I broke down and bought Twilight on my Nook, polished it off in two days.
First off, I must compliment Ms. Meyer's team for their immaculate job of marketing this book. The public was hungry (Twilight pun-intended) for a paranormal romance, and Ms. Meyer delivered just that, right on time. Paranormal and romance. I must confess, it's been a LONG time since I'd read a pure romance novel, not including Jane Austen, who I would include in a different category of romance/social satire. I was rusty.
So here I am, reading a pure romance novel, wanting desperately to fall in love with either one of the characters, and perhaps because I wanted it so badly, or perhaps because the hype was playing in my head as I was reading, and perhaps because I could not pry the images of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson from my subconscious, but I had a hard time loving this book.
I liked it.
It was good.
But it will not be in my staples of go-to reads when I am looking for inspiration, and here are just a few of my reasons why.
1) I liked Bella better. But...
This is a plus. I can see why Ms. Stewart had a hard time with this character. The book is in first person, and it can serve as a detriment to an actor when they have TOO MUCH material to work with. I'm sure she was overwhelmed. That being said I don't believe the script from the first movie did the book justice AT ALL, at least, in regards to Bella. In the book, she's a bit feistier, and that was the part I liked in her most, whereas, in the movie, it tended to focus on Bella's brooding love-sickness, which, to my taste, got stale rather quickly and just looked pathetic. In the book, Bella actually calls herself pathetic, and perhaps she was, but in confessing it to the reader, the reader is immediately admiring Bella's self-deprecation, and thinking more of her for it, versus in the movie, where I just found it annoying. Anyways, I don't hate Bella anymore. But I wasn't completely in love with her either. Perhaps it's because I couldn't smell her myself.
2) I liked Edward more too, sort of.
Did you know that Edward actually has a rather snarky sense of humor? He found Bella's fumbling and bumbling completely charming, and now that I have read the book, I now understand the answer to the question I ranted and raved to anyone who would listen, "What does he see in her?" Okay, I'll admit, NOW I get it. But, none of this was in the movie. At least, if it was, it somehow didn't come across strong enough. In the book, Bella and Edward made each other laugh! Shocker! In the movie, they only seemed to make each other lovesick to the point of looking ill. You mean, they actually like each other, personally? This was a relief. I get it. They're a cute couple, in the book.
BUT...
The one comment I cannot resist in saying is this: he's a bit of a stalker. Yes, I understand he tried to stay away, and couldn't. And yes, I get that they want to spend every single waking (well, Edward doesn't sleep, but you get the idea) moment together, but I'm an adult, reading a YA book, and if this is the kind of romance you, the writer, are trying to show the teen girls of this world is true love, the all consuming, slightly dangerous, stalkerish kind of love...Then you are sending the WRONG message. Yes, this kind of love exists. But I don't recommend it!! It's totally unhealthy!! Can't there be a romance about a healthy relationship? Sadly, this was not one of them. It was a romance for addicts.
3) The exposition problem.
In the first person, unless the main character knows everything, then you are stuck in the difficult position of having to describe a vast amount of vampire lore, backstory, and what-have-you, in dialogue, which thusly creates a number of "talking heads" scenes. Bella asks Edward a question, and he talks on, and on, and on, and on, and on, for PAGES, about information most fifteen year old girls are probably licking up with their naked tongues off the page, but then there was me, flipping, flipping, flipping, wow, he's still talking? Flipping...When is something going to HAPPEN?
I don't have the solution for this. I wrote The Line in first person and had the same issue, the one thing I did different was scatter the exposition between action scenes to try and make it less boring. Less boring for me, however. Who knows if it'll work for anybody else...
4) Oh, that pesky plot.
I did a guest post for another blog which will go live this Saturday, and one of the points I make as to why I disliked Bella is the movie so profusely, was that she was such a damsel in distress, and having not read the book (at that time) I was concerned that the plot was nothing more than Bella getting saved every fifty pages.
My suspicions were correct.
NOTE to TEEN GIRLS: 99.9% of men in this world are not super heroes. They will not save you. You have to save yourself.
Do not fall in love with the idea that your perfect, all-consuming boyfriend of your dreams will one day push you out of the way of a moving car. Yes, I'm sure this has happened in this world. To a few. But the vast majority of men are just men, just like us women, are just women. Is it not possible to love a person for their personality, for their sense of humor, or that glint in their eye after they crack themselves up with a corny joke? Why does he have to be your super hero? Can't he be your hero for just being himself?
Oey.
I'm not sure this makes any sense to anybody but me, but the whole time Bella is discussing Edward, it's because he's so beautiful, and so strong, and fast, and lovely, and intoxicatingly sexy, and oh, so very dangerous, but never once did she mention that he's loyal, fiercely attentive (she mentioned that once), smart, and funny. No, let's concentrate on how gorgeous he is...?
So, the only way a teenage girl can fall in love is to be saved? Multiple times?
It works in Twilight. It makes sense, given the genre, and the characters.
But it left this particular person...practical, romantic, matter-of-fact, sarcastic, analytical person...feeling a bit slighted. Bella and Edward were connected chemically, but little was expounded upon how intellectually they loved one another, and perhaps teen girls don't look at love that way, and would never buy a book that explained the practicality of loving a guy, but it just made me sad.
There's more to love than chemical desire.
Trust me, girls.
Anyways, I digress.
The plot served it's purpose, and was very linear, which I write the same way too, so I'm not discounting it by any stretch. But the plot was convenient, and easy. The books I love are complicated and twisted, and this was not that.
I could keep going, but this post is long enough, and I'd be surprised if any of you made it this far, listening to my rants and raves.
But now I can say I've read it.
No more excuses.
