[stylist] Book review on the Twilight series

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Cheryl,

I agree that the movies are better in so much as when having to make a
choice between the books or the movies. I could have skipped the books,
quite frankly, and just gone straight to the films, which is rare since
only one other time have I conceded that a film was better than the book
it was based off of. The soundtrack to the movies is phenomenal on the
other hand, smile!

In the Eclipse movie, lines are added for the character Bella that are
not anywhere in the books, but the monologue gives a much clearer
picture into Bella and her choices. Had Meyer chosen to do this in the
books, more would make sense and I could find the character more
compelling and relatable. Meyer has been closely involved in the
production of the movies, so perhaps she has been able to change and
edit things she can no longer do with the books. And yes, mainly to her
Mormon background, Meyer has insisted the movies not exceed a PG-13
rating. It was difficult to turn the first installment of the fourth
book, Breaking Dawn, into a PG-13 instead of R, but Meyer was adamant,
and of course a large part of it was because many fans are still very
young.

As a young girl who, to this day, loves fantasy and romance, I didn't
get into Twilight at all, and I don't believe I would have enjoyed it
when I was a teen either. The target audience, according to Meyer, is
teens- the 13 to 18 range, but as we know, the fan base reaches well
beyond that range. I don't get it, but obviously millions find an
appeal, and at the end of the day, if people enjoy something, it can't
necessarily be all that bad. Hmmm.. Well I guess that mantra doesn't
exactly fit with just anything, but you get what I mean, grin!

Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon who, according to her, has a deep faith and
this contributes to a lot of themes and situations in the book such as
abstinence, not using drugs and alcohol and no swearing, those
characters are reported as swearing, and in my opinion, if a character
swears, they should swear. Saying they said a "word" clues readers and
no one is stupid so it really is ridiculous, in my opinion, to report it
but not actually write it even though a character swears like a sailor.
Both this is neither here nor there in terms of this post however, grin.

I respect anyone who enjoys Twilight; in fact, most my friends
(including some guys) and a few family members like it. My biggest
issue, as I state in my review, is the poor quality of the writing. I
give credit where credit is due, and Meyer has moments, but not enough
to combine into a compelling, well-written story. I have heard, though,
that Twilight has allowed some mothers and daughters to bond, and even
if I don't understand this, I certainly recognize how special this can
be for mothers and daughters.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 15
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:05:21 -0500
From: cheryl echevarria <cherylandmaxx at hotmail.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Book review on the Twilight Series
Message-ID: <BLU162-W4329A1315AF7E93FA748A0A1960 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


I find on the other end, I got into the movies over the book and now
reading the books, they are very different, also I feel that it doesn't
fall on the coattails of Harry Potter, the original book for Twilight
was for more of older teens more like early 20s and the movies were
suppose to have an R rating, but due to the fact that they wanted a
younger audience to see the movies they tamed the movies down a lot.
Harry Potter on the other hand was supposed to be for the younger crowd
and early teens. So the stories were not suppose to follow each others
coattails. We love vampire stories in this house, I find the movies
quite cheesy, and so does my daughter, who has read all the books, but
find the movies lacking quality. Dina is 22


Leading the Way in Independent Travel!