Divergent: Am I the only person who didn't like this book? (#35)

Spoilers, discussing the ENTIRE plot...

Veronica Roth's Divergent is supposed to be the next YA lit sensation - Summit Entertainment has already snapped the film rights up and it has 332 five-star Amazon reviews - but I thought it fell flat. I'm actually surprised that it has such an ardent fan base because I think has a couple of major flaws, including a lack of tension, a premise that doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and an inconsistent protagonist. It got to the point where I couldn't wait for the book to end, never a good sign.

The Divergent world is limited to a futuristic Chicago where society has broken itself up into five factions based on the members' personalities: There's Dauntless (courageous), Candor (honest), Amity (friendly), Erudite (learned), and Abnegation (selfless), which is the faction protagonist Beatrice Prior comes from. People without factions are homeless and live in the no-man's land between the faction areas. When children turn 16, they must take an aptitude test which tells them which faction they're meant for, and then at a ceremony, they can choose whichever faction they want to belong to. If they leave their own faction, they lose their family. When Beatrice takes her test, she gets a mixed result - she could be good in Dauntless, Abnegation, or Erudite - which makes her, egads, Divergent. It's so bad that her tester deletes her results and makes Beatrice swear she'll never tell anyone what happened.

When the choosing ceremony comes, Beatrice decides to betray her family and choose Dauntless. But it wasn't all that surprising and I think this was the first mistake in the book - Roth spends very little time describing Beatrice's life in Abnegation or her parents, so there's no attachment for the reader (which is absolutely essential at the end of the book). So when she chooses another faction, it's like who cares? All we really knew about Abnegation was that it was a place where you could only look in the mirror once every 90 days and children weren't to speak at the dinner table - and who wants to live like that? Beatrice's decision seems pretty easy, which leads to Divergent's second flaw...

Despite the interesting premise, the book lacked tension - and this was an utter failure in the set-up. In most books, the protagonist struggles against a force greater than themselves, and they are often shoved into this struggle without a choice. This always happens at the beginning, creating tension and epic, life-or-death struggle that sucks the reader in. In Harry Potter, Harry starts out ignorant but quickly finds out that he's survived an attack by the wizarding world's most powerful dark lord; in the Hunger Games, Katniss immediately sacrifices herself for her sister and must figure out how fight to the death to survive a regime that sacrifices teenagers; in Persuasion, Anne struggles from the get-go against society's preconceived notion that she's too old for love; even Twilight has it, presenting this idea of true-love-at-first-sight potentially doomed by unavoidable natural tendencies (i.e. wanting to suck your lover's blood). But Divergent completely lacks this kind of set-up as the conflict is introduced WAY too late in the novel; as a result, the novel meanders in terms of plot. Starting out the novel, it's unknown why the world came to this (or even whether the world is more than Chicago now) and there's no desire for renewal or return, so no conflict there. There's no real conflict with the apititude test; regardless of the results, teenagers can choose whichever faction they want, so no one's being forced into anything. Beatrice freely chooses Dauntless and even though initiation is tough and she has to get into the top 10, she never really regrets her choice. We don't know why being Divergent is bad until p. 154, that it's life or death, and despite a bit of displayed prejudice against Abnegation, we don't know that there's actually something happening against them until about page 200. This is out of 295 pages (on my Nook anyway).

Beatrice always gets to choose - and everything that happens to her in the first 240 pages or so emerges from her choices. There's no huge struggle - for the most part, until the factions start trying to kill each other at the end, it's a really simple story about a girl trying to fit in to a new environment. Most of Divergent could easily have been set in a high school, as new girl gets teased, struggles to make friends, and flirts with resident mysterious bad boy. That's a fine set-up for a story but it's not EPIC - but the creation of this dystopian world is promising epic. In the end, it's nice scenery that doesn't amount to much. Despite the tagline, Beatrice doesn't even change all that much, not really, internally.

That nice scenery barely holds up to scrutiny, too. I can suspend disbelief and accept the premise that people have mentally simplified enough (my assumption) so that easily fit into one of five categories and don't possess any of the other qualities. The problem is that Roth doesn't stick to this. All of Beatrice's initial friends in Dauntless are transfers from other factions and because they have grown up in other factions, they do indeed possess the quality of their original faction. It's mentioned several times that Dauntless characters are annoyed with or Beatrice is surprised by the Candor-transfers' honesty/sarcasm. So clearly people DO possess multiple qualities...which destroys the premise and the finale conflict, as it's hard to believe that only Divergents are immune from mind-control. (The mind-control thing really stretched credibility, omg.)

I could go on - discussing, for example, the unlikelihood that the virus controlling every mindless Dauntless solider is stored on only one computer, making it easily destroyed - but I won't. I'll just stop and forget I ever read this book.

Sisterhood Everlasting: Break Out the Kleenex (#27)

I was pleasantly surprised by Ann Brashares' Sisterhood Everlasting, the adult follow-up to her immensely popular series that started with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I assumed it would the shallowness of Sweet Valley Confidential but she really took this novel to a dark place which the publisher's write-up doesn't even begin to hint at. I'm not ashamed to say I spent most of this reading experience with a Kleenex wadded up in my hand.

The four Sisterhood books are about four girls - Lena, Carmen, Bridget, and Tibby - who have been best friends from birth. One summer in their teenage years, they discover a pair of jeans that fit them all, despite their wildly varying body types - and they decide these pants must be magic. (How could they not be, really?) But as they face their own individual challenges, like death, divorcing parents, and heartbreak, that summer and beyond, they start to drift apart - but they send the pants back and forth between them and it helps keep them linked together. In the last book, as in the second movie, the pants sink to somewhere at the bottom of the Aegean, alas, and they realize that they don't really need them, their friendship is stronger than a piece of fabric, etc.

Sisterhood Everlasting fast-forwards to about 10 years later, when the girls are in their 20s. At first, it's not all that surprising what they're doing: Carmen is a successful actress but due to her daddy issues is engaged to a self-absorbed jerk; Lena is an emotionally crippled art teacher in Rhode Island who's still afraid to take a risk on life; and Bridget is still a free spirit who, despite settling down with Eric in California, feels caged in such a domestic lifestyle. Only Tibby is the mystery - she moved to Australia with Brian but the girls have barely heard from her, effectively breaking their sisterhood. Then one day, Tibby sends them each a letter with a plane ticket to Greece, for a reunion similar to the one in book 4. But then the three girls arrive and Tibby isn't there...and that's all I say about the plot. Except get out the box of tissues. You'll definitely need the tissues.

Remembering, Rereading Sweet Valley High (#19-24)

For a reason that now eludes me, probably (despite?) my recent foray into Sweet Valley Confidential, I was inspired to reread the beginnings of the Sweet Valley High series. I think I was curious to see if there was anything to the books or if I had just been a very confused 12-year-old in need of an older sister to properly explain the birds and the bees and what high school would be like and all that.

I read books one and two - Double Love and Secrets - again in 2008, and so I acquired books three through seven - Playing with Fire, Power Play, All Night Long, Dangerous Love, and Dear Sister -PLUS Perfect Summer, the Sweet Valley High Special Edition, though Amazon.com. Then I spent a few June afternoons lying in a pool chair devouring this inane goop - and it was awesome.

There's nothing much to say about these books except that oddly some of the book jacket copy misrepresents what the books are about. (The book seven jacket copy for Dear Sister, my personal favorite, says that Todd and Jessica are pondering life without Elizabeth as she lies in a coma but the book is mostly about her odd personality change once she wakes up. Sheesh.) But what I enjoyed was the experience, the trip down memory lane, and the reminder that summer is supposed to contain some element of fun. As adults, I think we get so lost in the hustle and bustle, and it was really great to spend a couple hours slowing down and remembering all those little, silly things that I liked to do as a kid. And for that, I give these preposterously awful, awesome books five stars.

Oh, by the way, Cracked has a completely awesome guide to ghostwriting Sweet Valley High books. You must click, yes, go on!

Not-So-Sweet Valley Confidential (#10)

I LOVED the Sweet Valley High books when I was a kid, mostly because they were about perfect California teenagers doing perfect California things. When I was 12, nothing seemed more exciting than that. So I was pretty darn thrilled when I heard Francine Pascal, the series' creator, was releasing a follow-up last March (um, yes, we are discussing a book I read four months ago). Doesn't everyone want to know how 25-year old Elizabeth, Jessica, and the gang turned out?!?

It turns out that life is not so perfect anymore (until they all kiss and make up at the end, anyway). Elizabeth turns out to be a reporter, no surprise after her high-school days as the superstar columnist at The Oracle, but she's devastated when she finds out that her sister and her formerly puppy-dog loyal boyfriend, Todd Wilkins, have been having an affair. They're, like, so in love. And Jessica, like, feels so bad about it...and yet also feels like her twin should understand. The rest of the book is basically backstory and apologizing while Elizabeth licks her wounds.

The sad truth is, no one should have let Francine Pascal near a Word document. After reading the drivel that is Sweet Valley Confidential, I now understand, very clearly, why ghostwriters wrote the entire SVH series. Because this book is outrageously terrible. I would have excused it and said that, like the series, it was written for pre-teens who don't know any better (like, ahem, Twilight) but I realized that's not even true - this book IS written for adults, the adults who nostalgically remember the 80s and the books they loved.

Numerous reviewers on Amazon have pointed out the factual inconsistencies between Sweet Valley Confidential and the series though I admittedly don't remember the books that well. For me, the worst part of this book was the very thin plot filled with inane dialogue and the most extreme of events that somehow took 300 pages to tell. Nothing normal happens in this book - everything is to extremes and, like, the worst thing EVER. Several characters have complete personality changes: The resident asshole's parents die and he turns into an angel; the sweet, bumbling nerd turns into an asshole and dies falling off a balcony; the protective older brother appears to be an serial adulterer until it turns out, omg, he's gay! It's laughably the worst.

Actually, I take that back. You want to know the worst part? This book was enough of a bestseller that St. Martin's has given the green light to a new series based on their adult lives, to reportedly be released starting next spring. According to the New York Times, it will be published online in installments and have the cliffhanger feel of the original series. To quote the NYT quoting St. Martin's publisher Dan Weiss, "It's really e-mass market." Let's just hope they decide to hire a new writer.

#2: Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

Thank god, Mockingjay took the plot in a new direction. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed The Hunger Games - just not twice. But this last installment had serious "what's going to happen" momentum and I consumed Mockingjay in about 24 hours.

In the third and final book, the rebellion has taken center stage. Mockingjay starts with Katniss walking around the ashes of her home, District 12, which was blown to bits by the government forces after she was pulled out of the Quarter Quell arena in a massive plot by the rebels of District 13 - where she now lives with her mother, sister, and remaining survivors. Katniss is very conflicted about taking over the role of the Mockingjay, the symbolic heart of the revolution, because it will result in death and she hasn't resolved her guilt about causing death to her fellow tributes to secure her own life. The book isn't terribly complicated or filled with any surprises but it's remarkable for this - the emotional wounding of Katnisss Everdeen.

The main characters in the other two wildly popular teen series, Harry Potter and Twilight, on the other hand exhibit an utter lack of growth, which is what I came to hate about the books. I mean, the characters go through all kinds of crazy shit but at the end, they emerge unscathed and ridiculously cheerful like they've spent their respective series sunbathing on Bora Bora. How does that work? (Conversely, the emotional fallout is what I respect in works like The Lord of the Rings, Atonement, and even The Odyssey. Being good, or trying to be good, is a lot harder than being bad. If heroism was easy, everyone would be heroic. The point of these books is, the hero suffers and keeps going, despite personal consequence...making him/her a hero. Sheesh.)

Without giving away the plot, I'll just say that unlike Bella Swan, Katniss Everdeen doesn't get everything she wants wrapped up in a neat little bow at the end. She succeeds and completes her heroic journey - which I think was obvious from the outset and not actually giving anything away - but not without loss and change. And that journey - both emotional and physical - was what made for an incredible series.

#21 and #22: The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins

I read the The Hunger Games and Catching Fire back-to-back in October, after reading about the upcoming movie adaptation in Entertainment Weekly and generally hearing this series bandied about as "the next Twilight" (despite a distinct lack of vampires and werewolves). You know, I'm a teacher now, so I try to keep up with what the kids are reading - though despite the bestseller status, I have yet to spy one of these books in a kid's hand, alas.

The Hunger Games is the monomyth-based tale of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in District 12 of Panem, a post-apocalyptic country that stands in the place of a destroyed America. Every year to remind the people of the damage that rebellion can do, the Capitol demands that each district send them a teenage boy and girl to fight in the televised Hunger Games, a to-the-death battle in a horror-house arena. The tributes, as the sacrificial teens are called, are drawn by lottery and when Katniss' younger sister's name is drawn, she volunteers instead...which sends her out into the world on a hero's journey. (Like all monomythic heroes, she lacks at least one of her parents - in her case, a father - and she has a mentor, though he's not so magical. Harry Potter has a wand, Luke Skywalker has a light saber, and Katniss wields a bow.) Since the story is a trilogy - I have the third installment, Mockingjay, waiting for me at the library when I get home - I think you can pretty much guess how things turn out for Katniss in the arena as she learns the necessary lessons and achieves her destiny.

It's an interesting tale, considering it's a series about teenagers killing teenagers. Collins did a good job in navigating the minefield of how the reader can root for Katniss and want her to win, and still accept the horrific things that have to happen. I genuinely liked the first book. The second, not quite as much - despite its initial promise, Catching Fire unexpectedly mimics the premise of the first book. Which worked, I guess, for Harry Potter and Twilight but I've always found that repitition kinda boring. Still, I'm looking forward to Mockingjay, which seems likely to tread its own path.

#6 and #7: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Books 3 and 4

So I finished books 3 and 4 - Girls in Pants and Forever in Blue - about two weeks ago, maybe more. I've forgotten the finer details, so I won't spend much time on this post. But I do know that out of all four books, I think I liked Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood the best, mostly because it was the only book that hadn't been pillaged for the movies. It was nice not to know what was going to happen. (Book Two wasn't bad in that respect, but the third was the only one that was truly Hollywood-free.) For the same reason, I wasn't quite as into Book 4, as the Sisterhood movie sequel basically followed right along. But overall, as easy reads, the series was pleasant and enjoyable, and even contained little nuggets of wisdom that I identified with.

There's only one thing that I really wanted to point out: At the beginning of Book 3, the girls all go to the senior party together, and I think it's pretty well implied that all four of them (plus Brian and Effie) go to the same high school. But I would be willing to bet good money that in Book 1, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, they go to different schools (though as I recall, two of them - maybe Carmen and Lena? - did go to the same school). I remember especially because I found it a little hard to believe that they would be able to remain best friends with all the distractions and new schoolmates that high school presents. Anyway...

At the moment I'm reading two books: Frida: A biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera and In the Skin of a Lion. Frida's not bad, but it's slow, and I'm sort of wondering if I'm going to read all of it - in general, biographies aren't my genre (I generally find the nitpicky details, like dates and names of schools and neighbors, tedious). I'm not sure what I'd start otherwise, though - maybe a second run of Eat, Pray, Love?

#4 and #5: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Books 1 and 2

I really love the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants so I decided to pick up the book. I'm kind of a sucker for teen movies and films because even though I'm no longer a teenager, I find that they generally contain the optimism and hope that I miss from being a teenager. You know, that your friends are going to be your friends forever and everything is destiny and your life will work out perfectly. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not an unhappy adult - I just miss that unabashed innocence of the uncomplicated years is all. There's something very powerful in that belief.) I was also under the mistaken impression that this was a book written during my teen years and I'd just missed it - but no, it was written in 2001 and I was in my 20s then.

Anyway, I wasn't so keen on the first book. And apparently the movie producers weren't either, since they changed almost every detail. (I tried to find an explanation for this on the Internet, but no go; almost every review said they remained mostly faithful to the book. Huh? Did we see the same movie?) The basics remained the same: It's a story about four best friends who find a pair of jeans that fits them all perfectly and they send the pants around to each other over the summer as a way of staying connected. Lena goes to Greece and falls in love; Carmen goes to South Carolina to visit her divorced, single father, only to discover he's found a new family; Bridget goes to soccer camp in Baja and falls for a coach; and Tibby stays home to work at a drugstore and she forms a friendship with a 12-year-old who has leukemia. But then after that, the book is pretty different - and strangely, I think the screenwriter did the better job. I recognize that I have a strong bias toward the movie, and perhaps I wasn't giving the book its own fair shot, but I just found it to be...meandering. The movie does a much better job of providing reasons and/or explanations - like why Bridget is so reckless, what happens with her and Eric on the beach, why Lena's in love with Kostos at the end of the summer...

But the characters are compelling, without a doubt, and quite similar to the live-action versions. So I decided to read Book 2, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. I was totally curious as to how things turned out - I've seen the second version of the movie, but with the way Book 1 ended, it seemed impossible for the book version and the movie version to match up. And sure enough, they didn't, not really in the slightest. But that was okay - I quite liked Book 2. Even though it also suffered from some contrived situations, it was touching - and I felt genuinely bad for Lena and Bridget, especially. In the second book, the girls are still in high school; Lena stays home for the summer agonizing over Kostos, Carmen stays home and ruins her mother's relationship with a new boyfriend, Tibby goes to a filmmaking course in Virginia, and Bridget runs off to Alabama to reconnect with herself and her grandmother.

My only real gripe with the second book was the emphasis on appearance - which seems like a harmful thing in a book written for teen girls. Basically after the ambiguous thing that happens with soccer coach Eric in Mexico, Bridget slides into a funk. She quits soccer and dyes her trademark hair black - and god forbid, gains 15 pounds. And while I realize it's supposed to be a metaphor, I was mostly just left with the impression that weight = bad. I just wonder if young girls realize that Bridget re-finds herself because she confronted the truth - and not just because she went back to being that gorgeous, svelte girl that everyone loved.

Anyway, so I'm on to Book Three tomorrow. Yes, I've been sucked into this series. And I'm kinda hoping Lena is going to get the movie's fairy tale ending with Kostos. I don't think it's going to happen but having lived through a similar situation in real life, I know it sucks and you think about it forever, so I've got my fingers crossed for her.

And on a final note, as an added bonus, the very hilariously awesome clip of America Ferrera and Blake Lively promoting The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Yes, it's the one with the eye roll...

http://gawker.com/5041417/in-the-name-of-the-sisterhood-blake-lively-forgives-america-ferrera-her-eye+roll

#27: The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin

Woo hoo, number 27 done and we're just barely into December. My 30 books are within sight. :)

So, I just finished The Westing Game. I never would have picked this up in a million years, but I'm in a book club and it's the December choice. It's a children's book and it reads like a children's book, and after running through the Twilight series, I have a serious hankering for adult fiction. The basic premise of The Westing Game is that 16 people have been selected to live in an apartment building called Sunset Towers, although they don't realize that they've specifically been brought together until they find out they're all the supposed heirs of eccentric millionaire Samuel W. Westing. The will pairs them up into 8 groups and whichever group figures out who murdered Westing wins the fortune. You're supposed to play along and figure it out for yourself, too. Personally, I couldn't be bothered (although I managed to keep up), but I can see how it would be fun if I was still 8-years-old. I loved Encyclopedia Brown, after all.

And that's that. I haven't totally decided on the last three books but I'm thinking Paolo Coelho's The Witch of Portobelllo, Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton, and perhaps Lolita.

#26: Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

Oh, Breaking Dawn, how you ruined Stephenie Meyer’s captivating series about vegetarian vampires and teen love. Your writing is erratic, you’re about 300 pages too long, your characters do things out of character, you introduce so many new characters in so little space that you needed to add a chart to keep them straight, you contain numerous detail errors that we won’t get into, and you forgot to include the dramatic plot point. It’s too bad. I really enjoyed the series and I feel like this one ruined it for me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth for the whole thing. If this had been the first book in the series, I would have skipped the rest. But I see now I’m not the only person who feels this way; countless readers and critics have wondered what the hell Meyer was thinking. I’ll do my best to keep this short.

On the most basic level, Breaking Dawn just didn’t hold my interest. The hardback copy I have is 754 pages long, and not surprisingly, it’s filled with a lot of rambling. For the most part, readers seem to realize that this series is not an example of good writing. It’s simple and Meyer relies on a lot of elementary adjectives and adverbs, instead of building unique prose. And that’s okay; the appeal of this series, I think, has always been the personal relationships: the love and tension between Bella and Edward; the confusion between Bella and Jacob; the competition between Jacob and Edward; the family dynamics between the Cullens and Bella. So then in Breaking Dawn, when Meyer abandons the relationships that have pushed the story forward, she creates a vacuum. In the fourth book, Edward is a fairly hollow character and there’s little interaction between him and Bella; Jacob and Edward are now buddies so there’s no rivalry; Jacob imprints on Renesmee early, so there’s no romantic tension left. Without these propelling winds that have kept the series going, Breaking Dawn just flounders on the rocks.

Personally, I was surprised that Bella became a vampire; I actually thought, at the end of the last book, that Edward would give her up and she would mate with Jacob. Oops. But she became a vampire and that’s Meyer’s choice and I don’t really object to it. But my issue here with Breaking Dawn was that in Bella’s conversion, basic vampire lore got thrown out the window. Obviously Meyer was already pushing the boundaries with the vegetarian Cullens, and that’s fine; she took a standard legend and transformed it into something original. The Cullens by nature want to drink human blood, and even though they resist, it’s a constant struggle – that’s transforming legend into your own. But it seems ludicrous to write a story about vampires and then ignore their basic characteristics, like she does with Bella post-transformation. Vampires drink human blood; that is what makes them vampires, by definition. But vampire Bella isn’t really interested in humans; she has super-duper control over her emotions (which is amazing, considering she was 100% emotionally driven as a mortal). Bella doesn’t struggle, and after three books of prepping us for her newborn struggle, it’s like what the hell? when nothing actually happens. As Edward tells her, “You shouldn’t be able to do any of this. You shouldn’t be so…so rational.” Wise words, Eddie. Unfortunately no one was listening.

I looked at Stephenie Meyer’s FAQs on her website, and I found the last sentences of the defense of the book interesting: “The surprise to me is that so many people do like my books. I wrote them for a very specific audience of one, and so there was no guarantee that any other person on the planet besides me would enjoy them.” I am pretty well convinced at this point that Meyer is living out a dream-fantasy, with herself as Bella, as she’s writing these books. As such, she doesn’t want to transform that into something horrific...which is where the unbelievable plot turns emerge from. Take away the vampires and the story becomes clear: A mousy girl moves to a strange new town where she suddenly becomes the most popular girl in school; the most gorgeous, amazing guy in the world falls in love with her and through this love, she transforms into the most beautiful, powerful woman the world has ever seen. I get that it’s a fantasy to have Bella emerge as the vampire with the strongest powers, who becomes the only one who can save the Cullens' way of life, after she’s been the weakest link…but this turn of events doesn’t really fit within the framework Meyer’s created over the last three books. And because Meyer knows this manuscript isn’t going to be sitting a drawer, for her own personal use, I do think she has a responsibility to the reader to stay on course. And Breaking Dawn just doesn’t do that. It veers. Oh, how it veers.

In the end, though, I have the same problem with this that I did with the last Harry Potter book: These final installments fail because their protagonists don’t learn anything. Both Harry and Bella go through an epic battle and yet they come out on the other side completely the same, as if nothing had ever happened. Look at The Lord of the Rings – Frodo dumps the ring in Mount Doom, yes, but he can't be the same. He won, but he lost, because he has to leave Middle Earth. He literally can't go back to his old way of life – and that’s what gives that book its heft. There are consequences, for both good and evil. But in the Harry Potter and Twilight series, risk means nothing because the enemy is vanquished and nothing of that struggle remains. Here in Twilight, you've been told over three books that there's supposed to be some struggle/conflict in becoming a vampire – some struggle in staying yourself – but in the end, Meyer skips it...because didn't you know, becoming a vampire is like, the most awesomest thing, way better than being who you were before? It comes out of left field and that, in the end, is what makes the series end flatly.

#25: Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

So, Eclipse. At first, I wasn't too keen on this one, as it does the exact same annoying thing as Harry Potter; Meyer, like JK Rowling, uses the same set-up over and over again. By book 3, it's a little old. The preface hints at some impending doom that Bella has no control over, but then the book starts and everything is great, there's trial in the middle until bam, some larger menace arrives and the vampires prepare for a fight. That's basically what's happened in every one, with varying specifics. Still, there's something captivating about this overarching story which probably explains why I'm already 50 pages into Breaking Dawn. (The book jacket says it's the final book in the Twilight saga. But what about Midnight Sun? I'm confused.)

I also felt - and Meyer's website hints to this, though I can't find where I read that now - that Eclipse was written a little too quickly. Or maybe just not as freely; of course, Eclipse is the first Twilight book that Meyer wrote, knowing that the series' popularity, and I would imagine she felt some pressure. I saw it mostly in little mistakes, like at finals time. On page 316, Bella talks about how she's nervous for the first day of finals because she has her two hardest tests, Calculus and History; but then just a few pages later, and the same day, she says that she's relieved that finals were finished. There was also a 5-ish page section around 555 where Edward calls Bella "love" in about every other sentence. I also was able - and I don't know if this was intentional on Meyer's part - to guess everything major turn of event before it happened, and in some cases, like a hundred pages before.

So anyway, in Eclipse, Bella essentially has to choose between Edward and Jacob. I was a little surprised by the turn this took, as I never really thought that Bella saw Jacob as anything more than a brother - or a crutch. I never really thought that she was in love with him, and I'm still not totally convinced. Was Bella ever really convinced? Supposedly she's made her final choice, but I have a feeling that Jacob is going to reappear in Breaking Dawn, though I'm not exactly sure how that could play out. It will also be interesting to see where the story goes - Meyer has started to tackle some of the uncomfortable questions behind Bella's potential transformation, and I'm totally wondering how she's going to resolve it so that Bella stays herself while also staying forever with Edward.

Anyway, on a final note, Meyer earns props for including both Robert Frost and Wuthering Heights in this installment. She opens the book with "Fire and Ice," one of my favorite Frost poems. And occasionally, Bella and Edward argue over her beloved Wuthering Heights. But as you know from a past entry, I'm not a fan of that classic; Edward is of the same mind. "The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others' lives." Here, here!

And lastly, my favorite quote from Eclipse: "Then he [Edward] turned back to Jacob. 'But if you ever bring her back damaged again - and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head - if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs.'"

Next up? Haha, it's Breaking Dawn. And then I'll have to run through 4 more books to reach the 30. Not sure what they'll be yet. Woohoo, the goal is within reach!

#23: New Moon, Stephenie Meyer

So I'm looking at this book sitting in front of me and I'm having a hard time remembering what it's about. I did like New Moon, but it hasn't stayed with me the way Twilight has. Perhaps because it doesn't have the same level of narrative tension. Like the first book, not a lot happens. For the most part, Bella retreats into a shell because Edward has left her. He breaks it off with cruel words and she believes him, and then spends hundreds of pages in a total funk. She kinda starts liking Jacob Black, newly ordained werewolf. (Yes, I know: Girl meets, likes vampires and werewolves? Insert eye roll.) And then Alice shows up and they're off to save her beloved Edward. Part of the problem, I think, was that I was pretty sure that Edward was coming back; it's just not the kind of story where the main character moves on and settles for someone she doesn't love. So I kinda got a little impatient to move through the sad part, which at times struck me as filler. (Interestingly, Stephenie Meyer encourages you to read this book twice; she thinks people overlook the middle section because they just want to know what happens.) My other issue is that I have little idea of what's going to happen in Eclipse; I don't think this book really set up (or even hinted at) the next conflict at all.

But whatever, I'm still into the series. So thank god, my copies of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn have already made their way into my possession, thank you library. I've just got to finish Time's Arrow before I can jump back into the mythical adventures taking place in Forks, Washington.

Oh, before I go, I do have to give Stephenie Meyer props for injected a little more humor into this one. My favorite lines, courtesy of page 477: "I looked at Aro [the Italian vampire] blankly. Was he joking? Or was he really asking me if I wanted to stay for dinner?" Heehee.

#22: Twilight, Stephenie Meyer

Yes! It's October 12 and I've just finished book #22. Maybe I'm just kidding myself, but I finally feel like I'm on track to reading 30 books this year, after multiple years of failure...thank god.

Helping me along the path is Twilight, which I just finished this morning. I really enjoyed it and see why it's a phenomenal bestseller (although a surprising number of readers on Amazon seem to disagree). Also, after poking around Stephenie Meyer's website, I have to say I am totally impressed with how down-to-earth and normal she seems, and I totally want her to come over for coffee.

I found Twilight to be shockingly simple, although not in a bad way; Meyer's writing is really basic and uncomplicated, and while that's something that bothered the Amazon people, I found that it enabled me to slip into the story and envision the scenarios for myself. I'd never really thought of writing that way, and would compare it to another book I love, Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion...with that book, you can't really get ahold of the images until you parse through the writing to decipher what he means. Anyway, the simplicity of Twilight was something that struck me early on.

So the basic storyline, for anyone who doesn't know, is the love story between ordinary Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. Bella moves from Phoenix to Forks, Washington in the middle of her junior year and suddenly finds herself as the center of much male attention. (As a side note, I think I liked the story immediately because I could totally personally relate: Our family moved to another state in the middle of my sophmore year; it was annoying, nerve-wracking, and also very strange to be the center of attention in a town where nothing ever really changes.) Despite her newfound popularity, Bella only has eyes for Edward, her gorgeous, abnormally pale lab partner. (As another side note, I have a college friend whose name is very similar to Edward Cullen and it was a weird mental image. Sorry Ed.) Bella and Edward spend the novel trying to be in love and stay out of love, for Bella's sake, until the end - when vampire James enters the picture and decides he wants a challenge and tries to steal Bella for himself.

It's kind of a funny book because not much happens, even though it's about 500 pages long. For the most part, it's a lot of push and pull between Bella and Edward...she tries to figure him out and he tries to resolve his feelings. But it was still captivating, and sweet, and I was entranced with their love story. At times, some of the bigger, unresolved questions bothered me - I don't know if Stephenie Meyer tackles them in the next books, but I found it was better to let them go and not think about them. Like, for example, how can Bella and Edward sustain this relationship? It seems to me that she's going to have to become a vampire - and she wants to - but so far, it's not in Edward's character to do it (and he gave up his opportunity in Twilight to let fate make it happen). But then do you really want her to become a vampire? Their age difference also kind of bothered me; it's fine at the beginning when Edward is supposed to be 16-ish, but then I realized that no, he's really a mature adult man having a relationship with a teenager. But again, I tried to put aside these little nitpicky questions; I don't know, I guess I think that a young adult novel doesn't have to stand up next to War and Peace, and that's okay.

So anyway...I devoured (haha) Twilight in less than 48 hours and am now eagerly awaiting New Moon to come into the library. In the meantime, I will probably get back to Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho. I had started it just before I got Escape and was entranced with the first 10 pages I got to read of it. :)

#13 and #14: Double Love and Secrets, Francine Pascal

In case you don't immediately recognize the titles (whaaa?), Double Love and Secrets were the first two Sweet Valley High Books, published in 1983. Random House began rereleasing updated versions of the series earlier this year (I thik #4's just about to come out) and a friend and I started reminiscing about reading them way back when, which led me to track down some used paperbacks on Amazon...and here we are.

Sadly, the books aren't great, mostly because the characters are stereotypes and the writing is pretty bland (breaking Composition 101 rule #1: Show, don't tell). At age 12, of course, I didn't realize this; I just wanted to be a blond, move to California, have a twin magically appear beside me, and just get to high school already! I don't remember how far I got into the series before I grew out of it, although I'm guessing likely into the 70s, at least. But seriously, these books pretty much taught me everything my tender mind thought it knew about boys and s-e-x in the 6th grade. They were so influential, in fact, that I can still remember being given the first copy: I was at a sleepover at my best friend Alison's house, and I can still totally picture standing there in the bedroom when she gave me the hand-me-down from her older sister.

So I won't criticize the writing style or the plots; Francine Pascal and her team of ghostwriters likely never intended for the books to be read by adults. So I'll just smile and remember what it was like to be 12. Ah, 12...how fast it all goes.

But, should you want to be an adult and live (or re-live) the magic of Sweet Valley High, but don't want to go it alone, check out this blog: http://thedairiburger.wordpress.com/category/sweet-valley-high/ There you'll find one dedicated blogger and many fans wanting to do the same thing!

#8: Killing Mr. Griffin, Lois Duncan

I finished this one last week, pretty quickly. It was good but not great - which is not so surprising, considering it was written for pre-teens. I was crazy about Lois Duncan's books when I was that age and was curious to see how I would feel about my childhood favorites now (I picked up Madeline L'Engel's A Ring of Endless Light and put it down just as quickly; I have high hopes for the Sweet Valley High series, the books that taught me about boyfriends and sex and bad girls, that I plan to pick up next).

Anyway, the most interesting thing was realizing how much my life had changed. Killing Mr. Griffin is set in Albuquerque, a city that was as foreign to me as Algiers when I was a kid (although perhaps just as dusty). I had no conception of it, I'm sure. And as an adult, I've lived in Santa Fe, just an hour north. It was just so strange to read the book and be able to picture the Sandias, knowing that as a kid I had no idea that one day I would be able to do that. No doubt this is more than Lois Duncan ever intended for her book, but it was an interesting trip down memory lane nonetheless. Moving on...

Next up: Raymond Khoury's The Sanctuary. I'm somewhere around page 50 right now. It's not great -- the language is a little overwrought -- but maybe it will go quickly and perhaps even improve.

#14: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

My hands are tied on this one: I raced through the final installment so quickly in the hopes that I wouldn't find out a thing from someone else first (and I didn't), so in turn, I'll try to be vague and hope that I don't ruin it for anyone else. Looking at amazon.com, I see that by an overwhelming majority, readers loved this book -- and frankly, I'm shocked. I thought it rambled on and on and on, and the ending was ultimately unsatisfying. Multiple nights I fell asleep.

The main flaw is that clearly this tome is not a book for children (both through the high and random death toll and thematically), and the book is marching along to this mature conclusion until Rowling makes a U-turn and sanitizes it. Presumably for the children, who should have stopped reading around page 5. In that respect, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was far superior; Rowling made the tough choice, but committed to it. It's the same reason why The Lord of the Rings works, and I mention it because obviously Rowling drew inspiration from Tolkien's masterpiece. The point is, in both books, good is not only a choice, it is the most difficult choice. That's why, at the end of LOTR, Frodo is broken and leaves Middle Earth; would you really believe that the battle between good and evil was so important if the main characters came out of it completely unscathed, as if it never happened?

More than anything though, I wish I could be more specific. It's a real shame that the fastest-selling book in history cannot actually be discussed.