14May09 Look, sparkles!

About a year ago my friends introduced me to Flair on Facebook. After a few days one of them was asking me “Who are Edward and Bella and why are they all over Flair?” With my google-fu powers I was able to deduce that they were the main characters in a book called Twilight. Until then I had never heard of the series or Stephenie Meyer. A year later (which would mean about now) I could barely turn around without hearing about Twilight and Edward. Bella isn’t talked about so much because everyone (exageration) wants to be Bella. Curiosity got to me so I finally read the books. Er, I mean, The Twilight Saga. Oh who am I kidding. I giggle every time I think about these books being called a saga.

That is, I read them once I finally got copies of them. They are never on the shelf at the local library and I was not going to buy them due to the number of people who have said they are absolute rubbish. I will admit that I was fully prepared to give the same denouncement because I knew about the sparkly vampire bit. Sparkles? Really? Are the going to dazzle me to death with their sparkliness? I tried to put that out of my mind and read the books. Warning: spoilers ahead. Lots of them.

Conclusion? They aren’t quite rubbish or trash but they are not the most amazing books I’ve ever read. I really worry for people who are so caught up in them that they want to find a guy just like Edward. I’m not going to go as far as saying that Edward and Bella have an abusive relationship but it’s almost there. Fandoms, in general, scare me but this has to be one of the scariest fandoms I’ve seen. How are there so many people who seem to have no serious ties to reality?

I have to say this: I don’t think I have ever disliked a fictional character as much as I dislike Bella. She constantly puts herself down, thinks that there is nothing special about her, and is always on the verge of killing herself, someone else, or both due to her klutziness. She’s portrayed as such a martyr for going to live with her dad so that her mom can have some freedom and continues with the “nobody likes me” attitude even though she has guys falling over her on the first day of school. No, the only thing she can think of is the marble-like god and why does he hate her so much? Then, when she finds out why he hates her she willingly sticks around even though he may kill her at any moment. She never accepts that he likes her for her and always points out how unperfect and normal she is and how she doesn’t deserve to have him. Then she starts on the “I want to be a vampire so I never lose you” spiel. That really bothered me until I read New Moon and found out that if she didn’t become a vampire then the Volturi would kill her. Then the “I wanna be a vampire” thing made more sense. The whole four months of depression in which she does nothing? No one is worth making yourself that miserable over. Even when Edward does come back to her it’s not all hunky dory because she fell in love with a werewolf shapeshifter. The whole thing of wanting to keep her half vampire baby is weird but then you find out it isn’t evil so it’s not so weird. But even when she finally does become a vampire she won’t listen to anyone that tries to tell her that she is special and has special powers and is so lucky to have Edward and Renesmee. She’s pretty much living the perfect life but she focuses on how she still is not worthy to have her Edward forever and always.

Edward doesn’t seem much better. He’s moody and contradictory. I’d love to know how many times he said he should leave for Bella’s own good but is instead a “masochistic lion” and stays around, which nearly kills her several times. And then he starts punishing himself for putting her in danger and always looks pained. I don’t see why anyone would want someone “just like Edward.” Justifying that by saying he’s hot in the movie (which was rubbish) just doesn’t make sense to me. Robert Pattinson isn’t that hot and his acting was terrible. He and Bella were so stiff it wasn’t even funny. I know it was a low budget movie but man was it terrible. Hooray for $1 Redbox.

Also, don’t get me started on the sparkly vampires. I fail to see why that is their one drawback to coming out in daylight. I know it would make it obvious that they are different but one might assume that they’re just wearing body glitter. Do you see how ridiculous this sounds? And they can’t be staked, only burned, and crosses have no effect on them. I know the writer can make up her own world but I really don’t like her characteristics of vampires. They’re all perfect and modelesque.

The final big “What the hell just happened?” moment is Jacob imprinting on Renesmee. Really? A newborn half-vampire baby? I see how it works out for Jacob to still have some part of Bella and I suppose since Renesmee is half-vampire, and presumably immortal, Jacob will be able to stay immortal as well since vampires are what trigger the werewolves shapeshifters abilities and they don’t age while they can still phase. Or something crazy like that. (Also, what kind of name is Renesmee? And the whole going psycho bit over her being nicknamed Nessie? Craziness.)

I think the series had a great premise. The vampires are able to control their killing insticts without being cursed with a soul. (Guess who’s been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer?) Some are even able to live peacefully. Some of the vampires have special supernatural abilities, albeit it seems that so many of them have abilities that it’s not really that special. The idea of a ruling body for vampires, aka the Volturi is an interesting concept, as was the introduction of the Romanian vampires. There are other interesting and semi-unique ideas. In the end I think the ideas were poorly executed. I nearly burst out laughing when in the first 10 pages I found the phrase “had been belonged to me.” Seriously, how does something like that get through editing? The rest of the writing was fairly mediocre. I also have nothing but contempt for Bella. I know that’s harsh but really girl, get a brain!

I’ve read several books since then, which I will catch up on in another post. I’ll just say that I’m also fairly upset about the one I just finished because it’s too perfect. I also plan to tinker with the site some, maybe redesign it, but I’m going out of town this weekend so it’ll just have to wait.