Posts Tagged ‘twilight’

Wow, I really do tend to do a lot of my writing late at night. I guess that’s really what happens when you end up getting sucked into daily things like making a living, eating, and on the occasion exercising so you can continue to live and eat more. At any rate, I noticed my blunder earlier today and I was mildly mortified at my miscalculation of the number of books I’ve read…but good news (well, good news probably only to me - self-high-five!) is that I really DID finish reading book 10. I’ll be working on my write-up tomorrow.

Today, there is a more important thing I would like to discuss: books turned to movies. Yes, for those bibliophiles such as myself, that concept often makes us cringe. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say “the book was better than the movie/show/webisode” I’d be doing backstrokes in a vault full of nickels Scrooge McDuck style. Though, most likely I’d be lying on top of the pile of nickels bemoaning the fact that swimming through currency is but another romanticized notion from Saturday morning cartoons.

Anyway, I was surfing the netosphere (cough Facebook cough) when I came across an NPR blog (oh how I adore thee, NPR) called Monkey See. A friend of mine had shared a link with the author, Linda Holmes and guest Marc Hirsh discussing the writing style of Twilight.

Oh, and did it make me giggle. Lots. For another giggle-worthy session of Twilight bashing, check out the latest post musing on Bella’s “weird marble fetish”…(”‘I touched his cheek, and it was like a big bathroom counter.’ Yeah, SEXY.”)…which only gets better.

Back to my REAL reason for bringing up the post…I realized that there is a new movie coming out featuring RAMONA. As in, Ramona and Beezus. As in, if you are a child of the 70s-80s and hopefully beyond…these books were just splendidly fun to read. And now….this:

Ramona, the ever-quirky and imaginative protagonist that wrote her Qs with whiskers…or couldn’t resist the temptation of pulling on those perfect curly locks of a classmate. Oh, Beverly Cleary…how you made me feel so alive inside and feel so well behaved.

Unfortunately, I might have to disagree with Linda’s opinion about the potential of this upcoming movie. I always imagined Ramona to be rambunctious, with unkempt hair, freckles and a toothy grin. Beezus isn’t supposed to look like a Disney-fied teeny-bopper princess, either. She was an adolescent…and adolescents in the REAL WORLD are gangly, awkward, and just all over the place.

I guess that’s what normally happens when Hollywood decides to sprinkle in their dashes (well…more like gobs) of glitz and glamor. I just really, REALLY hope this isn’t as cringe-worthy as I fear it to be. And don’t get me started on Matilda, one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME crammed into a laughable (not in a good way) piece of movie vomit.

Fingers crossed that I won’t need to bring in my own bucket when I go see Ramona and Beezus.

As some of my friends know, I borrowed the books from the Twilight series because I decided that it was too much of a cultural phenomenon for me to ignore. It’s hard to resist figuring out what exactly moves an entire group of people spanning from teeny-boppers to cougars. With many people warning me that it would not be a pleasant ride (I tend to have a streak of cynicism when it comes to teeny-bopper angst drama) I decided to dive right in anyway.

I wanted to reserve all of my thoughts until I completed the series. I nearly did complete the series, except I decided to lapse in my marathon reading due to my excursion for Asia. Last night, after settling down a little early due to a cold, I thought I’d complete my Twilight Series Experiment and finish the whole thing.

And for some reason, I could not finish it. And here is why: I picked up the last book, Breaking Dawn, read a few pages, and came across this sentence:

He was both dazzling and dazzled.

When I read that, I just closed the book.

For those of you who didn’t read the books and just watch the movie, I won’t spoil it for you…even though I really want to. Actually, you know what…if you love this series and have never FULLY read it, don’t. Because I will add spoilers, so you know what you are in for. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Basically, the sentence is the narrator (Bella) talking about how Edward is just SOOO beautiful and WAIT! He’s soooo enamored with her.  Gawsh.  How cute.  Barf.

First of all, I just want to preface this by saying that I tried my hardest to give these books a shot. In fact, many friends and colleagues whom I adore and respect absolutely swear by this series. Fine, okay. I can see its appeal. But then, the whole appeal of it is exactly why I can’t stand it.

In a nutshell, I believe most (not all) Twilight fans love the series because:

1. Almost any reader who has ever felt awkward, out of place, unattractive, mediocre and plain can place themselves in the narrator’s shoes. Helloooooooo, teenage years!

2. Almost any reader who has ever had a crush on the attractive, amazing, unattainable blah blah blah guy in junior high/high school/college/life will swoon because Edward is *sew hawt* … we know he is hot because S. Meyer loves to tell us so.

3. Who wouldn’t want to have a kid and still maintain that rockin’ teenage body that transforms into an even MORE amazin’ rockin’ teenage body. Yes, people, moronic spineless whiny-baby (aka the main character) gets knocked up and turns into a vampire.

The reason why I really just can’t wrap my head around his book? All of those reasons above. I’m all for escapism, or traveling to another world through books. But this book basically panders to the worst type of longings — that a strong, hot, RICH guy will swoop in and take care of everything for you. That yes, you are plain and klutzy but it’s cool because when you find that guy, you’ll be validated in your existence.  Gosh, he may hurt you, but he loves you just SOOOO much.

Oh, and vampires are teh hawtness and super nice and not going to eats you dead. And the kicker is..these books are targeting YOUNG GIRLS. Young girls who don’t know any better. Young girls who, subconsciously or not, may think that defining your life by a guy is A-OKAY and pretty super.  As for the adult women who swoon over this…I don’t get it.

And the writing? Okay, I do not claim to be any sort of professional, nor to even claim that I possess more talent than S. Meyer. Truthfully, I hate to judge any writer’s work, especially given that she did, indeed, create an empire on her stories (props to you, S. Meyer, for that).

That said, I simply vomit and die a little inside each time I encounter the word “smolder” or “dazzle.”

Sample sentences? Don’t mind if I do:

“He smiled the kind of smile that would have stopped my heart if it were still beating.”

“I felt as cold as snow - there was no fire in me.”

I won’t even go into how these sentences make me want to bang my head against a hard object. A lot. Of course, despite my grumblings about the poor choice in words (Smolder? Really? C’mon, at least try to break a LITTLE further away from the trashy-novel cliche words, please! You might as well talk about his “hulking manliness” or something if you’re going to use words like that) and my problems with the weak sauce main heroine and one-dimensional hero…some things that were neat were how the families worked and were organized. The werewolf pack for instance. But, yeah. That’s pretty much all I got.

Anybody care to agree or disagree? Please don’t hate. Appreciate.