Somebody. Mainly due to boredom and insanity. ([info]anna_the_fair) wrote,
@ 2008-07-18 12:13:00
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Current mood: complacent
Entry tags:books, twilight

And I'm spent.......

Well, I've finally finished reading Twilight.

It was.....interesting. Some elaborations:

- Edward watches Bella? While she's asleep, too? That's incredibly creepy and stalkerish. I mean, I understand that he doesn't sleep but there has to be something else he can do.  And Bella being flattered is just weird. Is it too much to ask that she have a normal reaction once in a while?

- The lovey-doveyness continues also. Apparently they love each other. Pfft. It's also AMAZING how good Edward is at mind over matter. 

- The bit about creation actually made sense, though.  Who's to say that every supernatural creature, and us ordinary folk weren't created together? Evolution is a marvelous thing, indeed.

- The meeting of Edward's family seems to strike me as too soon. Too much information, in too short a time. I like the Cullens, though. They're not bad for Sues and Stus. Carlisle's story is incredibly interesting, but it seems that Meyer is dumping all of this on us all at once so we don't notice that the plot is progressing much too fast.

- However, out of all the family, Rosalise's reation is the only one that really makes sense. Sure, Edward had been alone for a long while, but he's a vampire. What do they expect? Having a human around puts both her and the Cullen family in danger. 

- Edward was spot on in the waiting for the screaming, though.

- Charlie's reaction to Edward and Bella's being together was much too flippant. He's her father, why did Bella get away with it so easily?

- The baseball thing strikes me as corny, but I guess they have to find something to do. It would be cool to watch, anyway.

- The visiting vampires thing is expected, but if the Cullens knew they were coming soon, why risk Bella being there at all? Common sense, people.

 - James being a "tracker" is too convienient a dilemna. The odds of Bella being incredibly appealing to 2 vampires, even in a novel such as this, is too improbable. I have a feeling Meyer simply decided to create a dangerous situation because she realized that there had to be a climax somewhere and she was running out of steam. The timing of it was fairly pathetic. I was considerably more than halfway through when the dilemna came in. 

- Somehow, I doubt that any normal teenaged girl would be able to think of so concise a plan in too short a time. Really, the decoying and deception doesn't seem like something Bella is capable of at all. 

- Honestly, the plan to avoid James was the most exciting part of the novel. Too bad it came too late and everything else was so nauseating.

- It seems unlikely that Bella could actually evade Jasper and Alice at all, much less so easily.  The inconsistancy, it burns! It is kind of clever that the ballet studio Alice saw is actually where Bella had to meet James, but if they suspected it was so, couldn't they have anticipated the whole thing somewhat and prevented it entirely? 

- I'll admit, the angel-dream scenario moved me. But with the extent of Bella's injuries and the cruelties of James it seems impausible that the Cullens even arrived there, much less that Bella is still alive. James' lying about Bella's mother being there was pretty clever, I think. 

- And the excuses for her injuries? Right, like somebody is that clumsy.

- The part about Edward taking Bella to prom sporks itself.

- Bella's wanting to be turned into a vampire is just unbelievable. I would be scared- of the pain, immortality, the general blood-sucking issue. I don't think the girl realises the difficulty of the matter at all.

Conclusion: While it kind of grew on me, Edward isn't real, the writing is just bad, and the plot progression is WAY too quick. I think I'll read some more Neil Gaiman, instead. 


There was also an excerpt of New Moon, but it speaks for itself, and I'm too tired to dissect any more bad writing any further.  I'm going to the Shakespeare Stratford Festival soon, anyway. :D



(7 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Holy crap
[info]chechebmerry
2008-07-31 02:13 am UTC (link)
I just googled "Twilight Criticism" and I found your blog. I usually don't comment on other people's journals, but I had to say something here. THANK YOU!! I just got halfway through "Twilight" and I went online to see if someone could give me a good reason to carry on with it. I couldn't find anything, and your entries just add fuel to the fire of my disappointment.

The funniest part of this is that I took a break from reading Neil Gaiman's "Smoke and Mirrors" to read "Twilight" so your comment "I think I'll read some more Neil Gaiman, instead" is creepily appropriate. THANKS AGAIN!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Holy crap
[info]anna_the_fair
2008-07-31 02:33 am UTC (link)
Haha, no problem. I do what I can to preserve the sanctity of good fiction. :D However, if you found my tiny corner of the internet so easily it leaves me to wonder why the Twilight fangirls havn't attacked me yet....

It is. I actually read Smoke and Mirrors myself and loved it. Granted, some of the descriptions are a bit much, but nevertheless. Stardust was even more brilliant.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Check out my blog.
[info]stephieromero
2008-08-12 10:34 pm UTC (link)
Lmao. Yeah I found your blog searching twilight criticism and found your blog as well. I think these fans are too busy anyway to even look up any criticism on their 'favorite book'. I do agree with some of the points you make. I just finished read this book, sort of late timing, but I had to see why everyone was going crazy over it. And now I mostly understand why. People need to read more books.

I also made a Twilight Criticism blog on my livejournal. Check it out and tell me what you think. :)

(Reply to this)


[info]takemeto_utopia
2009-02-07 03:12 am UTC (link)
Edward watches Bella? While she's asleep, too? That's incredibly creepy and stalkerish. I mean, I understand that he doesn't sleep but there has to be something else he can do. And Bella being flattered is just weird. Is it too much to ask that she have a normal reaction once in a while?

...wanna be my bff? you're so right. =D thanks for writing this and partly restoring my faith in the intellect of the human race. =D

(Reply to this)


(Anonymous)
2009-04-21 12:08 am UTC (link)
Thanks for posting such a detailed commentary on Twilight. I hated the mere idea of teenage vampire meets small town romance and now that I've read your reasons I couldn't agree more with you. You've spared me from hours of bad, cheesy writing!!! Greetings from Mexico City, M.

(Reply to this)


(Anonymous)
2009-06-02 06:45 am UTC (link)
Every book has something that someone wont like about it, whether its supposedly the best book on earth, or the worst. No ones writing is perfect, face it. There will always be something about anything that you can pick on. I think Stephenie did a great job on the books, I really enjoyed them and I fell in love with the story. I would gladly read 20 more additions to the Twilight saga if she wrote more. The bottom line is you made Twilight sound SO MUCH WORSE than it really is. I could pick out more flaws in the book, but even though you might find some of it stupid or ridiculous, Twilight is what Stephenie wanted to write. She wanted to make Bella SO IN LOVE with him that she would gladly face the pain to be with him forever. Its a book, a mere story, it came from her imagination and she enjoyed writing it. No one is a perfect writer, but as long as some people enjoy reading it and she had enjoyed writing it, then it doesn't really matter. I just don't get why some people hate Twilight so much, I get that some people dont like it, but I mean COME ON, some people rant all day about how much they hate Twilight.

By the way, I have NOTHING against you, you have your opinion and I have mine. I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine. Haha.

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]anna_the_fair
2009-06-02 11:33 pm UTC (link)
True. But the point of any book review/analysis is to dissect the book, and that includes nitpicking.

Maybe I did make Twilight sound worse, but these reviews were meant to be satirical and the fun about satire is that you can exaggerate. They were meant to be humourous.

If every individual who wanted to get published was published then the literary market would be saturated with bad fiction. I can appreciate that you want to read stories people wanted to write, but we can't always write what we want. Just because something is enjoyable doesn't mean that literary standards should be thrown out the window. I'm used to quality fiction and quite frankly it's insulting when people like Stephenie Meyer get published when plenty of more deserving writers don't.

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