I would like to start by quoting Susanna Laitala, who wrote a review of Breaking Dawn for a Finnish newspaper: "... by Stephenie Meyer, who, in my opinion, is a very talented writer." I disagree: I do not think Meyer could write even a decent children's book, with a plot culminating in a giraffe finding his lost scarf. She would probably decide that the giraffe is suddenly carnivore who has green stripes instead of brown spots - she has already done so to the beloved villains of literature, vampires. Meyer's vampires are in fact 'vegetarian': they drink only animal blood. In addition, they sparkle in the sunlight - what has happened to medieval vampires, who burned to dust in the slightest hint of daylight? They've probably been exposed to too much sun, as Meyer's sparkly heart-throbs are anything but vampires. Perhaps they are fairies? They live in the woods, don't hurt people... and the sparkling is probably caused by fairy dust, which can only be seen in proper light. That would be it.
Laitala claims that the description in Breaking Dawn seemed somehow lacking. However, the hotness of the male protagonist, Edward is referenced about a hundred times - in other words about once in seven pages. Is that not descriptive enough, then? In addition, it seems like Meyer simply looked up more fancy-sounding words in her thesaurus, not caring one bit what they actually meant. According to Laitala, the text of the first three parts in the series are also emotional and rich in vocabulary, but I wouldn't call Meyer's aforementioned technique 'rich in vocabulary' - more like 'dirt poor in vocabulary'. Nor do I call a book where every chapter until nearly the end of the book begins and ends in the same way very emotional. Take, for example, the first part of the series, Twilight: I do not think that the reader experiences strong emotions when they read about Bella going to school, Bella being in school, Bella driving home from school, Bella cooking for her father, Bella day-dreaming about Edward, Bella going to bed ... and the same is repeated in the next chapter. The weak cries of a decent plot are drowned under this purple prose until well over half-way through the book, when Bella is watching a baseball match between the fairies. Suddenly, real vampires appear from the forest - well, they, too, sparkle in the daylight, but they do drink human blood. They attack Bella, which results in an entire chain of events that seems forced and unnatural. Not that being attacked by vampires is exactly natural, but the final quarter of the book radiates forced action sequences, the sole purpose of which is to get something other than Bella and Edward's unhealthy relationship into the book.
And unfair if someone describes this relationship: Bella has known Edward for approximately two weeks, talked to him maybe five times, and suddenly she is in love. Unconditionally, irrevocably in love, as the back cover of Twilight tells us.
This is impossible.
If the couple has known each other for two whole weeks, they can not be in love. Sure, right about now someone might say something about love at first sight, but unless 'first sight' is, for example, when a person speaks or otherwise shows their personality, it is not love. It's just a crush, or, more likely physical want - also known as lust. Although it is impossible to define love, this is Wikipedia's brave attempt: Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. I would define love more or less like this: the feeling where a place, object or especially a person has become more important to one than oneself, larger than life - the feeling you would sacrifice yourself for your loved one. For this reason, what's between Bella and Edward is not love - I believe that, in spite of all their threats, neither is yet ready to sacrifice themselves for the other.
According to Laitala, the second part of Breaking Dawn, narrated by werewolf Jacob was the best - but even this sentence is flawed: Jacob is not a werewolf, but a shape-shifter who happens to take the form of a wolf. This fact was revealed only the last part of the series, and the general theory is that it was only revealed because many have complained of Jacob's un-werewolfness. Firstly, you cannot inherit lycanthropy - you can become a werewolf only if bitten. Secondly, true wolves are not able to change on a whim, but the change follows the cycle of the moon and is often involuntary and quite painful.
The last big issue I would like to raise, is the explanation Meyer gave as to why the 'wolves' are 'wolves': chromosomes. According to Meyer, the 'wolves' are what they are because they have 24 pairs of chromosomes, and the vampires of 25, compared to the so-called normal people's 23 pairs. However a wrong amount of chromosomes always results in some kind of mental retardation (though maybe this is evident in Meyer's wolves?) - and besides, according to this theory vampires suddenly gain two more pairs when they are bitten and thus become vampires.
Just in case I didn't get my point across yet, I strongly believe that the Twilight series is not even close to the love story of a century it has been claimed to be. Instead, for example, the Harry Potter series has lots more of the criteria for that: romantic love, parent/child love, unrequited love, friendly love, and last but not least teacher/student love. There's a love story of the century for you - in my opinion, Twilight should take it's horrible writing style and lust and go to the Harlequin-shelves in supermarkets, because then it would be with those of its own level.
Laitala claims that the description in Breaking Dawn seemed somehow lacking. However, the hotness of the male protagonist, Edward is referenced about a hundred times - in other words about once in seven pages. Is that not descriptive enough, then? In addition, it seems like Meyer simply looked up more fancy-sounding words in her thesaurus, not caring one bit what they actually meant. According to Laitala, the text of the first three parts in the series are also emotional and rich in vocabulary, but I wouldn't call Meyer's aforementioned technique 'rich in vocabulary' - more like 'dirt poor in vocabulary'. Nor do I call a book where every chapter until nearly the end of the book begins and ends in the same way very emotional. Take, for example, the first part of the series, Twilight: I do not think that the reader experiences strong emotions when they read about Bella going to school, Bella being in school, Bella driving home from school, Bella cooking for her father, Bella day-dreaming about Edward, Bella going to bed ... and the same is repeated in the next chapter. The weak cries of a decent plot are drowned under this purple prose until well over half-way through the book, when Bella is watching a baseball match between the fairies. Suddenly, real vampires appear from the forest - well, they, too, sparkle in the daylight, but they do drink human blood. They attack Bella, which results in an entire chain of events that seems forced and unnatural. Not that being attacked by vampires is exactly natural, but the final quarter of the book radiates forced action sequences, the sole purpose of which is to get something other than Bella and Edward's unhealthy relationship into the book.
And unfair if someone describes this relationship: Bella has known Edward for approximately two weeks, talked to him maybe five times, and suddenly she is in love. Unconditionally, irrevocably in love, as the back cover of Twilight tells us.
This is impossible.
If the couple has known each other for two whole weeks, they can not be in love. Sure, right about now someone might say something about love at first sight, but unless 'first sight' is, for example, when a person speaks or otherwise shows their personality, it is not love. It's just a crush, or, more likely physical want - also known as lust. Although it is impossible to define love, this is Wikipedia's brave attempt: Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. I would define love more or less like this: the feeling where a place, object or especially a person has become more important to one than oneself, larger than life - the feeling you would sacrifice yourself for your loved one. For this reason, what's between Bella and Edward is not love - I believe that, in spite of all their threats, neither is yet ready to sacrifice themselves for the other.
According to Laitala, the second part of Breaking Dawn, narrated by werewolf Jacob was the best - but even this sentence is flawed: Jacob is not a werewolf, but a shape-shifter who happens to take the form of a wolf. This fact was revealed only the last part of the series, and the general theory is that it was only revealed because many have complained of Jacob's un-werewolfness. Firstly, you cannot inherit lycanthropy - you can become a werewolf only if bitten. Secondly, true wolves are not able to change on a whim, but the change follows the cycle of the moon and is often involuntary and quite painful.
The last big issue I would like to raise, is the explanation Meyer gave as to why the 'wolves' are 'wolves': chromosomes. According to Meyer, the 'wolves' are what they are because they have 24 pairs of chromosomes, and the vampires of 25, compared to the so-called normal people's 23 pairs. However a wrong amount of chromosomes always results in some kind of mental retardation (though maybe this is evident in Meyer's wolves?) - and besides, according to this theory vampires suddenly gain two more pairs when they are bitten and thus become vampires.
Just in case I didn't get my point across yet, I strongly believe that the Twilight series is not even close to the love story of a century it has been claimed to be. Instead, for example, the Harry Potter series has lots more of the criteria for that: romantic love, parent/child love, unrequited love, friendly love, and last but not least teacher/student love. There's a love story of the century for you - in my opinion, Twilight should take it's horrible writing style and lust and go to the Harlequin-shelves in supermarkets, because then it would be with those of its own level.
