One word: Overrated.
Simply put, that’s how I would assess the whole fuss about Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight”.
What got me reading in the first place was that tagline they used to promote the movie, saying that Twilight is “the hottest thing since Harry Potter”…
Oooowwwkei….they dared make the slightest comparison, so naturally I was very curious to find out if it really made sense to compare the two or if it is just another marketing strategy.
After reading Twilight, I figured that yeah, it is another marketing strategy and that the comparison was referring to the movies rather than the books.
Because, honestly, the Twilight series can in no way, be compared to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Puhlease.
Twilight: The Book
Good points first.
The book is really easy to read.
The story is told based on one person’s point of view.
The narration is simple and there are not a lot of complications. Just the fact that Bella, the main female character of the story started to fall in love with a “super hot” guy named Edward; well, the guy here turns out to be a vampire. Bella is drawn to Edward’s mystery and mainly his “super hot” looks…Believe me, she’ll make sure that you know how hot Edward is on every page (and how she really loves it when Edward “smiles his crooked smile” for goodness’ sake!!!!)
And this is where the problem starts.
It’s like hearing one girl rant about her crush. It’s repetitive and bordering on obsession. Surely, you will get tired of all that. Not to mention the fact that she’s ready to give up everything in order to stay with this guy forever, even if it means giving up her humanity or selling her soul to the devil probably. She might as well have ‘love is blind” written on her forehead; her reaction when she learns that Edward is a vampire is irrational by fiction’s standards.
If you’re looking for a strong-willed female character in Bella, you’ll be disappointed. Instead, what you will find is a clumsy girl who struggles even to keep her feet on the ground…the proverbial damsel in distress. As one reader described her, she is a “vessel for reader self-insertion”.
As for the other characters, we can only guess what deeper motivations they have…
And the plot? My goodness…Quite predictable.
It would have been more dramatic if the chapter on Edwards’s confession on how he became a vampire happened in a more symbolic or dramatic setting rather than his car. =(
I was really waiting to be moved…but unfortunately it didn’t come.
I guess, this whole fad is not really for me. I probably would have enjoyed this one if I read it during my grade school days, but then again I had a dose of vampire stories then courtesy of Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley series (to which I now realize, I can compare Twilight with…lol)
Twilight- The Movie
Don’t get me wrong (yeah right…haha), I think the movie would fare well.
Why? Because they weren’t as faithful to the book in their movie adaptation.
First, they changed the mood of the movie…Bella’s discovery of Edward’s real identity in the movie is a bit more suspenseful. Her reaction more believable as she seems to have doubts and fears (a more realistic reaction than submitting to it in a matter-of-fact kind of way- like was how it was in the book).
Second, the setting…ahhh, the setting…In the trailer, we see can see that the “confession” part happened in a forest, and Bella here was more confrontational and not dreamily staring at Edward’s face ready to believe everything he said even before he says it. =P
Lastly, James and Edward’s fight scene was included in the movie…Whereas in the book, our damsel in distress unfortunately passed out so the action scenes weren’t part of her narration (Bella is such a killjoy&hellip
. Nothing like two vampires strangling each other to boost the entertainment value of the movie, right?
Well, so much for a Rowling or Tolkien moment for Stephenie Meyer and me….
I probably would read the series anyway.
Are you kidding me? I’m a certified pop culture junkie!
But don’t expect me to put Twilight or Stephenie Meyer for that instance, on a pedestal…
Side note:
The books cover art is quite cool though. =)
And the official single from the movie’s soundtrack is Decode by Paramore…hot! (like Edward Cullen…duhr?!)
Some reader reactions from people who rode the Twilight bandwagon on the comparison between Harry Potter and Twilight:
- A lot of people recommended the Twilight series to me after I finished Deathly Hallows and I’ve read all three books in that series. To be honest, I’m not all that fond of them. The Twilight books read like a self-insert for teenage girls. The writing is melodramatic and tedious. There is a description about how “hot” the main vampire character (Edward) is on practically every page. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, happens to fall in love with the clumsy main female character (the self-insert).
- I CANNOT fathom how this series got so popular. The Twilight story reads like the “Mary-Sue” fanfics people are always complaining about. The characters are cookie-cut outs and stereo-typical.
- It doesn’t come close to Harry Potter but it seems a lot of HP fans migrated to that fandom after DH to fill up the hole HP left.
Posted by Julie on April 10, 2008, 09:38 PM
- Twilight is really the story of a girl stringing along a couple of chumps (albeit vampire and werewolf chumps). These types of stories are typically very popular with girls. The HP series has a more universal appeal.
It’s kind of like comparing New Kids on the Block to the Beatles.
Posted by Protego! on April 10, 2008, 09:41 PM
- I’ve gotta agree with Julie and Protego. The Twilight series is an overly saturated romance novel. I can’t believe people actually enjoy reading it. What an insult to the Harry Potter series that people compare the two.
Posted by Emma on April 10, 2008, 09:47 PM
- While the Twilight books are mildly entertaining, they aren’t even in the same universe as the Harry Potter books. Twilight is a “Sweet Valley High” style romance with a minimum of real plot. There is no comparison in any way, shape, or form.
Posted by Bunney on April 10, 2008, 10:41 PM
- Twilight is not a series that will be read to our great-great-grandchildren for generations to come. It’s a temporary teenage-girl phenomenon because everyone wants Edward as their boyfriend. lolPosted by Libby on April 10, 2008, 10:49 PM
- It’s sad, then, that one of the inadvertent messages of the Twilight series is an unfortunate one: That it’s fine for a teenaged girl to let her “one true love” lock her up ‘for her safety,’ save her butt at each turn, and basically give up everything and everyone for him. Bella is a vessel for reader self-insertion, as someone said above, and she needs to get some backbone and gumption (I almost typed ‘spunk,’ fyi. But I think that means something totallllly different in other countries than it does in America. hahaha).
Posted by diasphora on April 11, 2008, 12:06 AM
- I don’t even know why the Twilight Fandom is so big. Meyer’s writing is so poor, she needs to repeat a high school creative writing class. There is absolutely no depth to her plot, characters, or themes. It’s just a book written for a movie. Artless. Shallow.
- Twilight is glorified fan fiction about a bunch of whiny teenagers…It’s like Harry’s emo!angst from OotP magnified x 10000000 on every page. Sprinkle in some serious Mary Sue and there you go. You’ve got Twilight.
