Twilight and my daughter

Right I am currently about a third of the way through Eclipse. I can totally see why India Grey's 14 year old daughter loves Edward. Knowing India's heroes, I can suspect her daughter has a tendency towards the same type of men as India. I also totally agree with her daughter that seeing the film with Robert Pattinson would be ridiculous and would ruin the books for me. Edward looks somewhat different in my mind's eye. Equally the girl playing Bella.
Edward is definitely a nurturing alpha hero, defintely in the presents mould, despite being a vampire. I feel sorry for him though as sometimes Bella does seem a bit too stupid to live, particularly as she grew up looking after her mother and spends time looking after her father who can't cook. I am grateful that she does live and am looking forward to getting some plot points solved.
I keep having this half of me which really enjoys the books and the other half muttering about pace, lack internal conflict and growth. My daughter currently refuses to speak to me about the books as she interprets it as I do not like the books. The fact that I am reading them shows I like the books. If I was 14/15/16, I would be in love with Edward. Edward is the main reason for reading the books.
My daughter is currently a fanatic and thus has no sense of proportion. She disliked that I pointed out that saying Wuthering Heights happened at the turn of the century England would mean readers might consider it to have happened at the turn of the 20th century, rather than during the Regency period. Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 but starts in 1801. It was minor point and pulled me out of the story. I blame the copy editor, rather than the author for not having it clearer as Myers does know the story.
My daughter however is continuing to work on her French and despite the odd outburst at me not to discuss the books... is very pleasant.

I am also redoing my website and hope to have the changes done before 1 March. However, I suspect that my critque partners will be cracking their whips if I do not get writing.

moles again

The ground finally defrosted and this meant that I was able to dig up my mole traps. The mole had carefully filled each hole. SIGH.
I have reset the traps. This time trying the traps the way they appeared to go in the news clip I saw on catching moles.

However, I see there are several fresh mole hills this morning...in a part of the garden that is far away from the traps. Moles are tricky.

I also finished New Moon which is the second in the Twilight series. Some parts of it are slow. It is always difficult to write characters who are numb from grief. The last third got much better but Bella at times does border on too stupid to live. Edward however rocks. I totally agree with India Grey's daughter -- I don't want to see the movie as my picture of Edward is not like the man who played Cedric Diggory.
I shall be reading the next book, but my cold is getting better and so I actually have to work. But it is important to remember that sensual tension is built up in little details. It is not the full frontal that is important but the tiny bits. What is noticed and the little touches. It is possible to stay in the first 9 stages of the courtship ritual (as Myers does) and still create a sensual book -- full of longing and desire. Sometimes because authors go from 0 to stage 10 within a few pages, this message gets forgotten.

Twilight read

The box of books arrived yesterday. My husband raised his eyebrows. My daughter joyfully disappeared upstairs with the last two. As I have come down with a dreadful cold, I read Twilight yesterday evening.

It was fine and not vampire horror at all. A page turning read. It was more teen aged Presents with fangs, than blooding dripping horror vampire. If I was a teen aged girl, I would be in love with Edward. I found him far easier to fancy than the lead love interest in Wicked Lovely. But it did not have the in depth world of say Northern Lights. For some reason, Stephanie Meyers reminded me of Virginia Andrews who wrote Gothic horror/romance stories in the 1980s. It is the same sort of market. (And I did have a Virginia Andrews stage at one point -- I think my mother would have fainted in horror if she had realised at the time, but there again she did think a lot of what I read was trash...).

I had lots of questions -- questions my daughter assures me are answered in the next few books. For example where does Bella's mother fit into the whole thing. And why is the music important? And what is there about Bella that means her thoughts are hidden and why is she personally so attractive to vampires? Where do the werewolves fit in? And how does Edward being with Bella break the truce?

If I was reading from an adult writer perspective, I would mention the lack of internal conflict. Or rather the lack of sustainable conflict as Bella makes her irrevocable decision to be with Edward early on. The I love you bit comes too early as the saying it does not make matters worse. Stakes should have really been upped for both Edward and Bella at that point. It needs to make matters worse. Equally, there is no real sense of sacrifice in the end. What does Edward give up? What does Bella? In part because we never are Edward's POV, you never get this real sense that he is being pushed to the edge. Also, Bella does not really seem to understand what the stakes are for her, should she give up being human. The ending thus relies more on external conflict and feels slightly flat. You need more than yearning to hold a romance up. Also it would have been helpful to have some of the bad vampire bits foreshadowed earlier (for example had Edward ever hunted with the tracker/did he know him his past?), so there was this sense of menace building. It seems to come from left field as it were.

BUT if I put my adult concerns to one side (and I do try to do that) and read like a reader, it is a fun read and hearkens back to the days when I was a teenager. So it really depends on if you want to pick fault or if you are just going to enjoy. It is very good entertainment for teen aged girls. I suspect boys will be less enthralled.

I will read the next three, probably in the next week or so.

My daughter read the third and most of the fourth yesterday. She has promised to study and did spend an hour on her French yesterday. Bribery and corruption is all.

So read it to see what the fuss about...and if it gets teen aged girls into reading romance so much the better. Read it like a reader, rather than like a writer and you will enjoy it much better.

Update

I broke down. I ordered the books.
All I can say is that my daughter had best study over the half term.
Sometimes, I am an indulgent parent.

Twilight

My daughter has discovered Twilight. A friend of hers has lent her the first two books. She adores them. Apparently Edward is wet but there is a friend of his who rocks.
I was intrigued and asked to read them over half term. But no, she is returning the first two and getting the third one. Another friend of theirs had read them in 24 hours and my daughter is determined to repeat the feat.
I suspect that there will be a request for all four and this is a ploy...However, the books obviously speak to her.
Vampires in general are not my cup of tea. I can remember being physically sick after seeing Andy Warhol's Dracula. It probably had something to do with the train I had been travelling on that day hitting a suicidal man. But I suspect that I ought to at least try to read the books.
Does anyone know how long this obsession lasts? Should I get the books or not?

But it is the sharing of books that leads me to believe that ebooks will generally occupy a niche market as they can not be traded or transferred. When you find a great author, you want to share and many times, you want to put the book into the person's hand and say -- Read. I don't care what you say about not liking xy or z. Just read. It is a bit harder to do with an e-book.