Stephenie Meyer: Open thread
I’m loathe to admit it, but I must: I’m a Twilight virgin. If you’ve wondered these last few months why I didn’t say anything about Stephanie Meyer, or anything about Breaking Dawn … well, it’s because I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d be like, “So, these are some really popular books about vampires, right? And this author is like the new JK Rowling? Is that the deal?”
I mean, I really do want and need to read Stephanie’s books, and I plan to. But for now, I’m just going to start an open thread here, where you can all talk about the Twilight series, what you think of how it ended (so yeah, if you click on the comments, I’m guessing there will be spoilers), and what you think of all the hoopla. I must say, I haven’t seen so many one-star reviews on Amazon.com in a long time. It seems some fans were really disappointed. Your thoughts?
August 8th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Some people are saying the ending was contrived and my thought is, she wrote what she wanted. She wrote the story she cared about and if that means there are still people talking about her work, love it or hate it, she did her job well. I personally blazed through it. It held me longer and with more force than even the last Harry Potter. And I was a Potter addict.
Stephenie Meyer is not the next J.K. Rowling. That would suggest that she was looking to be a replacement. She is not a replacement. She is an original. Granted, one whose influences are apparent to the careful and well-informed reader, but an original nonetheless.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Let’s see, Twilight and Eclipse tie for my favorite and New Moon and Breaking Dawn for my least favorite. Can’t wait to see what you think of them…!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one. I have yet to read them too, and I have no idea when I’ll get around to trying them out since my TBR pile is so huge.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I’m a Twilight fan. I don’t really understand the whole fandom, though. I went to a midnight release and all, but I’m not completely obsessed. I really enjoyed Breaking Dawn, but I was sort of disappointed. You can see my blog for all my thoughts on Twilight, because I can’t fit it all in a comment.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Okay, I’ll admit it! I’m a Meyer virgin too! Vampires scare me, although I’ve had students/fellow readers insist the books “aren’t like that.” So, I’m debating on whether to hang onto my Meyer viriginity or let it go and read the books. I will admit I read this week’s USA Today article, so I already know who Bella ends up with, etc., which adds yet another dimension to my dilemma. Now that I already know what becomes of her, do I read the books or not? Perhaps I will, although I have spent my summer reading Crime and Punishment (seriously). I’m feeling the need for some light chick lit at the moment!
August 8th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Ooh, Suzanne, I’ve got some light chick lit coming your way, because I’ve been feeling exactly the same. I’ve got a whole pile here of light chick lit that I need to review, and I think I might actually do a roundup, as the number of books I’ve read but not yet reviewed is getting ridiculous.
I’m glad I’m not the only Twilight virgin around here. Maybe we should start a latecomers Twilight book club, though I’m kind of afraid we won’t be blazing any trails … at least we won’t have to suffer through anticipation being spoiled because our expectations are too high. Instead, we might be pleasantly surprised. Like, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad after all! This Stephenie Meyer character has been maligned!”
… Or we could all end up wanting our money back. Looks like we might have good chances of buying used copies, though, if anyone’s interested.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Via E. Lockhart: Alisa Valdes Rodriguez writes a critique of BD that questions whether SM’s books are racist.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Some more links:
Gail Gauthier defends BD as a romance novel; Maureen Johnson dodges the debate by being very funny about it all; Justine Larbalestier talks about whether authors are obligated to provide their readers with endings they’ll, you know, like; The Horn Book weighs in on how fans have started a “return-this-book-now” campaign and whether it’s ethical. Okay, that’s all for now, but I’m sure there will be plenty more to come.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Twilight was great.
Eclipse was well written and entertaining, but less confident (plot wise) for me. Especially then ending - I found the ending unsatisfying. New Moon was so strikingly uninteresting that halfway through I just got bored, and eventually, I just ceased reading it altogether. As such, I have not read Breaking Dawn.
Call me crazy, but I’m at that point in my life where if I’m just not feelin’ a book, and have truly given it a good go, I’ll just stop reading. Maybe its not entirely fair to comment on a book that you haven’t read all the way through (or at all) … but I’ve read more than 50% of the entire series, and I saw a sharp decline in plot organization and structure somewhere around book 3.
Can Meyer write? Oh of course she can - and she’s very good! But I have a theory and it goes like this: success led to demands that exceeded the plan she had in mind. She agreed to an excess of books (did we really need 4 novels to tell this story? I feel like there was a helluva lot of treading water happening in the end of book 2 and in all of 3 - so I suspect 3 books total would have done it with decent editing). And somewhere in all of that, the thread that she was following, her STORY, maybe unraveled …
I don’t work in the industry, so I have no basis for this theory at all … but hey … business is business everywhere, and if I was her publisher, I would have been trying to eke out one more novel …
August 11th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Hmm. Are you suggesting that perhaps it would have been better as a trilogy, and that she might have initially planned for that? I think if that’s the case, between the pressure of “must write bestseller now” and “must rework plot and stretch things out,” anyone would be put off their writing a bit.
On the other hand, what a lot of fans are complaining about is the concept of a woman getting married and having a baby when she’s still a teenager — and about that being a good thing. And, like Alisa Valdez Rodriguez, a lot of people are saying the last book shows signs of racism. I don’t know about that; I really do need to read the books to form my own opinion on it.
But in all fairness, anything that is eagerly anticipated and long-expected is likely to be a disappointment. Not to compare SM wit JK Rowling again, but a lot of folks were very unhappy with the way Jo ended Harry Potter. I should know, because I was one of them. But it was her series to write and to end, and I imagine the pressure was insane by the last stretch there. And you know what? After a year, I came to the point where I liked book seven, not as much as the others, but enough. So you may be onto something when you say things unraveled toward the end of the Twilight series.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I wrote a review here http://readingbookwatchingmoviesandmore.blogspot.com/2008/08/breaking-dawn-review.html
I must warn that there are spoilers though
August 27th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
First of all, I’ve enjoyed the series. The final book worked well for me. But as a middle school teacher, the best part for me is the excitement the books have created. In the small town where I live and teach, the mothers and even grandmothers are picking up these books just as fast as the teens finish them. There is discussion going on across generations about the books and the upcoming movie. Whatever opinions people have, I just think it’s great when something excites people of all ages to make time in their busy lives to read.