Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Trying to review Twilight

This past summer while being a chaperone on the TCA class of 2009’s Senior Trip, I spent an afternoon on our balcony listening to the ocean and absolutely devouring the first book in the Twilight series.

The writing is horrendous. I mean really amateur stuff here. BUT, Meyers did get me to care about the characters enough to want to know what happened next even as I wanted to shake Bella repeatedly and scream at Meyers for her obsessive love of adverbs.

I struggled with writing a review. I thought my friend Coral did a good job. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t quite nail down my feelings regarding the book. I knew my discomfort wasn’t in regard to the whole vampire thing (I’m a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan) and there are redeemable elements in the Twilight series (two lovers wait for marriage to consummate their relationship, Edward’s protection of Bella, the Cullen clan’s suppression of natural desire, i.e., drinking human blood, for greater good).

Rev. Doug Wilson is reading the book and doing a chapter by chapter review of it. I don’t think he is completely correct in his assessment of the book (aside from the lambasting of the writing!), but his reviews do provide food for thought. Here are the reviews for the first 8 chapters of Twilight. If interested, you can follow future reviews at Credenda Agenda:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How astute of him to connect the Mormon "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy" to Bella's eventual necessary turn to vampire in order to save her (from a death during childbirth, ironically.) I don't always agree with Wilson, but I can see some of his points.

I think he's a little harsh, but I see some of his points. I also wondered about how much the little Bella needing a vampire saviour had to do with the Mormon theology of salvation, especially as pertains to women. I didn't launch into that in my blog, not being sure that I have a clear enough understanding of Mormon theology to defend my position if one my Mormon readers decided to take issue. (I know, cowardly.)