Twilight + New Moon + Eclipse + Breaking Dawn

Yeah I know Twilight is old news, but C‘s post reminded me that I wanted to write about it, plus I’ve finally gotten around to watching the Twilight movie!

‘Why the Twilight movie‘ you ask? Well I considered my addiction to all types of series (be it movie, tv shows, books or comics) and I figured it was best I take it easy and just watch the movie first. There was a chance it wouldn’t be worth reading despite the ranting and raving I’ve been hearing about, the very same ranting and raving which happened with LOTR (Lord of the Rings) and Harry Potter.

Okay sure, LOTR and Harry Potter weren’t completely horrid, but at the end of the day I don’t think it would be something I would re-read since there’s a movie version (even then I doubt I would re-watch them either).

So that brings us back to the Twilight movie that’s taken me so many months to watch. The crap reviews it received didn’t help speed things up, and I probably wouldn’t have actually watched it yet if I didn’t leech it off P. Anyway, despite the unrealistic acting and tacky sfx, it’s got me started with the book series by Stephenie Meyer! There’s just something about blood sucking vampires which appeal to me. And yes I’m a fan of Anne Rice too!

*Spoiler Alert*
reading beyond this point is at your own peril
you have been warned

I love the way Stephenie Meyer and Anne Rice gives their vampires life, there’s just so much depth in the characters which makes you want to learn everything you can about them. But what makes Twilight appealing to me is the focus on the human-vampire relationship (very Romeo and Juliet), and throwing in werewolves doesn’t hurt either!

Before I knew what happened, I had consumed the whole Twilight Series within a week! That’s including the partial draft of Midnight Sun, and the chapters/sections which were edited out of the story, which btw you can find at stepheniemeyer.com (pdf)

Although I’m a bit curious about how New Moon (the movie) will turn out, I’m not looking forward to it at all. Not only do I think the Twilight movie completely trashed the book, but I also didn’t particularly enjoy New Moon itself. I admit the progression in New Moon is necessary in the whole Twilight Series, but reading New Moon was just too angsty for my tastes.

What I really enjoyed, and would recommend, is the extras Stephenie Meyer put up on her website (New Moon Extras pdf’s). The edited sections for New Moon were quite good too, I thought The Scholarship would have been an interesting addition… I’m not sure if it would have made it seem like Edward was just torturing poor Bella though.

Anyway, the next book really made up for the angsty mood of New Moon. Although Eclipse isn’t as good as Twilight, I found it a lot better than New Moon. The best thing about Eclipse is that you learn about how the other Cullens changed, and I really enjoyed how everything pieced together. Reading Eclipse was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, we’re given little fragments of information and everything just started to fit into place.

But I have to admit, by the time I got to Eclipse it felt a bit like I was reading just to get to the end. I thought it was stupid how easily Bella turned her back on Jacob when you spent the whole of New Moon building up a tight bond between the two. And seriously, how can Bella forgive and forget everything that happened to her when Edward left? She was catatonic, delusional and suicidal! And when Mr Love-of-her-life returns, everything is back to normal to the point of marriage?? wth? Bella has got to be demented or something.

Breaking Dawn was harder to enjoy because of how completely unrealistic everything turned out. It sort of made the whole Twilight Series seem more like a fairytale where nothing bad could ever happen to the main characters… The bad guys never even had a chance, I don’t know why they were even involved!

I’m also a bit peeved with the honeymoon in the beginning of Breaking Dawn… not that I was expecting this to turn into a graphic novel (this is a teen novel after all), but it felt like watching a movie where the scenes were just completely cut out. They didn’t edit it, or even make an attempt at smoothing out the scene so that it could flow into the next. Couldn’t they have just put in a kiss? a hug? some kind of physical contact? geez!

The best thing I liked about Breaking Dawn is Renesmee, the idea of a hybrid human-vampire. Very cool. But besides that, nothing else really jumps out at me. I hate that Bella is the oh-so-powerful-no-need-to-go-through-blood-lust character, Meyer should have just made her some other breed of vampire or something! Again, very very unrealistic, especially considering Jasper still has problems with it.

Okay, I think I’ve ranted for long enough. Minus the inconsistencies, the Twilight Series is something that I just might read again… well maybe just the first book. At the end of the day I still love vampires, and I wouldn’t mind reading more from the world of Twilight.

P.S. If you want to get your hands on the Twilight Series, you can get some decent secondhand books at AbeBooks.com for a few USD~!