Sarah's Reviews > Twilight

** spoiler alert ** Okay, I have to say that I picked this book up partly due to all the hype (and partly because it's involved two of my favorite genres)... I mean, so many people had recommended it to me and I finally got sick of hearing about it, so I picked it up and read it... or as least tried to.

Let me first say that I am a huge romance and vampire/supernatural fan, so when I first heard about the book I was really excited to read it because it combined two of my favorite genres.

But, I really regret ever buying and forcing myself to finish it (I hate not finishing books, even if I hate them), it was so bad. Though, let me tell you that I really wanted to like it, really I did... I'm one of those people who likes a lot of popular things, Twilight was popular, so I figured... I would love it just like everyone else, but I was very, very wrong.

A lot of fans wonder why I hate the book so much and here is my list and it's a pretty long one, so get ready:

1. Lack of characterization:
Bella- Okay... I absolutely hated this girl. She was the worst female protagonist I have ever read about! She's stupid, shallow, selfish and just plain annoying! Not to mention she's pathetically dependent on Edward... I mean, come on, NO girl should be that dependent on a boy, not only is that pathetic, but it is very unhealthy. She was also a clumsy little damsel in distress who was dumb enough to get herself into situations that she couldn't get out of. I would have loved for Meyer to have given her a backbone, so she could have done something useful instead of whining and doing stupid, idiotic things that no remotely intelligent teenage girl would actually do. Not to mention the fact that she is apparently very "plain" looking... if that's the case then why are there several guys fawning over her? (And, according to Meyer, one of them is a teacher... um, ew). Bella is a Mary Sue, simple as that. And I hate Mary Sues.
Edward- Okay, this boy is just way too possessive and stalkerish (it is not romantic of him to sneak into Bella's room and watch her sleep! It's creepy and wrong!) Oh, and "bad boys" usually don't sit there and say "I'm dangerous, stay away" etc. all the time... I also hated the fact that Bella described some part of his body every other page. It was completely UNNECESSARY!! Okay, we get the fact that he's hot, Bella... now MOVE ON!

I could go on and on about all the characters... every single one of them was a flat, cardboard cut-out that did not seem realistic at all.

2. Writing style:
Purple Prose- Ew... to this... seriously, all the purple prose made me want to throw the book across the room. Enough said.

3. Descriptions:
I know I said up there that I got sick of reading about how gorgeous some part of Edward's body was every other paragraph... and if that wasn't bad enough... what's worse than is the fact that even with all that unnecessary description of him and everyone else (though mostly him, since Bella is that shallow) I still had a hard time picturing him or any of the characters in my head, for that matter. I also had a hard time picturing a lot of the setting and the action in my head as well. It's kind of sad really... there was so much description, you would think that everything (Edward especially) would be embedded into my brain, but no. That's what makes me wonder why so many fans find Edward so "hot", I never got a clear picture of him in my head to even begin to form an opinion about whether he was "hot" or not.

Seriously, Meyer completely abused the dictionary and the thesaurus while writing this book (so much so that I think she should never be allowed to look at either one ever again)... there are so many big descriptive words used that could be replaced by smaller words that look and sound better. Half the time the words that she does use doesn't really go with what she's trying to say. Simply put: Stephenie Meyer is a moron and doesn't know that when writing you are supposed to use the thesaurus sparingly (aka: only when it is truly needed and not any time you damn well please), it really ruins everything if it's used too much... as Meyer has perfectly portrayed with this atrocious book.

4. Plot:
Okay, the plot gets it's own category because it pissed me off so much. I mean, seriously... where was it?! It was nothing but sappy, gag worthy fluff between Edward and Bella until page 400 or so, when something finally happened. And, even then... it went by so fast and was not explained well at all (since Bella conveniently fainted during it, which is such a cop out). It seemed to me that Meyer just threw it in there, and it was only put there in the first place, so that she could point at it and say, "Look, there's a plot right there.", when people like me came around and said otherwise. But that's not a plot!! The plot should not take 400 pages to start! And no the whole "romance" between Bella and Edward is not the plot! This is especially the case since we knew from the beginning... thanks to the moronic give away on the back cover that states that Bella and Edward were going to fall in love... speaking of that, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to give away the fact that Edward was a vampire on the back cover?! I mean... really?! That took away any suspense/mystery the book might have had for the reader about what he was... so, while Bella was stupidly wondering what he was, I was sitting there yelling at her for being such a moron and not seeing what was right in front of her.

5. Plot holes
The one thing that drove me absolutely CRAZY was the the fact that no one in the small town of Forks noticed that the Cullens never aged! And the "children" never graduated and went on to college. I mean, if they've been there for more than four years, than I'm assuming that someone would have noticed! I mean, the town could not be full of that many morons! (Okay... I've been told several times that Cullens have only been living in Forks for about two years... I guess all the purple prose distracted me from reading and remembering that little detail...) Speaking of school, why in the world would they willingly choose to take high school over and over again? Especially since they all have several college degrees (which leads me to wonder why, since they are so "human loving" they can't do something useful with their education like Carlisle, instead of sitting on their butts all day and just being useless) I know they need to "fit in", but seriously.. . that's just stupid... they could always pretend that they're home schooled (it's not that uncommon these days). Since that's how the Cullens fit into society, that means they have to move every four or five years to avoid suspicion, right? Wow... that must really suck. However, they wouldn't have to do that if they didn't put the younger ones in school since if they were in the workforce (and being useful to society) then they could stay for a lot longer before people started wondering why they don't age. But, I think I know why Edward and his "siblings" tortured themselves day after day by going to high school... Stephenie Meyer wasn't creative enough to come up with any other way for Edward and Bella to meet. It would have made more sense for them to have been neighbors or something. I can come up with several nice ideas about how that would have turned out and it would have been much better.

I've been told that there are more, but those are the two that really bugged me. Though, I love the fans response to the mention of any plot hole (the rabid ones, not the sane ones, of course). It usually goes like this: "Well it is a fictional vampire book." That's a stupid reason. Just because it's a book with vampires doesn't mean it's exempt from having to be realistic and not having glaring plot holes.

I've also been told that there are even more in later books, but I'm not about to torture myself by reading the rest of the series just to find them and list them... I have better things to do with my time... like reading books that are actually good and not a waste of my time or money.

6. Vampires
Like I said before, I'm a big vampire fan. But, this book is an embarrassment to vampire fiction. The vampires are pathetic, sweet, innocent, almost "misunderstood" creatures. I know that Meyer has every right to create her own idea about vampires. And, to be honest, I was okay with her idea about vampires until they started sparkling. VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE! To have them sparkle takes away the evilness of the myth of the creatures (since, they are creatures of the devil...at least, originally, they were). Evil creatures do not sparkle, the idea's laughable at best. Most normal people are not scared of something that sparkles in the sun. I mean, I know if I saw someone sparkling; I would not immediately think "vampire" and run. Not only because I don't associate sparkling with vampires, but also because how the hell is sparkling evil or scary?! By the way, the whole sparkling vampire idea just seemed to be there because Meyer wanted a reason as to why the vampires could even walk around in the daylight to begin with. The idea was just a convenient way for her to write the vampires. Since, she's incapable of coming up with a better, much more creative idea. I don't mind the fact that they could come out during the day (since that's not unheard of in vampire fiction nowadays), but I wish that Meyer had come up with a better idea that didn't make me laugh uncontrollably at the thought.

All the other myths about vampires are nonexistent. Holy water and garlic won't bother them (just like the sun), stake through the heart won't kill them either, even beheading them won't get rid of them. She made her vampires practically invincible (which is annoying). The only way to really kill one of her vampires is to rip it apart and burn the pieces or to blow it up. Two things that a human would have a hard time doing... which, makes me wonder why, if they're so invincible, they live in secrecy? Especially since (from my knowledge) most vampires don't live like the Cullens, they could careless about humans. If most other vampires were so cruel, why don't they come out to humanity and take over? It makes a lot more sense since a mere human would have a very difficult time killing just one vampire. The fact that they had no weaknesses annoyed the crap out of me. Along with being almost invincible, they all had these special "powers", but they didn't have the bad side effects with them, only the good. All in all, her vampires were perfect.

I don't like my vampires to be blood thirsty monsters that kill everything in sight. But, I also don't want them to be so pathetic and innocent either. The only two vampiric qualities that are there are the ones that are well known among everyone: drinking blood (well, sort of since the Cullens are "vegetarian" vampires; an idea that seriously made me laugh) and being immortal. Otherwise, the Cullens are disgustingly human like.

I think the thing I have the problem with the most is the fact that Meyer has never seen any vampire movies/t.v. shows or read any vampire novels. There's this saying in regards to writing: "Write what you know". Stephenie Meyer knew nothing about vampires when she wrote this horrible excuse for a vampire novel (which is probably why it was so awful in comparison to other vampire novels, whether those books are in the romance section of the bookstore or the horror/sci-fi section). A good author always does their research (whether it's fiction or non-fiction is irrelevant). This doesn't mean that she needed to go by the other myths, it just means that she should have done a little research to see what she was getting herself into. If she had done this, I would have been able to respect her ideas more because at least then she would have done her research.

Where the vampires are concerned, this novel is an embarrassment to vampire/supernatural fiction.

7. Messages
I am somewhat appalled at the messages that this book sends out.. they are so anti-feminist, it's disgusting:
1. It's perfectly okay to have no goals or aspirations or even an education, just get yourself a man and he'll take care of you. (All Bella wants is to be with Edward, some aspirations, huh?)
2. It's also perfectly okay to like someone because of their physical features... this is not love people, it's lust! They have nothing in common! He likes her because she smells nice and she likes him because he's hot. (Bella goes on and on and on about how hot some part of Edward is every other page)
3. When you have several guys fawning over you pick the hottest one of them all because looks are so very important. (Mike and Eric pretty much say the same thing to Bella on her first day of school, but she's nicer to Mike than Eric because the latter wasn't very attractive. Also, she picks Edward because of his looks as well)
4. It's okay if the guy you love sneaks into your bedroom and watches you sleep at night (before you even know him all that well)... that's completely normal and romantic... not the the least bit creepy or stalkerish. (It's completely disgusting to hear girls talk about this. They swoon and gush about how romantic it is... seriously, what is wrong with people these days?!)
5. It is perfectly okay to become completely obsessed with your boyfriend and depend on him for everything.(Bella's obsession and dependence on Edward sets feminism back a couple hundred years or so)
6. It also teaches that not only is it okay to change yourself for a guy, but it's also okay to give up EVERYTHING for him as well. (Bella wants to become a vampire and leave her family and friends to be with Edward. What. The. Hell.)
7. Your life is not complete until you find a man. (This is nothing but a LIE. Girls do not need a man to be complete)

Like with the plot holes, I've been told that there are many more terrible messages in later books and once again, I'm not about to go out and read the books. However, I will say this... from what I've heard, they sound worse than the ones I've already listed.

8. The Obsession:
Well, this gets its own category, mostly because I just don't understand what all the obsession is over... it's a book, and a poorly written one at that. I run across girls all the time arguing over who Edward "belongs" to... it's pathetic and kind of scary. He's a book character... he doesn't belong to anyone, but Meyer, since she's the one who created him.

I also hate the fact that I can't go into the book store now without being bombarded with a huge display dedicated to this crappy series... makes me sick to see such praise and popularity for a mediocre book series when there are so much better authors out there that are virtually ignored since they write real fiction and none of this poorly written wish fulfillment fantasy crap.

This was obviously a fulfillment story that I would expect a preteen to write on her livejournal. This is not a book I would expect a thirty something year old woman with a college education to write and actually attempt and then succeed in getting published. And, it was a degree in English... seriously, I would have expected much better from someone who had that degree... since she spent college studying books and analyzing them etc. you would think that she would know how to write one the proper way...

Meyer could have made this book great, but no... instead she took the easy way out: a cliched, simple, overused plot and added vampires to it(as if that made it any different).

Honestly, I've read better over on fictionpress.com... and that's really sad, because most of the authors over there are between the ages of 14 and 26 and are amateurs in the field. Maybe, if Meyer had posted this up there first, it would have been a much better story because the good writers over there would have set her straight. Maybe then, I would have been able to get through the novel, because it might have actually been good!

And, oh just for the record... Twilight is NOT the next Harry Potter, nor is it better than Harry Potter... I say that not only because JK Rowling actually has talent, but also because they are in completely different genres and can't really be compared.

Though, it does make me sick to see Harry Potter even mentioned in the same sentence as this piece of crap... (unfortunately, that couldn't be avoided in this review) and it's an insult to JK Rowling to have her amazing writing compared to the horrible writing of Stephenie Meyer.

EDIT: I found this site, and thought I should share with everyone: http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.c...
The creator of the above site has scanned copies of the Twilight books on to her computer and has taken it upon herself to point out the many issues that the books have (these are mostly grammatical in nature). If you are a fangirl who believes that Twilight is perfect and has no flaws then you should really take a look at this.