Mediocre books which were entertaining enough to speed through (the better to not focus on all that purpose prose, my dear) but are so much less worthy of obsession than Harry Potter and anything else that is still less than, say Orwell or Steinbeck.
I wouldn't find the mocking so entertaining if people really weren't weirdly, intensely obsessed with those books. And our generic, creepy hero.
The books MIGHT be sort of good (certainly less embarrassing) if Edward and Bella were completely erased. Focus on Jasper and his weird vampire wars past. Carlisle being a vampire doc. Alice being crazy. Even the bitchy blonde and her murderous rampage (at least she horribly slaughtered her rapists, that's more than Bella has ever done) and wish for lots of babbbbbies would be okay if we didn't have to choose between her lack of personality or Bella's as our women (or Alice...who likes shopping! And party planning And Esme...who is motherly! And Bella's mother, who is such a freeeeeeeeee spirit! But it's okay because the last two don't matter to the story in any way.)
I enjoyed the secondary character's back stories most (though for all I know they're just Anne Rice lite) and I cannot for the life of me figure out why Edward and Bella are supposed to be most worthy of our attention. It's "Titanic"a ll over again, oh well, look at this tragic human drama being played out, how horrible and gr -- "JACKROSEROSEJACKROSEJACK!"
Except that it's much worse to read that in book form. Seriously, many of us have been young and vaguely obsessive about a crush (I mean, I mean, truuuue loooove) but there is a reason my journal entries at age 12 would not make a good book.Fawning over one person is NOT interesting and it never will be -- especially when your hero and heroine don't even have a personality beyond love -- it's basically two-person navel gazing.
I am going to edge away and go back to reading "The Ghost Road" -- so as to remind myself that ladies can write good books.
P.S. I will say this for the author, she picks pretty cool names for her characters. Or maybe I just have always felt -- ever since I saw Citizen Fish who have a member with said name -- that Jasper is a totally sweet name.
Yes, basically write the book about Jasper, Carlisle, and Alice before she turned out to be much lamer and duller than I thought at first.
P.P.S. Seriously -- SPOILER ALERT -- how the fuck did we have all that build up, and no clash of the titans at the end of the last book? No deaths of "well beloved" "characters"? J.K. Rowling had the decency to kill off some of my favorite characters, and I will always love/hate her for that.