Shiny Bookses
Sep. 15th, 2006 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sadlikeknivesLast weekend, I read the rarest of the rare: vampires-do-high-school books that were actually good, if insanely long (about 500 pages apiece): Twilight and New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. The third book in the series, Eclipse, is due out next fall, to which I say, "OMG WRITE FASTER PLZ."
Twilight: The Cullens (Carlisle, Esme, Edward, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, and Rosalie), a family of vampires who have foresworn human blood, live in the tiny town of Forks, Washington (which is still way larger than where I grew up, so I laugh at its 'tiny' descriptor) because it is one of the rainiest places on Earth, and they can hide their aversion to sunlight.
All is going well until Bella Swan, daughter of the sheriff and his ex-wife, moves back in with her dad from Phoenix, and proves absolutely irresistable to Edward. There's just something about her scent. At first, he avoids eating her by running away to Alaska, but then he convinces himself he can handle it and returns to Forks, where he totally fails at avoiding her and promptly falls head-over-heels in love with her. Bella is terribly clumsy and has incredibly bad luck, and among other things, Edward saves her from hooligans and from getting smushed by a car. It's during the car-smushing episode that she figures out he's not quite human. She then attracts the attention of a 'tracker' vampire, one who enjoys nothing more than a hunt and is delighted by Bella's delicious scent and the fact that she has seven powerful vampires hell-bent on protecting her.
New Moon: After Bella, in typical clumsy fashion, cuts herself and is almost attacked by Jasper at her birthday party, Edward guilt-trips and convinces the rest of his family they have to leave Forks to give Bella back a normal life--after all, she never got attacked by any vampires before she met him, right? This backfires in a major way, as Bella plunges into a near-catatonic depression for several months, then makes friends with a boy who just happens to be a member of the local werewolf pack. Also, the 'mate' of the tracker vampire has decided to kill Bella because Edward and his family killed her boyfriend.
Bella decides to cliff-dive (as you do). Edward's sister Alice, who sees the future, has a vision of this and comes racing to Forks to stop what she assumes is a suicide attempt. Before she leaves, she tells her sister Rosalie of her vision, and Rosalie calls Edward and tells him it's over, the girl's dead, please come home. This also backfires in a major way. Since Edward can't figure out a way to commit suicide, he promptly goes to Italy to ask the most powerful vampires in the world to please kill him. Alice has a vision of this, and she and Bella race the clock to Italy to try to save Edward.
Astonishingly, a lot of what I really love about these books is in the secondary characters.
1. That they live in Forks because of all the rain, because what better way to get around the 'vampires + sun = lol noz' thing than to have them live somewhere it's cloudy all the time? Also, the problem isn't that they can't go out in sunlight, it's that in direct sunlight they sort of glitter due to their altered cellular structure. Meyer hasn't thought everything about vampire biology all the way through, but I enjoyed that detail.
2. Rosalie Hale. One of Edward's sisters, and the only Cullen who insists on using her original last name, though Jasper also uses 'Hale' because they look enough alike that people assume they're related (they so aren't). I love Rosalie because she doesn't like Bella. This is super-rare in books, a character who doesn't like the main character but isn't a bad guy. Rosalie has issues with being a vampire, so she doesn't understand why Bella wants Edward to change her. She also really doesn't like that Edward endangered their secret by letting a human in on it.
I get the feeling that there's something going on with Rosalie, especially the circumstances surrounding her being changed into a vampire, that we don't know about, and it's important. So I say again, "OMG WRITE FASTER."
3. Jasper Hale. OMG, I love Jasper. And Emmett, but more on that in a moment. Jasper, like Alice, wasn't made a vampire by Carlisle Cullen. He was changed shortly after the Civil War (which he fought in on the side of the Confederacy, as he is from Texas), and started with a group of vampires that preyed on humans. But becoming a vampire meant Jasper developed empathy, and he eventually became depressed and decided all on his own that killing humans wasn't the thing to do. No one else has done this while under the influence of other vampires. Carlisle escaped the vampire that made him before the change really got underway, and the vampire that made Alice was killed while she was being changed. He then hooked up with Alice, who'd had visions leading her to him and then the Cullens.
3. Emmett Cullen. Everyone else can have Edward, I want Emmett, or would if Rosalie wouldn't rip my face off for looking at her man. Emmett's this big huge strong guy AND he's from Tennessee! Southerners represent! Ahem. He thinks Edward's crazy for attempting a relationship with a human, but he doesn't hold that against Bella in any way. He's easy-going like that, which he'd pretty much have to be to put up with Rosalie for seventy years. He's also competitive, and kind of...insane. Here's the thing. Rosalie met Emmett while he was being attacked by a bear. I really want to know what he did to piss the bear off in the first place, because I'm sure he did something.
Emmett's favorite food is grizzly. GEE I WONDER WHY.
4. Vampires drive fast. And it freaks Bella out. A lot.
So. Yes. I love these books, and you should too. GO READ THEM.
Twilight: The Cullens (Carlisle, Esme, Edward, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, and Rosalie), a family of vampires who have foresworn human blood, live in the tiny town of Forks, Washington (which is still way larger than where I grew up, so I laugh at its 'tiny' descriptor) because it is one of the rainiest places on Earth, and they can hide their aversion to sunlight.
All is going well until Bella Swan, daughter of the sheriff and his ex-wife, moves back in with her dad from Phoenix, and proves absolutely irresistable to Edward. There's just something about her scent. At first, he avoids eating her by running away to Alaska, but then he convinces himself he can handle it and returns to Forks, where he totally fails at avoiding her and promptly falls head-over-heels in love with her. Bella is terribly clumsy and has incredibly bad luck, and among other things, Edward saves her from hooligans and from getting smushed by a car. It's during the car-smushing episode that she figures out he's not quite human. She then attracts the attention of a 'tracker' vampire, one who enjoys nothing more than a hunt and is delighted by Bella's delicious scent and the fact that she has seven powerful vampires hell-bent on protecting her.
New Moon: After Bella, in typical clumsy fashion, cuts herself and is almost attacked by Jasper at her birthday party, Edward guilt-trips and convinces the rest of his family they have to leave Forks to give Bella back a normal life--after all, she never got attacked by any vampires before she met him, right? This backfires in a major way, as Bella plunges into a near-catatonic depression for several months, then makes friends with a boy who just happens to be a member of the local werewolf pack. Also, the 'mate' of the tracker vampire has decided to kill Bella because Edward and his family killed her boyfriend.
Bella decides to cliff-dive (as you do). Edward's sister Alice, who sees the future, has a vision of this and comes racing to Forks to stop what she assumes is a suicide attempt. Before she leaves, she tells her sister Rosalie of her vision, and Rosalie calls Edward and tells him it's over, the girl's dead, please come home. This also backfires in a major way. Since Edward can't figure out a way to commit suicide, he promptly goes to Italy to ask the most powerful vampires in the world to please kill him. Alice has a vision of this, and she and Bella race the clock to Italy to try to save Edward.
Astonishingly, a lot of what I really love about these books is in the secondary characters.
1. That they live in Forks because of all the rain, because what better way to get around the 'vampires + sun = lol noz' thing than to have them live somewhere it's cloudy all the time? Also, the problem isn't that they can't go out in sunlight, it's that in direct sunlight they sort of glitter due to their altered cellular structure. Meyer hasn't thought everything about vampire biology all the way through, but I enjoyed that detail.
2. Rosalie Hale. One of Edward's sisters, and the only Cullen who insists on using her original last name, though Jasper also uses 'Hale' because they look enough alike that people assume they're related (they so aren't). I love Rosalie because she doesn't like Bella. This is super-rare in books, a character who doesn't like the main character but isn't a bad guy. Rosalie has issues with being a vampire, so she doesn't understand why Bella wants Edward to change her. She also really doesn't like that Edward endangered their secret by letting a human in on it.
I get the feeling that there's something going on with Rosalie, especially the circumstances surrounding her being changed into a vampire, that we don't know about, and it's important. So I say again, "OMG WRITE FASTER."
3. Jasper Hale. OMG, I love Jasper. And Emmett, but more on that in a moment. Jasper, like Alice, wasn't made a vampire by Carlisle Cullen. He was changed shortly after the Civil War (which he fought in on the side of the Confederacy, as he is from Texas), and started with a group of vampires that preyed on humans. But becoming a vampire meant Jasper developed empathy, and he eventually became depressed and decided all on his own that killing humans wasn't the thing to do. No one else has done this while under the influence of other vampires. Carlisle escaped the vampire that made him before the change really got underway, and the vampire that made Alice was killed while she was being changed. He then hooked up with Alice, who'd had visions leading her to him and then the Cullens.
3. Emmett Cullen. Everyone else can have Edward, I want Emmett, or would if Rosalie wouldn't rip my face off for looking at her man. Emmett's this big huge strong guy AND he's from Tennessee! Southerners represent! Ahem. He thinks Edward's crazy for attempting a relationship with a human, but he doesn't hold that against Bella in any way. He's easy-going like that, which he'd pretty much have to be to put up with Rosalie for seventy years. He's also competitive, and kind of...insane. Here's the thing. Rosalie met Emmett while he was being attacked by a bear. I really want to know what he did to piss the bear off in the first place, because I'm sure he did something.
Emmett's favorite food is grizzly. GEE I WONDER WHY.
4. Vampires drive fast. And it freaks Bella out. A lot.
So. Yes. I love these books, and you should too. GO READ THEM.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 06:11 pm (UTC)And then the vampires freak out and don't know how to handle the situation, and it gets really interesting.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-21 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 10:11 pm (UTC)Ahahaha she was inspired by MUSE. HOW AM I NOT SURPRISED.
Bella and Edward are the cutest most dysfunctional things ever, and I seriously look forward to the explosion that happens when she finally becomes a vampire.