Trashing the Twilight Series

Yes, you read that title right. I am going to trash the Twilight series just a little bit, but then I'm gonna give it some love. So if you are "one of those Twilight people," don't get your panties all in a bunch. Yet.

First I'll start by saying that my BFF, Mattie Cake, loves these books. She loves them so much that she made me read them. Well, not made, but encouraged vociferously.

All the books are definitely a fast read, I'll give them that, and they are written well for sure . . . but . . . how shall I say this?

They are dang sappy and romancey and full of ushy gooshy ick.

Which is not a bad thing necessarily, if you like that kind of stuff, I'm just not really into that. Probably because I'm suspicious by nature.

When I started this series, I found myself hyper aware of Meyers' choice of words, which is kind of annoying when you're trying to read a book. You're supposed to just get lost in the book while reality quickly falls away from your consciousness.

Laundry? I don't have any stinkin' laundry to do. Wear those underwear again, they'll hold up.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

I found that sweet escape impossible though, because she kept beating me over the head with the word smolder. Meyer uses this word often throughout the series, usually in reference to Edward's and Bella's smoldering eyes.

Seriously, what?!! Who says that? Ever?

It's so over the top that it made me vomit a little bit in the back of my mouth every time I read it. Which, I'm unhappy to report was often, especially in the earlier books.

And then there's the whole Bella character. She just grates on my nerves. She's so . . . uninteresting and floating through life with no goals or interests.

Unless you count doing her homework immediately and on time. And cooking dinner for her Dad every night which I found a lit-tle bit creepy. It was like she was his mother or something. Ick.

I read a book review in my local paper that summed up my feelings about Bella exactly. It stated that "Bella has less ambition than a Disney Princess."

I read this and I exclaimed "YES! That's it! That's why I hate her!"

Well, hate is a strong word. She irritates me, that's all.

However, I recently finished the last book in the series, Breaking Dawn, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bella actually starts to develop a personality.

I think it's because she becomes a mother.

Becoming a mother makes you a little bit crazy. And I'm speaking for myself here, of course, but I'm sure there are others out there who can relate. Anyway, my point is, crazy can make you more interesting.

Right?

But I liked Bella in this book and there was no vomiting in the back of my mouth. At all.

And I think the word smoldering was only used once in this book, and it wasn't connected to eyes, it was something else. I'd go look for the exact phrase, but the book is like 750 pages long and I just don't have that much free time.

All that being said, I really enjoyed Breaking Dawn, the last book in the series. I think it was the best of all four books, and I was a little sad when I was done with it.

I think poor Mattie Cake was a little hurt that I was retching and gagging over the first few books, but I hope to redeem myself with this post.

How about it Mattie Cake? Do you forgive me?

ADDENDUM: Wouldn't you know, after this post went up and some of you all commented, AdSense went and plunked a Twilight add on my blog. I saw it twice, when I clicked to read the comments. One time it was at the end of the comments, and another it was on my upper right sidebar. Go figure.