Here's a gag-worthy couple of sentences

[pegkerr]

You know the stuff they've been saying about the Twilight books, by Stephanie Meyer?

From Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer:

I would probably never be able to do anything interesting or special like Edward [her vampire love], Alice or Jasper [other vampire family members] could do. Maybe I would just love Edward more than anyone else in the history of the world had ever loved anyone else.

Yeah. Exactly.

Comments

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

Or: Why You Shouldn't Turn Your Masturbatory Fantasies Into Bad Novels 101

:D

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

And if this book springs from her masturbatory fantasies, then I gotta say she must have a really really boring sex life.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

A lot of really bad fanfic is the same, of course, and people fall all over it because it pushes the same buttons in the readers that it pushed in the author. This is just the publishing world version of that, so it actually isn't any great mystery why the books sold as they did. She was pushing people's buttons, even though the execution was ham-handed. That's usually true when a work's main selling point is button-pushing, whether it's online fanfic or published books.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It was this review that made me read the books, actually.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

But then doesn't she turn out to be some kind of supervamp or something? Mary Sue, thy name is Stephenie...

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Aside from the glaring grammatical errors that are hurting my brain, the sheer banality of her prose is enough to turn you off of reading. Her novels are to literature what McDonalds is to cuisine. quickly produced, made with no love or art, and bad for you in any large quantity.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oops, the grammatical error was due to my miscopying it. But otherwise, . . . yeah.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I have read fanfic that's a lot better than this stuff.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

She sells books. I have to conclude, by that vital yardstick, that she is a better writer than I am . . .

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

...by that vital yardstick, that she is a better writer bookseller than I am...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

She tells stories that a lot of people want to read. This is a valuable writing skill that I apparently lack.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

...

ugh.

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

The question is how a clunky section like that made it past an editor...is it so hard to read ones work outloud while editing to catch stuff like that?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oops, the grammatical error was mine, miscopying it (fixed). But still . . . yeah, not a very impressive couple of sentences.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I've been avoiding these books, but I'm going to have to read them: my 16-year-old niece wanted to talk Twilight with me and was so disappointed when I couldn't. As a matter of honor, I refuse to criticize what I haven't read, so I was appalled at the missed opportunity to engage her in a conversation that might have encouraged her to rethink (or even think critically about) the relationship model glamorized by these books. She loved them and claims they rekindled her love of reading after several years of disinterest. I'm kicking myself for being unprepared for this conversation.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

This is the review (in the Atlantic) that got me to read the books; I thought it was absolutely fascinating.

What Girls Want: A series of vampire novels illuminates the complexities of female adolescent desire

[skg.livejournal.com]

Interesting article. I can see what the author is saying about the themes and can even see where the series (okay, I've only read Twilight) does appeal along those lines.

Yet I found the first book appalling.

At the same time, I finished reading it, and my inner adolescent was apparently titillated and entertained.

*sigh*