(no subject)
Bill: Why is the bedroom covered in feathers?
Me: I had sex with a vampire while you were studying.
Bill: Oh. This involved feathers?
Me: It's a vampire thing, apparently. Goes with being sparkly.
Bill: Right.
(Actually, I decided to wash the pillow covers with the sheets, and apparently, my feather pillows leak, something I only realized when I unzipped the pillow covers and feathers went everywhere. But I like the unofficial version better.)
(Also, have finished reading the fourth book of the Twilight series. Oh, man. That was like the worst fanfic ever. )
First and foremost, the thing that bugged me the most about Breaking Dawn wasn't the fact that Bella had sex with Edward .... or had a baby with Edward .... or became a vampire like Edward. No, the thing that bugged me the most was that Stephanie Meyer took every standard she's set up for herself in the series to date and threw the whole thing straight out the window.
I mean, in every book so far, there were always two things happening: the first, that Bella and Edward's story was highlighted by comparing them to another story-book couple. (Romeo & Juliet in New Moon; Heathcliff and Catherine in Eclipse.) This element - which was one of the few personality traits of Bella that we had anywhere in the series, her love of literature - was completely dropped in the last book.
(That's very much indicative of how little there was to Bella by now. I mean, I know one complaint has always been that she had no personality - but I always saw the literature thing as something Meyer could point to and say, "Look! Personality!" Except it wasn't there any longer. Bella seemed to have forgotten there was such a thing as books in the world. She even had a good chance to do something with this - when reading to Renesmee before bed - and it went nowhere.)
The second part I found missing was the element of danger. The first two-thirds of the book, there was absolutely no sense of danger. Maybe this would have been different if I hadn't known that Bella was going to have Renesmee, but for once, there was no figure threatening Bella's life. Even when the spectre of the Vulturi returns in the last third - it's a bit out of the blue. Kind of like Meyer got to that point and went, "Oops, I knew what I forgot, no one's tried to kill Bella yet!" After all, it's one of the main staples of the books: Edward loves Bella, Bella loves Edward, someone tries to kill Bella, vamps die, Jacob is lonely."
None of that. (Except for the vamps die.) What's more, Jacob's not lonely anymore, because not only did he imprint himself on a TEN-MINUTE OLD BABY GIRL, he picked one who's going to be fully grown in about seven years.
(Now, here's a thought. Maybe Bella transferred all her personality onto Renesmee - who, with luck, will take the nickname Nessie and never let it go - and that's why Jacob is now drawn to her instead of Bella. Since he's always liked Bella for her personality, while Edward was in it mostly for the smell.)
Of course, I can kind of see why the Twilight kiddies are so taken with fanfic. After all - there's barely a kiss in Breaking Dawn, and we all know that the entire reason for fanfic is porn. I'm sure if one were to look, there'd be every conceivable combination of porn there for the reading, and probably certain combinations that no one is meant to see. (One must admit, Twilight, like HP, has a larger cast of stock characters than DW, and therefore in some ways could be more interesting to write. There are just too many incidental characters in DW, and not enough minor ones. Which is not to say I'm going to run off and write Twilight fanfic - egads, no. I'd rather pick up Star Trek, which isn't likely to happen either. One obsession at a time, thank you.)
(Also, pon farr porn is far more entertaining than vampire porn. Just sayin'.)
In short - and who knew I was going to write a book review here? Eeek, I must be recovered from Round Three of CoT - entertaining for an afternoon, and also excellent fodder for complaining like mad. I could probably pick other parts of the series apart if I wanted, but Cleo is hungry and so am I. And I need to do a bit of reading before I head to work, where I plan to work on momdaegmorgan's Phanfic should I have opportunity to do so.
Me: I had sex with a vampire while you were studying.
Bill: Oh. This involved feathers?
Me: It's a vampire thing, apparently. Goes with being sparkly.
Bill: Right.
(Actually, I decided to wash the pillow covers with the sheets, and apparently, my feather pillows leak, something I only realized when I unzipped the pillow covers and feathers went everywhere. But I like the unofficial version better.)
(Also, have finished reading the fourth book of the Twilight series. Oh, man. That was like the worst fanfic ever. )
First and foremost, the thing that bugged me the most about Breaking Dawn wasn't the fact that Bella had sex with Edward .... or had a baby with Edward .... or became a vampire like Edward. No, the thing that bugged me the most was that Stephanie Meyer took every standard she's set up for herself in the series to date and threw the whole thing straight out the window.
I mean, in every book so far, there were always two things happening: the first, that Bella and Edward's story was highlighted by comparing them to another story-book couple. (Romeo & Juliet in New Moon; Heathcliff and Catherine in Eclipse.) This element - which was one of the few personality traits of Bella that we had anywhere in the series, her love of literature - was completely dropped in the last book.
(That's very much indicative of how little there was to Bella by now. I mean, I know one complaint has always been that she had no personality - but I always saw the literature thing as something Meyer could point to and say, "Look! Personality!" Except it wasn't there any longer. Bella seemed to have forgotten there was such a thing as books in the world. She even had a good chance to do something with this - when reading to Renesmee before bed - and it went nowhere.)
The second part I found missing was the element of danger. The first two-thirds of the book, there was absolutely no sense of danger. Maybe this would have been different if I hadn't known that Bella was going to have Renesmee, but for once, there was no figure threatening Bella's life. Even when the spectre of the Vulturi returns in the last third - it's a bit out of the blue. Kind of like Meyer got to that point and went, "Oops, I knew what I forgot, no one's tried to kill Bella yet!" After all, it's one of the main staples of the books: Edward loves Bella, Bella loves Edward, someone tries to kill Bella, vamps die, Jacob is lonely."
None of that. (Except for the vamps die.) What's more, Jacob's not lonely anymore, because not only did he imprint himself on a TEN-MINUTE OLD BABY GIRL, he picked one who's going to be fully grown in about seven years.
(Now, here's a thought. Maybe Bella transferred all her personality onto Renesmee - who, with luck, will take the nickname Nessie and never let it go - and that's why Jacob is now drawn to her instead of Bella. Since he's always liked Bella for her personality, while Edward was in it mostly for the smell.)
Of course, I can kind of see why the Twilight kiddies are so taken with fanfic. After all - there's barely a kiss in Breaking Dawn, and we all know that the entire reason for fanfic is porn. I'm sure if one were to look, there'd be every conceivable combination of porn there for the reading, and probably certain combinations that no one is meant to see. (One must admit, Twilight, like HP, has a larger cast of stock characters than DW, and therefore in some ways could be more interesting to write. There are just too many incidental characters in DW, and not enough minor ones. Which is not to say I'm going to run off and write Twilight fanfic - egads, no. I'd rather pick up Star Trek, which isn't likely to happen either. One obsession at a time, thank you.)
(Also, pon farr porn is far more entertaining than vampire porn. Just sayin'.)
In short - and who knew I was going to write a book review here? Eeek, I must be recovered from Round Three of CoT - entertaining for an afternoon, and also excellent fodder for complaining like mad. I could probably pick other parts of the series apart if I wanted, but Cleo is hungry and so am I. And I need to do a bit of reading before I head to work, where I plan to work on momdaegmorgan's Phanfic should I have opportunity to do so.