Okay, here's the story of my experiences with Twilight. It looked good and my friend agreed so I took it out from the library and took it, along with another book, and took the books on a trip to my grandma's house. I finished the first book on the bus ride up and then I hit problems. See, Melfort has about 2400 people in it, and there is nothing to do there. My grandparents have a krokanol (or whatever) board, but my fingers hurt after awhile. Usually I go to the library, but there's a big long story and basically, I owe fifty-five (schfifty five!) dollars in late fees. There's a thing where they can only charge you so much in late fees and then they can't charge you any more, and I don't have to pay the fees unless I go back there. So I had no books, and no internet. Just Twilight. I read it in one sitting out of boredom. I must have read it when I was sixteen, and I have to admit, I didn't have the depths of rage against it that I have now. I remember thinking:
1. Bella is a bitch.
2. Edward is abusive and kind of scary.
3. This book is incredibly boring.
4. Wow, that's some random action near the end.
5. Why does she describe Edward ever other paragraph?
Somehow, and I'm not sure how this happened, I blocked out the sparkling completely. I remember hearing rumblings about Twilight and people said something about the sparkling, and I was like, "Sparkling? What?" I couldn't believe they sparkled, but yes, that is true, sadly. I'm just thankful that I read it before all the hype and didn't initially love it.
So, here is Twilight.
Preface
Someone's hunting Bella. Again, a preface is an author's note about the following text. This is a prologue.
Chapter 1- First Sight
I was wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell
gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
Why should we care? Honestly. My Immortal, much?
It was in this town that I'd been
compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the
year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie,
vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.
She's such a bitch to Charlie. He's such a sweet man.
I'm amazed that the Quileutes haven't reacted at all to Stephenie Meyer's portrayal of them as date raping baby fuckers.
Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him.
Does Bella do anything BUT express her emotions? It's like the Bella Smeyer holds in her head is completely different from the Bella she actually writes. I have never seen that happen before.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven
— now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven hundred people in
my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together —
their grandparents had been toddlers together.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.
Okay, maybe Smeyer should actually research small towns before she writes about them. My school had about 175 people in six grades. There were about 35 people in my class. Yes, it's true that most of us grew up together, but there's a large contingent that didn't but got well integrated anyway. As for our grandparents being toddlers together, well, I'm not sure that's accurate. Parents, MAYBE. There are a few parents that my dad went to school with, but even that number is under ten. I'm so sick of the stereotypes people from big cities have about little towns. Yes, they're mostly hicks. Yes, they're small minded. Yes, we all know each other. BUT WE ARE NOT FASCINATED BY PEOPLE FROM THE "BIG CITY". More on this later as it gets more redonk.
Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my
advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty,
blond — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go
with living in the valley of the sun.
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair,
despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow,
obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to
play sports without humiliating myself — and harming both myself and anyone
else who stood too close.
ARGH, SELF INSERT ALERT! Okay, here's the thing. I don't have anything against self-inserts and getting revenge on people you don't like through writing. I've done it plenty of times, and most of my FMCs are basically me but more badass. So whatever. But Smeyer's self-inserting is just so blatant and unsubtle and really really badly done. Like I wrote this revenge story about Menzie and it was really anvilicious. I named her Miss Sapp (Sappho=lesbian) and made her like this crazy band bitch. It was like dropping a two ton safe on top of a reader's head. I don't think it's good and I would never try to pretend that it's good writing. But Smeyer makes no apologies for her two ton safes.
My skin could be pretty — it was very clear, almost translucentlooking
— but it all depended on color.
Lololol remember when Edward's like, "Billions are spent on the beauty industry to get skin like hers"? I have never seen two characters so devoid of self awareness.
"I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her
eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of the Chief's flighty
ex-wife, come home at last.
NO ONE CARES. Honestly. No one cares. Okay, I remember in like grade 2 all this gossip about new kids going around, but we were seven. ESPECIALLY the staff. The staff doesn't care about new students.
I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me.
HO HO HO HO, I see what you did thar.
My plain black jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with relief.
No shit. Unless you're surrounded by people with weird neon jackets, a black jacket isn't going to stand out.
There's a great website that snarks on the first few pages of Twilight, and this is my favourite part:
"I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate
identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my name OH MY GOD, I HAVE A NEW STUDENT *runs across the hall* YOU GUYS OH MY GOD, I HAVE A NEW STUDENT!!— not an encouraging response — and of course I flushed tomato red."
But at least he sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class.
I think Smeyer has been watching WAY too many cliched teen movies. I'll do a count here. During my school career, there have been...eighteen new students of which I know. There are probably more. They have never had to be introduced to the class and say the obligatory one thing about themselves. In addition, I was a new student last year and I didn't have to do that. So Since I've been on both sides of the issue, I feel like I know what I'm talking about.
"Boo hoo I'm Bella and people want to be nice to me and help me out boo hoo hoo."
More from the same website:
"So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.
"Very."
"It doesn't rain much there, does it?"
"Three or four times a year."
"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered. Real people wouldn't give a shit.
"Sunny," I told him.
"You don't look very tan."
"My mother is part albino."
He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed and scoffed, leik omg. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn't mix. WHAT? CLOUDS? YOU'RE JUST UNFUNNY, MORON. A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm. Honey I don't think you ever knew.
One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the
cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four
inches, but her wildly curly dark hair made up a lot of the difference between our
heights. I couldn't remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled
about teachers and classes. I didn't try to keep up.
Well, she's a superior little bitch, isn't she? When I was a new student I wish people were falling all over themselves to make me feel at home.
The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features.
You just KNOW she wanted to say "So thin she looked anorexic" and mean it as a compliment.
Or painted by an old master as
the face of an angel. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful — maybe
the perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy.
I don't understand her obsession with pretty guys.
Okay, so the vampires get food at the cafeteria but don't eat it. Don't you think someone would notice? And at least get scared that they're all anorexic?
Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular.
Yup, straight and angular noses are the best.
Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But
maybe that was in vogue here — small town names?
What? Small towns don't have archaic names. I don't know anyone with the vampires' names. I think small towns are more likely to have really out there names. Names like Brooklyn, Dakota, whatever. Not unpopular names.
"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though —
Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together." Her
voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small town, I thought critically.
Yes, all those small town people are so small minded! Also, yes, I'm sorry, but if they consider themselves family, it is a little incestuous.
She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes.
Tee hee hee, sour grapes. I was just watching a B-movie from the fifties on MST3K and they used the phrase sour grapes. So yeah. Teenagers don't say shit like that.
He was so mean. It wasn't fair.
How old are you, eight?
"Was that the boy I sat next to in Biology?" I asked artlessly.
Artless:
| 1. | free from deceit, cunning, or craftiness; ingenuous: an artless child. |
| 2. | not artificial; natural; simple; uncontrived: artless beauty; artless charm. |
| 3. | lacking art, knowledge, or skill. |
| 4. | poorly made; inartistic; clumsy; crude: |
So I'm confused as to which of these definitions she means? The first two don't make sense, since it IS artificial, because she knows very well who Edward Cullen is. The last two just don't make sense in context. FUCK, Smeyer. The adjective is just extraneous.
Hee, Coach
How much more of a stereotype can Bella be? She hates gym class. Okay, I hate gym class, so I shouldn't hate on HER, but it just makes her more cliched.
Chapter 2- Open Book
Last night I'd discovered that Charlie couldn't cook much besides fried eggs and
bacon.
So...that's all he's eaten for the fourteen years he's been divorced? I'm surprised he's not malnourished.
Now that I looked, it was obvious that they were all dressed exceptionally well; simply, but
in clothes that subtly hinted at designer origins.
That beige sure is fashionable.
Mom,
Calm down. I'm writing right now. Don't do anything rash.
Bella.
Rash? RASH? I can tell I'm going to afflicted with my Tourette's swearing soon, probably accompanied by a keyboard smash or two.
I had decided to read Wuthering Heights — the novel we were currently
studying in English — yet again for the fun of it, and that's what I was doing
when Charlie came home.
Sure, let's ramp up the pretentiousness a little more.
"Thanks." He hung up his gun belt and stepped out of his boots as I bustled
about the kitchen.
Holster.
When I came here as a child, he would always remove the
bullets as soon as he walked in the door.
Or, you know, the magazine.
I guess he considered me old enough
now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself
on purpose.
Lololol this is so ominous in light of what's to come in New Moon. I guess Charlie really doesn't know Bella that well.
"Steak and potatoes," I answered, and he looked relieved.
Even the meals are cliche.
People greeted me in the parking lot Monday morning. I didn't know all their
names, but I waved back and smiled at everyone. It was colder this morning, but
happily not raining. In English, Mike took his accustomed seat by my side. We
had a pop quiz on Wuthering Heights. It was straightforward, very easy.
This sounds like journal entries I wrote in school when I was like nine.
"Ew." Snow. There went my good day.
He looked surprised. "Don't you like snow?"
"No. That means it's too cold for rain." Obviously. "Besides, I thought it was
supposed to come down in flakes — you know, each one unique and all that.
These just look like the ends of Q-tips."
Oh, fuck you. Fuck you. I'm sure people who live in hot places imagine snowflakes looking like those paper snow flakes you make in school.
"I'll see you at lunch, okay?" I kept walking as I spoke. "Once people start
throwing wet stuff, I go inside."
HA HA HA HA INNUENDO.
Mush balls were flying everywhere.
Wtf is a mush ball? She really doesn't know anything about snow, does she? You know, don't even bother researching Forks or snow or anything, Smeyer.
"Oh, I think everyone knows your name. (Because she lives at Cheers, obvi)The whole town's been waiting for you to arrive."
I grimaced. I knew it was something like that.
Oh, fuck you, Smeyer. Obviously she has never been a new student or had a new student come to her school or anything, because no one cares. ESPECIALLY not the whole town. MAYBE the kids IN HER GRADE would be a little interested. Maybe. But that's doubtful. The teachers wouldn't care and people who don't go to the school would definitely not care. I can only assume this is wish-fulfillment.
Yes, Mr.
The smile faded; he was obviously wondering if I was mentally competent.
Don't worry, he's not the only one!
Argh, SO TEDIOUS:
Edward: Prophase.
Pause.
Bella: Can I see?
Edward: I'm right.
Bella: I want to check.
Pause.
Bella: Prophase.
Edward: Your turn.
Pause.
Bella: Anaphase.
Pause.
Edward: Mind if I check?
Bella: Go for it.
Pause.
Edward: Anaphase.
Well, that's some crack writing right there, Smeyer.
Grr I DON'T CARE ABOUT BELLA'S BACKSTORY.
Thank God, it's over. How am I going to get through 453 more pages? I might just kill myself. But you know, if Breaking Dawn didn't kill me, this won't. I hope.
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