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I heard a very large, adult African-American man walking through our bookstore today absolutely GUSHING about the Twilight books.
I still can't get over how many boys buy these books. And its not even like they're buying it to impress girls. They will try to have conversations with me about the books while I'm checking them out.
On a sad note, our new display for Cassandra Clare's "City of Glass" features a quote from Stephanie Meyers promoting the series. Clare is certainly one of the last teen authors I want Meyers throwing her weight behind. Especially since we have like three displays titled "If you like Twilight..." and they all sell-out like crazy.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Shanna - I haven't heard of the City of Glass series before, but have a pre-teen who reads almost everything she gets her hands on. What do you see as offensive in that series?
Posts: 27 | Registered: Sep 2003
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The same thing I find offensive about Meyers...that extremely poor writers are being rewarded with financial success and notoriety. Clare also built a name for herself in the fanfiction community before being busted for plagiarism, which to my knowledge she has never apologized for. (Besides, when the author's last name, real or not, is ClarE why would they name their protagonist ClarY??)
Clare's stuff reads like someone who desperately wants to be as witty as Joss Whedon. Most reviews make light of how heavily she draws from Buffy, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. I'm glad she's not directly copying from published material anymore, but this is only a slight improvement.
I couldn't get very far into it before I gave up but I have heard comments about some confusing chemistry between a brother and sister.
And employee who works at a small bookstore or in the children's department of a larger chain will happily recommend much better titles.
Titles in our store which are getting high praises for younger readers (juvenile and teen):
"Dairy Queen" by Catherine Murdock - Our kid's lead who HATES Twilight has been pushing this into the hands of every teen girl she can find.
"The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel" by Michael Scott
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: Clare also built a name for herself in the fanfiction community before being busted for plagiarism, which to my knowledge she has never apologized for.
I knew I recognized that name!
IIRC, she was busted for plagiarism in at least two (three?) separate fanfic communities.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I couldn't see myself getting into the twilight stuff. i try to seperate myself of the trends of the time. they could be great for all i know, but they seem kind of chicky. plus my boss saw the movie and told me "sparkle" in the sunlight...it seems like they butchered the vampire image.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2009
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Has anyone else noticed the similarities between Meyer's vampires all having special gifts, and the Alvin Maker series? It seems to me like she stole Alice's ability directly from little Peggy. The only difference is that the chartacter of little Peggy is so much deeper. Card has an amazing way of showing us deep into the thoughts and emotions of his characters.
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I don't think Meyer "stole" anything from Alvin Maker. Lots of books have a group of charachters with special powers and one of them is usually the ability to forsee the future, except it is never perfect because the future is always changing.
Posts: 399 | Registered: Dec 2008
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I think Alice and Peggy really do quite different things. Honestly, if you want to treat prescience in all forms as a single idea then they've all stolen the idea from somebody so long dead that no one really knows who anymore.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Stephanie Meyer being an OSC fan as well as a Jane Austen fan makes me feel dirty. I have so much in common with this woman it's scary.
I read a couple pages of Twilight, even watched the movie. (Warning: Don't get into close physical proximity with a Twilight fan if you have negative opinions about the book.)
The movie was fun, I'll admit. Those few pages of reading, however, made me ill. I think what Stephanie Meyer has is a good story. What she lacks is the ability to write well, discipline her craft, and edit out page after page of tripe.
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Twilight is escapist romantic fiction. VERY GOOD escapist romantic fiction. I haven't found better books in the genre; can you?
Posts: 16 | Registered: May 2009
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Considering she wrote the book in only a few months, and it was the first thing she really attempted to publish, I think the "pages and pages of tripe" are really more the fault of the editor/publisher than the author. Obviously someone felt they added to the story, or they should have been nixed at that stage.
I didn't actually READ the book, so I can't comment on how long any particular description was. On the whole I thought the first one was quite a good book. The whole series is pretty decent, but disturbing enough for me to have a hard time deciding to read it again.
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Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have over 2,100,000 members who have added over 49,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more.
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It's one of my favorite sites. Actually, I recently went from very active volunteer to working for the site part-time.
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The second problem is I went from having a semi-manageable number of books that I want to read to an insanely long "to read" list that just keeps growing.
It's a great way of keeping track of what you've read - and what you thought about it.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Stephanie Meyer's adult book, "The Host" is a better book than Twilight, IMHO. The writing is much better, although it is still a bit too long. The characters are far more mature and interesting.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by LAParent: Stephanie Meyer's adult book, "The Host" is a better book than Twilight, IMHO. The writing is much better, although it is still a bit too long. The characters are far more mature and interesting.
I love that book.Especially Ian
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I've only read the first Twilight book, and I don't know why OSC liked it, honestly.
I mean, the characters existed, and they had clearly defined relationships with Bella, and sometimes with Edward. But, there didn't seem to be any interactions with each other. There was no character web. Just a line tracing each character to Bella.
And all the school kids with forgetable names - Meh.
I'm sure I could have fallen for Edward, and that love could have carried me eagerly through the series, except my heart already belongs to Severus Snape.
After him, who needs Edward?
Posts: 196 | Registered: Jun 2009
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Um, he's emotionally damaged. For some reason, I've always found that attractive... That, and the idea of helping somebody overcome their hurt so that they can better interact with the world (After I rescued him from Nagini, of course. His being dead really kind of sucked)
It's the whole idea of a man who has a conscience, but is damaged and doesn't act on it. None of his behavior can be excused because he had a sucky childhood, but it bears consideration. Couple that with how drastically misunderstood he was during school, and how very alone he was by the time Harry came along, and you have a lovely emo romance just wating to happen.
I'm weird, I'll admit. But if a normal person can't be a bridge for the relationship between Harry and Snape, and win Snape's love in a delightfully unrealistic and cheesy scene where he finally accepts and loves me for the muggle I am, then I don't want to be normal.
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Snape? He's interesting, he'd loan people leather books and leer at them until they gave them back, but for me, it's all about Lupin. Lupin is such a nice guy. Sure he was a bit scared in terms of having a baby, but still, he did the right thing and he was brave and cool.
Snape was too, but I can't get over his attitude. URG ><
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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So, I tried to read the Twilight series, and I got up to New Moon, and realized how uninterested I was.
I think what bothered me about the series was the lack of depth to the characters. After reading the books, the thing I remember most is how Bella always ate breakfast, or something like that. The worst is Edward Cullen, though. Meyers tells us nothing about him, except for his past and his love of Bella. It seems like his motivation for everything in the books is Bella. Meyers might be writing a book in his point of view, but I feel that without a book in Edward's point of view, Twilight is quite empty.
It's a similar concept to what Card did with Bean, but the difference is that Edward was one of the main characters in the entire book, and Card didn't write a book in the point of view of Graff, or Valentine, but Bean, a fairly minor character with an important role.
Posts: 6 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Um, he's emotionally damaged. For some reason, I've always found that attractive...
He was also verbally abusive, unsympathetic, cold, and vain. Snape was emotionally damaged, yes-- and he was also a bully.
The idea of Harry naming one of his sons after him is very romantic, but strikes me as particularly untrue to Snape and Harry's relationship-- even after Harry found out why Snape did all that he did.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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It kind of sucked the way Snape kept thinking harry was arrogant and bad, when he liked MOLFOY who really was the arrogant one. He was rather unforgiving too. Not a very nice guy at all. I'd hate to be with a man who bullies children. Even if he had a good book collection.
But it was rather sweet that Harry forgave him enough to name a kid after him, but still, Albus Severus Potter? His name equals=ASP. Which is kind of cute. Plus Snape, even though he was a jerk could love and loved Harry's mother.
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