"...I smiled hugely."Who says that? I finished reading the first one on Saturday night, and I have to say that, while I wasn't disappointed in the books really, I discovered I was disappointed with most of American teenagerdom as we know it, and anyone else who says that Twilight is the greatest thing they've ever read.
Disagree if you want to, but I found the books to be hard to read simply because I kept tripping over the endless descriptions of facial reactions and displays of emotion. "I smiled hugely" is one such example of the drivel that is Stephanie Meyer's writing.
I find the story an incredibly interesting one. The idea of a vampire falling in love with a human and fighting it's primal instincts is interesting. It's a definite contrast to the ideas presented in the original vampire tale, Dracula.
As I said, I wasn't really disappointed with the books, though. I kind of expected them to be poorly written. What I am disappointed with is the fact that those books have received awards and acclaims such as "Best Book of the Decade" or "Best Book of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008." Such awards may be a ploy by booksellers to sell more of the books. I'm surprised people keep saying things like that. I want to know why people think that the books are incredibly well written. Maybe the writing gets better as the series goes on, but I have the feeling it doesn't. I'll probably finish reading the books simply to see where the story line goes.
If you haven't read the original Dracula by Bram Stoker, you need to. It's a great vampire story, well written, and it can be called one of the best books of all time, and no one "smiles hugely" in that story.
1 comment:
You absolutely, absolutely, absolutely need to read Carpathian Castle by Jules Verne if you haven't. While not explicitly a vampire story, it is set in Transylvania and therefore steeped in the lore of the land (some of my dad's relations came from that region, so we have fantastic family stories, including one my great-uncle loves to tell about how we're direct descendants of Vlad the Impaler... which makes a really cool story but I doubt the truth of it...). It also is an amazing spin on the traditional "Gothic romance" of the time. And Jules Verne is *the* master, so it's automatically better than anything written today in my opinion. I think you'd enjoy it. :)
(oh, and if people want a good romance--as I often hear about Twilight--read Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne. most especially if you are a bibliophile like me. it's a necessity.)
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