November Blues or Why I Have a Personal Vendetta Against Stephenie Meyer

I adore Fall. There is something about that sudden drop in temperature after months of intense heat, the falling of multicolored leaves and just the general feeling of the season that does something to me. Fall always makes me feel very nostalgic for years past and I am often overwhelmed by memories involving late night gatherings and the backseat of my husband’s old Focus hatchback.

Two years ago, something occurred in my life that has since ruined that beautiful nostalgia: the Twilight series came into my life, forever (man, I hope that’s not actually the case) bastardizing the glorious season for me.

In my defense, when I first began my one-sided affair with Edward Cullen, it was a pretty low point in my life. I had graduated from college earlier that year and it had taken me about four months to find a job. About 3 months into the job, it suddenly occurred to me that I was working in a job where I was definitely underpaid, that had nothing to do with my English degree and because the economy was in the shitter, there was no bright spot on the horizon for me. For some reason, this hit me very hard and I fell into a pretty nasty depression. I really wanted something to give my life meaning. Thus, when I stumbled upon Meyer’s epic series, I was primed and ready to be brainwashed, or to stumble into a highly destructive relationship.

Forgive me if this reads a little bit like a Mastercard commercial.

My affair with Edward Cullen nearly began a year earlier in 2007. At the time, I was working at the university in the testing center and my employer asked if I needed anything from Wal-Mart. I had seen Twilight there sometime earlier so I asked her to grab me a copy. She returned a little while later and told me she’d had no luck locating the book I’d described: white hands holding a red apple. They must have been sold out. I would compare this to passing a handsome stranger in the hallway, turning your head back over your shoulder for one last glance before continuing on your way. Nothing more than a chance encounter that you ponder from time to time, wondering what might have been.

Twilight: first impression

In late October 2008, a credit opened up on my Audible account. I had seen the preview for the Twilight movie that was to open in late November so I thought I’d grab the audio book. But when I went to get it, I found this note: Due to popularity, this audio book will cost two credits. Now anyone who has purchased through Audible as religiously as I have knows how unusual this is. I’ve seen books that are clocking in a 45 hours and they still only cost you one credit. My first thought was, “Screw Twilight! What a greedy bitch!” I logged out of Audible and went on about my business.

The next day, strangely enough, I received a message from Audible, thanking me for being such a valued customer and offered me a $25 credit on my account. Well, what do you know? The full purchase cost of Twilight just happened to be $24.97. SWEET! I downloaded Twilight with the $25 credit, used my monthly credit on something else and felt like I had hit the jackpot. Little did it know.

It was probably a week or two later before I actually began listening to Twilight. At first, I was nonplussed by the narration, the over the top vocabulary (you know how it is, you can just TELL when someone is trying too hard to sound really smart). But then Edward was introduced and I was hooked. I listened to the audio book at least three times that week, getting more and more attached with each run through.

Final thoughts after reading Twilight: “Best love story since Romeo and Juliet!”

Final cost for Twilight: $0 until I went back and purchased a paperback copy for $9

New Moon: first impression

I immediately turned around and ordered a paperback copy of New Moon off Amazon. But it took its sweet time getting here and I was impatient for more Bella/Edward drama. So I wound up going to Wal-mart and purchased a new copy of it and brought it home with me. I sent my Amazon copy to my cousin Rachel when it arrived. Once again, I was hooked. The pages of my copy of New Moon were spattered with tears as I read through the pages of Edward’s and Bella’s breakup. I was sobbing so hysterically that my husband became concerned and asked me what was wrong.

“It’s…just…so…well…written!” was all I could sputter. It was pathetic.

I was convinced that Meyer had written something so poignant, so heartfelt, so wonderfully in touch with youth that it would actually help young girls deal with heartache. During the reading, I spouted off statements such as: “This has one of the most complex internal conflicts I’ve ever encountered!” Honestly.

I wanted nothing more than for Edward to return and for Jacob, that interloper, to disappear. I was never so happy than the moment that Edward and Bella reunited.

Final thoughts after reading New Moon: Hell, I don’t remember. I was just ready for Eclipse!

Final cost: 2 copies of the paperback for $18; $28.46 for the audio book copy purchased later=$46.46

Eclipse: first impression

ZOMG, the story is finally getting sexy! Meyer gave us a split second where it appeared that Bella and Edward might get it on. But… no. No, she has to remind us that Edward is a Christian Vampire who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage. And seriously, how many of us would want to spend an immortal existence having meaningless sex with as many unsuspecting humans as possible? Anyone? Of course not. (If my sarcasm escapes you, all I can say is, “what the hell is wrong with you?”)

So, no prewedding nooky for Bella. If she wants Edward’s marble member, she’ll have to marry his sparkly ass.

Really, I still have a soft spot for Eclipse in spite of all the issues I have with the content of the entire series. But it did annoy me that Bella was ‘torn’ between Edward and Jacob. No, she wasn’t. That’s just cramming a love triangle down the reader’s throat even though it’s not necessary. Bella never actually wanted Jacob. She was just being selfish, wanting to have her Vamp and eat Wolf too. Seriously, there was never a contest.

My main issue with Eclipse was the LACK of an epic battle at the end. Meyer showed her weakness as a writer by being too afraid to do more than give us Edward’s play by play. Absolutely stupid.

Final Thoughts after reading Eclipse: Hey, the movie is about to come out! Are these two really getting married at 17 and 18?

Final Cost: 1 copy of Eclipse Hardback edition: $13.00; $29.96 for the Audio book =$42.96

Twilight: The Movie

I knew that tickets were going to be sold out so I purchased two in advance from Fandago, one for myself and one for my husband. Yes, I dragged my husband along with me. The cost for two tickets was around $18.00.

This is where my Twilight addiction became expensive. On November 21^st, I left work a teensy bit early so that I could get home, get a shower and doll myself up to go to the opening of the movie. The road I take to get to and from work everyday is a little back highway that merges back into a residential area once you get within city limits. Outside of city limits, that miles per hour is 55 (whoo-hoo!) but as you approach the city, it drops down to 45 mph and then 40.

I was so hopped up on anticipation that I completely forgot about those little details. By the time I reached the 40 mph sigh, I was still zooming through at 55. I saw the cop immediately and knew that I was screwed. He flashed his lights and I pulled over without hesitation, hoping that I could somehow give off the impression that I WASN’T a law breaker.

Of course, my first question was, “Did I do something wrong, officer?” He almost laughed. Oh yeah, I had definitely done something wrong. He ran me through how fast I was going, what the speed limit was, that he COULD write me up for reckless driving. OH SHIT.

I suppose I could have pleaded my case but honestly, rushing home so that I could get a shower before going to see Twilight sounded pathetic to me even then. I really couldn’t imagine the officer being sympathetic. It is always possible that he would have found me to be so incredibly juvenile and ridiculous that he would have laughed and walked away. But it didn’t seem likely. He gave me my ticket, politely marking down that I had only been 10 miles over the speed limit instead of 15. I asked him how much it was going to cost me. “I wrote it on the back,” he replied before nodding his head and walking away. When I flipped the ticket over, I nearly had a heart attack.

$185. Kind of put a damper on the whole rest of the evening. I drove home, cried to my husband who laughed after I told him the story. “There was no way in hell you were getting out of that one!” I got my shower, got dolled up albeit without the same sort of enthusiasm that I had expected.

We went to the 9 o’clock showing and found the theater filled with overzealous tweens who screamed and squealed and felt the need to announce the names of each character as they appeared on screen. Why that was necessary, I’ll never know. My husband was more amused by the kids than the movie.

Final thoughts after seeing the Twilight movie: I tried really hard to not dislike it. I tried REALLY hard. But it was horrible. The acting was pathetic, the adaptation was atrocious, the special effects were… well, they were almost too lame to refer to them as special effects unless you are using Special to imply mentally challenged. I even went to see it a second time to be absolutely sure that it sucked. Yeah, it sucked.

Final cost of the Twilight movie: 3 tickets at $9 a piece=$27; $185 for the speeding ticket=$212

Twilight merchandise

When a person has an addiction, it often leads to other minor related addictions. I was no different. Not only did I need the paperback copies of the books as well as the audio versions of the books, I also needed stuff. Twilight stuff. And Hot Topic was more than willing to supply me with stuff.

Twilight T-shirt: $18

Twilight Key-chain: $4.99

But I couldn’t stop there. On eBay, I found a woman making handcrafted Twilight inspired jewelry! SQUEE!

Twilight necklace with ‘genuine’ Swarovski crystals (yeah right): $12.00

Twilight charm bracelet, again with ‘genuine’ Swarovski crystals: $10.00

And because Christmas was coming up, I purchased two more of the bracelets and gave them to my cousins, who, because I had insisted they do so, were already reading the books as well. Thankfully, one of them made it out unscathed. 

For Christmas that year, I also received another Twilight t-shirt and a Twilight hoodie but, because I didn’t pay for them myself, I won’t include those amounts.

Final amount for Twilight Stuff: $64.99 (it could have been so much worse!)

Breaking Dawn: First impression

This will take some time because there are reasons why Breaking Dawn broke me.

Breaking Dawn cured me of my Twilight obsession. If you call it an addiction, Breaking Dawn was my AA. I don’t understand what happened here. Meyer obviously wanted to wrap everything up into a neat little package and give each and every one of her characters exactly what they wanted because they were all such deserving individuals. What kills me about this is that Meyer isn’t just some stay-at-home-mom, even though she gives that label top billing on her website. She actually has a degree in English Literature. And these were books marketed towards young adults—they can handle a little death, a little tragedy! Hell, JK Rowling killed off Sirius Black, Dumbledore, Hedwig, Fred Weasley and an endless list of other lovable characters and those were children’s books!

To give everyone a perfectly happy ending is just lame. Bella should have eaten Charlie. Edward should have killed Jacob. Rosalie should have been decapitated during rough sex with Emmett. Alice should have run off and joined the circus, leaving Jasper behind to pine for her before coming to his senses and admitting his closeted homosexuality. He and Mike could have paired off.

But no. Bella marries Edward. They ride off into the sunset together. They go off on a fabulously unbelievable honeymoon where they will FINALLY have sex. It’s all good and legal now, pen to paper, creator God satisfied. They will consummate. But do we get to witness it? Of course not. Edward and Bella hold hands together out in the ocean and then flash forward to Bella bruised, bloodied and yet, somehow, sated.

Now, as a person who fancies herself a writer, I can easily come up with some awesome ideas for hot and steamy vamp porn that would apply quite nicely here. But I lost interest. Sorry.

Edward is ashamed of himself and his penance involves not sleeping with Bella again even though she begs for it. Finally, Bella attempts to get her sexy on and manages to talk him into it. This union results in the most asinine occurrence: Bella becomes pregnant with a vampire baby.

WHAT?

Moving on. Edward wants the baby aborted; Bella wants to have it because at some point during Eclipse, she realized she wanted kids, the only drawback of becoming a vampire; Rosalie becomes Bella’s guard. Edward appeals to Jacob, asking him to talk Bella into an abortion and then offer to impregnate her himself. Again: WHAT?

But Bella goes through with this ultra violent pregnancy and gives birth to the world’s first vampire-human hybrid child with weird psychic-touch abilities. Or so we think!

Finally, Bella becomes a vampire and by some weird twist of fate, she’s the only new vampire ever created who is not intensely drawn to feed on humans. HOW CONVENIENT!

Jacob falls in love with the baby vamp… yes, I will repeat that: the Werewolf falls in love with a baby.

One more time because this is so important: THE WEREWOLF FALLS IN LOVE WITH A BABY!

Suddenly, he’s no longer obsessed with Bella (why he was in the first place remains a mystery to me) and he’s happy and in love with this baby who will EVENTUALLY grow up and love him because nature dictates it or something. Or because this is a Mormon fairy tale and whether she really loves him or not, she’ll someday LEARN to love him.

I’m not going any further with this. Just know that everyone is happy and in love and surrounded by rainbow sparkles and good smells.

Final thoughts on Breaking Dawn: WTF, man?

Final amount on Breaking Dawn: Hardback edition: $13.00; $31.50 for the audio book= $44.50

The grand total amount spent on my entire Twilight experience---$419.91 (this does not include tax)

Now, I understand as a recovering addict that I can blame no one but myself for what this addiction cost me. I have made amends with those I harmed during my battle with Twilight. I have prayed to a higher power to deliver me from said addiction (no, I’m totally joking at this point). But I can’t shake the feeling that Meyer owes me money.

It was greediness on her part and on the part of her publisher that made her books so damned expensive on Audible. I mean, 2 credits per book? How arrogant!

It was the buildup she supplied in each and every book that made it impossible for me to not need my next fix.

It was the awesome preview that made me sit through that god-awful movie two times in the theater.

It was these lovable characters with their hidden agendas that kept pulling me back.

And then for her to fail so effortlessly with the finale? It’s like expecting an orgasm, waiting for it, it’s right around the corner and then your partner suddenly gets lazy or climaxes before you do and falls asleep. I think that’s a very fitting description for the entire Twilight series.

I’m still waiting for some enjoyment, Meyer. You owe me at least that.