twilight, new moon, and teenagers in love

Finished Twlight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer.

Okay. Here's the thing. I loved it indecently. I am going to just say it. I was totally there. That is why I just finished the last book an hour ago with no clear idea that there had been time passing for the last--seven hours.



The thing is, I totally understand Bella.

I remember seventeen. That was the first time I fell in love, and I'm going to say flat out, falling in love was--okay, let me put it this way. I once explained that pregnancy, to me, was pretty much a event without context. It was kind of like waking up to a bright green sky. I spent a lot of my pregnancy ignoring it because I really couldn't slot it into anything I'd done before.

The first time I fell in love was a lot like that, with no clue what was wrong with me or why on earth I was engaging in behavior that, in retrospect, was pretty much insane. The physical attraction was--so bizarre, because I'd understood and appreciated the concept, and had the crush thing, but he was overwhelming and terrifying and I could not, could not conceptualize living without him. Again, no context.

I'd been attracted before, but never with that kind of focus, because the mind was equally attractive. He was smart. And it took over everything; every thought, every action, it was like gravity. I had to be where he was. I was shy and didn't like to talk, and yet I would follow him anywhere, any excuse, any reason. I couldn't even mock myself out of it, and people, no one mocks me better than I can do to myself. I kept a diary at the time, since I was abroad, and he's in every damn *word*.

I was seventeen, and had never dated, never been kissed, never had sex, never really thought about it as more than a vague theory of the future. The first time I met him, I felt the universe shake, shake me, and nothing about me was ever the same again. I was old enough to be aware this was a problem, but I just could not bring myself to care.

I was nineteen the second time, it was a different boy, and it's been thirteen years, and I never forget the two years after, when I wondered how it could still hurt so much. And I still look back at that and think, there's no possible way I can risk going through that again.



Or skip that part and click here.



So Bella? God. Plane to Italy? Absolutely. Turn vampire? Fuck yes. Break when they leave? I could tell stories. I won't, but they are funny. Maybe when I'm forty.

So yes, this worked for me. Bella worked for me. Edward, kinda wanted to kill, but hey, if she loves him? Go for it. Jacob? Do want to kill. Because there is pursing your interest and then there's screwing with her head and that got on my nerves. All I really wanted that last book was for him to imprint on someone else please right now before I started hoping someone would shove silver up his ass.

The author did a really--to me, anyway--fantastic job of writing a teenage girl in the throes of first love. And I am all for this. And please God, do not let her take the route of Romeo and Juliet (pet peeve) or Catherine and Heathcliffe (please god) (seriously, I am jumpy about this. Stop that shit), because you know, realistic or not (vampire, really, skip the realism), I love that first love goes soulmate.

Yes, Bella was irritating, selfish, immature, impulsive, and whiny. And I liked that about her. I'm not fond of preternaturally mature children and teenagers all that much--they are creepy. She was silly and responsible and very brave and very smart and very, very stubborn. She fell in love so hard she actually literally fell and had no idea how anything could be so huge when she had no context for it. She did things she never thought she would do and was prey to intense feelings she'd never had, and her own what-the-fuck-is-this is kind of like tying up an elephant with spaghetti. Yeah. Not helpful.

So right, I have a weakness for Romance and Soulmates and Lifebonds and Forever No Matter What and this is why. There's something amazing in it that comes out, that shows you things about yourself you never knew, and it's just that more breathtaking when the other person feels the same way.

Twilight

I really have nothing to say other than glee. Theirloveissoadorable!

New Moon

Okay, I see the criticism, but--okay, bear with me on this one--I never got the feeling of actively suicidal so much as depression and grief. To put it another way, you've been shooting up China White, you aren't coming back from that perky for a long time, and there's a pretty good chance, or so I've heard, you aren't going to ever stop wanting it. Jacob methodoned her, but that's really all he could do. Risk-taking to get the high back? Not a surprise. Finding someone outside herself to focus on? Yes. What irritated me about Jacob, and to a lesser extent, Charlie, is their inability to comprehend the entire grieving process. While it's fairly common to take teenage love lightly, while it's happening, and when it falls apart, it's pretty damn hideous when you're living inside it. And while I totally understood Jacob's feelings, his refusal to connect with the fact she just went through the same thing seriously got on my nerves. Rather like a teenage boy. So Jacob does not get shot. Though a good spanking might help.

Argh. Exhausted. Eclipse tomorrow when I'm less sleepy and will possibly be totally humiliated reading this entry, as I indeed sound like a teenage girl.



I love reading highs. *g* I may be a while coming down.

Comments

[northern]

<33333333 books.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[karenhealey.livejournal.com]

Would you like a Twilight book tote bag? My publishers gave me one to carry my stash home and it is just sitting here being all I-have-no-one-who-would-really-appreciate-it at me. So if you would appreciate it, it is yours!

[karenhealey.livejournal.com]

Actually it is not really a tote bag? It is like a messenger bag without that flappy bit. IT IS A BIG RECTANGLE WITH A SHOULDERSTRAP OKAY I HAVE NO BAG VOCABULARY.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God. There's bag vocabulary? I JUST LEARNED LOLCATS!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...really? Seriously? Yes!

[karenhealey.livejournal.com]

Really seriously! Email me your address to ten.karen at gmail.com

[seperis.livejournal.com]

GOT IT! I AM CARRYING MY NEW BOOKS AROUND IN IT.

*GLEE* Thank you!

[gehirnstuerm.livejournal.com]

Didn't read the spoilers, because now I really, really want to read the books. I've been dancing around them for some time now, because HEY, vampires! But the teenage main character... *winces* But now I'm gonna risk it. Yup.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's a lot easier to forget being an adult and immerse yourself in memories of being really hormonal and crying at the drop of a hat. Seriously, in context of a teenager? Totally works.

[gehirnstuerm.livejournal.com]

I guess it should work for me then. At least I hope so. Some writers have the talent to make their teenagers unbearably annoying. Of course I *know* that teenagers are probably meant to be annoying, at least to a certain extent. But some writers manage it better than others. A better writer makes you go "Ooooooh, I remember that feeling *sigh*" - a not so good writer just makes you hate the whiny brat without meaning to :-D

[edgebot.livejournal.com]

I got hooked on these books last year when I found Twilight being sold my school's book fair. So far I've read each book in one sitting, because they are sooo incredibly addicting. I can't wait for the 4th book!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes! I finished New Moon in teh afternoon and thought I'd read Eclipse until bed. Then I realized I'd finished and it was ten until one AM and yeah. Wow.

[elzybub.livejournal.com]

I've read this whole series and I loved the first book, but reading that last two was a little bit like walking on glass for me. To me Bella just got so whiny and woe is me and I couldn't understand why everything was so end of the world.

Now reading your comment/review I think maybe why her attitude in the last two books rubbed me the wrong way is because I've never done the whole being stupidly in love and then having you heart broken thing. I guess I've never been there so I have no way to really relate to those (uh... or fictional characters) that have.

[highd.livejournal.com]

without giving to much away, Eclipse makes me pity Edward, dislike Jacob and want Bella to die. She screwed up some great potential with Eclipse. There are things in that book that make me doubt that Meyers wrote it or that she just wanted to make Eclipse into the Feminine Mystique of the Mormon world.

I hate when a writer preaches at me and I felt this book was way to churchy. Especially where Edward is concerned (OMG poor Edward)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*G* It helps to *remember* being that stupid and how it went from high to crash so easily. I mean, I can remember fights with my parents (and my host parents!) that were like that. Plus! The guy I fell for first was when I was living abroad as an exchange student in Finland, so I totally connected with running off with someone forever and ever and ever. It's silly in retrospect, but then--well, I couldn't imagine otherwise. So Bella made perfect sense and is *completely* satisfying my teenage self just amazingly.

[highd.livejournal.com]

I don't want to rain on your Meyers parade but I would let your love of the books sorta keep you warm before you read Eclipse.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I finished Eclipse before bed last night. *g*

[highd.livejournal.com]

Do you still like the books ha ha :)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*g* see comments above.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading your thoughts here! I was torn about these books, because I think the author succeeded in a lot of what you're saying, the intoxicating love story, the grief, the emo. But I didn't feel like Bella was a strong female character, or even a character that grew much or had an arc; I wasn't sure what her personality was outside of this relationship-- and, basically, there was some gender-squick stuff for me. Also the formulaic nature bothers me a bit; I picked up the 3rd book and thought, oh geez, the structure is going to be exactly the same, so I didn't read it.

But obviously there's a reason these books are so popular! And that's because she gets a lot of things right.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

But I didn't feel like Bella was a strong female character, or even a character that grew much or had an arc; I wasn't sure what her personality was outside of this relationship-- and, basically, there was some gender-squick stuff for me.

Yes--and no. To me, I can see the changes as she matures, though granted, it's a Bell curve of a kind, but I think a lot of it is in implication. She's still eighteen, and while there are lots of supermature and together teenagers out there, they aren't really teh type to get into this kind of situation. For me, a lot of her growth is learning herself, getting past the I-want to the But does this trump what he/she/they-want and interestingly, the concept of duty, not just to self, but to others. By the third book, I think Bella was getting the *point* of duty, not just doing it because she didn't know anything else (leftover from her time with her mother). I'm interested to see if the author's doing that consciously, because duty and obligation were fairly powerful themes in the first book that Bella threw away at first love--very teenager. The second book was anti-duty and obligation--while the third seemed to bring it back full circle from the habit of duty to the understanding of what it means and the conscious decision to do certain things in service to it.

To me, it's kind of fascinating that there was so much emphasis put on the difference between what you do by habit or training and what you choose to do because it's the right thing.

[sorrelchestnut.livejournal.com]

I really liked hearing your thoughts on this, because my life experiences have been so completely different. I never fell in love that way myself, but I had to watch as some of my best friends did, and it ended so horribly for them. So I really, truly, just *could not* identify with Bella, at all. It was actually the opposite for me, where I couldn't even like her.

Mind you, I'm only twenty, so high school was only a couple years ago, and I'm *still* watching some of my friends make some of the same mistakes. So it's a totally different perspective that way, as well. I know my mother loved it, loved all of the books, and couldn't understand why I didn't feel the same way.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* Heh. That makes sense. It's so hard to explain; the best example I can ever think of is it acts pretty much exactly like a drug. The rush is pretty incredible, and it's, again, for me, incredibly *focused*. There was literally room for nothing else for a long time, and even when it plateau-ed,so to speak, it was still pretty attention-focusing. The second time for me was just as bad, just knowing what was happening that time.

So Bella I got--the only thign that really surprised me was that when she went ot Italy, seh left a note. I'm not sure I'd have been capable of doing anything more complicated than running for the car, to be honest.

Ah, teenagers. *sighs*

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

I remember falling in love *hard* in high school, and us breaking up once because it didn't work out, and because there was so much emotion there, we tried again, and I had to be the one to break it off, because I was seeing the same destructive patterns, and even years later, I remember how skinned raw I was by it, and how I just wanted to avoid relationships for a long while after that.

So yes, I see why Bella is on that downward spiral in the second book, I just think that Jacob needs to be swatted. A lot.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God, I *know*. I totally got where he was coming from, but really, really wanted to drop him in some kind of hole for a few days or something. Gah.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

And boys *are* completely stupid like that. Example: an ex-boyfriend was in town, called my house while I was out, scared my mother because he couldn't get in touch with me (I was at a movie) and then, when I met up with him at a mutual friend's house, he proposed. And after he was refused by me, he apparently proposed to a bunch of my other girlfriends, all of whom refused him as well.

*facepalm*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God. *facepalm* Wow.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

It was. A memorable evening. When I saw him a couple years after that, he pulled me aside and apologized. Profusely.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I fell in love for the first time at 17, and seriously? I never did drugs, but can only assume that the neural pathways that crack, heroin, and meth use hijack those of love, because higher mental faculties *melted* at times. And you called it, the letdown afterward is a bitch, even if intellectually you know it shouldn't be. Esp. since many of us spent most of high school wanting to be separated from the ordinary, special, part of something that rendered the daily tribulations of social cliques and classes meaningless. To have that and then have it taken away - well. The lives of flash in the pan teen actors should give people some idea of how well that usually goes.

Now, it's still intense as an adult, but after the first few times, you at least know intellectually that hey, you do recover, and you're happy again. As a teenager, you literally do not know this.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yep, exactly. As a teen, nothing that big has ever hit before like that, so there's relaly no way *to* understand you'll be able to move on after.

*hearts* Bella.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

fantastic job of writing a teenage girl in the throes of first love.

yes. yes, that is it exactly. You wrote about this more eloquently than I did when I said this the other day, but that's exactly the appeal of these books. And I think that anyone who doesn't understand that the way she's combined that heady sense of romance into what is essentially suburban fantasy is missing a) what clicks for this particular audience and b) how compelling it is that these books have combined the two genres so successfully, and reached so many non-typical-fantasy readers in the process.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I need to go read that entry!

And yes. Teenage supernatural romance has been a thing for me since junior high, so the second I started reading, I recognized the format and it's *really good*. I just wish I knew some teenage girls to give this to that would enjoy it. And secondarily, at least to me, a *good* way for young girls to get into fantasy novels.

True love and vampires--seriously, that's an unbeatable combination.

(Now if only they'd make a movie of The Vampire Diaries and give me my almost-canonical incest threesome and I'd be content.)

[ravurian]

I'm faintly embarrassed by how much I enjoyed these books and not just because they're Not Really For Boys. Or Groan Up Men. Erm. Yes, quite.

Amusingly, he debut novel for adults 'The Host', is SG1 fanfic from start to finish, with Goa'uld and everything. Literally. It's... well. She wrote a novel from the POV of a Goa'uld!!11!1! Heh.

[moria-mine.livejournal.com]

I just finished these books about three weeks ago, as they were the first things I bought for my new Kindle and have re-read the series twice since then... I love this series beyond all reason and don't know how I missed it as long as I did.

Umm. Not much more can be added on top of your post because...

Hell. Yes. *Exactly*!!