Well, I'm about two-thirds of the way through this...thing. I feel dirty reading this thing, surreptitiously (adverb!) carrying this thing around; careful to keep the bag that it's in zipped up, lest anyone see. Anyway, I won't spend too much time writing about how terrible the writing is. I will say that Edward needs some way to appear besides "smoldering" in anything he does. But I digress, back to some content issues.
Someone commented to me in the first post that people read the book is for the relationships between the characters and the politics between the werewolves and the vampires. So far there hasn't been much interaction between Team Edward and Team Jacob, so I can't comment on that much. So it looks like I'll have to talk about the characters themselves and their relationships.
Let's start with the narrator, Bella. Quite simply, Bella is one of the most annoying story characters that I have ever encountered. She is whiny, self-absorbed, dependent, uninteresting, and shallow. At some point Edward remarks how he can't fully explain the attraction that he has for Bella. I can empathize; I can't see how anyone would be attracted to her. She has no discernible hobbies, ambitions, or motivations (besides wanting to never leave Edward's side). The one positive thing I can say for the Twilight franchise is that Kristen Stewart was perfectly cast as Bella, I can't imagine someone who embodies these qualities any more in person *bites lower lip*.
What about Edward? Well, Edward isn't all that bad so far. In fact, if you take away the fact that he loves Bella for who-the-fuck knows what reason, he's moderately likeable as a character. Until he falls for Bella and the pathological co-dependency sets in of course. As for the movie casting, I wasn't too sure about the choice made in the film. Edward is supposed to be breathtakingly handsome, and Robert Pattinson is just patently unattractive.
Which brings me to the relationship between Bella and Edward. The biggest problem I have is that there is no real buildup at all. It kind of moves from them seeing each other in the lunchroom, Edward all smoldering like, and Bella all "woe is me, I'm plain and uninteresting," and then BAM! Now we're spending days and nights together sharing our deepest thoughts and desires. Although in Bella's case, she doesn't really have any deep thoughts. Really, it just seems like childhood infatuation, not love in the book. You just want to sit them down and make them watch MTV's "16 and Pregnant" so that they will see what happens when young people "think" that they're in love. Simply, there's no buildup in the romance. Don't be fooled by this girls; he may say that he loves you with his smoldering stare, but in real life he's just trying to sleep with you. Or, more simply for the Twi-tards EDWARD CULLEN DOESN'T EXIST!. He's fictional ladies.
Ok, just one more section left. Maybe something interesting will happen. I've already given up hope of Bella dying, so my #1 hope has already been dashed. Until next time, oh and let me know if anyone actually went out and watched the new movie this weekend.
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