"Twilight" and Other Books of the Damned . . .

First off, I must thank L. for loaning me her copy of "Twilight." It provided hours of amusement and saved me paying the purchase price . . . so once I finished, I didn't have to wonder whether I could get my money back. On that note, while there were things I enjoyed about "Twilight," on the whole, I was not overly impressed (here is the part where anyone who liked the book will want to stop reading and go get a cup of coffee). SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Maybe it's because I'm an aspiring author, but I'm overly sensitive to the artistic side of the craft, and small inconsistencies and character flaws send me into a frothing frenzy reminiscent of an anal retentive obsessive compulsive walking into a tuberculosis ward. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the movie, because it HAS TO be better than the book, if only because the word "butterscotch" can't come up every time a vampiric character is described, and half of Bella's whiny internal monologues had to have been deleted, or the movie would have a running time of over 5 hours. I also want to see the special effects when a vampire is caught in sunlight as Stephenie Meyer has modified the vampire's traditional powers of darkness and damnation, creating a vampiric race that refuses to burn to death (as is tradition) when exposed to sunlight, and instead sparkles. Yes. You heard me. Sparkles.

Where to begin? Bella is your typical awkward adolescent, who has decided to change up her living style (Big City sun bunny) to the small town of Forks, where she fights studiously to retain her Big-City attitude - which requires she judge everyone on an entirely shallow superficial level and rigorously take no interest in anything that doesn't involve her personally. Bella moves in with her father, whom she dislikes intensely enough that she refuses to refer to him by anything except his first name - despite the fact that he bought her a truck as a welcome home gift, lets her do whatever she wants, gives her money at random intervals, loves her unconditionally, and is generally every teenager's idea of the perfect parent. On the other hand, she worships her mother, despite the fact that her mother is a feather-headed, needy hypochondriac who would ditch her own daughter, in traction, in a hospital, because she is EXPECTING a call from her boyfriend and her half-dead daughter inconveniently regained consciousness from a coma at roughly the same time the phone call MIGHT come in. No, I'm not making this up. Check page 468.

But I digress . . . rather than giving the impression she is a self-absorbed b****, her Big-City attitude acts like a strangely irresistible pheremone, and half the school is immediately entranced with her, including the equivalent of the school quarterback. Being shy, and never having been found attractive before, Bella immediately refuses date offers from almost every student carrying a Y-chromosome. (Who knew Stephenie Meyer's was writing a fantasy?) In the meantime, she develops an intense interest in the boy she's sitting next to in biology - a boy so beautiful that it appears he just finished shooting a gel commercial (what does that mean anyway? His hair is SHINY?) - especially since he appears like he is going to throw up every time she gets near him, he's unbearably rude to her, and his eyes turn pitch black. It's a good thing she's already taken all of the high school courses at her Big-City school, so she can ignore all her classes and spend the time surreptitiously watching Edward as he curls his hands into fists and tries to to tear her to pieces.

Edward. Ah, Edward. The vampire who constantly goes into a snit about what a monster he is, despite the fact that he feeds off animals (just like a human), lives with a loving family that do their best to live in harmony and look out for each other (just like a human), and immediately appoints himself as Bella's guardian angel, saving her from death numerous times (not like a human, but not exactly a monster stereotype either . . . ). He may have killed a few people in the distant past, but he claims they were all thieves and murders, which moves his "monster" rating to that of a Marvel superhero (Dununununu . . . Batman!). THE HORROR! And oddly, despite a diet of blood, his breath is apparently minty fresh and every time he exhales, Bella does her best to inhale, which I find highly disturbing. In fact, Edward's worst characteristic is his habit of breaking and entering into Bella's room and watching her while she sleeps, which I find highly creepy and she finds utterly romantic.

You begin to see why my brain is about to explode.

In one of her brief conversations with her father Bella lets drop that several individuals have warned her to stay away from Edward and his clan (the Cullens). Bella's father explosively defends the Cullens, telling Bella that they are good folk and decent upstanding individuals who have never caused a problem, so Bella immediately decides to hide all evidence that she might be dating someone her father would approve of. Oh, by the way, the most outspoken individuals with the most dire warnings happen to be a group of Native Americans with myths claiming they are the descendents of werewolves who signed a pact with the Cullens that banned any friendly, attractive sunshine and daisy vampires from stepping foot on the reservation. (Note this pact has no effect against unfriendly, marauding, bloodthirsty creatures of the damned - which might have been an interesting commentary on gun ownership laws in another context . . . but in this case is most likely an instance of poor writing). But we're not going to explore any of the werewolf ramifications in Twilight, because if something interesting was inserted, the story might collapse under its own weight - and just because vampires exist, that doesn't mean Bella has to believe in or research werewolves, right?

And speaking of research . . . .

Bella decides to research vampires via the Internet, and types "Vampire" into the Google search engine. Her list of attributes are "Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that shift color, blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf (DID SOMEONE SAY WEREWOLF?), cold-skinned, and immortal." And she gets . . . "very few myths that matched even one factor." (page 135). OH MY HAVENS! ARE THEY FREAKIN' SERIOUS? Of course, Bella immediately tosses out all of the movies, role-playing games, etc, that are based on the traditional vampire, which leaves only three tiny obscure entries about the Romanian Varacolaci, the Slovak Nelapsi, and the Italian Stregoni benefici vampires (that sound you heard is my hand smacking my forehead to make the hurting stop). Here's a little experiment . . . . I'm going to Google and typing in Bella's list - omitting Stephenie Meyer's "adjustments" (eye color, cold skin) . . . and voila . . . . 2,060 results.

Research aside, around page 400, something exciting finally happens, and a tribe of evil vampires begins to clash with the Cullens. Rather than describe something so obviously interesting, Stephenie Meyer wisks Bella away to safety in a hotel room in Phoenix, which is described in excruciating detail for several chapters - as Bella has nothing to do but examine the furniture and play with the cheap wall-art while waiting for all the actual action to pass over. The nefarious evil vampires manage to trick Bella into leaving the safety of her hotel room, selflessly giving herself over to death rather than risk her nigh-indestructible immortal love receiving a slight bruising of the knuckles from pummeling her antagonizer to death . . . and when we finally get to the crux of the novel, the face-off between good vampire and bad vampire, Stephenie Meyere ensures Bella loses consciousness so we don't have to witness anything so potentially frightening as a vampire-vampire fight. Instead, we get the ever so satisfying description from Edward "After I pulled him off you, Emmett and Jasper took care of him. . . . They had to leave the room . . . ."

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. (At this point, I had to leave the room, for an entirely different reason that had to do with not nailing the book through a window from sheer frustration.) She can spend two chapters of Edward and Bella apologizing to each other for causing each other such pain and frustration . . . but we don't even get a one paragraph description of the actual fight? We know Edward has minty breath, butterscotch eyes, sparkles in sunlight, and possesses incredible strength and speed . . . none of which we get to see in action? Honest to goodness, Stephenie Meyer spends more time describing Bella's eating habits, driving habits, and showering habits than she spends on actual action and moving the plot forward. (And if anyone believes that Edward chastely stayed on the bed while Bella took a shower when he's proven he can be virtually invisible and travel through her house silently - EVEN WHEN HER DAD IS HOME . . . .I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.)

But aside from those small flaws . . . there was an excellent 10 pages or so somewhere in the middle . . . .

On the bright side, I find the book highly inspirational. If Stephenie Meyer can be published . . . so can I!