Meyer, Stephenie - Twilight

[oyceter]

It was really odd reading this, because I had heard rilina rant about it a lot, but my sister was reccing it to me (and nearby while I was reading it).

I think I would have really loved it, had I read it a few years earlier, before I got sick of the entire vampire sub-genre, particularly the entire YA vampire sub-sub-genre.

Bella has moved from sunny Arizona to rainy Forks to stay with her dad instead of her mom, who's off being married. She starts noticing the strange Cullen family at school, particularly Edward Cullen, who is gorgeous and sends conflicting signals. They fall in love! It's too bad, since I think the book would have been about ten times more interesting if they fought crime instead.

Several elements of the book made me think that it would work much better as shoujo manga: a) Bella is clumsy and klutzy beyond belief, yet spunky, b) every other guy in the school miraculously has a crush on her and she doesn't realize, c) Edward is supernaturally gorgeous, and d) Bella's smell is irresistible to Edward.

As a benchmark to see if you will like this or not, if you haven't already fled at the shoujo manga description: Bella describes Forks as literally being hell on earth for her, despite the absence of pitchforks, flame, or anything else; Edward is introduced as having bronze hair.

The thing is, I can totally see why the book is a best-seller and loved by girls everywhere. It's got the same formula that's in Sailor Moon, every series by Watase Yuu, and most romance novels: clumsy, normal girl is pursued by a preternaturally handsome, dangerous guy who dramatically rescues her from situations despite her brief attempts to show her independence. Granted, Watase Yuu's guys are generally less dangerous than most, and most shoujo manga doesn't even have the brief attempts at independence. And the romances tend to lovingly describe every gorgeous detail of the guys, whereas manga lingers over them in two-page spreads. But in the end, it's largely the same wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And, in general, I am a fan of female wish-fulfillment fantasies. I just think I have read too many of this sort, and so, my buttons have shifted enough that this didn't grab them. I would also snark mercilessly at it, except my sister likes the book and recced it, and because this is so the thing I would have loved way back when I was reading LJ Smith.

Also, (minor spoiler!) in this world, vampires sparkle like diamonds in sunshine.

sorry, totally could not resist. but really! they sparkle! LITERALLY!

ETA: And why is it that hundred-year-old vampires are always attracted to teenagers? I don't understand! And why is it that hundred-year-old vampires still act like mooning teenagers as well?

Links:
- buymeaclue's review
- habiliments' review
- sophia_helix's review

Comments

[oyceter]

Oooo, ok. I will definitely look for that.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I loved the Secret Circle! (Okay, might you possibly be at World Fantasy in November? Because I will be, and I am totally willing to bring the books to you.) I wrote fanfic I never finished about that one, in which the Bad Boy didn't get totally screwed. (She had a habit of totally screwing her bad boys. Oh, Julian!)

I re-read the Night World this Christmas, and wept with shame at my past self. Mind you, when I first read the Forbidden Game, I cried so hard I fell off the bed.

Okay, truth-telling time: I actually got my Online Alias Maya from the Night World books.

[oyceter]

I haven't planned for any other cons this year, so I doubt I'll be going to World Fantasy =(.

She totally screwed over her bad boys! Except Gabriel in Dark Visions, except I hated Dark Visions because I hated Katelyn or however you spell her name.

I had the hugest crush ever on Julian. I think I walked out in a daze when I read the last Forbidden Game book.

I actually got my Online Alias Maya from the Night World books.

Awesome!! My FG fic is still up on my Sekrit Fic Journal. Also, I totally wrote drabbles in college for the LJ Smith drabble LJ comm. The biggest secret, though, is that me and my cousin and my sister used to play games to the books: making up characters in the Night World and etc.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Woe! Mind you, the Secret Circle books are heartbreaking because her bad boy in that (Nick, I believe) was actually a good guy! Never did anything wrong! Did not deserve to be crushed into dust! Was just a bit snippy and unfond of the hero, never had a moment's glance towards the dark side, consistently protected the heroine in a surly, awkward, cold-eyed sort of way. (As I swooned, natch.) And I was like, man, of all your bad guys, LJS, this is the one who should catch a break. Alas, no. Well, the hero and the heroine were soulmates (cue greenish pallor) so what could you do.

My best friend helped me make the LJS fan site: she called herself Hellewise. Poor sweetie, she's a little horrified that I took Maya and ran with it. But nobody played games with me, that is awesome.

[oyceter]

Awwww! Poor Bad Boy!

Hellewise! Awesome!

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Ah, Twilight. I hated it.

http://buymeaclue.livejournal.com/236565.html

SHE FAINTS AT THE SIGHT OF BLOOD.

Gawd.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

>That said, OMG you also read LJ Smith?

Apparently LJ Smith = the Labyrinth. One of those things that I always thought was my secret, but no.

I think I have a couple of them in a box in a crawl space in my parents' house somewhere. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I had 'em all. The vampires, the witches, the Game books. Wow. So much angst!

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Ah Twilight! This book probably qualifies as uber-cracktastic for me because I thought it was crap in every possible way, yet couldn't put it down and raced through it all the while thinking it was crap. Maybe it was because the whole time I could very clearly see myself reading this at 13 over and over - and hopefully noticing it was crap. It has every teen girl hook possible short of a mystical horse joining in - but Meyer's still writing more books, give her time. This thing should come with a warning label.

I even read the second book - I didn't want to! but a friend as revenge for loaning her Twilight gave it to me - and it's even worse, with yet another supernatural guy in love with Bella and her passivity taken to such an extreme that she spends a fair amount of the book asleep. Burn these books! Scatter the ashes lest they rise and devour our souls!

[oyceter]

EEE! More LJ Smith fans! I feel so vindicated now.

I missed the Secret Circle books, as I had to read LJ Smith at bookstores when I vacationed in America over summers, but the Game books? I had such an embarrassing mad crush on Julian for ages.

[oyceter]

I even read the second book - I didn't want to! but a friend as revenge for loaning her Twilight gave it to me - and it's even worse, with yet another supernatural guy in love with Bella and her passivity taken to such an extreme that she spends a fair amount of the book asleep.

No way! I think I will definitely skip the second; I've heard it has even more mystical Native Americans in it.

This book is utterly cracktastic, but unfortunately, it doesn't hit any of my good crack buttons.

(I am still not over the sparkly.)

[kate_nepveu]

If I'm ever a vampire, I'm just going to be civil and quiet and polite. That's how you keep a low profile, kids.

Somehow this sounds familiar . . .

I particularly like your quote of "slender, but soft somehow", as a particularly egregious example of a standard genre romance novel description ("slim curves," etc.). It's the "somehow" that does it.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

That was my exact thought as well!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I desperately loved-- and still love-- L.J. Smith.

Nevertheless, I will not be reading this book, although I wish someone would do shoujo-manga style art of the sparkly vampires.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I liked that one. But my favorite teen vampire romance is Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss, in which part of the reason the teenage heroine is attracted to the vampire is that her mother is dying and she wants to understand death.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I'm still not over how spastically clumsy Bella was supposed to be. I mean I'm aware of the romantic comedy convention where the heroine has to prove how cute and non-threatening she is by falling over and walking into things, but Bella was to the point that I thought someone was going to suggest she get a brain scan.

[snarp]

And I just looked at what I linked to, and realized I actually probably shouldn't had, because the Amazon summaries are simultaneously unhelpful and slightly spoilery... so, uhhh, if you haven't read it yet, don't?

Basically it's got a bunch of interesting and intelligent characters - the humans being more so than the vampires - very good, kind of dense writing, and a murder mystery that is almost totally unnecessary. I'm not actually completely sure that the mystery got solved, but I still love the book for those poor people babysitting their vampires.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Dude, LJS was totally my intro too.

I remember looking at those lurid Nightworld covers and feeling, somehow, in my soul, that there would be no going back from this. ;)

Though I'm still pissed off about the ending for Forbidden Game.

Sometimes I wonder if LJS was writing according to spec, or at the whim of an editor, of even against her own instincts, because the end of the Dark Visions trilogy always read like "Okay, I screwed up the romance in Forbidden Game, but I'm making it all better here" to me. I've never read either the Vampire Diaries or Secret Circle, though.

I think I like her Night World books best, except the whole soulmate thing.

Ditto. Again, the treatment of the soulmate thing made me wonder if what was going on behind the scenes -- I loved how Mary-Lynnette kept using it to give Ash pink, fuzzy shocks in Daughters of Darkness... which is exactly the kind of saving grace Twilight needed. A pinch of salt in all that cloying sweetness.

I agree that it read very like a stereotypical shoujo manga -- which was both a strength and a weakness. I think if it'd been an actual manga, she could have also put off Bella and Edward coming together a bit longer, which might have served the narrative better in the long run.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Klause's book really is a gem -- and real one, not a trashy, guilty pleasure-type gem -- of the genre. Her Blood and Chocolate does the same for the "teen werewolf" trope, if you haven't read it.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

To pick up High School girls.

All that 'forever' stuff is easy to say when a) you'll be alive long after they die, and b) they'll probably get sick of you in a few years, what with your emotional growth being so stunted.

And plus it's gives you a romantic tragedy to tell the next girl about.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I may have seen this website you speak of. Link?

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I guess it's time to come out of the closet, I was once an LJ Smith fan.

Mainly Night World, but I also read the Circle books, and a few of the Vampire diaries. By that time I'd grown enough to hate Elena and think that Stephen was an idiot.

I was fascinated by the combinations of hair/eye colours because she never seemed to run out! You'd think there'd be more than one person in a series of books with brown eyes and brown hair, but I'm pretty sure that statistically blonde hair and violet eyes was the most common combination. Of course that made it even stranger that every single one of them was so freakishly pale. Where's the creativity with skin-tone, Smith?

I'm trying to figure out what the appeal was, because it was pretty rare for me to find any of the male leads attractive. I loved Mary-Lynette, and Jez, and that one girl who wasn't impossibly gorgeous, even though she was 'plain' in the most obnoxious way.

I re-read it a few years back it's even more shameful than I'd thought at the time.

[evil-kat.livejournal.com]

There must be something appealing about vapid 17 yo girls. Perhaps these vampires have spent the majority of their first several hundred years chilling out with mature, intellegent women, discussing philosophy, theology, and the problems of immortality. (And sparklology?)

And, reaching 450, they have a midlife crisis, buy a corvette, and cruise the high schools.

[oyceter]

Hee! That was the one thing that I actually accepted, since I'm about that clumsy ;). But I was a bit irked to see that presented as her "look! she is not perfect!" flaw, because seriously. How about personality flaws instead?

[oyceter]

Hee! Ok, I'll avoid the summaries.

[oyceter]

Whoo! Another LJ Smith fan! All these comments are totally making me day! I seriously thought LJ Smith was me, my sister, and our cousin's secret guilty pleasure.

I adore Mary-Lynette largely because of the pink fuzzy shocks, and the fact that they're completely annoyed that they're soulmates. I also like that they didn't get together at the end, despite the whole soulmate thing.