The supposed big "triumph" of the series for Bella occurs when she is able to use her power to shield everybody on their side, not that she even needed to, but she does. Ok, so the volturi gathered an army to take out the Cullen's because they made a new vampire baby. For hundreds of years, it was presumed impossible for a vampire and a human to reproduce, the reason given is that when you become a vampire, your body stops changing, so women stop getting their periods. Yet somehow, Edward is still able to produce viable sperm. I'm going to assume stephenie Meyer failed 7th grade health class. So I guess it's ok to make new vampires but not if they are children. The lover of one of the vampires they killed in the last boom gets a look at Bella and renesmee and zips off to snitch on them. As usual, people act on assumptions in this story and no one ever gets a chance to explain, which is just bad plotting and stupid motivation.
At last, Alice, Bella's sister in law who had left without explanation earlier in the book, returns with the members of a Brazilian family who Bella and Edward encountered on their honeymoon, as living proof that other vampire-human hybrids exist. This defuses the entire conflict and everybody goes home without suffering any casualties. Anticlimactic, sure, but at this point you'd be foolish to expect any kind of satisfying resolution. Predictably, Jacob imprints on renesmee, thereby resolving the love triangle that wasn't. With a hint of furthering the story somewhere in the future, this heinous shit is over. Here are some notes about the series as a whole:
- getting back to what I started complaining about earlier: the biggest problem with this series is that none of the characters have any sort of existence that doesn't revolve around serving the protagonist. Alice is a perfect example -- when the plot is not requiring her to use her iffy psychic powers, all she ever does is go on shopping sprees for Bella and execute elaborate plans for her prom and wedding. Are we ever given a real reason why she should care so much? Of course not. Even the characters that dislike Bella are given only the defining character trait of "doesn't like Bella." One way or another, she's the center of the universe at all times. This ties right into my theory that these books are pitched directly at girls who hate themselves.
- how much do I regret reading these books? There were a few moments that didn't absolutely make me curse my own literacy. The sections from Jacobs pov are at least not from Bella's, though still not good. The parts dealing with sex were hilarious in a bad way. Any part where Bella was in physical pain felt sweetly cathartic. But other than that, I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything positive to say about any of these books. They are empty stories full of bad prose and nothing else.
- I remain solidly on Team Jacob, not just because he has the coolest name ever. Edward is just way too much of a doormat to Bella and a boring person with no interests other than his girlfriend. In real life, girls hate guys like that. At least Jacob has a life outside of inexplicably crushing on the least desirable protagonist ever put on paper. Plus, I bet he could kick Edwards ass.
- why did I read this again? Obviously, so I could blog about it. But really, I just run low on interests sometimes and give in to ill-conceived impulses. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.
- overall, my biggest complain about these books is the lack of a scene where Jacob attempts to seduce Bella by singing a rendition of "hungry like the wolf". What the hell, stephenie Meyer?
- stephenie Meyer is a Mormon, and a strange, strange woman if her writing is any indication. Se is terrified of sex but wallows in romance to a sickening degree. She demonstrates no understanding of pacing or plotting or character development. She cribs ideas liberally from Marvel comics. And she is the best-selling author of all time, in spite of it all. My hat is off.
Now, who wants to see me read Fifty Shades of Grey?
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1 comment:
Congratulations, I'm strangely relieved that you've finished, and that you didn't gouge your eyeballs out.
My vote is for you to read some Kafka and give a summary and why you enjoy it. You got through Twilight, now you should reward yourself with something more than "not having to read Twilight any more."
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