The cult of Stephenie Meyer

I resisted the urge to jump on this bandwagon for weeks.  I'd had my fill of teenage vampire romances and truthfully, no one will ever compare to my favorite supernatural forbidden love author, L.J. Smith.  But I got curious and it ate and ate at me, so one Friday, I said 'Screw it!' and went to the bookstore and dropped $60 bucks on all three books in this series.  (Note: I could've paid less to get the trade paperback for the first two, but Eclipse was only available in hardcover and I'm such a damn perfectionist, they just had to match!) 

And now, here I am, coming out of hiding, because I just finished the last book last night and I NEED to talk about them.  So here goes:

The books are Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.  The basic premise of it human girl falls for mysterious, inhumanly beautiful vampire boy and all sorts of danger ensues because of their romance and their inability to share their secret with anyone.  Stereotypical teenage vampire romance premise.  However, there's a few twists and turns here: said vampire boy is a "vegetarian", meaning he doesn't touch human blood.  He lives with five others of his "vegetarian" kind in a makeshift "family" that bonds them together and allows them to stay in places longer.  Said teenage girl moves to the rainy, never sunny town of Forks, Washington and is immediately intrigued by the vampire boy and his family.  He, however, has an immediate aversion to her then automatically, within in a week or two, can't get enough of her.  Throw in other complications such as an ill-fated love triangle, a disapproving father, a roaming pack of non-vegetarian vampires thirsty for the teenage girls blood, a powerful, old-as-dirt ruling vampire family determined to see the girl turned into one of them, and a pack of werewolves from the local Indian reservation and you've got yourself one unlucky group of people.

I'm not quite sure where I want to start with this.  Should I mention how the repetition bored me?  Or the how predictable it all really was (or perhaps that was my experience with vampire novels)?  Or how the epic love story between Bella and Edward made me roll my eyes so many times?  Or how I couldn't put it down because like crack, it was horribly bad for me but I was totally addicted to it?

So let's go the list route (warning: spoilers may occur, I'm not making any gurantees!)

• In the beginning, I couldn't stop rolling my eyes about the numerous helpless situations Bella got herself into.  Meyer seems to hang on tightly to the whole "damsel in distress saved by knight in shining armor" scenario one too many times.  Way too many times in my opinion.  However, I was more accepting of it towards the middle as they begin to make more and more jokes regarding Bella's inherant klutziness and rash of bad luck.  I thought it explained things nicely.  However, this explanation didn't stop Meyer from consistently using this crutch to put Bella in situations where she can be heroically saved by Jacob or Edward and they can spend hours waxing poetic about what they would do if they lost each other and how much they mean to each other and blah, blah, blah.  And I can't tell you how many times I wanted to wring Bella's neck for purposefully doing stupid, risky things.  Granted, she thought she had an explanation and a reason for doing them but seriously?  I just kept thinking 'stupid, naive, teenage girl' and at some point, her character should've evolved to a point where this shit didn't happen to her as often.  Then again, if that happened, Meyer wouldn't have any reason for her and Edward to talk about their epic romance.
• And on that - the humbleness.  The conversations.  Bella and Edward had the same conversation over and over again.  I don't know why you love me, I'm not good enough.  I can't help but love you.  You don't see yourself the way I do.  I can't live without you.  I'd kill myself if you were gone.  PUHLEASE!!!!!  Spare me the overwrought Harlequin teenage angst cliches!!!  I mean, yea, my self-esteem wasn't the greatest in high school and I had a hard time wondering what some boyfriends saw in me, but you know what, once they stuck around long enough and told me that they loved me and they would always be around, I kind of started to believe them.  To the point where when we broke up, I was devastated because I thought they had said they'd be around forever!  And Bella being unable to accept that Edward loves her, despite the fact that he never leaves her fucking side and that he's pretty much stalking her, is to the point where it's plain ridiculous.  At some point, towards the end, you'd think she'd get the fucking point, especially when he proposes to her.
• And the stalking thing - yea, she's a klutz.  Yea, she's a pretty unlucky person.  Yea, she does some really stupid and risky things (why, why, why does she think it would be an awesome idea to go cliff-diving by herself, without Jacob, when she's never done it before AND jump from the highest cliff - fucking idiot!!!).  But seriously, Edward, give the girl some fucking breathing room.  If I had someone all up in my grill like he was the whole damn book (with the exception of when he left), I'd have to give them a hint and tell them to give me some space.  I don't care how much they love each other and can't be without each other - there are some times that just aren't meant to be shared.
• Jacob being a werewolf - totally, totally called it!!!!!!!! 
• Bella hearing Edward's voice in her head everytime she did something dangerous after he left - did anyone else think that was actually Edward speaking to her through his mind, since he's got that whole reading people's thoughts thing down?  I mean, it made sense.  It made total fucking sense, especially since he's so good at being the whole stalkerazzi thing.  But when she explained it to him, he was all like, 'Uh-huh, you did stupid stuff so you could hear memories of my voice?'  What the ef?
• Meyer's vampires can't be in the sun because they glitter?  What kind of gay shit is that? They glitter and sparkle like rainbows!  Yea, that's saying something for the inhumanley beautiful and all powerful vampires!  At least they've still got the stereotypical looks, speed and strength.  I wouldn't want to be in the sun if I were them either for fear of people thinking I was a fairy or a disco queen, whichever you want to go with.
• Edward doesn't change Bella because he's worried about her soul.  Dude, seriously, she's dating a vampire and hanging out with werewolves.  I think even if she stays human, her ticket to Heaven has been revoked.  You might as well save her the agony of dying and change her already, you fucking wussy!
• Did I mention the lack of any really strong characters in this book?  Bella, as I said, was a damsel in distress the entire series and even when Meyer attempted to write her as a strong female, she failed miserably (Meyer failed to write her well and Bella just failed to be strong because she ended up in trouble or hurt or something stupid).  And Edward was a pansy.  He gave in to Bella rather quickly and was very unbelievable as a strong, century old vampire who had to deal with a stubborn, naive idiotic teenage girl he had fallen in love with.  And Jacob - well, he was just a big goofball who loved Bella and couldn't even compete with Edward.  Even when he tried, he faily miserably and from the beginning you knew he'd be no match.  Which sucks because when you're no match for someone as lame as Edward, then you kind of suck at life too.

So that's kind of what I didn't like about the books.  There's probably more, but I can't really recall it at the moment.  So let's think of the things I did like:

• The new twist on the relationship between the vampires and the werewolves.  They were eternally sworn enemies and this idea has pervaded vampire literature and mythology for as long as I've read it.  But Meyer went so far as to explain that the werewolves were there to protect the humans against the vampires and weaved that story through an ancient Native American legend that applied specifically to Jacob's tribe and Edward's family.  It was an interesting new twist that I hadn't seen before and actually liked.
• As I said above, I like how Meyer had the decency to at least explain that Bella's damsel in distress thing really came from the fact that she was a perpetually accident prone and just had bad luck overall, despite the fact that even that got old really fast.
• I liked the Cullen's as a family.  Edward was definitely my least favorite, but the idea of the Cullens all coming together and living as a family based on their "vegetarian" beliefs was kind of nice.  And I especially liked how Meyer weaved each one of their individual stories into situations that were pertinent to that time and place, rather than having Edward tell each of his family members story in a long exposition.  Rather, Meyer took the stance that Edward believe their stories were their own to tell and through out the book, each one would explain their situation and how they came to be who they were with relevance to decisions Bella was making or situations they were facing.
• The fact that Bella was immune to any vampire who affected the mind with their special abilities (Edward's thought reading, Jane's illusions of pain) was nice and I think I partly liked it because it excuse Edward from being able to bond with Bella on that level, so they were forced to conduct their romance like normal humans (well, as normal as you can get with him being a vampire).
• The vampires had good taste in cars.  And I'll credit Meyer's brothers for that because she has so many times over.  And the fact that they liked to drive fast.  That was fun too.

And finally, for my LJ Smith lovers, let's compare:

• You'll know Jacob is a werewolf pretty much right away too.  So don't yell at me for ruining it.
• The whole Edward-Bella-Jacob thing reminds me so much of Stefan-Elena-Damon.  Except Elena was a much stronger person than Bella and Damon and Stefan were so much less whimpy and so much more compelling.  Plus, at least with S-E-D, there was the consistent pull of good versus evil and which should Elena choose.
• The hostility between the vampires and werewolves is hysterical, just like in LJ's books.  In Meyer's books, the great part is how Edward can't stand the way Bella smells when she comes back from seeing Jacob and vice versa.  However, I think Ash and Jeremy's banter was so much more entertaining in Daughters of Darkness.
• The underlying theme with the girls of LJ's books is a fierceness and inner strength that they either possess from the beginning or grow into over time.  They need that strength in order to deal with the circumstances they're dealing with (human girl falling in love with something supernaturally not right or supernatural girl falling in love with a human which is virtually forbidden).  While Bella has some strong moments, hers are few and far between and I think she is way too angsty and whiny for anyone who loved and identified with LJ's heroines.  I mean, hell, Rashel was a fucking vampire hunter - I don't see Bella ever coming anywhere near that fierceness.
• Vampire mythology between LJS and Stephenie Meyer: inhumanely beautiful - check; amazing strength - check; ridiculous you-can't-see-me-speed - check; mysterious and intriguing - check; stealthlike and able to sneak around anywhere - check; awesome sense of hearing and smell - check; sunlight - as I said above, Meyer's vampires are all rainbows and glitter, LJ's just aren't as strong or powerful if they are in the sun; other than that, their vampires are pretty much the same, except Meyer paints her vampires with special abilites as just that, SPECIAL.  Only few of them have the abilities and they vary from vampire to vampire whereas, LJS, if I remember clearly, naturally bestows at least Edward's ability to get inside a person's head onto her vampires as well as Jasper's ability to sort of control the emotions and reactions of people around them.

So overall, they weren't bad.  They were a bit long and could've been condensed greatly into one book, maybe two had some of the reptitiveness been cut out.  Despite all my complaining above, I really did like them if only because they entertained me for a bit and were a bit more detailed than L.J. Smith had ever been.  However, while I think Meyer does a much better job of developing and exploring her characters (and I think this partly because her books are 500 pages versus LJ's 200 or so pages), I think LJ has a much better grasp on action and story development that Meyer will ever have.

And will someone tell me why I went through 3 books and 1500 fucking pages where half of it was spent with Bella whining about becoming a vampire after Carlisle made the promise to her halfway through the second book and SHE WAS NEVER FUCKING CHANGED????????????  THAT kind of pissed me off.

And I wouldn't be opposed at all to reading some filler books about the Cullen family members time and stories leading up to before they met Bella.  Maybe written by LJ Smith.  *heh heh*

Well, actually, I'll just close it like this - I wouldn't be opposed to reading Strange Fate since I've been waiting for it for over 10 years!!!!!  But, in the LJ Smith community, that's nothing new either.

So I'll have to deal with Meyer and her characters until then!