Twilight Time

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Also, there's a vending machine outside my building that lets you pay with your credit/debit/check card. WTF? Awesome.

So, last week I was reading a magazine and got my first exposure to the Twilight series. Two things scared me about this. One, the fandom was being compared to Harry Potter's and two, vampires. I don't really have anything against vampires (depending on how they're written I suppose), but I don't get the appeal of them as love interests. Oh well.

I don't know what possessed me to buy the book, but it was probably because I was bored and didn't know what else to read. Unfortunately, the book didn't alleviate my boredom at all. 

The narration is really bland, and that's kind of a bad thing for a first person narration. It does nothing to help the protagonist who is already a pretty boring character. There's nothing to hate about her, but there's nothing to really like either. I, however, have no problem disliking her love interest Edward. He's good at every single damn freaking thing he does. He doesn't really have any kind of flaws or endearing traits to his character. He's supposed to have a (relatively) tragic past, and yet, I don't feel sorry for him at all. Neither of the characters seem very "alive" to me. For that matter, their romantic development isn't done well either. There's no tension between the two at all, thus the resolution to that doesn't give much of a payoff. 

Another big problem, was the conflict comes so late in the book. It feels rushed, like it was tacked on just to have the "guy saves the girl from certain death" moment. And we don't even get to read the resolution of the conflict. Seriously. We get "I'm being attacked, I pass out, I wake up, and the bad guy's already dead." Just because it makes sense from a first person POV for Bella to not see it, there are other ways to put it in the story. When you take away the resolution to your highest conflict of the story, I feel kind of gipped. Also, if I see "Promise you won't leave me." "I promise I won't leave you" I'll bite my tongue just so I can choke on my own blood. Was in there, what, 20 times and most of it was in the last chapter!! GRAW!!

Nothing against Stephanie Meyer or Twilight fans I do against rabid fans, I just didn't like the book. I feel as if I should recommend a book that I like. One that I enjoyed, mostly for the first person POV, was Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King. Also Wildseed by Octavia E. Butler. Just my over 9000 2 cents.