Thursday, November 20, 2008

In honor of the occasion

So, the Twilight movie opens tonight. As I type, many, many of my friends are lined up in the cold to see the 12:01 showing. Adult, educated, intelligent, strong women. Lined up to watch a teen vampire controlling relationship...err, love story based on a poorly written young adult novel.

I have to admit that I've savored my hatred of Twilight. I've let it fester and grow. I can't even look at a picture of Stephanie Meyer without feeling a little surge of disgust. I think the ultimate trial of my faith would be to end up in ward where she's the Relief Society President.

But anyway...In honor of the movie opening, I'm reposting my original anti-Twilight rant, just in case you missed it.

(Originally posted September 13, 2008)

I'm sorry, O.K. I just didn't like it.



Twilight, that is. Most of my friends have read it and loved it and read the whole series and loved it and are slightly obsessed with it. And I don't get it.

I read it with an open mind. I tried to like it, I really did. But it was so predictable. And so full of teen angst. And so full of word repetition that I wanted to poke my eyes out with a fork. Seriously, I started counting how many times she used the word "glared." I stopped counting at 173 (no exaggeration). Somebody please send Mrs. Meyer a thesaurus ASAP. And do we really need 27 different descriptions of what the vampires look like? Pale. Under eye circles. Unspeakable beauty. Graceful. Topaz eyes. I got it the first 15 times, thanks (and Topaz is another word I can live without reading now for the next 50 years). And did I mention the angst? A quote from the movie Heathers kept playing in my mind through the whole book: "Dear Diary, my teen-angst bull**** now has a body count."

On the back of the book there are reviews from major news publications. One of them proclaims that Twilight is the best book of 2005. Really? Better than A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut? Better than Saturday by Ian McEwan? Better than Harry freakin' Potter and the Half Blood Prince? Really?

Maybe I just don't like vampire books. I read a few of Ann Rice's vampire series and didn't care much for them, and Ann Rice is 10 times the writer Stephanie Meyer could ever hope to be.

Maybe I'm just too old. By the end of the first chapter I had Bella and Edward cast in my mind's eye as Winona Ryder and River Phoenix. The target demographic for this book were mere babes when River Phoenix died and only know about Winona Ryder's shoplifting.

Maybe I didn't like it because I didn't see Edward as some romantic, tragic hero. I saw him as a controlling boyfriend. A couple more over used words in the book were "commanded" and "demanded," both in reference to Edward speaking to Bella. I can't count the number of times he used physical force to compel her to do something she didn't want to do. Bella is far from the role model I'd want my daughter looking up to. I see her as weak and I wish someone would just snap and suck her blood already.

I think the biggest problem is that Stephanie Meyer is writing about things she doesn't know. I don't mean vampires. I mean the dark, evil side of people. She tries to delve into lust and violence and darkness but ends up falling back on cliche's. It's not her fault. She's a Mormon mom who went to BYU. How much lust and violence and darkness could she have experienced? There's a reason she made the vampires all sparkly and glittery in the sun. I was half expecting rainbows, purple unicorns and Mariah Carey to make an appearance in the clearing with them.

Also, I got a tiny inkling that maybe she was living vicariously through Bella. Why else would she bother to yammer on and on (and on) about the boys lining up to date her and how frackin' good she smelled? Sure, the smell played a role in the story, but we didn't really need to be reminded of it every other page. And I'm sorry, but if you're an outcast at one school, it's not likely the popular boys will be fighting over you at the new school. Just sayin'.

At any rate, I'm glad my friends enjoy the series. I don't have to love it. Just don't expect me to read the rest of the series or line up at midnight to watch the movie with you (now that I have River and Winona in my head any other actors will be disappointing).

And back to how predictable it is: I bet a billion dollars Billy and his people are Werewolves. Am I right? Am I?

8 comments:

  1. hey, i hate the book too. it was so boring that i did not finish it , but the movie was great. very action packed and entertaining. the actor was ugly but hey, not everyone can have the looks like my husband. we had a blast. i wish you sat by me we could make fun of the teenage drama together!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I actually liked the trilogy (yes, I know it had 4 books in the series, but the 4th one sucked). But....let's put this in perspective - I liked it for what it was - a fun, page-turning little "romp" of a book - not a book of classic literature. And yes, I'll see the movie - but after things have died down - I aint standing in line for this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awee Brandi, we missed you last night. You should have come and made fun of the movie. The teenagers were so funny. I laughed more at them, then the movie. So funny!!! I give the movie a 7/10...
    missed you!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've said this many places today. I would go see the movie, but I'm not going out of my way to see it. I'm a little more than halfway through the series. I'm finding it akin to torture, but I'm determined to read it all so I can at least defend why I don't like it. My pet peeve is someone who hates something because of what they think it is. So, I'm doing my due diligence and reading. I do think the casting doesn't completely suck though I had different visions for the doctor and Alice. I actually like the secondary characters more than the main characters, too. It's kind of how I feel about HBO's True Blood. If only the writing and acting was a little better, I would totally love this. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am so glad I found your blog because I'm reading Twilight right now and I can NOT get in to it. I'm about half way through- and haven't picked it up in a week. I think I'm done. Time to pass it on.

    It's funny because I really tried to like it. I wanted to like it. I don't like it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I say all us haters get together and mock (Lydia can come, because she seems like an awesome mocker)

    I'll bring popcorn. You bring crappy, teenage-angst books. Blech.

    ReplyDelete
  7. BRANDI!
    you are awesome! i too, have for soooo long now hated the twilight series. i'm so glad to FINALLY find someone who hates it just as much as i do. thank you thank you thank you for posting this! sherrie avery

    ReplyDelete
  8. I second Harmony! Let's band together and hate in groups. That SMeyer is a crazy person.

    One friend of mine actually called me a literary snob for not liking it. (Where's the bad in being a literary snob?) And I replied with, "oh yes, silly me, I like sentence structure and words other than 'smoldering' with my plot...of which there was none!"

    ReplyDelete

Be nice or I'll punch you in the taco.

LinkWithin