*No Spoilers*
*Ok, well TINY spoilers about the third book , Eclipse, right near the end.*
Too many have fallen victim to this patronizing garbage. The phenomenal success of this franchise just lends evidence to the fact that any book (or movie), no matter how plainly or poorly written can be precisely tuned to a specific audience (see: Overly-romantic, boy crazed and potential goth girls.) and make absolute fucktons of money. Stephanie Meyer’s writing is often described (by normal people) as plain, unoriginal and sappy beyond measure. These books set the main character up as a TERRIBLE role model for young impressionable women who just happen to entirely make up the target audience, a suicidal, depressed, selfish and book-tearingly stupid woman who cannot end a day without make at least five awful and or self-detrimenting decisions.
But don’t let me explain to you what I think about it, I’ve compiled a list of things that give you a glimpse into the horrific writing in these books. This article is meant to be taken less as hateful bashing and more as a hilarious read about one of current literature’s biggest fails.
(Just to warn you; I haven’t read the book. But from the analysis of the series from people who aren’t head-over-heels in love with “Edward” combined with opinions from people that I trust, I can safely say all the things I have already said. But, I do plan on reading this series just to make sure it sucks as much as I am lead to believe.)
8 hilariously cliche story elements used by the series.
This was taken from an Urban Dictionary entry.
Cliché #1:
The new girl in school who is awkward and clumsy and terrible at everything. How many times have we seen and read this?
Cliché #2:
The new girl falling in love with the hottest guy in school (Edward). No one saw that coming.
Cliché #3:
Despite the new girl’s awkwardness and plain looks, the hottest guy in school falls in love with her. The epitome of originality, am I right? *sarcasm*
Cliché #4:
The new girl is hopelessly in love with the hottest guy in school to the point where you want to slap her because she’ll do literally everything and anything the hottest guy in school will tell her to do just for him.
Cliché #5:
The vampire (who is the hottest guy in school), despite his love for the new girl, thirsts for her blood and struggles to control his bloodlust. Wow.
Cliché #6:
The vampire is a good vampire who doesn’t want to hurt humans, so he feeds off of animals instead. *cough* Louis from Interview with the Vampire *cough*
Cliché #7:
The vampire thinks he’s a monster and that the new girl should stay away from him if she values her life, but of course the new girl risks her life to be with him.
Cliché #8:
The new girl would rather die than not be with the vampire, which is the stupidest thing anyone on this Earth can ever say. Yes, I understand she’s madly and hopelessly and stupidly in love with him, but you only get one life. She isn’t even considerate of the family members she would leave behind who would mourn her death.
A few literature-shatteringly dreadful quotes from the series.
“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very Dark, but there were stars–points of light and reason…And then you shot across my sky like a meteor.” (Edward, New Moon)
“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?”
“Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.” (Edward and Bella, Twilight)
Bella: I want you to call me every bad name you can think of, in every language you know. I want you to tell me that you’re disgusted with me and that you’re going to leave so that I can beg and grovel on my knees for you to stay.
(”Dear God, Meyer WROTE THAT?!?! That is one of the most misogynistic things I’ve ever heard, fiction or not! And girls look up to this pitiful pile of low-self esteem, chronic bitchiness, and all-around stupid-ass who has no idea what’s good for her?!”) - Quoted from the forum from which these quotes were extracted.
“Excuse me as I restart my heart”(Edward)
“Bella, I’ve already expended a great deal of personal effort to keep you alive. I’m not about to let you behind the wheel of a vehicle when you can’t even walk straight. Besides, friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“You’re intoxicated by my very presence”
(AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, *inhale* AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK! ISN’T HE JUST THE FUCKING SWEETEST??)
Honorable mention for INCREDIBLE CHEESE:
“The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence.”
“I couldn’t imagine how an angel could be any more glorious. There was nothing about him that could be improved upon.”
“I was in danger of being distracted by his livid, glorious face. It
was like trying to stare down a destroying angel.”
“He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”
(HAHAHA. For someone who is trying to push good, clean fun on the youth of the world, that sure sounds like a line from a raunchy porno.) - Quoted from the forum from which these quotes were extracted.
Also, go here for a follow up article to the one I got the excerpts from, It’s genius and I wouldn’t quite feel right copy pasting it like I want to. The author, Kellen Rice, is just fantastic.
Twilight is the story of the so-called “average” new girl Bella Swan (Ha, ha, get it? Beautiful Swan?), who finds herself as the object of not one, not two, but a total of five boys’ romantic designs (because she’s so “plain”, see?). The most important of these is the mysterious, hilariously-Byronic Edward Cullen. Bella plays the pitiful damsel in distress a few times and after 200 pages of thinly written suspense, we learn that Edward is in fact a vampire. Never fear, though, because Bella’s “Adonis-like” admirer is no Nosferatu. Instead, he and his vampire family are so-called “vegetarian” vampires, feeding off of animals instead of humans and inexplicably attending high school (during lunch periods they buy trays of food and stare at each other so that Bella can conveniently get a glimpse of Edward from across the cafeteria)…
First and foremost, the books present a female heroine who can hardly take a step without needing some boy to rescue her. In fact, the books represent sexist views in almost every way-from the fact that Bella gives up her ambitions and plans for college to get married to Edward, the fact that she is portrayed as a modern Eve, begging the noble, moral gentleman for sex while he desires to preserve their virtue, the fact that their relationship is dangerously unhealthy, and finally to the fact that nearly every single female character in the book is a hopelessly negative caricature.
Eclipse. It is in this tome that Edward and Bella’s relationship takes a decidedly worse turn. Edward goes so far as to remove Bella’s engine from her car to prevent her from seeing her friend, Jacob, and even has his vampire ‘sister’ kidnap her from a weekend. Bella is a little peeved at this, sure, but she writes off Edward’s atrocious behavior with the terrifying “he’s just a little overprotective” and “he does it because he loves me”. Reader, I actually felt a little sick while reading this, despite these so-called good intentions (they’re always leading to hell, remember). Not only does Meyer give her two characters an obviously unhealthy-even abusive-relationship, but she romanticizes and idealizes it, and not only with Bella and Edward, but with Bella and Jacob as well.
Jacob, in fact, gets a bizarre personality transplant (lycanthropic dissociative identity disorder, maybe?) and turns into a real asshole in this book. He actually forcibly kisses Bella-twice-while ignoring her protests and actually threatens suicide should Bella refuse him. But not once does the thought of abuse, sexism, or inequality even occur to her main character! In fact, halfway through Jacob’s forced kiss (sexual assault, mind you) Bella actually decides that she’s in love with him. What is this??
Thankfully, the ‘Twilight’ series is over. Not as great is the fact that millions of girls are reading this sexist tripe without a care in the world
I WISH I could have added a part about the end of the series to this article without feeling like a spoiler toting jackass… But I couldn’t, suffice it to say that the series ends with mind-bending fail.
End of article. Don’t get mad for this, I only thought these little tid-bits poking fun at the book were goddamn hilarious. I’m not going to do anything to ruin you’re newly acquired unrealistic expectations of imaginary gay vampire boyfriends.
