Sunday, August 3, 2008

breaking dawn, part 1 (spoilers)

******SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK!*****

I spent last night reading the final book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. I’ve fallen absolutely head-over-heels for these books, and have been eagerly awaiting the final installation for months. And I wasn’t disappointed. Not even a little bit.
So, imagine my surprise when I checked out Breaking Dawn’s Amazon page this morning, to see what other people thought. My first surprise was the average rating…only three stars. What? Then I delved a little deeper, and I was absolutely astonished to see that four out of five people completely trashed the book. Huh?
As I read through the reviews, I started to get angry. People are entitled to their own opinions, and if you didn’t like it, that’s fine. What annoyed me were the REASONS they didn’t like it. Again, you’re entitled to your opinion. But I’m entitled to mine, and so, I’m going to go on a little rant.
The first reason people stated for hating the book is that it’s “bizarre.” Okay, hi. It’s a love story between a vampire and a human. Aside from being bizarre in itself, most events resulting from such a pairing are also going to be bizarre. It’s a work of fiction. If they’re confused, they should look up the definition of ‘fiction.’ Maybe that will help clarify things.
The second reason, the main one I’m annoyed about, is that it had a happy ending. Like, a really happy ending. Apparently, some readers feel that Bella should have sacrificed more. Spending the past year and a half falling in love with a dangerous vampire, being chased, threatened, and attacked by other vampires, falling in love with a werewolf, and having to choose between him and a vampire, and making the decision to turn her back on the human world, including her beloved parents, isn’t enough. Nor is bearing a half-human, half-vampire child which nearly killed her in the process. What, they were rooting for her spine not to knit, so she could become the world’s first paraplegic vampire? Please. Poor Bella has gone through enough in her short life…how can you begrudge her a happy ending? And it’s not entirely happy, either…Bella states quite clearly that she won’t be able to see her mother again. That smells like sacrifice to me.
I will be writing an actual review in the near future, but I wanted to take the time to defend one of my favorite authors, and one of my favorite characters, from the massive hate-wave washing over them. As a writer, I can only imagine how painful it must be for Stephenie Meyer; to have worked so hard, for so many years, and to finally come to the long awaited conclusion of an immensely popular and acclaimed cycle of books, only to have this kind of reaction. For me, Meyer stepped up to the plate and hit a home run.
Can’t wait for the next one, Stephenie.

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