Tina's Reading Books

So, I read this book for my book discussion group. I had voted against it initially because I generally don't like to read YA books. It is just a thing with me. I can remember when I was a kid and my ginormous family would get together for barbecues, parties, holidays, funerals etc. Often my grandmother (a total Southern matriarch) and my eleventy-billion aunts and great aunts would gather in the kitchen and talk. And I'd over-listen with real fascination as they talked about marriage, babies, sex, money, love, hate relationships etc. And inevitably, my grandmother would look over to me and say "Honey, you go on outside and play, we're talking grown folks business."

Well, I like my books to be about "grown folks business" and generally speaking, whenever I have read any YA books, they've been a bit young for my tastes, so I tend to steer clear.

But the majority of my book club voted the book in, overcoming my objections by pointing out, rightly so, that we've read and loved the Harry Potter books. And, I like to be open minded to new things and didn't want to deny myself a possible great reading experience because of a pre-conceived notion or previous bad experiences that had nothing to do with this particular author. And the book is so wildly popular and is liked by persons whose opinions I generally value, so I said "Why not."

Sigh.

The thing is, this book was just ok. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad (although I think the writing was bad). It told a generally fine story. I was interested in Bella's move to Forks and her assimilation into a new school. But then the story really began to derail for me. First, it had a really hard time keeping me interested. I simply didn't care about what happened next. I had read the prologue so I really wanted to see who this person was who wanted to kill her and was tempted to just skip ahead. I only stopped myself because I have this weird reading conditioning that won't let that happen. I either stop reading the book cold because I just can't take it anymore or I skim passages really quickly to get to the end. I ended up doing the latter with this one. I don't feel like I missed a thing.

During my book discussion Harry Potter was invoked again. I honestly do not think it is a fair comparison. Rowling's writing, imo, is heads and shoulders above Meyer's. Her stuff is inventive and emotional and her supporting characters are just as interesting and 3-D as Harry. And, even though HP is marketed toward even younger people than the 'YA' set, it always felt that Rowling was writing about 'grown folks business.' By contrast with this book, I felt constrained in the head of a very whiny, selfish teenager. And it wasn't pleasant. And I know some people will say that teenagers are supposed to be whiny and selfish... well then that argues my point for why I should have stuck to my instincts and not read this book in the first place.

Bella embodies the worst of the type of romance heroine I dislike. She is wanted by every guy who sees her (I hate when the heroine is so adored...it is just too easy and lazy, imo), she allows herself to zero in on this one person and he becomes all that matters more than anything or anyone else. And Meyer manages to hit on one of my biggest vampire romance pet peeves --- the utter willingness of a woman to lose her humanity to become a vampire without any real thought or any realizations of the consequences of what they are doing and all because of a guy. You'd think Bella'd pause for even the smallest moment at the idea of giving up regular food for a diet of nothing but blood. This girl fainted at the thought of drawing blood. But she's suddenly eager to enter into a life where that is all she can consume? I'd rather get up at five am and run three miles a day before I'd give up cheese. I am not about to give up a lifetime of good food to live on blood. There is something to be said about the quality of life versus the quantity of it.

I also think the supporting characters are nothing but window dressing. To me, a good group of supporting characters can help make a book feel textured and more complete and that just wasn't the case here. Bella's parents and her friends were mere figurines around which she manuevered.

And finally, I thought Meyer's version of the vampire mythos was 'eh'. She hadn't added anything new or interesting. I guess the sparkly skin could be considered interesting, if she didn't go on and on about how cold and marble-like it was at the same time. Just...eww.

All in all, it was just ok. I will not be continuing the series.