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So I read Twilight - or rather I read 224 pages of it before getting bored and putting the book down. It was bad, but not in the way that I expected.
I admit that I had a lot of preconceived notions about this book. I thought for sure that while 33 year old Pris was going to hate it (especially since I hate vampires), inner 13 year old Pris was going to think it was full of sparklicious awesomesauce. But as I read, inner Pris13 kept telling me that this book sucked ass, while Pris33 thought that while it was definitely bad, it could have been salvaged if Stephanie Meyer had done a few things.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that Pris13 would have liked about this book. After all, Pris13 has read all kinds of goofy girlie shit that she thought was really, really awesome such as the Sweet Valley High Series, The Sunfire Historical Romance series, and the totally cracktastic Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews. In the next few years Pris13 will discover the worlds of Mercedes Lackey's white horses who save abused children and the Dragonlance books. And if the internet had been around back then, she probably would have flooded ff.net with goopy Sue filled romances about Raistlin who is so hot, misunderstood and clearly in need of the redemption that only true wuv can provide..
So a McHottie, sparkletastic, dangerous (but not really), stalkeresque, angsypants, vampire boyfriend? Awesome. Plot that's not really a plot, but two emo teenagers discussing their relationship for 500+ pages? Sweet! Dysfunctional, obsessive, patronizing and totally unrealistic true love? Sign her up!
But I think the thing that would have killed any enjoyment for Pris13 is the very simple fact that Bella Swan just sucks. She's not even a proper stand in for the reader or even a typical Mary Sue. She's shallow, vapid, mopey, bitchy and thinks that her life is OMG SO HARD U GIAS!
Inner Pris13 kept rolling her eyes every time Bella whined about how annoying it is that every dude in the school thinks she's hot, or OMG her parents (who are never around, have no expectations, and even give her a car to drive around) are annoying! On the first day of highschool people go out of their way to be nice to her and she's totally a bitch about it. When the girls in school try to be friendly to her, she is completely shallow and vicious, and Pris13 got the feeling that she was only putting up with them until she could get accepted into the cool vampire kids club. When she has to go to the hospital, damn near the whole school shows up to see if she's okay, and she acts like an ungrateful twat about it because it's so embarrassing.
Pris13 wouldn't have expected realism, she would have wanted an escapist fantasy to get away from the harsh realities of real middle and high school. But when the main character lives the perfect escapist awesome fantasy and acts like her life is really, really hard, well... that's pretty fucking irritating.
Interestingly, that's one of the reasons Pris33 kind of found Twilight nearly redeemable, because bad technical writing issues aside, Stephanie Meyer really captures the narcissistic, selfish, emo tunnel vision that dumbass teenagers tend to have, where every small thing is totally blown out of proportion. There's something awesomely entertaining about this beautiful, middle class, white chick thinking that people being nice to her makes her life hard. I kept waiting for her to get a harsh reality check. This book could have been interesting if Bella actually grew as a character, realized she was acting like a shallow twat, or realized that her relationship with Edward was dysfunctional and told him to take a hike. Conversely, it would have been just as entertaining if she never realized it, but if her moronic behavior had actual realistic consequences. Unfortunately that never happened.
And therein lies the biggest problem of the book for Pris33. It becomes painfully obvious that Stephanie Meyers doesn't realize that Bella sucks. She thinks her protagonist is cool, and thus, instead of other characters reacting the way they actually would to someone who is that much of a complete dumbass, she gets rewarded for her stupid behavior.
The other big disappointment was that this book wasn't nearly as cracktasticly entertaining as I hoped. Don't get me wrong, there are several laugh out loud wtf moments (my favorite being how even Edward's handwriting is HOLY SHIT BEAUTIFUL), things that made no sense (why are these vampires in high school again? Is it because they want to score some hot teenage tail?), and times when it becomes painfully clear that Stephanie Meyer has some serious issues when it comes to relationships (stalking is not sexy Stephanie). But sadly, in between the cracky parts are pages and pages and pages of really boring, shallow introspection by Bella and vapid conversations between her and Edward.
From the summaries I've read of the other books, it seems like with each installment of the series, it gets increasingly hilarious, but I just don't have the patience to read hundreds and hundreds of pages to get to it.
Finally, I have to say that while even though I think Pris13 would have hated this book, I get why other teenagers would love it. I'm not especially concerned that this book is teaching bad lessons to impressionable young girls (even though it kind of is). I read all kinds of fucked up stuff when I was that age, but even I realized that there was a big difference between what characters in a book could get away with and what happens in real life. I think that the people hyperventilating about how this is going to corrupt young girls, don't give those girls enough credit.
I don't, however, get why anyone over the age of 17 would think this this book is good entertainment - especially the twilight moms, who should seriously be old enough to see how fucking dysfunctional and non sexy this book really is. I'm pretty sure if some teenage boy was stalking their daughter the way that Edward stalks Bella, they'd pull out the shotgun to run his ass off and not think "Wow, isn't true love wonderful."
I admit that I had a lot of preconceived notions about this book. I thought for sure that while 33 year old Pris was going to hate it (especially since I hate vampires), inner 13 year old Pris was going to think it was full of sparklicious awesomesauce. But as I read, inner Pris13 kept telling me that this book sucked ass, while Pris33 thought that while it was definitely bad, it could have been salvaged if Stephanie Meyer had done a few things.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that Pris13 would have liked about this book. After all, Pris13 has read all kinds of goofy girlie shit that she thought was really, really awesome such as the Sweet Valley High Series, The Sunfire Historical Romance series, and the totally cracktastic Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews. In the next few years Pris13 will discover the worlds of Mercedes Lackey's white horses who save abused children and the Dragonlance books. And if the internet had been around back then, she probably would have flooded ff.net with goopy Sue filled romances about Raistlin who is so hot, misunderstood and clearly in need of the redemption that only true wuv can provide..
So a McHottie, sparkletastic, dangerous (but not really), stalkeresque, angsypants, vampire boyfriend? Awesome. Plot that's not really a plot, but two emo teenagers discussing their relationship for 500+ pages? Sweet! Dysfunctional, obsessive, patronizing and totally unrealistic true love? Sign her up!
But I think the thing that would have killed any enjoyment for Pris13 is the very simple fact that Bella Swan just sucks. She's not even a proper stand in for the reader or even a typical Mary Sue. She's shallow, vapid, mopey, bitchy and thinks that her life is OMG SO HARD U GIAS!
Inner Pris13 kept rolling her eyes every time Bella whined about how annoying it is that every dude in the school thinks she's hot, or OMG her parents (who are never around, have no expectations, and even give her a car to drive around) are annoying! On the first day of highschool people go out of their way to be nice to her and she's totally a bitch about it. When the girls in school try to be friendly to her, she is completely shallow and vicious, and Pris13 got the feeling that she was only putting up with them until she could get accepted into the cool vampire kids club. When she has to go to the hospital, damn near the whole school shows up to see if she's okay, and she acts like an ungrateful twat about it because it's so embarrassing.
Pris13 wouldn't have expected realism, she would have wanted an escapist fantasy to get away from the harsh realities of real middle and high school. But when the main character lives the perfect escapist awesome fantasy and acts like her life is really, really hard, well... that's pretty fucking irritating.
Interestingly, that's one of the reasons Pris33 kind of found Twilight nearly redeemable, because bad technical writing issues aside, Stephanie Meyer really captures the narcissistic, selfish, emo tunnel vision that dumbass teenagers tend to have, where every small thing is totally blown out of proportion. There's something awesomely entertaining about this beautiful, middle class, white chick thinking that people being nice to her makes her life hard. I kept waiting for her to get a harsh reality check. This book could have been interesting if Bella actually grew as a character, realized she was acting like a shallow twat, or realized that her relationship with Edward was dysfunctional and told him to take a hike. Conversely, it would have been just as entertaining if she never realized it, but if her moronic behavior had actual realistic consequences. Unfortunately that never happened.
And therein lies the biggest problem of the book for Pris33. It becomes painfully obvious that Stephanie Meyers doesn't realize that Bella sucks. She thinks her protagonist is cool, and thus, instead of other characters reacting the way they actually would to someone who is that much of a complete dumbass, she gets rewarded for her stupid behavior.
The other big disappointment was that this book wasn't nearly as cracktasticly entertaining as I hoped. Don't get me wrong, there are several laugh out loud wtf moments (my favorite being how even Edward's handwriting is HOLY SHIT BEAUTIFUL), things that made no sense (why are these vampires in high school again? Is it because they want to score some hot teenage tail?), and times when it becomes painfully clear that Stephanie Meyer has some serious issues when it comes to relationships (stalking is not sexy Stephanie). But sadly, in between the cracky parts are pages and pages and pages of really boring, shallow introspection by Bella and vapid conversations between her and Edward.
From the summaries I've read of the other books, it seems like with each installment of the series, it gets increasingly hilarious, but I just don't have the patience to read hundreds and hundreds of pages to get to it.
Finally, I have to say that while even though I think Pris13 would have hated this book, I get why other teenagers would love it. I'm not especially concerned that this book is teaching bad lessons to impressionable young girls (even though it kind of is). I read all kinds of fucked up stuff when I was that age, but even I realized that there was a big difference between what characters in a book could get away with and what happens in real life. I think that the people hyperventilating about how this is going to corrupt young girls, don't give those girls enough credit.
I don't, however, get why anyone over the age of 17 would think this this book is good entertainment - especially the twilight moms, who should seriously be old enough to see how fucking dysfunctional and non sexy this book really is. I'm pretty sure if some teenage boy was stalking their daughter the way that Edward stalks Bella, they'd pull out the shotgun to run his ass off and not think "Wow, isn't true love wonderful."
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I only read up through Obsidian Butterfly (which is the one about Edward) and at least through then she hadn't. He might be the only guy in the series that she hasn't done.