in false humility, which is supposed to be interesting. Then she repeatedly throws herself into the most dangerous situation possible--a relationship with a vampire who desperately wants to drain her body of blood. He makes every decision for her, completely ignoring her wishes; when she protests, he manipulates her until she acquiesces. The only actual plot points in the book involve Bella putting herself in danger and Edward saving her. And all of this is the best book ever written because...they're in love and that makes it all okay.
I beg to differ. Marketing this view of the world to lonely, outcast teenaged girls is not only bad literature, it's dangerous. The power of this woman's words is impressive and a little scary. What happens when your fifteen-year-old emo-kid Twilight fan turns down perfectly good Mikes and Jacobs and Tylers because she's waiting for her Edward, and when he turns up he's a serial killer? Because that's the character Meyer wrote. He's not a sexy angsty hawt romantic hero. He's an abusive sociopath who just happens to be suave and pretty. And that does not cover a multitude of sins, no matter how many drugs he compares you to.
Shame on you, Stephenie Meyer. I hope someone medicates you before you do any more damage.