I Am Trying To Read Twilight And I Already Hate Bella

[English Chick]

Well what can I say other than I LOVED the books.. (have read all four , four times - AND liked the movies), plus can't wait for Eclipse Movie.. what can I say about Bella... nothing unless you can truly understand what it is like to fight shyness....and even then... people don't understand and think you are an unfeeling person... Bella is still not understood....I could go on but I wont/// being the oldest teenager in town......

 

[deb1]

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I was a very, very shy teenager and have grown into a shy adult.

 

[Kanchii]

Join the club... I HATE BELLA TOO and I've read all the books.

 

[Vcomb]

Haven't read the books, but work around enough people who have to feel like I have. Don't like Bella, and vamps aren't discoballs. Part of what distresses me is that the audience who is reading this series is part of the audience who fell in love with the Harry Potter series at an earlier age. To me it says, "if you want to make it as a writer, you can only have one set of characters, and every book must be another chapter in their adventures. In short, you must write soap operas".

 

[Kanchii]

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Oh god, Harry Potter > Twilight in so many ways its ridiculous. Harry Potter had great, well thought out plots, characters with actually realistic feelings and flaws and back stories, and the imagination was great. The WRITING alone is at least 20 times better than Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga.

 

[michickenwrangler]

I haven't read Twilight or seen the movies, but from what you're describing, characters like her are referred to as "Mary Sues," characters without useful flaws or flawed characters that everyone loves anyway. For example, the character just fell in swamp water but character's boyfriend thinks she looks hot with algae in hair and in wet clothes or author goes to great lengths to describe how a character got a scar but no one thinks it makes her ugly, etc... Ayla in the later books of Jean Auel's Earth's Children (Plains of Pssage and Shelters of Stone) is a classic example. Azhure in Sara Douglass' books is another. Martha Stewart would be a real life example

Male characters would be called a Gary Stu. John Wayne's characters in his movies, James Bond, those sorts of men ...

Here's links to a "litmus test."

http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue.html

http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

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Longer is always better. Always has been an is not likely to change. If you wright the average length book you have to decide how much plot you can have an how much character development you can have. The great books are the ones that dont compromise. They have it all an because of that they are bigger than an unabridged dictionary. There are writers. Then they are novelists. An then the greats are people that have written an epic. In the pre adult world your life is split up by years. Every year is a new story adding on to the last. So in the pre adult world an epic has always been many books on the same characters over a span of years. Narnia, Harry Potter, Twilight an many others are just using a proven method of selling a epic to the school aged reader. The only thing that has changed is that more kids are reading an being vocal about what they are reading.

 

[Illia]

deb1 - WOW and THANK YOU!! You know, I live in Forks. . . Twilight town. And I don't hate Twilight because of that, I hate it exactly because of what you said. I agree SO much. . . Especially for the fact that I know what the Forks highschool is actually like, and let me say - Stephanie Meyeer knew NOTHING of A) Highschool Life and B) Forks culture.

In reality, Bella would be an outcast, noone would care for her "problems," and with her attitude on everything - She'd become a drunk and pregnant pretty fast.

But honestly, MY problem with the book is Edward. . . How in the world can girls read about him and fall in love with his character? He's the most controlling, stalker-like, demanding, depressing, boring, creepy, and parasitic character I've ever known. . . And the author is showing that his is a dreamy guy?! He's abusive. He stalks her until she likes him, demands that she listens to him and stays by his side (even though he leaves her) and she must always do as he wants.

Oh, and their dialogue. . . The most simplistic dialogue I've ever known.

Not looking to "flame" anyone or anything, just stating my own opinion.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Want to know what really bugs me about those books (other than they are poorly written and Bella is an idiot)? The fact that they push the idea that she isn't complete without her man beside her. Seriously? Her life has no meaning if idiot vampire boy is gone? Really? I'm sorry. No matter how much you love someone it is not worth giving up on life just because for whatever reason that person is gone (and let's face it, she doesn't love Edward. She is fascinated with him and has a crush on him perhaps, but it's not like she been with him through thick and thin for 50 years). She is having a teenage relationship with some random guy that doesn't work out initially. Wah. Get over it. Get over him. Have a stupendous life because of who you are, not because you are paired up with this one person. Do we really want to teach out girls that they must have a boyfriend to be complete? That if they can't have the one person THEY think is perfect for them (at age 16?), their life is not worth living?

At least the Harry Potter books showed strong, intelligent girls doing something. Not some mamby pamby whiner who does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than pine over this boy.
Can you tell the books irritated me? While I am all for books that suck kids into reading, can we please just make sure they have a decent message? Healthy relationships are great. Having guy friends is great. Making those guys the be all end all in your life is not great. Develop your own skills and interests and abilities. Shy or not, that is how you become an interesting person that others will enjoy. And even if others don't enjoy you, you darn well better be able to enjoy yourself all by yourself. You aren't always guaranteed that Prince Charming/Vampire Edward will show up and stick around.

Okay... rant over.

 

[Manda0227]

I did like the Twilight series. Except, Breaking Dawn was just... a joke. I too could not stand Bella either. However, my best friend of 15 years absoloutely loves the series, and Bella & Edward, and she reminds me of Bella so much sometimes, but I love her to death. So I don't know if its maybe because iots very redundant, and a lot of the same words and phrases are used over and over again, almost as filler. I will still go see the remainder of the movies.

However, if you like Vampire novels and stories... The Charliane Harris Sookie Stackhouse novels... AMAZING!!!