Bookmark: A BOOK PAN. Fans of Twilight, do NOT proceed.
Twilight Fans do not want to read this note. Stop now.
I rolled my eyes when the Twilight craze hit mainstream news. It was "Buffy and Angel" all over again, to me. A couple of people I respect very much in my writers' group persuaded me to read more than a few pages selected at random in various parts of the book before I condemned it.
So I read 360 pages today. (Yes, I read quickly.) I read it while waiting for an X-ray at the hospital, while waiting for a blood test, and in various public places that have waiting rooms. After my first groan of frustration with the story, I had to slip in the bookmark (because there was no way I was gonna REREAD stuff to find my place!) and engage instead the old ladies who were also waiting for their X-ray. And let me tell you: I was not tempted to pick up the book again even after a detailed run-down on one lovely senior's full GI barium X-ray, for which she had to repeatedly return to the machine to see if the barium had progressed through her small intestine and reached her colon... and her dread of the upcoming barium enema, a REPEAT test for some reason which I tuned out in vague horror.
I got home at noon after my morning errands, and saw the dirty dishes wedged in my sink, remnants of the cauliflower-mac-and-cheese dish I'd prepared for Monday night's dinner, and which had not received proper attention because I'd had to attend this writers' group, and one member delivered the copy of Twilight for which I'd traded the one my mother bought me because he didn't want the one with the movie cast on the cover, but the apple, and I didn't really care what I had on the cover of the book because it wasn't a book I would have purchased for myself OR my daughter.
So I decided this was the perfect afternoon to give it a fair shake. 360 pages IS more than magnanimously fair. I can't stomach it any longer. (Edward has just met Bella's father, and has buckled her into his monster off-road truck to take her to a Vampire Baseball game in a thunderstorm.) It was a relief to see it was time to pick up my kids from school at page 200... but when we got home, and I'd made them another mac-and-cheese WITHOUT icky cauliflower, and they hogged the internet computers so I could not browse the commercial websites I will not trawl through on my own computer (I don't like their cookies), I picked up the book again.
They told me to shut up with the groaning at the book, or put it down. These children are accustomed to having me argue with the movie currently playing on the television, and they are remarkably understanding that when I have a book, usually I have to read it in one big gulp, like the Harry Potter series. (For the record: the last two books were read in one big gulp just like swallowing a distasteful pill - I needed to finish the story, not read the words.)
The ONLY reason i got to Page 360 was the double-whammy of mac-and-cheese waiting for me in the kitchen sink. Those dishes have to be scraped and scrubbed by hand, I can't just rinse them and forget about them in the dishwasher. Our dishwasher can't handle cheese.
I don't think I can, either. Not anymore. I still have my gall bladder. I guess I'm showing my age.
It is a testament to my aversion to cleaning that I got this far in the book. I am totally outside this book's demographic. The most interesting parts in Twilight were the vampires' origin stories (Dr. Cullen's waggoner specifically), the spooky story Jacob Black told Bella at the beach party, and the one line thrown away by Mike Newton: "I don't like him. He looks at you like you're something to eat." The rest was about kissing (and even that was a sick, passive-aggressive kind of thing, and face it, the guy may have been made a vampire when he was 17, but DAMN, he's over 100 years old now! EW!), wanting but not having, and a high school dance - the stuff I never had the patience for even when I was living it... and I have the tape recorded evidence to prove I was a DITZ at that age! IT WAS BUFFY AND ANGEL WITHOUT JOSS WHEDON.
Being inside Isabella's head is like being trapped in an elevator that will not cease to play Muzacked versions of 80s pop hits. And that happened to me once: three hours stuck in an elevator that didn't stop playing its Muzak, trapped with a claustrophobe and three guys named Stephane. As the temperature in our little cube rose and the air got steamy, the jackets came off, the sleeves rolled, the decorum eased... We started trying to get the button board to light up using various body parts. At last, the mechanics opened up the top and dropped a ladder, because they still couldn't get the elevator going after three hours' work. Getting to ride on TOP of an elevator to the next floor, and seeing the astonished faces of the other office drones as the doors slid open and we stepped off at the next floor up was ALMOST worth missing my job interview and losing the afternoon.
On a more positive note: I'm pretty sure the movie does the book justice. I may even rent it, someday, before the DVD is completely obviated out of the market. I mean, if I could watch Neverending Story II and Dragonheart II: A New Beginning, I could probably sit through the movie version of Twilight without doing more than roll my eyes, so I don't spoil it for the rest of the people watching it with me - because renting it would be THEIR choice, not mine!
This book joins the two other books on the Incomplete list: The Holy Bible (King James version) and Ulysses, by James Joyce. (In my defence, I was 13 when I tried to read that one.)
I'm sorry. I tried. I really tried.
Edited 11pm to add: OK, I was told I needed to advance "just a little further" for the denouement. Well, it was 40 pages later. And it WAS good. But... 400 pages to get to the ONE GOOD BIT? And then another 80 or 90 pages for the M&M and the "please make me a vampire" whining???
I rolled my eyes when the Twilight craze hit mainstream news. It was "Buffy and Angel" all over again, to me. A couple of people I respect very much in my writers' group persuaded me to read more than a few pages selected at random in various parts of the book before I condemned it.
So I read 360 pages today. (Yes, I read quickly.) I read it while waiting for an X-ray at the hospital, while waiting for a blood test, and in various public places that have waiting rooms. After my first groan of frustration with the story, I had to slip in the bookmark (because there was no way I was gonna REREAD stuff to find my place!) and engage instead the old ladies who were also waiting for their X-ray. And let me tell you: I was not tempted to pick up the book again even after a detailed run-down on one lovely senior's full GI barium X-ray, for which she had to repeatedly return to the machine to see if the barium had progressed through her small intestine and reached her colon... and her dread of the upcoming barium enema, a REPEAT test for some reason which I tuned out in vague horror.
I got home at noon after my morning errands, and saw the dirty dishes wedged in my sink, remnants of the cauliflower-mac-and-cheese dish I'd prepared for Monday night's dinner, and which had not received proper attention because I'd had to attend this writers' group, and one member delivered the copy of Twilight for which I'd traded the one my mother bought me because he didn't want the one with the movie cast on the cover, but the apple, and I didn't really care what I had on the cover of the book because it wasn't a book I would have purchased for myself OR my daughter.
So I decided this was the perfect afternoon to give it a fair shake. 360 pages IS more than magnanimously fair. I can't stomach it any longer. (Edward has just met Bella's father, and has buckled her into his monster off-road truck to take her to a Vampire Baseball game in a thunderstorm.) It was a relief to see it was time to pick up my kids from school at page 200... but when we got home, and I'd made them another mac-and-cheese WITHOUT icky cauliflower, and they hogged the internet computers so I could not browse the commercial websites I will not trawl through on my own computer (I don't like their cookies), I picked up the book again.
They told me to shut up with the groaning at the book, or put it down. These children are accustomed to having me argue with the movie currently playing on the television, and they are remarkably understanding that when I have a book, usually I have to read it in one big gulp, like the Harry Potter series. (For the record: the last two books were read in one big gulp just like swallowing a distasteful pill - I needed to finish the story, not read the words.)
The ONLY reason i got to Page 360 was the double-whammy of mac-and-cheese waiting for me in the kitchen sink. Those dishes have to be scraped and scrubbed by hand, I can't just rinse them and forget about them in the dishwasher. Our dishwasher can't handle cheese.
I don't think I can, either. Not anymore. I still have my gall bladder. I guess I'm showing my age.
It is a testament to my aversion to cleaning that I got this far in the book. I am totally outside this book's demographic. The most interesting parts in Twilight were the vampires' origin stories (Dr. Cullen's waggoner specifically), the spooky story Jacob Black told Bella at the beach party, and the one line thrown away by Mike Newton: "I don't like him. He looks at you like you're something to eat." The rest was about kissing (and even that was a sick, passive-aggressive kind of thing, and face it, the guy may have been made a vampire when he was 17, but DAMN, he's over 100 years old now! EW!), wanting but not having, and a high school dance - the stuff I never had the patience for even when I was living it... and I have the tape recorded evidence to prove I was a DITZ at that age! IT WAS BUFFY AND ANGEL WITHOUT JOSS WHEDON.
Being inside Isabella's head is like being trapped in an elevator that will not cease to play Muzacked versions of 80s pop hits. And that happened to me once: three hours stuck in an elevator that didn't stop playing its Muzak, trapped with a claustrophobe and three guys named Stephane. As the temperature in our little cube rose and the air got steamy, the jackets came off, the sleeves rolled, the decorum eased... We started trying to get the button board to light up using various body parts. At last, the mechanics opened up the top and dropped a ladder, because they still couldn't get the elevator going after three hours' work. Getting to ride on TOP of an elevator to the next floor, and seeing the astonished faces of the other office drones as the doors slid open and we stepped off at the next floor up was ALMOST worth missing my job interview and losing the afternoon.
On a more positive note: I'm pretty sure the movie does the book justice. I may even rent it, someday, before the DVD is completely obviated out of the market. I mean, if I could watch Neverending Story II and Dragonheart II: A New Beginning, I could probably sit through the movie version of Twilight without doing more than roll my eyes, so I don't spoil it for the rest of the people watching it with me - because renting it would be THEIR choice, not mine!
This book joins the two other books on the Incomplete list: The Holy Bible (King James version) and Ulysses, by James Joyce. (In my defence, I was 13 when I tried to read that one.)
I'm sorry. I tried. I really tried.
Edited 11pm to add: OK, I was told I needed to advance "just a little further" for the denouement. Well, it was 40 pages later. And it WAS good. But... 400 pages to get to the ONE GOOD BIT? And then another 80 or 90 pages for the M&M and the "please make me a vampire" whining???