I've read all but the last of the Twilight novels and all of the Harry Potter novels.
Harry Potter was fun fluff. Yes, it was annoying how all the adults were generally painfully stupid and Harry lucking into the solution to the main problem of each book was a bit simplistic, but overall they're an entertaining read and feature some great side characters (Weasley twins for the win!).
Twilight was insipid. Really... just horrific. I really just can't take another idiot Mary Sue protagonist. Bella is boring as all hell, and yet everyone loves her. The author never SHOWS why everyone adores her so much, she just SAYS they do, and that there is some shoddy writing.
On top of that there's the quite disturbing relationships that Bella involves herself in. Both of her love interests act in extremely creepy and abusive ways and yet the author's viewpoint is that this is romantic, not a warning sign of dysfunctional relationship. I cannot stress how purely disturbed I was with the actions the two main love interests throughout the first three books. Pnkrokhockeymom summed it up well in defining the theme of both romantic relationships as "love is possession". It makes me frightened that Meyer thinks this is what romantic relationships should be like.
As for the Mormon thing, having real nearly everything OSC has written and then reading the Twilight books makes me wonder if it's just a coincidental link between the two writers writing some weak and painfully underutilized female characters or if the religion both share has somehow influenced both of their views of what females are capable of (or NOT capable of, in both cases) and what their roles in life should be. I'd really want to read more fiction by Mormon writers to find out.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 10:44 pm (UTC)Harry Potter was fun fluff. Yes, it was annoying how all the adults were generally painfully stupid and Harry lucking into the solution to the main problem of each book was a bit simplistic, but overall they're an entertaining read and feature some great side characters (Weasley twins for the win!).
Twilight was insipid. Really... just horrific. I really just can't take another idiot Mary Sue protagonist. Bella is boring as all hell, and yet everyone loves her. The author never SHOWS why everyone adores her so much, she just SAYS they do, and that there is some shoddy writing.
On top of that there's the quite disturbing relationships that Bella involves herself in. Both of her love interests act in extremely creepy and abusive ways and yet the author's viewpoint is that this is romantic, not a warning sign of dysfunctional relationship. I cannot stress how purely disturbed I was with the actions the two main love interests throughout the first three books. Pnkrokhockeymom summed it up well in defining the theme of both romantic relationships as "love is possession". It makes me frightened that Meyer thinks this is what romantic relationships should be like.
As for the Mormon thing, having real nearly everything OSC has written and then reading the Twilight books makes me wonder if it's just a coincidental link between the two writers writing some weak and painfully underutilized female characters or if the religion both share has somehow influenced both of their views of what females are capable of (or NOT capable of, in both cases) and what their roles in life should be. I'd really want to read more fiction by Mormon writers to find out.