so I was wondering...

So this is the thing about Twilight by Stephanie Meyer - the more sporkings and reviews I read, the more I want to read it. You see, that angsty obsessive vampire thing is something I never got over. Plus, sparkly.

Now, to what I'm actually looking at thoughtfully.

Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo (Paperback) by Colette Gale, who also wrote Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera, which I am also looking at thoughtfully. Mostly because I have this suspicion this is going to be very, very bad.

And also, despite the fact it's called Master, apparently this is not going to be about Edmund taking it and liking it from the prison guards.

...this could be sleep deprivation. Anyone read either one and give me a yes/no?

Also.

Phantom by Susan Kay, which my favorite extensions of Gaston Leroux's original. It's really good. And it's really fun. And it builds a *lot* on the history of the Phantom.

ETA: Huh. I forgot she also wrote Legacy about Elizabeth I and I really liked that one too.

Comments

[tropes.livejournal.com]

I have friends who loved Twilight so much, so I read it. I srsly wanted to burn that book. It's so bad it's almost good, but in reality it's just bad. D:

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[vic-ramsey.livejournal.com]

*whitles innocently* Hello, you might be interested in this. (http://www.mediafire.com/?70zggmyyde3)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Wow. I love you a *lot*. And by that, I mean, fear.

[northern]

I *adored* Twilight. The most erotic novel I read that year, that wasn't fanfic, and it's a Young Adult one! Definitely read it.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*makes note*

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

God. yes. I was like "wait, why am I turned on by this? WHY AM I TURNED ON BY THIS?"

And then I remembered. Oh yeah. Teen vampire love = bulletproof kink. *hides head in shame*

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

I keep having vivid dreams where I read Twilight.

They always end with me waking up screaming.

(Seriously. Last night, I dreamed that I got to page 173 and I was totally drawn in and at the same time SO ASHAMED OF MYSELF I COULD NOT SPEAK. Even my subconscious feels shame at the idea of me reading it! AND I READ YA LIT UNIRONICALLY, OKAY?)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

You will never be clean again. *solemn*

[delle.livejournal.com]

OMG You've read Legacy? I still have my old, old copy around here somewhere - I didn't think anyone but me had ever read it!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I was surprised too when I looked for her other work! And she's freaking *good*.

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

And also, despite the fact it's called Master, apparently this is not going to be about Edmund taking it and liking it from the prison guards.

See, that I would read, but...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

That is what I was hoping! Titled Master? What was I supposed to think?

But no. Though apparently, there is BDSM. Of a kind. The reviewers seem to have pretty fragile sensibilities.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain, but I think that the target age for Twilight has to be about fourteen. My younger daughter is nineteen, and her reaction (http://skyfyre.livejournal.com/156340.html) was decidedly mixed.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hmm That sounds abo8ut right. I'm thinking of The Vampire Diaries I read in my teens now.

[kitestringer.livejournal.com]

So this is the thing about Twilight by Stephanie Meyer - the more sporkings and reviews I read, the more I want to read it.

See, yeah, I got really curious, so I sent a free sample of it to my Kindle. So far...well, I think I had *such* high expectations for it that it had no chance of meeting them. I thought it was going to be the most hilariously awful thing I'd read in ages, and I've been kind of disappointed so far. I'm pretty sure I've read worse! Maybe I'd need more than just the sample excerpt to really appreciate it. *g*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*heee* The movie looks good.

[sorrelchestnut.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. The thing with Twilight, for me at least, was that it totally captured the sense of wonder, and... newness is I think the word I'm looking for? Of falling in love for the first time, and having that person fall right back. It's fantastic in that sense, it kept me spellbound, I sighed happily when I closed the book. (Incidentally, my mother, who is turning sixty-two this summer, felt *exactly the same way.*)

And then I read the second book, which had them breaking up, her spending all of her time with her best male friend who was in love with her, and basically leading him on and screwing with his feelings, and being passively suicidal and incapable of functioning like a human being without her ONE TRUE LOVE. I think there was this whole bit near the end where she went cliff diving, because she just didn't care if she lived anymore without him. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.

So what it boils down to is that the main character's (and, it is very clear, the *author's*) favorite story EVAR is Romeo and Juliet. Which, personally, I despise, for exactly the same reasons as I despised this book, but I know a lot of people like it. That's fair. But you shouldn't use it as a template for your YA romance, because that is dumb, dumb, dumb. Romeo and Juliet should not be your model of romantic behavior. Because they ended up dead of their own idiocy.

So essentially, I loved the first book, and if you stop there you're probably okay, though I have to admit, the sparkly vampire bit, in retrospect, was pretty fucking hilarious. (All I can say is, it made sense at the time?) The second book, which made me froth at the mouth, retroactively ruined the first one for me. I'm still going to see the movie, mostly because I think my mother will eviscerate me if I don't go with her, but I'm going to try my hardest to approach the movie as if I don't know what happens after the credits roll, and how much it sucks.

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's pretty much exactly the way it happened for me, too! I thought the first book went a little off the rails in the meadow scene (zzzzzzzzzstillgoingzzzzzzz), but on the whole, for what it was, it was good! And I loved Jacob. A LOT. And then the second book came out, and the whole "I will DIE! I must DIE! I will FIND A WAY TO DIE IF IT KILLS ME" thing made me want to shriek and tear my hair out because who WRITES like that for a target audience of EMO TEENAGE GIRLS!??!?!?! She romanticized that self-destructive behavior, IMHO, and just. NO.

And so I never read the third one, though I heard it treats Jacob even worse than the second one...the fourth comes out in August.

BUT! Then I saw the teaser trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBvOhfL4mYw), and I knew that I'd be seeing the movie, probably several times. Because I'm EASY that way.

They found the perfect Edward, I'll give them that!

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

You have to read Evernight so I can make happy squeaky noises at you. I need to load an EN icon, so for the moment, you get Mitchell. Yay Mitchell! He's very Byronic and goes invisible when he turns sidewise.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Evernight? Author?

[ex-muj135.livejournal.com]

Oh I definitely think you should read Twilight. It is hilarious in a completely unintentional way (I hope it's unintentional), and when I was thirteen everyone was reading The Clan of the Cave Bear and Lace and watching The Thorn Birds and we all loved it. Anyone who claims they had anything even resembling literary taste when they were in their early teen is either in denial or a freak.

(Which doesn't change the fact that the underlying message of Twilight, that if your boyfriend orders you around and stalks you it's okay because he loves you or that there should be no sex vamping before marriage, creeps me out.)

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Oh god. I read Clan of the Cave Bear when I was 17, and couldn't hear the word "totem" without smirking for years. SO BAD! At some point I realized I could... just skip 200 pages. Without missing plot. *facepalm* The book in the series... where Ayla meets Jondalar? Was the only one where the author's picture was smiling. It might have been a different version of the book, but if not? Hilarious. They were. they were together because Ayla was the only woman who could ensheathe Jondalar's mighty phallus *contact shame and embarrassment*

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

You're only allowed to read "Twilight" if you get it out of the public library. Otherwise you're just encouraging her.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in Twilight, you should totally check out Evernight by Claudia Gray (if you haven't already.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Ordered! You and Tara both liked it, so I'm thinking it must be good.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've got to read Twilight. It reminded me why I love teen romance novels. Unfortunately, the second book is not so great, and I can't even quite bring myself to read the third. I've noticed a pattern there, Scott Westerfeld writes beautiful first novels, and then the follow ups gradually disintegrate. Rather then blame the writers (since Westerfeld at least puts out consistently good first novels, indicating he *can* write, and Meyer's first book was quite decent)I am inclined to wonder if publishers don't push authors too fast to get out good second and third novels. I mean, for something like Animorphs where the book is less than 200 pages, it's totally doable, but for a big, fat novel? It's not.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Ordered today. *stares at mail* I need a time-space continuum.

[blushing-rose.livejournal.com]

While the idea of Twilight does nothing for me (not into vampires, sorry), I am intrigued by Legacy for two reasons: (1) I'm usually nuts for anything British History-related; and (2) the book got a perfect 23 votes for five stars. Geez, no one who rated it gave it less than a 5?? That puts it on my "interested-in-reading" list just out of principle.

When my car gets back from the shop (hopefully tonight and without too much damage to the family bank account) I think I'll head over to my favorite used book store and do a little browsing. This guy carries a lot of hard-to-find good books if you're willing to go digging through rows and rows of uncategorized books...which I usually am *g*.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Legacy is extremely interesting. I'm not entirely sure how to categorize it, but it feels a lot different from most historical fiction.

[bipagan.livejournal.com]

A friend bought me the first 2 books for Christmas and said the following, "They looked like books you'd like." Oh, really? Vampires and Werewolves? Ah, you have known me since I was 12.

But I do give you this fair warning. You may react like this (http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20080505.html).

I fell hard for the books, but then I like Laurel K Hamilton, Kim Harrison, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. If you end up liking Jacob, there are groups for you.

Since I do love my Hamilton, I just didn't understand why Bella, Edward, and Jacob couldn't get together. And I totally saw Bella/Alice. I wonder if anyone else does?

[trie-squid.livejournal.com]

So it wasn't just me going "they make this rare triad thingy, why can't they just be a permanent threesome"?

[kkpixie.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I think it's really interesting to read this when I was just reading some reviews of that book yesterday here:

http://a-hollow-year.livejournal.com/334934.html (be sure to check out the link to a comic in the comments)


I downloaded an audio version of the first book yesterday, and I have to say, as far as my tastes go, it's not that bad. Or rather, I enjoy things that are so bad I want to claw at my face. It's like grammically correct bad!fic.

*shrug* My opinion? Not worth paying for. Library copy, however? Totally worth the hour or two of wasted time for smexy vamp story.

Ehehe, there's this horrible/wonderful thing where's he's constantly worried about her accidentally killing herself that I think is hilarious. <333 IT'S SO BAD I LOVE IT. AHAHAHAHAHA.

[skyelight2x1.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you like the whole vampire thing, you should check out Paris Immortal by S. Roit. Not very explicit and its mostly from the POV of a human, but the two main vampires are a homosexual male couple... I do not find good gay fiction (in books!) very often or easily, and I picked this up by complete accident. The writing style's a little odd at first but enjoyable nonetheless -- plus, it's the first in what looks to be shaping up to be a series, and the second is out later this year. It's worth at least checking out on Amazon...

[viggofest.livejournal.com]

Legacy rules, if you'll pardon the pun.
The scene where she's out in the field and yelling at the world in general about not giving up her life for her country, and the universe answers back oh yes she will and then a tide of really people come over the hill toward her as news arrives that she is the new Queen.
When I visited Hatfield, I went looking for "The Tree" only to discover it had been cut down long ago. There was a sapling planted inside a barrier as a symbol/replacement.
The novel also featured one of my favorite lines ever: "I respect you a little more, and like you a little less."
Legacy is of the win. So I guess in all the intervening years, I should've picked up something else by her, right? Hmmmm....
I will try not to hold Twilight et al against you, so long as you prove your intelligence over a trillion other reviewers by acknowledging that the angsty girl-vampire romance set-up was not created by Myers, yes?
Have you read The Silver Kiss or Blood and Chocolate? Awesome, though aimed at a younger audience.
(Just a lurker, dropping in to see if the McShep/FBI story has a new posting; thought I'd see what else you were up to.)
Cheers!

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

*winces* one of my AIM screennames (I made it when I was 17! I swear!) is based on "The Silver Kiss". I was a big Annette Kurtis Klause fan back then. I even wrote her a letter. She's very nice, btw. wrote me back and everything, though sadly, I think in the midst of packing up and going to college I lost the letter.

[blushing-rose.livejournal.com]

Ooookay...

Since we're talking romance novels, I had to share this (http://rose-ann.livejournal.com/63067.html).

I think most of the books any of us have mentioned would be banned under these guidelines.

Most of the books in my house would be banned under these guidelines.

No, let me amend that...most of the books I've ever, ever read would be banned under these guidelines. I won't even talk about the stuff I've read online (looks at the evil, evil people who have led me into such horrible temptations).

I guess we're all just going to h...wait, I can't say that word, can I?

*starts giggling...now laughing too hard to type any more...*