Remember when I started my blog as Di's Book Blog? My high-falutin' objective was to do a book review every day or so. As I progressed, I found out that publishers actually search out such blogs and send the blogger books to review. This was kind of cool, but I would have to say that about 90% were not worth reading. (I guess THIS blogger won't be getting too many more books from publishers!)
Pretty soon I had to add "etc." to my blog title because I kept going off track. Then I had to change the title completely because it was the rare post that mentioned a book, let alone reviewed one. Now I'm trying to get back to my roots. I'm not making any promises like, I'll review one a week, or anything like that because I know I won't stick to it and then I'll feel guilty.
It seems that a certain Stephenie Meyer is this year's answer to Harry Potter for the tween-/teen-aged girl set. My Mom mentioned the Twilight books to me in late October and asked if Haley was interested in them. I said no and that I hadn't even heard of them. By the next week, Haley had read all four and her friends were circling around Haley and each other to be the next one to read one of the four books.
Despite Amy's protestations (Di, don't do it. It's horribly written. You'll never get those hours back again!), I took Twilight to Mexico with me and started reading it. I actually only scanned the last quarter of the book because the day before Thanksgiving we spontaneously decided to go to the movie and I wanted to finish the book first.
You aren't going to read this much in my blog, but, THE MOVIE WAS BETTER THAN THE BOOK! You can relax now, there will be no more shocking revelations...in this post anyway!
I can understand the attraction between teenage girls and Twilight (along with the subsequent three books.) The basic plot is that a clumsy, somewhat self-conscious girl (Bella) moves to live with her Dad in a town in Washington where the sun shines about once a year. She makes friends quickly, but still can't seem to stop looking at and wondering about the four Cullen kids with their pale skin and unusual eyes. There's no spoiler here since everyone knows Twilight involves Vampires. Bella learns more and more about them through her friendship with Edward (the incredibly cute one, of course.)
I call this kind of book a "glorified movie treatment." It's all plot with little character development or visualization. My daughter was getting mad at me when I was reading and criticizing the mundane, repetitive and redundant writing. I'll just give you one example. A woman was described as "tall and statuesque." Well, the definition of statuesque is "attractively tall and dignified." So, word geek that I am, I found the use of the word "tall" to be not only redundant, but slightly condescending. Does she think her readers wouldn't know such a big word or have the initiative to look it up if they didn't?
The book could have also used a good editor. One example was when Bella was apparently "relieved," but was written as "relived." I wish that I could say that this book is so smart and internally witty that it was a play on words with the whole vampire thing, but that was not the case.
I read the book mostly to see what all the fuss was about. But, unlike the Harry Potter books, I didn't feel compelled to immediately devour the second book, New Moon.
The important thing to note is that my daughter and all of her friends, many of whom are not natural readers, DID feel compelled to consume all four books in short order. So, despite my pretentious book reviewing, I cannot find anything wrong with any book that gets teenagers excited about reading. Today they read Stephenie Meyer and maybe tomorrow they will read Daphne DuMaurier (although I admit I've only seen the movie of Rebecca). Searching for the next book, because their appetites are now whetted for books, they may find themselves at the library or bookstore or in Miss Di's study looking for the next great book. Di will restrain herself from handing them The Pillars of the Earth or A Fine Balance, which, while two of the best books ever, are voluminous and can make adults cringe. She will casually toss out some YA books that Haley has read that somehow landed on her hallowed shelves. She will restrain herself from handing over The Grapes of Wrath and instead suggest Marley and Me or The Lovely Bones.
Regardless of my take on this book, buy it (from your LOCAL bookseller, of course) or borrow it for your favorite teens and let them revel in the love of reading. They'll get to Steinbeck eventually!
Di
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