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So Twilight is a teen series, written by author Stephenie Meyer. Did you read it? If yes, what do you think of it? Do you like it or not?

/thread

I'm having some serious deja vu.

I read some of it, a few of the first chapters of the first book. It is not well-written. The characters are not interesting. A lot has been said/speculated about Bella being a Mary Sue, but I don't know enough about Stephanie Meyer to say for sure. However, Bella has a lot of the qualities I'd expect to find in a much younger author's Mary Sue character. Plain-looking except that everyone else sees her as beautiful; tormented by, well, not really anything, so constructs a drama with her as a supposedly helpless centrepiece. Bella's every move is to simply to make her wholly uninteresting by defering all consequences to the decisions of those around her. She never has to make a choice, which is great, because young people love avoiding responsibility. Plus the hottest guys want to commit their lives to her (and then bang her, which is the benchmark for romantic, when you're 15 and 16).

Anyway, it's appeal to young people, young girls in particular, is unsurprising. I'd have eaten that shit up at 14-15 even as a guy, though with my sympathies toward the oh so brooding Edward.

Whatever gets people interested in reading is okay by me, though I admit there's a snobbishness that wants me to pull the book out of their hands and hand them something better.

Ravenpoe said:

I'm having some serious deja vu.

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I am starting to like the term Deja Moo. "I've heard this bull before."

Didn't... didn't we have this thread already?

https://www.halforums.com/threads/twilight.30350/

Oh my god, we did! I thought the deja vu was for the "It stinks" pic when I posted it in the Charmed thread.

NaiwenBot is broken, posting on a loop.

Chad Sexington said:

I read some of it, a few of the first chapters of the first book. It is not well-written. The characters are not interesting. A lot has been said/speculated about Bella being a Mary Sue, but I don't know enough about Stephanie Meyer to say for sure. However, Bella has a lot of the qualities I'd expect to find in a much younger author's Mary Sue character. Plain-looking except that everyone else sees her as beautiful; tormented by, well, not really anything, so constructs a drama with her as a supposedly helpless centrepiece. Bella's every move is to simply to make her wholly uninteresting by defering all consequences to the decisions of those around her. She never has to make a choice, which is great, because young people love avoiding responsibility. Plus the hottest guys want to commit their lives to her (and then bang her, which is the benchmark for romantic, when you're 15 and 16).

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With some name replacements, this very much sounds like a description of Sansa's behaviour in GoT. Which is why she's not a strong female lead, but a well-written weak female character.

I'm too lazy to put this in the other thread

Chad was not the only person to notice that Bella was a Mary Sue.

GasBandit said:

Chad was not the only person to notice that Bella was a Mary Sue.

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The sad thing to me, is that it's the Mary Sue of a normal teenage girl, which implies Meyer's held onto some stuff she really ought to let go of. Well, maybe writing the book was cathartic.

Literature that teaches young girls that their lives aren't complete unless they have a boyfriend to protect them.

Great stuff.

I guess you could say that this community is not a fan. Glad to see you are still around, though.

Dave said:

Glad to see you are still around, though.

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We are? I thought us North Americans weren't capable of being glad? Or capable of anything?

I have not read this book. This may change at some time in the future, but it probably won't

--Patrick

ThatNickGuy said:

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.

Some years back, I was grading independent book reports at the Junior high level...

Fuck Twilight.

Dave said:

Literature that teaches young girls that their lives aren't complete unless they have a boyfriend to protect them.

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Not just a boyfriend, but one that is constantly battling the urge to murder them for their precious life fluids...

@Li3n said:

Not just a boyfriend, but one that is constantly battling the urge to murder them for their precious life fluids...

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--Patrick

I've read at least the first book. I might have read all of them. My wife has enjoyed them, and takes me to see the movies.

I'm not the target market or demographic for this work.

However, I have read worse.

stienman said:

I've read at least the first book. I might have read all of them. My wife has enjoyed them, and takes me to see the movies.

I'm not the target market or demographic for this work.

However, I have read worse.

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Well dear that meal was like eating raw vomit, but hey, at least it wasn't diarrhea!

My ex asked me to see the second movie with her, and I didn't want to be a dick so I agreed.

I had/have never read the books, and had not seen the first movie. I only knew it was supposed to be awful and that for some reason Edward sparkled in the sun.

Then, I saw it for the first time. He walked out, the sun hit him, and BAM, it was like someone had gone to town with a Bedazzler on his torso.

I laughed out loud. Not just a laugh, I guffawed in a totally silent theater. I could feel the icy daggers of hate from all around me.

I felt bad, but man it was awful.

I haven't read them, but sometimes I want to, just to see what the hate is about.

I mean, people rag on Dan Brown's writing, but I rather enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol. They weren't great prose, but they grabbed and kept my interest throughout the novels. So personally, I thought the hate against Dan Brown is a bit unwarranted.

I also have Fifty Shades of Grey at home, but I haven't read it yet, so I'm not sure yet if it deserves the hate it gets.

In a similar vein, I sometimes have a hankering to pick up a Twilight book, just to see what the fuss is about.

I have a long standing dislike for the books (more influenced by outsides sources really) and I only made it through the first one. The only part I enjoyed about the first movie was the baseball scene. But yeah, haven't read the rest of the books, but I did see the second movie, just so I could understand how much Vampires Suck (which was hilarious to me, by the way) was making fun of it.

I actually did buy the first book and completely destroyed it by dissecting/marking it up. I was trying to figure out why it was so popular, so I pretty much tore the book apart trying to figure it out.

It kind of kills me that these books and 50 Shades of Grey were so popular. Why?? Also, 50 Shades bothers me so much because there are more than 50 shades of grey!!

I've not read it, but from what I understand 50SoG is basically straight-up porn. Like, Harlequin romance-style porn.

CynicismKills said:

I've not read it, but from what I understand 50SoG is basically straight-up porn. Like, Harlequin romance-style porn.

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I've read Harlequin romances while bored and in college. I would go through 2/day between studies. They were like Snickers bars.

--Patrick

I will reiterate my position from the other thread.

"I have no idea why women love Twilight, because it sure hates them."

bhamv3 said:

I rather enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol.

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The Da Vinci Code wasn't great, and doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all (seriously, the main character... just... aagh) but I didn't think it was -terrible-. But when I tried reading Dan Brown's other books, I had to keep checking the cover to make sure I wasn't reading the exact same book.

I have read and bought every book of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. He has been writing them for 30 years. It's 23 books in total.

It's the cheapest, most pulp book series out there... but it's basically Dan Brown done right, except with finding ships. Plus I know that every book I buy gives Mr. Cussler more money that he ether spends on classic cars or to find real life sunken ships. Mother fucker found the Hunley.

Basically what I'm saying here is that I imagine everyone has a guilty pleasure in books.

AshburnerX said:

I have read and bought every book of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. He has been writing them for 30 years. It's 23 books in total.

It's the cheapest, most pulp book series out there... but it's basically Dan Brown done right, except with finding ships. Plus I know that every book I buy gives Mr. Cussler more money that he ether spends on classic cars or to find real life sunken ships. Mother fucker found the Hunley.

Basically what I'm saying here is that I imagine everyone has a guilty pleasure in books.

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Also the Sahara movie was fun as hell.

CynicismKills said:

Also the Sahara movie was fun as hell.

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It was better than Raise the Titanic, but it was still pretty awful.

bhamv3 said:

I mean, people rag on Dan Brown's writing, but I rather enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol. They weren't great prose, but they grabbed and kept my interest throughout the novels. So personally, I thought the hate against Dan Brown is a bit unwarranted.

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I never read The Lost Symbol, but I did like the other two books. Actually, we used Angels and Demons as a guide when we were in Rome. We visited a lot of the different sites and churches that were in the book. It was pretty neat.

Dave said:

Literature that teaches young girls that their lives aren't complete unless they have a boyfriend to protect them.

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To be fair it teaches them that they need a boyfriend so they have VALUE. Protection is secondary. Remember girls: You aren't valuable unless a MAN loves you.


Also: As much as I loathe Dan Brown, the man knows how to write short catchy chapters that keep you moving and never give you much time to really think about how stupid his story is. That *might* sound like an insult, but it really isn't. He doesn't pretend to be a great author or a master of his craft, he just knows how to write compelling books and he uses structure to make the reader plow through them at breakneck speeds, kind of like a big action flick.

Espy said:

To be fair it teaches them that they need a boyfriend so they have VALUE. Protection is secondary. Remember girls: You aren't valuable unless a MAN loves you.

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And when he does, you suddenly become the savior of your race, who will give birth to a miracle child.

Bowielee said:

And when he does, you suddenly become the savior of your race, who will give birth to a miracle child.

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STOP

Ravenpoe said:

The Da Vinci Code wasn't great, and doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all (seriously, the main character... just... aagh) but I didn't think it was -terrible-. But when I tried reading Dan Brown's other books, I had to keep checking the cover to make sure I wasn't reading the exact same book.

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Probably my favourite analysis of Dan Brown's curious redundancy http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001628.html

Espy said:

the man knows how to write short catchy chapters that keep you moving and never give you much time to really think about how stupid his story is. That *might* sound like an insult, but it really isn't. He doesn't pretend to be a great author or a master of his craft, he just knows how to write compelling books and he uses structure to make the reader plow through them at breakneck speeds, kind of like a big action flick.

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True. While it may seem blasphemous to some, JK Rowling has the exact same thing going for her in her earlier books. The "need" to make everything work together and the whole thing be in a cohesive and self-contained universe is one of the reasons some of books 5, 6 and 7 were so slow - she knew fans were watching so closely, she couldn't afford any slip-ups, while she had plenty of leeway in the earlier books. HP are books you don't want to put down...but it's not great Literature.

Espy said:

Also: As much as I loathe Dan Brown, the man knows how to write short catchy chapters that keep you moving and never give you much time to really think about how stupid his story is. That *might* sound like an insult, but it really isn't. He doesn't pretend to be a great author or a master of his craft, he just knows how to write compelling books and he uses structure to make the reader plow through them at breakneck speeds, kind of like a big action flick.

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Put that way, JJ Abrams is the Dan Brown of film.

So, lens flares are the Illuminati of film?

PatrThom said:

--Patrick

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Wow, it's incredible how well that sinc'd up... it's almost as i used the words on purpose or something.

@Li3n said:

Wow, it's incredible how well that sinc'd up... it's almost as i used the words on purpose or something.

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Yes, your application is very nice. But can you provide...references?

--Patrick