Twilight Trilogy by Stephenie Meyer

So some more on Twilight...

I discuss books with my orthopedic surgeon. He's the one that recommended Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns to me. He's reading Twilight right now and not understanding why every woman in his office and his wife are fascinated with such juvenile writing. I pointed out that it's published by a young adult publisher and he responded that so was Harry Potter and he enjoyed those. He's not finding these as enjoyable. I suggested that he consider it one large book because Eclipse was the only one that I really got into. When New Moon got into the Romeo/Juliet/Paris symbology it got better but I didn't appreciate being beaten over the head with it. It was nice to have the Jane Austen symbols blatantly pointed out because I don't enjoy reading Austen (although I've been told I would enjoy it more if I read Adam Smith first and then looked at Austen with an economist's eyes).

By the way, in discussing it with the doctor, I think I figured out the reason that so many women love this series - isn't it every woman's fantasy to have two very dangerous men fighting over her but in such a manner that she knows she is safe, protected and cherished no matter how shallow and self-centered she is?

Twilight Trilogy by Stephenie Meyer

This series had three strikes against it before I started reading it. I usually don’t like fiction that comes from graduates of the BYU English department and I don’t do vampire romance. Third, I’ve never known my sisters to like the books I like (Although I’ve slogged through more Austen novels than they have Card, McCaffrey or Lackey). So when my sister recommended Twilight to me, I didn’t run out and put it on my library list. I also ignored it when The King’s English announced that Stephenie Meyer would be doing a book signing.

I wasn’t until one of the guys in my EMBA class mentioned that with all the reading he saw me do, he was surprised I hadn’t read Twilight. Well that got it put on the library list and when my turn came up (funny I didn’t think being hold 206 would go that fast). It came home and sat on my end table…and sat there... and sat there… and I knew that I either had to read it or send it back because it was due Thursday but I wasn’t looking forward to it until my daughter came home from college and handed her copy to her younger brother and said, “You so have to read this!” So it was a race, thank goodness for the flu? I ended up stuck in bed for the weekend and I finished the library copy before he finished her copy so I got to read her copy of New Moon and I finished that during the same weekend (I think I love the 3 month chapters as much as I love Faulkner’s “My mother is a fish”). And tonight I finished Eclipse and I can’t wait for Midnight Sun (Why does that title remind me of Nightwish?)

It’s more than a vampire romance, it’s a coming of age book for anyone who can’t believe that the cute guy (who you just know has a flaw) could ever fall for you. Then there is the teen angst that comes when you discover that there is more than one love in your life. The trauma that comes from choosing between good and better, making the decision and knowing it caused someone pain.

The topics are universal but the writing is definitely for the juvenile audience that the reader should have been cued to since it's published by a Young Adult division. And yes, my son is just getting to the fight scene in Twilight. He doesn’t get to put off homework to read the way that mom does…

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Relationships within the confines of war, it's something we all deal with today some more touched by it than others. The way a boy perceives his father's love shapes the man he grows into as well as the experiences he has as a child. Culture plays important roles no matter what the proponents of a melting pot or salad bowl say. Currently the movie release is being delayed out of fear for the safety of the actors. I admit that I will probably not see the movie. If they stay at all true to the book, it will contain more violence than I'm comfortable seeing on screen, either large or small.
Concentrating on the secrets which shape lives, this book follows a young boy with a gift of storytelling from peacetime Afghanistan through escape during war to his new life in America and his redemption from mistakes of the past.

Personally I didn't like this as much as I liked A Thousand Splendid Suns but that may be as simple as this is a man's coming of age and that was a woman's discovery of what she could endure.

His Dark Kiss by Eve Silver

I admit it, I like trash romance for fluff reading. Those weekends when you just have to unwind. So Friday, I grabbed a stack off the shelf (randomly) since, heaven forbid, someone might see me in the Harlequin book stacks. I get home and I have this book, His Dark Kiss. The first thought was "Great, I hate vampire romance novels." Well this is a Gothic novel but in the true historic Gothic sense of the horrid novel tradition. I LOVED IT!

There are some great plot twists and maybe I would have caught them before page 100 if I hadn't been focused on "this is somehow going to turn into a vampire novel even though he walks in the daylight." I'm not about to go searching out Ms. Silver's other novels though since the writing was a bit on the "horrid novel" side. If that's what she was aiming for, she succeeded but I like my trash with a bit of meat left on the bones so there is something to sink my teeth into. I didn't quite get it here - cook had picked the carcasses clean before sending them out to the bin.