Since I don’t want to blog about the massive suckitude that has been this month or the shambles my personal life is in at the moment, I think I’ll just say eff it and talk about something that is really controversial and utterly, super-duper important.
Twilight.
I feel like I am betraying my gender by typing it, but it’s true; I am not a Twilight fan.
This isn’t a post slamming those who like or love or even worship them. Although, if you go to the extent of making glittery FaceBook badges, own clothing that says “Mrs. Edward Cullen” in glitter on any part of it, or make your husband sit in an ice bath and paint his skin with white, glittery body paint, I MIGHT have to mock you just a little. (YOU have the right to mock me for having an obvious and unfair prejudice about glitter.)
It’s not that I don’t like gushy, cheesy, overly romantic things. I loved Titanic. Hell, I adored The Outlander series so much I actually tried to write a historical romance novel before having my aspiring inner author crushed to nothing by the author. (Really, that is a story for another day.)
Granted, I was a good decade plus younger with both of these things, but still…I’m not opposed to things resembling this series. I’ve tried to like it. I’ve read all the books and even watched the flippin movie, but I just cannot bring myself to give it a thumbs up.
To be fair there are probably a lot of things in my personal nature that prevent me from driving to Forks to have an “I love Edward” orgy on the front lawn of Forks high school.
Let’s look at a few.
1. I’m not one that usually buys into fads, trends, or huge viral phenomenons. At least not lightly.
The absolute craze of these books turned me off of them before I even read them. If everyone and their mother (and that is LITERALLY the case here) starts foaming at the mouth at something, I almost deliberately go the other way on purpose. It took me until book 4 to start reading Harry Potter and it’s because my parents had book one at their house and there was nothing else to read. Granted, there are some things that I absolutely jump on the “I LOVE THIS” bandwagon, but it’s more the exception then the rule.
2. I have personal hang ups that piss me off about this story.
I may or may not have actually thrown the damn thing against a wall when reading it when a few things hit a little too close to home a couple of times.
That said, I know that the first reaction for everyone from your BFF’s to your mother when someone doesn’t like something you do is the “they’re just jealous!” defense.
I’m actually willing to consider that.
I’m married to the emotional equivalent of a Vulcan. Not that he doesn’t have ANY feelings, but I am pretty damn confident that Jonathan would rather tazer his own scrotum than utter a tiny fraction of the dialog that Edward walks around spouting day after sleepless day.
And I am sure that some of that spouting is pretty damn nice to hear.
So, perhaps it’s true and I am just a jealous hater and totally giving this series a bad rap because of it.
Maybe.
3. I think it’s setting up horrible expectations about relationships and what a straight man (vampire or not) is capable of.
Some relationships have actually been really helped along by these books. More than one guy has gotten laid simply because his wife goes on a Twilight bender. And dude, if some guy is happy to get some nooky because of some juvenile fiction, who am I to judge?
BUT.
So many woman I read about and hear about go overboard to the point of being dissatisfied (to hugely varying degrees) that their partner isnt Edward Cullen.
It’s been sad to read and hear about, actually.
From depression with their relationship after reading them to it being a key player in a marriage dissolving, there just seems to be a lot of fall out with these books. Obviously it’s not the author’s fault that a relationship falls apart nor is it all on the book. A relationship that is wounded,or ends because of literature had some really big problems with it in the first place. If you get depression after reading them you probably have some pretty big issues with it outside of these series.
It just seems that for whatever reason, these books just seem to have a powerful sway and reaction triggers in an awful lot of women that goes beyond enjoyment, having it be a guilty pleasure or even devotion, and it turns me off.
And?
If I were a guy I would sort of want to punch the author of this book out for the sheer expectation this puts on men (No, I am not advocating violence. It’s figurative, dude.).
If I were a man I would hate, loathe and DESPISE the day that Edward Cullen was created.
His perfect, gorgeous, strong, plays the piano, composes music, speaks several languages, is loaded, romantic, brooding, dresses perfectly, throws a killer fast ball, he effing glitters while writing endless love letters in perfect calligraphy AND somehow does all of this while being absolutely straight.
NO ONE CAN COMPETE WITH THIS GUY.
Especially some poor, zit ridden high school boy who is still years away from figuring out that it isn’t entirely his fault that his female partner is capable of freaking the hell out once a month for no apparent reason.
I know that I am putting little faith in the teenage girls of the world and I know that certainly not every girl would be effected, but I am going from personal experience here. I would have TOTALLY BOUGHT INTO THIS AS A TEENAGER. That this was how relationships should and COULD be.
Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong.
Even if a small minority of people are blessed with that kind of attraction and passion those relationships can be really hard and tricky to navigate. The fallout can be pretty bad. And if it ever turns? OY. Not good.
Would everyone love that kind of passion and devotion?
Probably. At least for awhile. It might get exhausting and annoying when you really just want some alone time already or when all your furniture is broken from your wild couplings. I certainly wouldn’t have the stamina for it, but then I suppose if I were a vampire I would have a titanium-esque vagina, so it might be a moot point.
At the end of the day I think if there are grown women out there getting relationship confusion/dissatisfaction out there it would be way harder for a teenage mind to sort it all out. So, it’s just not something I would want an impressionable girl reading with rabid devotion.
With the level of obsession that has happened with these books, I don’t think I am totally off in left field here.
4. I’m not a huge fan of young adult literature.
I find it too simple and not meaty enough in plot and execution in general. If I am going to fall in love with it it needs to be something like Ender’s Game or The Golden Compass. These books pale in comparison to the two.
5. I just have problems with the storyline and characters.
While it wasn’t a horrible read, I’m just not a fan of the writing. Even for a young adult book I found it really lacking in a lot of ways.
That’s a biggie.
And seriously, I cannot for the life of me figure out why two men are fighting so hard over the character of Bella because REALLY? She just seems so, so, SO not worth it. She started off as someone who was rather interesting and dissolved into absolutely NOTHING outside of this guy. She basically just became a reason for him to throw himself in front of cars and rescue the damsel in distress. I’m not hating on the damsel line. Some of it is absolutely sexy but it just got to be freaking stupid and ridiculous.
My reaction was similar to the ONE problem I had with the bestest movie ever made. The scene in The Princess Bride when Buttercup is just standing there with a club watching the love of her life, Westley, getting eaten by a big ass rat in The Fire Swamp AND SHE JUST STANDS THERE DOING NOTHING.
DUDE! HIT THE EFFING R.O.U.S WITH THE DAMN CLUB ALREADY AND HELP YOUR GUY OUT, YOU WUSS!!!!
I also found the “Sleeping” storyline lame. I think that the expectation of having a guy hang out all night in a girl’s room with absolutely nothing happening is unlikely at best. It’s a little freaky if you think about it. This guy breaks into her room and sits there and watches her sleep all night?
Uh…
And let’s see…she is willing to, um, have her jugular bit into and pretty much DIE and turn into a creature that must constantly fight the urge to rip open the necks of other humans and suck their blood to be with The Glittery One for all eternity but she just CAN’T BRING HERSELF TO MARRY HIM?!
If I were to be a fan of any of them I suppose it would be Jacob, though I hate the way he loves and hangs on to Bella even when she treats him like absolute shit. THAT is no good example, either. And I should know. I think it’s why I hate that particular story line so much. The way it’s handled pisses me off. All the ways she chose to wrap up most of her story lines were fairly lame but most of all was Jacob’s stupidly convenient “instantaneous attachment to a 2 yr. old”.
It kind of gives me butt heebies when I think about it .
Barf.
And the biggest flaw of all with the story?
I could buy that there are vampires and werewolves roaming around Forks, Washington. Hell…I can even buy that they are “Vegan Vampires” of a sort.
However, I will NEVER believe that some dude that has apparently been walking the earth for 90 years would voluntarily choose to hang out perpetually with teenagers for eternity.
NOPE.
So, there’s my admission.
I have more issues but really, these are the main ones so why kick a dog while it’s down and get petty? I know that many, many, MANY OF YOU will utterly disagree with me here and that’s cool.
REALLY.
Just don’t send me glittery hate mail, yo.
:)
