After Twilight...

I have a deep love of young adult fiction. Some of the books I loved the most were Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Earthsea Trilogy” and Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising Sequence.” Later on… I enjoyed some of the “teen trash” that was floating around in the 1980’s. And as popular stuff comes out… Harry Potter… Percy Jackson…I check them out of the library so I can figure out what all the buzz is about. What I’d be reading if I magically turned into a teenager. Some of the stuff out there has been fluffy. I read several of P.C. Cast’s “House of the Night” books… and found the plot uninteresting… but the storytelling to be at least engaging. I’ve read the books that the Vampire 90210 television series “The Vampire Diaries” was based on… and thought they were semi-enjoyable romance novels with a suspense twist. So… I figured I’d join “Team Herd” and finally buckle down and read Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series.

I understand the age group the books were supposed to be written for…really I do. But that said…I am scratching my head as to why people… teen readers and adults… think these are the best romance books since Jane Austen wrote about Lizzie and Darcy.

I don’t just read YA fiction…I also read romance novels. Regency mostly…but I enjoy a well-spun romantic tale just like the next girl. I do not think they’re “fluffy” reading. (I do admit that most of them have “disposable” plots. But so do most genre novels. Mystery…horror…etc.) But they usually have an overarching theme of the nature of love…the difficulty of relationships…and the joy of finding the “right” person. (Anything that is about…boinking…boinking…boinking…reaches into erotica. Which I won’t knock…I like erotica…but there’s nothing romantic about an anonymous hook-up. I equate erotica with “sports novels.” The joy of kicking the winning goal…the joy of…well…you know. Ahem.)

So… it was with horror and dismay that I finished “Breaking Dawn.” I would have thrown the book across the room except for the fact I’d checked it out of the library on my Kindle… and I don’t think the Amazon warranty covers damage due to disgust. So… here’s my review of the “Twilight”… and what goes for the books… at least from the first two movies… goes for the movies. Except I actually used to really like Muse before they became the Twilight OST band.

What bothers me most about the Twilight series? Bella…is vapid. Passive. Her most pronounced feature is some sort of congenital inner ear problem that makes her clumsy. Through the course of the books…we learn NADA about her personality…because she doesn’t have one. She likes…Edward…her Dad…Edward…Jacob…her truck…Edward…and anything fast and dangerous that will help her hallucinate Edward when Edward isn’t around. Reading? Crochet? Television? My life when I was a teenager…was full of…well…things. Girl Scouts. Reading. Hanging out with friends. Teenaged drama… and occasional tragedy of a non-supernatural sort. But in Forks…Bella…loves Edward…attends school…and cooks for her dad. She has no aspirations for the future…interest in politics…she doesn’t volunteer, have a social conscience… or even stop to do her nails. Nada. She doesn’t want to save the wales…listen to music…or smoke pot… though if it made her hallucinate Edward she’d be Dime Bag Bella. Her other features? Apparently her BO is vampire crack…and her skull is really, really thick.

Edward…is every parent’s nightmare. Hot. Rich. Obsessed. Drives a fast expensive car. And is about 80 years older than their daughter. It makes Anna Nicole Smith’s relationship with J. Howard Marshall understandable…you know? (And the fact that Bella has less personality than Anna Nicole…is pretty sad.) He’s also…disturbingly controlling. Like the uber-Lassie…every time it looks like Bella might fall down the well…Edward is there…stalking her. Or having his family stalk her. Because the big, bad vampires might kill her. Because she’s human and frangible and might stub her toe and die. When he’s not stalking her…he’s kidnapping her. Or causing her to run away from home to save him from committing suicide. Edward at least has a bit of a personality. He likes… family. Music. Cars. Blood sports. Bella’s BO. He’s well-traveled…educated…and an ex serial killer. But since he’s gone the vampire equivalent of vegan…the fact that he’s a killer is somehow a-ok….because it’s completely balanced by believing in chastity until marriage. The fact that being with Bella…will cause her to lose her family and give up her friends…die…and give up her chances of growing old and contributing to society…did I mention die? They give him angst…but Bella’s BO overrides his 80 odd years of moral existence.

UGH.

And final random thoughts:

Plot arc? New girl meets handsome topaz-eyed loner dude. After initial conflict…they fall for each other. They break up. She pines. She starts stringing along another guy who will never live up to “danger loner dude.” She gets back together with loner dude…they overcome danger. And then it turns into a weird Jerry Springer episode. Girl gets knocked up…nearly killed by the alien in her stomach…and of course…no difficult birth goes unpunished…and the poor hapless woman ends up learning some sort of mental jujitsu to fend off the vampire DCFS. Loose plot ends are tied up when second-best “nice guy” stops lusting after a married woman and becomes an insta-pedophile. Oh…and they meet Dracula and his twin brother Vlad. Tidy. Creepy.

There are also at least four places in the plot where any red-blooded American father with knowledge of firearms would have simply shot Edward in the head…or sent Bella off to boarding school. Charlie…not winning any father of the year awards. And…despite several hundred years of medical and scientific experience. ..the fact Carlisle couldn’t come up with the vampire equivalent of full-body concealer…just boggles the mind. Kat Von D put out a line of concealer that can cover up her tattoos… there’s got to be some sort of roll on for the sparkles by now.

And that’s the main feeling I came away with… Creepy. Bella let herself get sucked into her partner’s life. Let him isolate her and pull her into their cult. And I don’t mean Mormons… but the cult of being a woman with a controlling husband. I thought Edward bruising her up so badly on their “wedding night” was about the only logical conclusion to their relationship. Along with how forgiving she was of him. Because all of his actions before their marriage screamed “controlling abuser stalker dude.” The fact he did so unconsciously…and was forgiven so quickly…was just…well…creepy.

Meyer also desperately needed this little thing called an “editor.” What was up with the intro of Breaking Dawn? Did she become too successful to “need” editing?

To Meyer’s readers… I hope you can quickly move on to something else. If you still need your vampire fix… I’ve heard the Sookie Stackhouse books are very entertaining. I haven’t read them… because I was burned once by Laurell K. Hamilton and I want the series to actually END before I start reading them to make sure they don't devolve into masturbatory fantasies for bored housewives. I HAVE read quite a few of MaryJanice Davidson’s “Undead” series… and find them to be adequate beach reading. A vampires meets chick-lit sort of read. Enjoyable… but unmemorable. I’ve also read most of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Dark Hunter” series… thanks to paperbackswap.com… and if you enjoy paranormal romance… they’re also decent reading. Usually every other book is pretty tight… and the one between is a toss-off. I think “Seize the Night” was my favorite… and that’s just because of those four years of Latin I took back in High School. Any of these… even the vamperotica novels of Laurell K. Hamilton have stronger female characters than poor Bella.

In short... Twilight sucked.