Friday, March 25, 2011

An Update on My Heroic Struggle with Twilight

I know that I promised to take a glance at the Twilight Saga and post a review. But, sheesh, people, how can anybody manage to get through this thing? Forget about the plot, forget about the characters, just tell me how it can be humanly possible to read something so badly written? I've managed to get through sixteen pages in this entire time and the flat, choppy sentences are driving me up the wall. 

Teenagers don't talk like that, act like that, or think like that. Why, oh why, do they read thousands of pages of this sad excuse for a novel? There is so much great stuff to read in the world and so little time to read it. And still people choose this??

I knew Twilight would be bad but I had no idea it could be this abysmally low-quality.

12 comments:

Bookseller Angie said...

I never could have read it in English, but I read them all in Spanish and got COMPLETELY sucked in. Maybe it's just me, but I felt like the quality of the translation was actually better than the original English. Or maybe it's just that I don't notice bad writing as easily in Spanish since it's not my first language...

Jonathan said...

Even my 15-year old daughter has contempt for it, saying it's badly written.

It was nice meeting you face to face finally. I hope you had a nice birthday celebration for your sister.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for taking one for the team.
I guess it takes a teenage girl to like these kind of books.

meg said...

my teenage son, at height of his avid reading of fantasy, tried reading the first book and declared it so terribly written as to not be worth his while. i decided to read it and went on to read them all (i'll read anything obviously). I thought they had to get better. spoiler - they got worse.

Anonymous said...

I read sf, which has loads of poor writing, and I read three paragraphs of Twilight and my brain nearly imploded.

No idea of the plot or characters, just the writing was so abysmal that's as far as I could make it.

-Mike

Izgad said...

I voted to have you read it in order to engage in some "aggressive questioning" about what I have not decided. :p

Maria said...

The author is a Mormon housewife, had three children jumping around the house while she was typing, and completed the first draft in 1 week, or something like that. You can't expect much...

Spanish prof said...

In fact, the first movie is better than the (first) book. Then, I stopped. But I heard it went downhill.

Spanish prof said...

In fact, the first movie is better than the (first) book. Then, I stopped. But I heard it went downhill.

Pagan Topologist said...

I hope you will read and review the Harry Potter series. I love coming-of- age stories, and these are, in my opinion, pretty good, although an old friend of mine who is a literature scholar (Mediaeval French) is not so impressed.

NancyP said...

Try "Left Behind". That will make "Twilight" seem like Shakespeare.

Halcyon said...

It has moments of bearability. A linky to a paper that claims Twilight is really clever feminist prose: http://wp.me/p1k7xS-G