I have managed to finish the rest of the book and I will say that I have never ever encountered any other book that managed to evoke such a feeling of unbridled annoyance and seething anger within me. This has got to be the first book to ever put me into a 4 day bad mood slump. Page after page after page I just feel angrier and more irate. Now, I’d like to make it clear that it isn’t the storyline that gets to me but the way the entire piece was written. It was grueling! Why? Here’s why:
- The author needs to describe each and every little nitty-gritty detail – No, not per dialogue. Almost all of the dialogue lines are followed with the quirks that each of the characters do during the said line. It felt more like a script for a screenplay rather than a novel. For instance, “‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.” or “‘Let’s go,’ I urged.” or “‘Hello, Edward,’ I said pleasantly, to show him I was going to behave myself.” The list just goes on and on. And by on and on I mean throughout the entire book. I didn’t see a single dialogue where there was no explanation of the characters actions or tone. A good author should be able to SHOW not TELL. (Show, don’t tell is a technique often employed by writers to enable the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author’s exposition, summarization, and description.) Stephanie Meyer is probably the antithesis of Ernest Hemingway. I’m pretty sure he’ll be rolling his grave after hearing about this piece of horse shit.
- There are just far too many superlatives – What is Edward if not this epitome of perfection. At least that’s how he was described in the book. I stopped counting the number of times Bella described him as flawless. She would probably describe his butt cheeks as “wondrous lumps of manly perfection” if the editors allowed it. Sure, she was madly in love, but this takes worship to a whole new level. I’ve ground my molars down to smooth pieces of calcite after I’d grit my teeth from rage after every description of Edward’s (insert body part/attribute/attitude here). You’ve said it once. You don’t have to waste the reader’s time saying it again and again every time Edward does anything (including raising an eyebrow).
- The plot took forever to move – The book was full of fluff. Too much fluff. It was so bad that I was able to go and skip several pages and not miss a beat. That much fluff. I actually appreciated the story more by reading this: http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Twilight_Meyer/Twilight_Study_Guide01.html. The story is actually worth the read if you look at this summary. But I would never ever recommend reading the original book written by Meyer. I would expect that given the vocabulary level that she was using that she should at least match some of the fanfics written high-schooler. But no.
- No character development – Characters were very one sided. There was neither growth nor change within the characters that would help the reader to feel emotionally attached to them. The characters were flat and no amount of progress in the book improved this.
- Plot holes, plot holes everywhere! – Was mentioned in the first half of my review and I’ll mention it now. Why Bella moved to Fork? Nope. What about the history of her mom and dad? Nope. At least the Cullen family had an entire chapter dedicated to their family background but did they tie Meyer tie the know of the first plot hole? Nope.
That being said, I’m sorely disappointed at the level of literature that the readership/followers of the Twilight Saga display. As my father put it during one of our family discussions on this book… “…people will often get hooked into these kinds of things if they don’t have a background of what a good book is. If their basis for a good book is a teenage love story or some short smut, then Twilight is a good book. But if they have experiences with all sorts of different literature, then they can decide if Twilight is actually a good book.” It makes sense. Depending on the level of exposure people have with literature, it affects their definition of “good”. Again, I’d like to state that I’m not bashing the story of Twilight. I have nothing against low-fantasy love stories but I would never recommend this book to anyone I know.
Methods in Madness 