Some Finale Thoughts About the Twilight Series So Far

I promise, this is the last post for a minute about Twilight.  Seeing the second movie and reading the second book brought up a couple of items that I figured blog worthy.  I feel as though Meyer should be given credit for coming up with such a great idea and she delivers it effectively enough.  On the other hand, she seems to play around with the rules of the Twilight world to fit her convenience.  Also, the main character is makes me roll my eyes a little too much.  Disclaimer:  There may be some spoilers.

Vampires

If you're anything like me and you read Twilight you probably had a similar reaction to the "sparkle" scene. I was reading the book  I remember reading the book, getting past that point, and setting the book down for a minute.  I looked at the nearest person at the time and saind "Okay, so the real reason vampires can't go into the sunlight is because they're shiny?"  Meyer is turning vampires into the next unicorn.  According to mythology, a unicorn was an untamable beast.  The only thing that could calm it was a virgin maiden.  But they weren't pretty white horses either.  They evolved into that overtime.  Originally, the description of the unicorn was similar to that of a Rhino, which may be where the myth had come from.  In the last few decades, unicorns were found postered on the walls in pre-teen girls' rooms all over the place.  Sound familiar?  Now Edward Cullen is postered on the walls in pre-teen girls' rooms all over the world.  In Meyer's defense, authors have been changing vampires to fit their story for years, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  To me, the sparkling thing just took the vampires too far.  Even the bad vampires glitter.  What point does it serve?

Continuity

This became very apparent to me in the book New Moon. Meyer attempted to explain that Bella is immune to the special abilities of vampires.  This is why Edward and Aro couldn't read her mind, and Jane couldn't torture her.  If this is the case, than why can Alice see her future?  Or Jasper calm her emotions?  Because it works for Meyer's story, that's why.  Same can be said for Alice's lack of seeing Jacob when he pulled Bella out of the ocean.  If werewolves were made only to fight vampires, it makes sense that he may be immune to their powers.  Then we find out Edward can read Jacob's mind...

Bella

When I read the first book, all I could think of was how much of a jerk Edward was, and how I couldn't stand his controlling nature. Then I found a lovely little article on cracked.com that explained it totally isn't Edward, it is all Bella. 

 Feminists often attack Edward for being a condescending, misogynistic jerk towards Bella. They often cite that fact that he treats Bella like a doe-eyed dipshit that needs to be kept on a leash to stop her from trying to play with oncoming traffic. What these people fail to realize is that Edward's treatment of her stems not from the fact that she's female, but because her favorite hobby consists of trying to find new and exciting ways to get killed by household objects. One of Edward's earliest encounters with Bella consisted of rescuing her from becoming roadkill, and subsequent outings have consistently shown her to have the intelligence and dexterity of an apricot. Edward treats her as if she is constantly in danger, not because he's sexist, but because her own ability to detect trouble usually kicks in about half an hour after it's been and gone. He can hardly be blamed for being a bit protective at times - although it is unlikely that Darwin would approve of Edward fucking around with his gene pool so much.

I hated that she spent most of the second book all "woe-is-me" and what not.  Now, it probably is normal for a teenage to be sad for a couple weeks, and tear up at reminders for maybe even a month or two.  Bella had a hole in her stomach for four odd months or so after being dumped, and spent so much time talking about it in the book.  Isn't that how long she had been with Edward before the dumping happened?  Honestly, I'm kind of insulted.  I love my fiance plenty, but I wouldn't ride motorcycles or jump off cliffs just to hear is voice if he left me.

Well, in conclusion, I really sound like I hate Twilight.  I don't.  I'll read the next book, and enjoy it, but for crying out loud Bella, pick the werewolf.  He's closer to human, and it isn't like cuddling with a slab of granite.

Review: New Moon - How the Twilight Saga Sucked Me In

 

I have kept myself far away from the Twilight mania that seems to be affecting women ages twelve to forty.  I overhead a co-worker talking about Twilight, and I did read it to see what it was all about.  After I finished the book, I found myself hating each and every one of the main characters.  Bella was superficial, Edward was a stalker, and all of Bella's friends were one dimensional.  I watched the movie out of curiosity to see what it was all about.  I found myself enjoying the movie very much.  Without Bella's constant narration, her and Edward seemed entirely different.  To add to the appeal, the baseball scene featured a song by my favorite artist.  "Super-massive Blackhole" by Muse.  Sure, it may be superficial of me to enjoy a movie because of one song added to the soundtrack, but that wasn't the sole reason I enjoyed the film. When the second film came out, I had decided I wanted to see it.  Before doing so, I had to read the book...

Review

I went into New Moon disliking many of the main characters, something that could have been a deal breaker for any other book.  I really did not want to like this book.  This did not matter in the end; however, because I loved it! The tension of New Moon sucked me in. I found myself able to ignore the skepticism I had of Bella and Edward (it is fiction, after all). The way Meyer handled the first few months after Edward left took my breath away. For a moment, I could feel that hole that Bella described endlessly. Then I found myself truly liking Jacob, and then disliking Edward less than I did before reading this book. It was entrancing. Though, I must admit that after reading this, I will have to join Team Jacob. 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Club: Manic

Recently, I joined a book club.  There is an interesting story behind my look for a local book club in the uppity suburbs at a later date.  At our very first meeting, we chose to read the book Manic: A Memoir.  The synopsis from the inside flap read:

"I didn't tell anyone that I was going to Santa Fe to kill myself."

On the outside, Terri Cheney was a highly successful, attractive Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer. But behind her seemingly flawless façade lay a dangerous secret—for the better part of her life Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder and concealing a pharmacy's worth of prescriptions meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal."

In bursts of prose that mirror the devastating highs and extreme lows of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster life with shocking honesty—from glamorous parties to a night in jail; from flying fourteen kites off the edge of a cliff in a thunderstorm to crying beneath her office desk; from electroshock therapy to a suicide attempt fueled by tequila and prescription painkillers.

With Manic, Cheney gives voice to the unarticulated madness she endured. The clinical terms used to describe her illness were so inadequate that she chose to focus instead on her own experience, in her words, "on what bipolar disorder felt like inside my own body." Here the events unfold episodically, from mood to mood, the way she lived and remembers life. In this way the reader is able to viscerally experience the incredible speeding highs of mania and the crushing blows of depression, just as Cheney did. Manic does not simply explain bipolar disorder—it takes us in its grasp and does not let go.

In the tradition of Darkness Visible and An Unquiet Mind, Manic is Girl, Interrupted with the girl all grown up. This harrowing yet hopeful book is more than just a searing insider's account of what it's really like to live with bipolar disorder. It is a testament to the sharp beauty of a life lived in extremes.

I'm not one to usually read memoirs, as I personally prefer fiction. For the sake of the book club I dove right in. We only gave ourselves a week to read this one, as it was short and the print was fairly large.

Review

Reading this book almost made me feel like I was bipolar. The author intentionally wrote the book so that the chapters were not in chronological order.  It felt as though she did it to give the reader a sense of how lost she was, and how her personality shifted drastically. This became a little confusing at the beginning.  As I read, though, all these mysterious people she'd mention became know.  The book comes together in the end.  By the time I finished the first chapter, it had drawn me in.  I was both mortified and hooked.  Throughout the book, the author makes some decisions that caused me to momentarily judge her decisions, but I had to remind myself of everything she had gone through, and that her brain chemistry was far different than mine, and there was no way I could emphasize.  This book is a really eye-opener into this mental illness that affects far too many people.  4 out of 5 stars.