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Tag Archives: literature

Round 5: Words. You Should Know How To Use Them

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 56 Comments

Tags

authors, books, grammar, Harry Potter, jk rowling, literature, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Saga, writers, writing

   VS  

 So, here we are.

We’re compared these authors by their prejudices, their morals, and their ability to construct plots, devise good narration, and describe the action (as well as their ability to describe the characters).

But there is one important point that we haven’t covered, and it seems like a fairly important one, considering the medium in which these ladies work:

Words. You Should Know How To Use Them.

I really feel that this is the ultimate requirement for a writer, don’t you?

A writer uses words as her medium the way that a painter uses paint. What you write and how you write it is important, of course, just as the subject and execution of a portrait is important…

…But if you don’t know how to mix those paints on your palette before you put them onto the canvas, you’re never going to get a great result. So now I want to examine the skill with which each of these authors wields their pen.

First I’m going to break down their use of the individual parts of speech – nouns, verbs and so on. Then we’ll talk about how well they are put together to make coherent (or not) sentences.

Note: You may notice that a lot of the examples I give come from the same books/sections. I hope you’ll forgive me for grabbing examples in chunks, rather than carefully trawling through the whole series to find a varied selection.

Continue reading →

The No-Cry Discipline Solution: The New Model For My Future Dog Training Book

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery, Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

babies, behavior, book reviews, books, child development, children, discipline, Elizabeth Pantley, literature, No-Cry Discipline Solution, parenting, reviews, strategies

As you may remember, Elizabeth Pantley of the No-Cry Sleep Solution sent me some more of her books for me to check out. Since I love books, this made me pee my pants with excitement just a little bit. (Although that’s also a side effect of having given birth. Still working on those Kegels.)

So I started with The No-Cry Discipline Solution.

I really enjoyed this book, and I actually found it more useful than Harvey Karp’s The Happiest Toddler On The Block.

Continue reading →

Rowling vs Meyer, Round 4 – How Can I Describe Meyer’s Writing?

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

adjectives, adverbs, books, characterization, characters, criticism, description, Harry Potter, jk rowling, literary criticism, literature, reviews, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, writing

Remember how I talked about cramming the universe into a teaspoon when it came to comparing J K Rowling with Stephenie Meyer? Well, when I actually started on discussing the writing, I discovered that I had to split it into two. This is the second half of round 3. The reason it took so long was that it was STILL getting out of hand. Therefore, there will also be a Round 5. It’ll probably stop there. Probably.

In this round, we will look more closely at the way these two ladies write – specifically, their use of description and their ability to create unique characters… or the lack thereof.

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

Continue reading →

Happy Hunger Games: And May The Irony Be Ever In Your Favour.

07 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

books, critique, humans, irony, literature, movie reviews, movies, reflection, reviews, sheep, the hunger games, violence

PH and I FINALLY got to see The Hunger Games! It took us a while to find a sitter, but my friend Pug Mama saved the day and took Owl for the afternoon yesterday.

You all know how excited I have been to see this movie. I was practically bouncing with anticipation as we waited for the movie to start.

So, now I’ve seen it.

I’m not sure what I think.

Overall, it was good. Really. I mean, the book is pure action, so it’s hard to mess up. The best thing was that they didn’t just turn it into a pure action thriller. They actually put soul into the movie.

  • The Reaping and the death of Rue were both excellently done. Very moving.
  • The plot is pretty much all there, and they actually added some behind-the-scenes stuff that you don’t get to see in the book, because the book is told in the first person. That was pretty cool. Seneca Crane, for example, was a much bigger character than in the book (and I LOVED how they handled his, er, final scene).
  • Several scenes were PERFECTLY set up for Catching Fire. Just watching them, PH and I were exchanging meaningful looks, knowing how these scenes would be reflected in the next movie and come to take on new meaning
    based on subsequent events.
  • Things LOOKED right (well, except the Cornucopia, which was bizarre). You know things are done well when you recognize the character right off, and I recognized almost everyone).

I only have three serious complaints.

I mean, yes, there were small things, peas in the mattress so to speak, like Haymitch being far too pleasant (“If only Heath Ledger were still alive…” says PH), Peeta’s eyes being the wrong colour, the deletion of certain important lines (“Stay alive” being one of them) and so on. But those little niggling details will always be present in any movie adaption of a book.

No, there are only three real problems with the movie. The odd thing is, while the touches I was missing were small, they really affect how I feel about the movie. These two differences make the difference between “yeah, that was pretty good” and “OH YEAH I’M WATCHING THIS OVER AND OVER”.

Complaint 1: The PG effect.

You weren't planning on seeing anything in this movie, were you?

I was somewhat prepared for this. I knew it was listed as PG13, so I figured they’d HAVE to tone it down.

In fact, I thought they’d totally alter Cato’s death, so I was surprised that they showed as much of it as they did.

And it wasn’t as bad as some movies, like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, where people manage to stab and kill their enemies without getting so much as a drop of blood on their swords (I’m sorry, but when find yourself taming down C.S. Lewis, you have toned things down too much). But this was the frigging HUNGER GAMES, man.

Now, I’m no lover of blood and gore. I don’t watch horror or even thriller movies. I even avoid your standard action flick. But sometimes, when they tone down bloody moments in book, the impact of the scene is lessened.

This happened with The Golden Compass. They took an awesome coming-of-age story and tried to aim it at the under-10 set and it didn’t work. If they had left in the blood, the betrayal, and the sexual overtones, they would have had a better movie and more income.

Well, The Hunger Games wasn’t that bad. But in their attempt to keep it PG13, they blurred out a lot of the action. They did the jiggly-camera thing CONSTANTLY during action sequences, so you couldn’t really see WHAT was going on, and I found it highly annoying. I came to watch a movie, not to get seasick. I realize you don’t want the 13 year olds to see too much, but I object to the fact that I don’t get to see what’s going on either.

Complaint 2: The Peeta Complication

I wasn’t wholly satisfied with the whole Peeta romance thing. I’m not sure that they did a good job in conveying how conflicted Katniss is about Peeta:

  1. He saved her life.
  2. She promised her sister she would do her best to win.
  3. Winning means that Peeta has to die.
  4. Which means she might have to kill him.

Exactly how am I supposed to work a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won’t seem as sincere if I’m trying to slit his throat.

And she can’t figure out Peeta’s game. On the one hand, he announces his big love for her, holds her hand and so on. He wants to train together. He compliments her.

On the other hand, he’s the one who convinces Haymitch to actually make an effort and give them some help. He is the one who demands to hear strategy, who closets himself with Haymitch and comes out with an act to charm the cameras.

He hasn’t accepted his death. He is already fighting hard to stay alive…. Which…means kind Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me.

So then she thinks she has started playing his game, too – acting for the cameras, playing up the show. But is it just a show?

And speaking of shows…

Complaint 3: Self-Awareness, Or Lack Thereof

How despicable we must seem to you.

Now, for this, I would love to hear from people who have watched the movie but have not read the books, because I may be underestimating people.

The movie-makers did a good job of portraying the emotions of the movie, the general awfulness of being thrown into an arena to fight for your life while people cheered, and the sickness of the popularity of The Games. They kept in all kinds of important minute details (by the way, I loved the touch of dressing the Avoxes like mimes).

But there were a couple of potential finishing touches that they seemed to shy away from…

When you read The Hunger Games, and its sequel, Catching Fire, there are certain recurring (I would even say near-constant) themes whenever Katniss has to interact with people from The Capitol, and when she is in the midst of The Games.

Your average person from The Capitol has no idea what it is like to be Katniss. Their decadent life is so far removed from her life of hardship and struggle that they completely lack the ability to empathize with her. They simply don’t realize or think about how much her life must suck.

While you do have evil tyrants like President Snow around, your average person from The Capitol is simply thoughtless.

What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?

Katniss’s prep team is a perfect example.

They are portrayed as kindly, friendly people who genuinely care about Katniss. And yet they are constantly saying thoughtless little things that show how little they understand Katniss’s situation.

It’s hard to hate my prep team. They’re such total idiots.

And then there are characters like Effie Trinket – almost admirable in many ways, but with that Capitol taint on them.

Effie takes both of us by the hand and, with actual tears in her eyes, wishes us well. Thanks us for being the best tributes it has ever been her privilege to sponsor. And then, because it’s Effie and she’s apparently required by law to say something awful, she adds “I wouldn’t be surprised if I got promoted to a decent district next year!” Then she kisses us each on the cheek and hurries out, overcome with either the emotional parting or the possible improvement of her fortunes.

Much of that is eradicated from the movie. Oh, you see the cheering crowds in the Caesar Flickerman audience. You see Effie’s cheerful “Happy Hunger Games!” and you are certainly aware of the fact that this is being treated like a big show. But at any point (and tell me, those of you who haven’t read the books) do you realize that WE are The Capitol?

There are two layers to The Games. The first is the primary purpose of the Games – to instil fear and despair into the districts, while also giving them something to dream about – the hope of winning The Games.

But to the people in the Capitol, it’s just a great reality TV show. They don’t think of the kids going into the arena as being real human beings. They don’t wonder how it would feel to be ripped from your family and thrown to your near-certain death for the entertainment of others. Even when they are moved to tears by Katniss’s protection of her sister, or Peeta’s star-crossed lover act, they don’t really register that these are real people.

I think the movie could have riffed on that more than they did. We see people in Districts 11 and 12 watching the Games, but they are watching straight footage – the same thing we see on the big screen. And yet, in the book, The Hunger Games is clearly a TV show, with narration, editing, and “highlights”. They could have shown us the SHOW – not the Caesar Flickerman show, but the actual Hunger Games show. They could have dressed it up to look like Survivor.

Playing Survivor is so much like being a contestant on the Hunger Games, at times I find it hard to believe that author Suzanne Collins hasn’t been a Survivor contestant herself. – Stephen Fishbach, Survivor Finalist.

And they could have shown the people in The Capitol, sitting around, watching children die while they munched popcorn.

Just like us.

Our society is only a step or two away from that of Panem’s Capitol, and Suzanne Collins isn’t gentle in trying to get that across to us. The way that Katniss looks at the Capitol – well, isn’t that how many third world countries look at us?

See how we fret over a few extra pounds, while children starve to death in the same countries that provide us with our morning breakfast cereal?

See how we put ourselves into survival situations for the hope of a million dollars, when people everywhere are living that situation for the hope of… well… survival?

They say the average child has seen 8,000 murders on television before finishing elementary school. By age 18, that number has increased to 200,000.

We can say “oh, yeah, but they aren’t REAL murders. It’s acting. We don’t sit and watch real people die for our entertainment.” And that’s true. But our society is tame by historical standards, as Suzanne Collins once again points out with all of the subtlety of a sledge hammer.

Don’t most Capitol characters sport Roman names? What were the Gladiators, but tributes forced to fight for their lives while people cheered?

Human beings are naturally bloodthirsty. I don’t like it, but it’s true.

So, someone wrote a book commenting on it. Then we took that book and turned it into a movie, and we all turned up in droves, excited to watch children die.

How those tributes would despise us.

Do you know what have seen in stores? A small book with glossy colour pages.   It’s a Tribute Guide.

Each page has a picture of one of the tributes, and their name, age, district etc. Even sicker, it openly addresses itself to “Citizens of Panem”.

So here’s the movie company, promoting their movie, marketing it to us as though we were those Capitol fans, excited for the 74th annual Hunger Games. And there’s no finger pointing, no attempt to make us feel ashamed.
Why would there be? Suggest that we are sick to buy their merchandise, or to see their movie? That would be craziness, surely. So they don’t.

They don’t try to hold up a mirror to us, to make us ask ourselves “are these Capitol people really all that different from us?”

Of course they don’t.

They are like The Capitol themselves, selling sensationalism, selling death, even as they tone down the gore and blur the death scenes, so that parents can feel better about bringing their children in to join the fun.

But I wish they had. It sounds ironic, but that would have made me feel a lot better about the whole thing.

Even as I wish that the movie had been bloodier.

Is There Such Thing As Reader’s Anonymous?

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by IfByYes in 30 Posts To 30, I'm Sure This Happens To Everyone..., Me vs The Sad, Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

addictions, books, literature, problems, reading

Hi, my name is Carol and I have a reading problem.

I can’t remember when I started reading. It seems like I’ve always had this habit, although there must have been pre-literature days in my past.

When it first started, it just seemed like a recreational thing.

The books were short and didn’t take much time – Frog And Toad Are Friends, Millions Of Cats, The Velveteen Rabbit, Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel – that kind of thing.

Then I started getting into harder stuff:

  • Charlotte’s Web
  • The Witches
  • The Phantom Tollbooth
  • A Wrinkle In Time
  • Black  Beauty
  • White Fang

By the time I was 12 years old, the habit was worsening.

  • Watership Down
  • My Family And Other Animals
  • If Only They Could Talk
  • The Sword In The Stone
  • Jurassic Park
  • Beautiful Joe
  • To Kill A Mockingbird
  • Animal Farm

I knew that I read more than a lot of people I knew, but I didn’t think I was that unusual. I just happened to know a lot of non-readers.

It wasn’t until University that people began to broach the subject with me.

Continue reading →

Why Do I Like This Series??

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

books, literature, movies, the hunger games

I’m unreasonably excited for the upcoming Hunger Games movie. Feast your eyes on THIS:

DOESN’T IT LOOK FREAKING AWESOME??

I know, whenever a movie comes out that is based on a book, I get all sniffy and complain about how the movie makers totally missed the point of the story.

There’s a chance that could happen with The Hunger Games, too, but I have hope.

For one thing, The Hunger Games is naturally action-packed. They won’t have to make many changes to the story to keep the action going.

For another thing, The Hunger Games doesn’t have as many points as a complex story like Harry Potter.

I can never quite explain why I like The Hunger Games so much. It’s brutal, thuggish, and the story just gets more and more heartwrenching as you go through the series. By the end of Mockingjay, you begin to realize that nothing is sacred, and that Suzanne Collins doesn’t have any intention of showering you with a fluffy deus-ex-machina ending.

It kind of reminds me of 1984.

More than a little, actually.

I don’t LIKE 1984.

Furthermore, The Hunger Games is written in first person present tense.

I don’t DO present tense. I think it’s stupid and pretentious. The only time I can handle it is when it is journal format, like the Beka Cooper series or Bridget Jones’s Diary. Even then, most sentences are in the past tense because the protagonist is summing up something that happened earlier in the day.

But The Hunger Games is so gripping that I don’t even notice the tense.

That says something.

Maybe it’s not so much that I like The Hunger Games as that I like the reading of it.

The fact is, ultimately, that it is good writing. The story sucks you in, you rarely see the plot twists coming (even once you begin to realize that nothing should be as it seems) and the characters are believable and will stay with you after the series is done.

Katniss is frustrating as a protagonist, sometimes, because she tends to float along on the winds of fate much of the time, afraid to take a real stance on the political issues in which she finds herself entrenched.

That being said, you can’t really blame her, once you understand that her loved ones come first and see what a rat bastard President Snow is.

Peeta is a likeable character, too – he fits the teenage-novel-boy-swain mold well without being sickening or Edward Culleny about it.

The world is believable, too, and despite it’s awfulness, it’s one you sort of want to go back to, because it is just so different from our own…

If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, should you?

If you like a good read, definitely.

It is gripping, intense, and it is political at the same time.

If you like to debate morality, this series will give you lots of fodder.

Is it right to lie to someone to save their life?

Is it right to kill someone who is trying to kill you?

Is it right to kill people in the name of freedom?

How about in the name of peace?

If so – how many people?

Is it right to support an evil regime to save your family?

Is it right to fight an evil regime, knowing that someone you love will be tortured if you do? 

Could you die for someone you love? 

When you have to choose between two different kinds of evil, which do you choose? 

The entire series is a frigging ethical debate that will set your mind spinning until you don’t know WHAT is right, or WHAT you would do in the same situation.

It’s a damn good series.

It’s not a comfortable series.

I think it should be awesome to translate to the screen. Although they may have to tone down the violence a bit.

Especially if they make Mockingjay. 

And then, of course, there’s the ultimate question that stems from The Hunger Games:

Are you on Team Gale, or Team Peeta?

Image

Round 3: Rowling vs Meyer – Time to Actually Discuss THE WRITING

04 Tuesday Oct 2011

Tags

book titles, books, Breaking Dawn, criticism, Eclipse, Harry Potter, j.k. rowling, literature, narration, New Moon, plot, reviews, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Saga, writing

I have talked about the messages behind Twilight and Harry Potter, and now, I think, it is time to actually discuss these two ladies as writers.

I know, crazy talk.

There are many different aspects of writing, so I’m going to try and go through them individually, since each writer has strengths and weaknesses. There are a lot of aspects to consider, so there will be a fourth round as well.

I’m going to give Stephenie Meyer a head start…

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

Continue reading →

Posted by IfByYes | Filed under TwiBashing

≈ 40 Comments

Guest Post At The Squeee!

05 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by IfByYes in My Blag is on the Interwebs, Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

books, Fassbender, feminism, interpretations, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre 2011, literature, movies, reading, reviews, Rochester

Hey guys, The Squeee has kindly posted one of my Jane Eyre rants. I’d love it if you would check it out:

http://www.thesqueee.co.uk/2011/09/problem-with-jane-eyre-adaptations.html

For those who have come over from The Squeee, my original review of the 2011 movie is here.

You might also be interested in:

Jane Eyre vs Bella Swan

The Twibashing Series (Round 3 is coming soon!)

Magic in the Potterverse

Other book-related posts

The Help: Empowering, or Archetyping?

22 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

books, Kathryn Stockett, literature, movies, Octavia Spencer, racism, reviews, The Help

Perfect Husband and I went to see The Help recently. I picked up the book at the airport in May, and gobbled it right up. It’s a good read – it’s easy, and it doesn’t FEEL long, but it actually took me a couple of days to get through, and that’s despite an eight hour flight (just so you don’t think I am an absymally slow reader, please keep in mind it was an eight hour flight with a baby).

So we went to see the movie.

It’s good. It carries the plot of the book fairly well, and I think it falls into the purple category in Don’t Mind The Mess’s pie chart.

It caught the plot and most of the characters well, but it lacked… edge. The anger. The character of Minnie was well played by Octavia Spencer (who apparently was the real-life inspiration for the character) but in the book she is… angrier. The characters are all a little more bitter, a little more jaded, a little less willing to forgive and forget.

The movie polished them a bit. It made them more patient, more sad than angry, and it took away many of their flaws. I didn’t really like that.

When you turn Constantine into a doddering old lady who dies of a broken heart, or when you make Minnie more feisty than furious, I feel like we do a disservice to the characters, and to Black history. Minnie is turned into a Mammy, and Constantine into a Magic Negro.

It bothered both of us, PH and I.

But then, who am I, a white person, to accuse a film of subtle racism, especially as an adaptation of a book written by another white person?

I have tried to google for the African American reception of The Help, in book or movie form, and haven’t been successful.

PH and his mother read it, too, and liked it. They are from the states, originally, and I think the book hit very close to home for them. My mother-in-law said firmly, “I know some of the women in this book.”

It hit me close to home, too. Not because I have any roots in the south, but because I grew up with an experience alien to most Canadians:

I had a black maid.

We lived in the Caribbean, and in that sort of society, either you were a maid, or you could afford a maid. There wasn’t much in between. And if you could afford a maid, why WOULDN’T you give a job to someone who needed that money?

Our house even had maid’s quarters in the back yard – a building with a room, and a bathroom, and the laundry was out there. We used it for storage. Our maid didn’t live with us, and she shuttled between several families.

She was paid for, at least in part, by my Dad’s work, I think. It was, like, part of his work benefits package. She only came in the mornings, and I think she had Thursdays and Sundays off. I used to feel awkward watching cartoons on Saturday morning while Annette vacuumed around me. She had such a sad face all the time.

She only spoke French (she was Haitian, and sent money home to her family there. When she went home for a visit, she often brought me back a gift) so I didn’t speak much with her, but my mother could speak with her.

I can’t really say much about what treatment of maids was like. I rarely happened to be at a friend’s house when their maid was in. But I think it varied widely.

When we first moved there, my mother came in and found her helping herself to a glass of water. She jumped guiltily and began to apologize! For drinking water!

My mother frowned, and opened the fridge, and gestured at everything.

“You help yourself to whatever you like, any time,” my mother told her. “If it’s something big, maybe just ask me in case I prepared it for a party or something, but otherwise, you help yourself.”

She never did, though. She never ate or drank from our fridge. But she did drink the occasional glass of water. At least she took my mother at her word that much. But if she was so cautious about doing something as simple as getting a drink, how much trouble had other employers caused her in the past??

When the Haiti earthquake happened, I thought of her. I hope her family was ok. And I hope she never felt about us the way the characters in The Help felt about their white employers.

We certainly never required that she use a different glass, and she was welcome to use any toilet she wanted.

Round 2: Twilight in the Garden of Good and Evil

10 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 38 Comments

Tags

books, ethics, good and evil, Harry Potter, literary criticism, literature, quotes, reviews, right and wrong, Twilight

Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity… Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend .

The above quote has been mis-attributed to many, including Stephen King and Andrew Futral (who re-blogged it) but was actually written by someone named Robin Browne. Whoever she is, she hit the nail on the head.

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

Harry Potter is an epic tale of good vs evil.

One of the things I most appreciate about the Harry Potter series is its rich exploration of right and wrong, good and evil.

In Harry Potter, good guys and bad guys are not clearly defined. Good people sometimes do bad things, and bad people sometimes do good things. The person you percieve as a villain in the beginning of a book is rarely still a villain by the end, and some of the people you thought were good turn out to be pretty damn evil.

What if your intentions are good, but your actions are bad? Does that make you good, or bad? What if you do something bad “for the greater good”? What if you do bad things by accident? 

Harry Potter addresses all of these questions, and answers them as well. Rowling’s answer?

No one is all good or all bad. You can even be on the side of “good” and still be deeply evil.

We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.

Twilight is… not.

One of the things that intrigues me most about Stephenie Meyer is the divide between what she thinks Twilight is, and what it actually is.

On Meyer’s website, she talks about the apple on the cover of Twilight and the quote that opens the novel.

 I used the scripture from Genesis (located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.” Isn’t this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and what evil is.

Really? She does? Because I am not convinced that Bella would recognize evil if it tried to kill her.

Literally.

On top of that, Bella herself is a right bitch.

Quick – what’s the first thing you think of when you think of “good”?

If your answer is “Bella Swan”, congratulations! First, you fully agree with what Stephenie Meyer thinks, and second, your medication dosage needs to be reviewed immediately.

Meyer certainly seems to percieve her own work as a thrilling tale about the nature of good and evil, choice and fate.

I see it as a story about a whiny brat with absolutely no morals, who never learns that she is not a good person.

So I can only form the following conclusion: Stephenie Meyer is seriously confused about what constitutes “good” and what constitutes “evil”.

The funny thing about good and evil in Meyer’s books is that they don’t seem to be largely correlated to right and wrong, being nice or being cruel.

As far as I can gather, having read the Twilight Saga…

Me, according to “Twilight”

“Good” means: Friends with Bella.

“Evil” means: Not friends with Bella and/or has red eyes.

Therefore, I am evil, and so are albino bunny rabbits.

Continue reading →

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