Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
(Reviewed on 08/20/2008)
The Electric ROSSMAN
Last year at about this time I became aware of a huge movie coming out in the upcoming holiday season that was based on a series of critically acclaimed books. I became intrigued (especially by Nicole Kidman's hot-diggity presence in the movie), and thusly began and quickly finished the His Dark Materials trilogy within the space of a busy few weeks. The books blew my fucking mind, although the movie didn't really do that much for me. Flash forward a year. A few weeks ago I became aware of yet another movie coming out this holiday season, this one based on a series of fan acclaimed books about teenage vampires in hiding in Washington state — Twilight being the name of the first book (and upcoming movie). I thought, "Why the hell not? Might as well give it a shot. I mean, I like vampire stories (when told right), and I even like that the idea of undead bloodsuckers trying to bone pretty young high school girls (like with Buffy and Angel!)." There were even whispers of comparisons between Twilight and Harry Fucking Potter... I found this similarity a bit over the top and a trifle bit eye-rolling, but I had nothing better to do, so I went out and bought the novel.
Then I read Stephenie Meyer's book (Twilight, you mental sloth, you). Then I put it down. Then I put my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose and grimaced. Then I let a big juicy cloud of methane loose in dedication to what I just finished. Then I blamed Karen's dog.
I don't ever remember hating a story (and especially the main characters) so goddamn much in any book that I have ever read. I wanted everybody in this novel to die horrible deaths for their stupidity, teenage angst, douchebaggery, and just plain assholicness. This thing was written for one audience: Teenage girls who fall in love with the idea of "the giant tool bad boy." What makes this even worse is that Meyer writes this book through the eyes of the world's most annoying twat who ever fell off the turnip truck and landed square on her head. Bella, the 1st person-written lead character, is soooooo incredibly stupid. She also treats everybody around her like crap (like they're all so far beneath her because she's a major drama queen in her own little universe), and then she falls in lust with Edgar Cullen (the pretty boy douchebag vampire lead) at first sight. She gets treated like crap by Edgar, but she seems to thrive in his asshattery. You know that slapping some sense into her hyper-estrogen-filled skull wouldn't really do any good (as her ovaries and uterus are on obvious overdrive), but you wish to GOD that you could still try. And if you started cracking her face around you just know that everybody else who knew her would line up behind you to do the same, just like that queue of passengers in Airplane! when they try to calm that hysterical woman down, some with boxing gloves and crowbars.
Let me back up a bit and tell you a bit about the plot. Twilight is all about 17 year-old Bella — a self-absorbed little bitch who feels nothing but sorrow for herself ever since her mother remarried and stopped basing her entire existence around her only daughter. So Bella moves back in with her well-intentioned, caring, but not too over-indulging father up in Forks, Washington (the cloudiest and rainiest city in the world). Bella treats her sheriff dad like he's a Down's Syndrome toddler, and feels like Charlie "just doesn't understand her." Oh yeah, the bitch condescendingly calls her dad by his first name (only to his back no less), just like all rebellious dicks and cunts who don't know what the fuck they're rebelling against. So Bella moves in with Charlie (who even buys her a car so that she won't have to be chaperoned around the small town by her pop in his cruiser), and starts attending the local high school. There she meets a ton of nice girls who want to be her friends, and even more shy and handsome boys who want to go out with her... Of course this in Bella's eyes means that the chicks only want to hang out with her because she's new and "popular," and the boys are just pathetic lap dogs who simply feel sorry for her and are therefore totally beneath her. Holy fuck... If this is how real teenage girls truly think... Fuck me, we need to just nuke the world and let the cockroaches start over.
Bella is so fucking self absorbed it's frustrating (frustrating only because I couldn't do any non-make believe physical violence to her because she's just words on a page)! But then things get worse. So much fucking worse.
So Bella's going to her new school, she's pretending to be friends with a bunch of kids (you think I'm just being pretentious here... she states quite openly in her own thoughts that they're not really her amigos and that she's just hanging with them because she's got nothing better to do), and soon she lays her eyes upon the King of All Smug Douchebags (Real or Imagined): Edmund Cullen. Edmund has gorgeous eyes, an angelic face, sculpted cheekbones, powerful muscles, a swoon-inducing smile, beautiful nostrils, fuckable earlobes, perfect eyebrows, and thick, beautiful, angelic, gorgeous, perfect, and beautiful eye-lashes. How do I know all this about him? I know because every goddamn time Bella looks at (or even thinks about) Edmund we're treated to a full sentence about how angelic and beautiful his features are. Sometimes 3 times in the same paragraph. After realizing that Bella would keep talking/thinking like this for the rest of the book (that was probably around the third time she saw him) I began to weep. I realized in a flash of migraine that this was going to be a very, very excruciating experience... Something akin to being strapped to a Clockwork Orange-type chair while forced to watch and listen to a bunch of 15-17 year-old girls talk on and on and on about everything that isn't important in life (as if nothing else were), as if they'd DIE if they stopped to take a breath... Cat fights and all... and none of them ever gets naked.
Where the fuck was I? Bella meets Count Doucheula (Ernie and his entire "family" are day-walking, glittering, Mormon, faggot vampires! Surprise!). Right. Oh, and of course Douchey treats her like crap, but being the typical teenage girl that she is, Bella eats it up like a quart of Cherry Garcia on a lonely Friday night watching the Oxygen channel while crying her godforsaken self to sleep. She becomes infatuated with Elliot solely because he's a royal tool. I... Seriously, how the fuck did humanity make it this far when high school chicks think and act this way? I would have gotten so much poon tang in high school myself had I only sneered at every chick in the hallway, and treated everybody around me like they were slug shit that I had to scrape off of my shoes when I accidentally bumped into them. But I digress.
Anyway, it turns out that the dick-pire Elmer is really only into Bella because she SMELLS NICE to him. So nice in fact that it drives him crazy and makes him want to "carpe jugulum." I.E. "go for the throat." Apparently Elmer and his vamp clan don't drink human blood (Meyer "explains" that they're "vegetarian vampires," meaning they only eat bears and mountain lions.... Proving she is an idiot and doesn't understand the definitions to either "vegetarian" or "vampire"), but the temptation to do something crazy and rip out Bella's neck is an incredible rush to him, so being the uber-douche that he is likes to keep her sweet scent next to him all the time. What a goddamn dick! Bella's pretty much catnip to Elmer's pussy. She has such an unbelievably powerful, natural vampire libido-booster emanating from herself nonstop, causing any vamp within sniffing distance to pop a fangy boner... and Elmer just HAS to play douchebag dangerous with her. He gets a sick thrill from wondering if he's strong enough to resist tearing a meaty chunk out of her whenever they're alone, and yet he holds off even telling her of this danger until way later into their relationship (Honestly, he keeps from telling her ANYTHING about himself until he's sure he can get her in the sack... Well, if he wasn't a Mormon and thought that sex was icky). Giant Douchebag, thy name be Elmer Cullen.
Oh, then late in the book (like the last 20 pages) comes the part where Meyer remembers that she really should add some drama and action to this thing, and so she has another clan of blood suckers come to town who are all hot to hunt Bella down [for her musky odor that turns them all on]. Truthfully, I still think Eric was more of a prick than James, the lead sociopath badguy vamp, but whatever. In the end Eric of course saves Smella because Meyer is a hack who doesn't understand anything other than straight forward storytelling. Since there are like 14 or 15 books in this series already, you just know that neither Bella nor Count Faggot die, so there you go. You know I didn't ruin anything for you. Honestly, I'd have given this thing 12 out of 4 Stars had Eric torn out Bella's throat after saving her from the "ugly" vamp, but alas that did not happen. Hack.
Did I mention that Elmer likes to sneak into Smella's bedroom and watch her sleep? And that he's like 140 years old and she's illegal? That's some fine Mormon morality tale there, Lou.
The WOLFMAN
People seem to think that there's a huge rivalry between vamps and werewolves... Utter bullshit. To be a "rivalry" you must have two groups of equal value and ability battling each other. Vampires in the real world are all just incredible goth pussies. Yeah, some bite normal humans, some suck blood, but all are pathetic choads who wear too much black and put on way too much eyeliner. In that sense, all those faggoty LARPer wannabe vamps nailed their depictions right on the head.
Anyway, the last "Wolfmen vs. Vampires" brawl that I got invited to, we wolfmen wiped the goddamned floor with the vamps who showed up. It was pretty awesome. Lots of hairy somabitches clawing, gnawing on, punching, and ripping off arms and then clubbing a bunch of panty-waisted losers with too much mascara. A few of them even had fake fangs. My friend Chuck the Werewolf started pulling out fangs — real and fake — with a pair of pliers that he keeps in his glove box. Then, after we put the collective smackdown on all the pussy vamps we "marked our territory" all over them. Janice the Hairy even took a steamy deuce on a few, and wiped herself with one of their oversized, long, black trenchcoats. Ugh, real vampires shouldn't wear trenchcoats... In fact nobody who shows up for a fight should wear anything that could be easily stepped-on or grabbed when the wearer tries to run away after getting punched in the face and stomach a few times.
The Imouto JAIME
This was the sweetest, most romantic and epic love story ever since Romeo was forced to kill his beloved Juliet (NOTE from the ROSSMAN: I don't think my sister ever really read any of Shakespeare's classics... Or maybe I'm just remembering them wrong myself). It was just so beautiful! Edward was a dark and tortured soul, and Bella was all alone in the world. They were drawn together like a bee to the sweetest smelling flower in a field (NOTE from the ROSSMAN: Okay, now I know Jaime didn't read this book. How the fuck did she come up with that? Eddy was "Tortured"?!?! I count douchebaggery as "torturing others," not oneself. And Bella was the exact OPPOSITE of "all alone in the world." She had a mother, stepfather, real father, and tons of people she could call friends who cared for her if she just treated them with a little respect. Ugh!). They were neither allowed to be with the other, but they fought against their respective worlds and laws, and in the end found happiness. If only the cover featured Fabio painted 20 years younger as Edward, then this thing would have been perfect! (NOTE from the ROSSMAN: I can't argue with her about it being "perfect" with Fabio on the cover. His just BEING on the cover of books makes the pages that much softer when I wipe my ass with them. I can't explain it, but it's true.)
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