Everything Changes, Nothing Perishes: New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Teen angst and hormonal fluctuations make young love difficult enough, but making a vampire the target of that young love makes it considerably more challenging. After surviving emotional and physical trauma in Twilight, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen try to conduct their relationship with as much normalcy as possible. Given that Edward and his family are vampires, the previous statement is a contradiction unto itself. After an unfortunate incident on Bella’s birthday, Edward realizes that Bella requires protection even from him. In an attempt to shield her from harm, Edward severs all ties with Bella and leaves Forks with the rest of the Cullens.

Bella, as expected, is destroyed by Edward’s abrupt departure. She remains in a near-catatonic state until she befriends Jacob Black. Tentatively, Bella attempts to live among the living again, instead of waiting for her sexy undead ex-boyfriend. Jacob shows her what romance with a human being could be like, but Bella is unwilling to let go of Edward, especially when she realizes that engaging in potentially life-threatening activities makes her memories of him more vivid. Bella comes to rely on Jacob’s stabilizing presence, all the while ignoring the fact that he wants more than she is willing to give. Bella’s timorous recovery is thrown off-kilter when Jacob also begins distancing himself. Bella’s navel-gazing worrying quickly falls by the wayside, however, when she’s confronted by the very real danger of past enemies and the wrath of the vampire royal family.

As I said before, there wasn’t nearly enough Edward Cullen in New Moon to satisfy my aching fangirl heart. The slightly weird and majorly codependent relationship between Edward and Bella is my favorite part of the story (I wonder what that says about my mental state?); doing without it for the majority of the book made New Moon a bit more difficult to read than Twilight.

Sunday Salon: Fangirling

After writing my review of Twilight, I started on the second book in the series, New Moon, immediately. Like I said previously, Twilight is one of those books that I like despite my better judgment. Despite the uneven writing and the soap opera dialogue, I was riveted by Twilight, living vicariously through Bella and Edward’s romantic awakening.

Unfortunately, with New Moon, the flaws in Ms. Meyer’s style is more difficult to ignore, primarily because there’s not enough Edward Cullen in it. It’s an unreasonable criterion, but I am in full-on fangirl mode at the moment. It’s all about Edward for me; Jacob Black is a poor substitute.

Also unreasonable is that I’m obsessed with this series to begin with.  I usually fangirl over TV series, with Buffy and Angel being my greatest fixations.  I suppose that’s where my newfound love for Twilight comes from.  My mother has taken to teasing me about this, as my fifteen-year-old sister and I now spend hours debating the minutiae of Twilight and anticipating what Breaking Dawn, the final book in the Twilight Saga (nooooo!!!!), will bring.  Why is it laughable, I asked my mother.  Apparently, it’s perfectly fine for a fifteen-year-old to get smitten with a sexy, fictitious vampire, the same does not apply to a woman in her 20s.  Bah, I say.  If loving Twilight is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Fighting Fate: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

To be honest, I didn’t expect to like Twilight. It’s not because I am dismissive of the vampire romance or young adult genre; it had more to do with how hurt I was when Buffy and Angel broke up. Besides, I had thought that I had outgrown such moony fangirling and adolescent angst. I’m an adult now and, therefore, above such petty pursuits. Why, then, did Twilight have me swooning like a lovesick cow?

The story is told from the point-of-view of Bella Swan, an awkward and angsty teenager who has taken a self-imposed exile in Forks, a cloudy, sleepy town where everyone knows everyone else – certainly a far cry from the heat and tumult of Phoenix. Of course, Forks has a lot more to offer than Bella thinks, because it is also home to a coven (or family, depending on who’s speaking) of “vegetarian” vampires, i.e., vampires who don’t feed on tasty humans. Though they live peacefully with humans, the Cullens, naturally, keep to themselves, until, that is, Bella comes along and provokes a stirring in Edward, who is, of course, described as mysterious and staggeringly beautiful. Their relationship suffers a lot of stops and starts, but it is only a matter of time before Edward and Bella realize that, despite their better judgment (mostly Edward’s) and disapproval from humans and vampires alike, they are unwilling to be parted from each other. Bella is welcomed into the Cullen fold, but Edward’s choice to embrace what he feels for her comes back to haunt him when Bella’s life is threatened by James, a decidedly carnivorous vampire.

Weekly Geeks: Sometimes, The Movie Is Better

Although Dewey gave many varied examples in this week’s Weekly Geeks prompt, I’m going with an obvious and, to me, the most familiar method of storytelling – movies, of course. Like many people in these modern times, I was watching movies before I ever learned how to read. (The first film I ever saw in the cinema was Supergirl, which, at the time, seemed supremely magical, although that youthful assessment failed to stand the test of time.)

Aside from books, movies are one of my favorite distractions, and dissecting books adapted to film goes hand-in-hand with that. Sometimes, my two great loves glean fantastic results (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, anyone?) and sometimes not (The Seeker still makes me violent when I’m reminded of it). Here’s a smattering of my favorite adaptations:

Fight Club
Let it be known that I am not a fan of Chuck Palahniuk. I’ve read a few of his books, Fight Club among them, but I’ve never gotten the point. On paper, it reads like every other ranting coffeehouse poet/musician who doesn’t realize that cultivated jadedness is already passe. The film, however, gave me a different experience. The imagery was visceral, not annoying; the dialogue was provocative; and, despite (or is it because of?) the violence, the characters and themes were still relatable. The film gave me a new appreciation for what Chuck Palahniuk was trying to say, and while I’m still not a fan, I’m always excited to hear about (thus far nonexistent) films based on his work.

Hustle and Flow: The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman

Set in 19th-century England, The Dress Lodger shows the reader a face of England that is usually ignored by Jane Austen film adaptations. This novel isn’t about the trials and tribulations of the landed gentry, nor is it about the games women must play to land a husband and financial security. In Sheri Holman’s England, sanitation is nonexistent and the medical field is still in its infancy, so much so that doctors and surgeons had to resort to grave-robbing (directly or indirectly) to further their scant knowledge.

One such surgeon, Dr. Henry Chiver, has relocated to the port city of Sunderland in the hopes of reviving a reputation damaged by his involvement in body-snatching. The few students he has taken on have no faith in him due to his inability to present bodies for their study. As he grows increasingly desperate, Henry stumbles onto Gustine, a young prostitute and the eponymous dress lodger of our story, who offers to procure bodies for him for reasons that she doesn’t immediately reveal.