{"id":201,"date":"2008-03-30T07:21:46","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T11:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=201"},"modified":"2008-05-01T09:58:31","modified_gmt":"2008-05-01T13:58:31","slug":"and-the-vortex-spits-me-out-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/and-the-vortex-spits-me-out-again\/","title":{"rendered":"And the vortex spits me out again&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the <em>Twilight <\/em>saga by Stephenie Meyer, and I praised the series for being fun and engrossing &#8211; for pulling me into its vortex.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the difference three books makes.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve now read all three published books in the series (<em>Twilight<\/em>, <em>New Moon<\/em>, and <em>Eclipse<\/em>), and reached the point of not wanting to ever read another word about these characters.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe I overdosed by reading all three books in a two and a half week span, but I think that&#8217;s being generous.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So here are\u00c2\u00a0a few\u00c2\u00a0of\u00c2\u00a0my harsh criticisms of the series, which are bound to make me some enemies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bella is annoying.\u00c2\u00a0 Very, very annoying.\u00c2\u00a0 The girl never seems to grow, change, or develop in any way: the Bella we meet on the first page of the first book is the same Bella that we leave on the 650-th page of the third book.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Meyer overuses two words to the point of nauseum:\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;grimaced&#8221; and &#8220;smirked.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 Can&#8217;t her characters engage in any other facial expressions than these two?<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of repetition, why does Bella always have to a) pass out or b) be so exhausted that someone has to pick her up and physically carry her?\u00c2\u00a0 I can see this happening once in a while, but I&#8217;ve lost count of the number of times Bella is carried around in the books.<\/li>\n<li>And, yes, more repetition:\u00c2\u00a0 Edward habitually takes Bella&#8217;s face between his two hands in order to gaze into her eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 Over and over and over again this happens.\u00c2\u00a0 Gag.<\/li>\n<li>Then there is the surplus of Important Relationship Discussions in these books.\u00c2\u00a0 How tedious.\u00c2\u00a0 You&#8217;d think that after a year of dating, Edward and Bella would be tired of only discussing their starry-eyed feelings for each other.\u00c2\u00a0 Can&#8217;t they ever go bowling together?\u00c2\u00a0 Or watch T.V. together?\u00c2\u00a0 Or something???<\/li>\n<li>Edward, by the way, is about the dullest hero to appear on the pages of a romance.\u00c2\u00a0 Yawn.<\/li>\n<li>And then the stylistic quibble:\u00c2\u00a0 Meyer is a clumsy writer.\u00c2\u00a0 She tells, rather than shows, and writes copious amounts of prose where half as much would do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My problems with the books lead me to make two conclusions:\u00c2\u00a0 these books are decisively sexist, and very much aimed at a young teenage female reader who has yet to experience a relationship of any depth or commitment.\u00c2\u00a0 Why\u00c2\u00a0sexist?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Because Bella consistently passes out, has to be carried, and needs Protection from her adoring male admirers (and occasionally from the rest of the vampires and werewolfs).\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, some of the other vampires\u00c2\u00a0are female, but our attention is focused on Bella, and\u00c2\u00a0Bella is a stupid, helpless, fainting female who can&#8217;t take care of herself and manages to bungle things up on a regular basis.\u00c2\u00a0 About all that Bella can handle doing is cooking\u00c2\u00a0dinners for her father, who, despite many years of living on his own, can&#8217;t seem to cook anything besides eggs.<\/p>\n<p>As for the intended reader, I readily admit that I do NOT fall into the intended reader category.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m middle-aged, cynical, and happily married.\u00c2\u00a0 But I&#8217;d like to argue that that shouldn&#8217;t matter.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if the books are aimed at starry-eyed young\u00c2\u00a0female readers,\u00c2\u00a0Meyer could still add a bit of punch to her plots and backbone to Bella.\u00c2\u00a0 She could take her\u00c2\u00a0characters from that wonderful first fizzy phase of their relationship into a\u00c2\u00a0deeper, more realistic, established relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 Edward and Bella could, and should, move\u00c2\u00a0on and\u00c2\u00a0grow and change.\u00c2\u00a0 Meyer wouldn&#8217;t lose her teen audience if they did.<\/p>\n<p>Now that\u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;ve left\u00c2\u00a0the magnetic pull of these books behind, I seriously doubt that I&#8217;ll bother reading the fourth one when it is published\u00c2\u00a0this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel like I&#8217;ve lost the last couple of weeks to reading the series, and don&#8217;t want to waste any more time on them.\u00c2\u00a0 On to other, hopefully better, books!<em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, and I praised the series for being fun and engrossing &#8211; for pulling me into its vortex.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the difference three books makes.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve now read all three published books in the series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), and reached the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/and-the-vortex-spits-me-out-again\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">And the vortex spits me out again&#8230;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-young-adult-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}