Blogging Twilight: Part 1

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This afternoon when I woke up (I work graves remember) I saw the book sitting on the little computer chair in the middle of the living room. Apparently my wife found it in the garage and set it up for me.

So here I go.

Starting a book with an excerpt from the ending is kind of a gimmick, but I can see why it needs it. The first line, "I'd never given much thought to how I would die..." is pretty bad, but it sets the tone. I have to get over one thing pretty quickly: This is not a well written book. In fact, it’s pretty awful.

Which, I guess, is not the worst thing in the world. Lots of popular books are poorly written. I love me some Lovecraft, but the man was a hack.

This book bumps around as clumsily as Bella. It's full of unneeded…. Punctuation- breaks. Not only that, but it has a very passive voice. Mix that in with hardly any dialogue at all and it’s a tough thing to smooth your eyes over. The end result is like trying to read a cheese grater (that makes sense to me). The narrative runs haphazardly from one topic to the next with little to no, I don’t know, storytelling.

It’s also apparently one big voice over. Yes, it’s first person, but the very first rule of fiction is: Show, Don’t Tell. This is nothing but tell. In truth it reminds me of reading stories from a first year college writing class. I imagine if someone was a bit more honest with Stephenie in a workshop group, then it would be a lot easier to read.

But enough of that. Let’s move to the story.

Bella moves from a town she loves to a town she hates to live with a father she barely acknowledges to get away from a mother she loves so she can travel with a baseball boyfriend who is alright. While there she is frustrated and annoyed by the attention she receives from just about every boy in school.

Okay, wait a sec. She gets asked out to a dance (or asked if she would ask them out I guess) three times in one day and is annoyed by this because she can’t dance and because the hot rude boy is just so frustratingly handsome.

I’ve known girls who are described like Bella, (or at least as much of a description as she gives. I can see how she is a perfect vessel for any girl to pour themselves into), and they don’t act like that. No girl acts like that.

No they don’t.

No. They don’t.

I think this is how older women wished they would have acted and that could explain why the book is popular. Young girls can wish they were like that and older women can pretend it was.

Okay, so the members Cullen family are all beautiful beyond belief and aloof to the school. Edward takes an interest in Bella for reasons that are not apparently clear yet. First he acts like she is stinky then he pays attention, then he saves her life, then she gets all crazy.

Yes, she gets all crazy:

“It’s too bad you didn’t figure that out earlier,” I hissed through my teeth. “You could have saved yourself all this regret.”

“Regret?” The word, and my tone, obviously caught him off guard. “Regret for what?”

“For not just letting that stupid van squish me.”

(…) “You think I regret saving your life?”

“I know you do,” I snapped.

What?!? Where did this come from?

Okay, obviously she is really upset because she is so very much in love with this guy who looks pretty and acts like a jerk and she doesn’t think he is interested at all… how does that jump to “you wish I was dead”? If I was the guy, I would laugh, tell Bella to have a nice life, and go for a less angstish mortal.

And here is my problem. I don’t like the characters yet. Bella is a whiny fake person, Edward is a jerk who knows he can get away with it because he is so very attractive (and supernaturally hypnotic I think, which has its own creepy vibe), and everyone else doesn’t have a personality I can properly identify. If it wasn’t for Bella telling me who she was talking to I wouldn’t know them from anyone else. Gender seems to be the only thing her friends at school have unique about them.

I do like the father character though. It’s a pretty accurate portrayal of a bumbling father trying to do right with his daughter while neither one of them know what to do.

Though, in a way it is fun to read. Something I can’t figure out does call out to the shallow and selfish days of high school where everyone thinks they are the center of the world.

We’ll have to see how the trip to Seattle goes. Something tells me it will be equal parts hypnotic and angsty.