I shall be blogging later about the more important things in life later (namely me), but I’m cranky about that right now, so I shall delve into my multi-parted rant on vampire literature I have entitled Suckage. And so we begin…
I have long held a fascination with any book depicting the Un-Dead. I read Dracula when I was 11. And I believe I was turned onto Anne Rice novels because I caught the end of the movie version of Interview with a Vampire. Oddly enough, that was not the first Anne Rice book I read. Though her stories are somewhat gloomy, I think her writing style is superb. Anyhoo, this rant isn’t about Anne Rice.
Enter Stephanie Meyer. Once upon a time, when Sparklebumps got hired at a little used bookstore, she was bombarded with customers asking, “Do you have the Twilight books?” and “Have you read the Twilight books?” Now, I am ashamed to say that I was a little bit behind the times in the area of Young Adult novels then, and had never heard of these mysterious books. A few months after hearing these questions repeated had me intrigued, (as did a shiny boxed set of the series at my store.) and I decided to begin this “epic” saga. First, I would like to say that I am not entirely fond of books being written in first person, but if the writing is done well, I will forgive the author. A quick premise (in case you have been living under a rock)- Bella is the new kid in town and falls in love with a GOOD vampire (Edward), while flirting with an old family friend (Jacob). Bella is dull and has the SWEETEST smelling blood Edward has ever smelled in 100 years (what are the odds?) and with teenage angst, he suffers through the whole book trying to tell Bella they can’t be together. Then some BAD vampires (who actually drink human blood) show up and wanna eat Bella, so there is this “epic” battle where Bella almost dies, but doesn’t. (DAMN it!) It ends with the dorky couple going to prom, while Jacob looks on in torment. At least that’s how I heard it goes. I got 30 pages into Twilight and had to stop. It made me irate that Stephanie thinks we are all so doltish that we needed to be told how beautiful Edward is EVERY OTHER SENTENCE. If he is so beautiful, why the fuck does he want the mouseish lummox Bella?And I understand her writing Bella as a character pre-teen girls can relate to, but do we REALLY want our daughters trying to simulate someone devoid of personality? But wait! Bella is the “grown-up” one, taking care of her divorced parents, yet she is immature enough to fall in love with the first boy who want to eat her, while being completely oblivious to the handsome boy WITH a personality who doesn’t wanna munch on her. The only way that Stephanie Meyer used her talent is to write in such a way that makes you want to keep reading. But I didn’t, because I have good books I need to read. Stay tuned for my next Suckage post.
Sparklebumpsthebookwhore 