Oh where to begin...
At the insistence of everybody I know (with the caveat by adult recommenders that this book is rather poorly written, but addictive nonetheless) I picked up twilight. Actually, my boyfriend picked it up for me at Midtown Comics. First off, props to Stephenie Meyer for the guts and imagination to complete the whole task, and congrats on the crazy success of the franchise (even if she does have a mysterious "e" in her name instead of an "a"). That said, let the slaying begin.
Ahem, whoops, I didn't even mean to make a Buffy joke there, it just happened, really.
Ok, I'm not doing spoiler tags. Everything on this blog will be Spoiler-ish, so really, why bother?
Oh, Bella. Bella, Bella, Bella. You really want the readers to know you're different, don't you? You're such a troubled little heroine, exiling yourself to Forks, being pale (foreshadowing!) and so BORED with all your assignments because you're in the accelerated track and have already read like, every book in existence. For example, page 15.
"I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd already read everything."
Seriously? Bronte and Shakespeare, ok. I feel like that's standard AP or senior elective literary stuff. But Chaucer and Faulkner? FAULKNER? Yeah, all high school sophomores (or is she a junior?) freaking LOVE to dissect the troubled journey of Joe Christmas. And maybe it's just jealousy that I haven't actually gotten around to reading Faulkner at the ripe old age of 28, but that sentence made me scream. Or maybe my high school education was just so mediocre that I can't possibly understand. (Except my high school produced one Ms. Sonia Sotomayor, so take that!) Also, I love how that last sentence doesn't restrict itself to the possibility that she's read everything on the list, or everything by those four literary pillars. Bella quite possibly has read everything ever written. Let's look at her ill-fated journey to the Forks library on page 38.
"I did drive to the library Saturday, but it was so poorly stocked that I didn't bother to get a card; I would have to make a date to visit Olympia or Seattle soon to find a bookstore."
Oh boohoo. See? She has read everything. Why bother going to Seattle, then? Maybe to go write some crybaby rock.
Ok, that concludes my post on Bella and books, a fitting start I believe to a blog about books. Next post: Bella and her flip-flopping on Edward's teeth.
First: Midtown Comics = Best Comic Book Store on the Planet (I should know; I've checked)
ReplyDeleteSecond: I've never read "Twilight". I thumbed through it at a Target, read a few lines, and quickly ran away, embarrassed by the thought that somebody I knew, a total stranger, or random inanimate objects may have seen me reading it.
But just those few quoted above lines make me want to go out, buy a copy, bring it home, crack it open, and through the damn thing straight out the window.
They're that bad.