Twilight, Chapter One: First Sight
Mar. 3rd, 2012 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lliira Okay, here we go...
First, this cover design is awesome. I remember seeing it in the store. It made me pick up the book. Then I read the back, found out that it was a vampire romance novel, and put it back down, because I don't like vampires. Beroli (my fiancé) does, though -- I'll be reading his copy.
What have I gotten myself into?
This sentence is in the first paragraph:
I was wearing my favorite shirt -- sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. (3)
Disregarding the weirdness of wearing one's favorite shirt "as a farewell gesture," that sentence is terrible. Two repetitions of "I was wearing" in one sentence. Urgh. None of the sentences in the first paragraph are good, though. The first one implies that the airport's windows are rolled down; in the second, we learn the exact temperature; the third sentence is the aforementioned one about the shirt; and the fourth is the third sentence in a row that uses passive voice. We also learn in the fourth sentence that Bella's only carry-on item is a parka. Perhaps this is supposed to be a hint about her inability to take care of herself.
Anyway, I have a feeling if I keep getting caught up in stylistic problems, I'll end up doing a page-by-page analysis, which would take forever.
In the next paragraph, we learn that Bella hates Forks because it's cloudy all the time. That's legitimate; one reason I don't like Florida is because it's sunny all the time.
Then Bella gets dramatic about exiling herself, and the "great horror" she feels about moving to Forks. I get the impression she's doing it at least partly to hurt herself. She's worried about her mom, who's irresponsible, but thinks that her mom's married now so she will probably be okay.
On page five, we learn that Bella's mother hadn't hidden her hatred of Forks from her husband. Bella's mom didn't leave Charlie, exactly -- she left Forks. I start to think that Charlie is a jerk. His wife hated Forks so much, she left him rather than live there. So Charlie must have been unwilling to move, even though the place made his wife miserable. His daughter hates the place too, but she had to "put her foot down" to get him to see her in California instead. Charlie doesn't seem to care about the feelings of the people he's supposed to love.
So at this point in the story, we have learned that Bella has a scatterbrained mother who has leaned hard on Bella for most of her life, and a father who is at least oblivious to his family's feelings. (We've also learned that her mom looks like her, except with short hair and wrinkles, but since we don't know what Bella looks like, describing her mother this way is an odd writing choice.)
When Bella lands, it's raining. She says she accepts this as inevitable:
I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun. (5)
People often defend Bella by saying that all teenagers dramatize themselves. This is true, to an extent. But if I'd read the book without knowing that Bella's a senior in high school, I would be assuming she's about fourteen or fifteen. I'm going to give the author credit here and believe this is intentional. Bella had little time to work on her own emotional development because her mother depended on her inappropriately. Since Charlie didn't care to be with his child more than two weeks every year, Bella had no one to take care of her, and therefore no safe space in which to grow. This happens a lot to kids in real life, and people start wondering how someone who seemed so "mature" as a child lags behind as a young adult.
I'm going to stop there for the day, at page five, before Bella meets Charlie at the airport. I can't take more than a couple pages of this book at once. I think I'm pretty forgiving of stylistic stuff, but so far Meyer's style bores me silly.
First, this cover design is awesome. I remember seeing it in the store. It made me pick up the book. Then I read the back, found out that it was a vampire romance novel, and put it back down, because I don't like vampires. Beroli (my fiancé) does, though -- I'll be reading his copy.
What have I gotten myself into?
This sentence is in the first paragraph:
I was wearing my favorite shirt -- sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. (3)
Disregarding the weirdness of wearing one's favorite shirt "as a farewell gesture," that sentence is terrible. Two repetitions of "I was wearing" in one sentence. Urgh. None of the sentences in the first paragraph are good, though. The first one implies that the airport's windows are rolled down; in the second, we learn the exact temperature; the third sentence is the aforementioned one about the shirt; and the fourth is the third sentence in a row that uses passive voice. We also learn in the fourth sentence that Bella's only carry-on item is a parka. Perhaps this is supposed to be a hint about her inability to take care of herself.
Anyway, I have a feeling if I keep getting caught up in stylistic problems, I'll end up doing a page-by-page analysis, which would take forever.
In the next paragraph, we learn that Bella hates Forks because it's cloudy all the time. That's legitimate; one reason I don't like Florida is because it's sunny all the time.
Then Bella gets dramatic about exiling herself, and the "great horror" she feels about moving to Forks. I get the impression she's doing it at least partly to hurt herself. She's worried about her mom, who's irresponsible, but thinks that her mom's married now so she will probably be okay.
On page five, we learn that Bella's mother hadn't hidden her hatred of Forks from her husband. Bella's mom didn't leave Charlie, exactly -- she left Forks. I start to think that Charlie is a jerk. His wife hated Forks so much, she left him rather than live there. So Charlie must have been unwilling to move, even though the place made his wife miserable. His daughter hates the place too, but she had to "put her foot down" to get him to see her in California instead. Charlie doesn't seem to care about the feelings of the people he's supposed to love.
So at this point in the story, we have learned that Bella has a scatterbrained mother who has leaned hard on Bella for most of her life, and a father who is at least oblivious to his family's feelings. (We've also learned that her mom looks like her, except with short hair and wrinkles, but since we don't know what Bella looks like, describing her mother this way is an odd writing choice.)
When Bella lands, it's raining. She says she accepts this as inevitable:
I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun. (5)
People often defend Bella by saying that all teenagers dramatize themselves. This is true, to an extent. But if I'd read the book without knowing that Bella's a senior in high school, I would be assuming she's about fourteen or fifteen. I'm going to give the author credit here and believe this is intentional. Bella had little time to work on her own emotional development because her mother depended on her inappropriately. Since Charlie didn't care to be with his child more than two weeks every year, Bella had no one to take care of her, and therefore no safe space in which to grow. This happens a lot to kids in real life, and people start wondering how someone who seemed so "mature" as a child lags behind as a young adult.
I'm going to stop there for the day, at page five, before Bella meets Charlie at the airport. I can't take more than a couple pages of this book at once. I think I'm pretty forgiving of stylistic stuff, but so far Meyer's style bores me silly.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 01:50 pm (UTC)Bella looks exactly like Meyer, not even joking.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 09:36 pm (UTC)Using the same phrase twice in one sentence in the first paragraph of the novel, however, bugs the crap out of me. I can't believe no editor told her to change that.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 11:20 pm (UTC)Bella actually looks like Meyer in more than just coloring, according to her website, evidently. (Other pictures show that Meyer does have a widow's peak and a wide forehead.) :/
no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 02:27 am (UTC)I'd never seen that description of Bella before! That is funny. Also, that description makes Bella no longer look like either Kristen Stewart (which is how I've been picturing her, though I haven't gotten to the book description yet) or me. I think it's perfectly fine for an author to picture their main character as looking like them, or an idealized them, but if they do that they should take pains not to describe the character's physical appearance in too much detail. Because otherwise... this happens.