The Big Five
There are 5 concepts which undermine this series more than all others.
- Imprinting. Ignoring for just a moment the horror of the pseudo-romantic relationship between grown men and infants, imprinting is a nightmare. It robs characters of key emotions and abilities to make decisions and destroys the chance that they might be flawed (and thus dramatic) human beings capable of cheating, lying or feeling emotions other than those that support the other imprintee. It is anti-literature, it is a destroyer of drama and conflict and it renders the idea of love moot. As for the infants, I can't even begin to put adjectives together that express how ugly that was.
- Failed Climaxes. Meyer undermines every climactic arc and conflict with shocking regularity. At no point are we allowed fulfillment of ideas, dramatic catharsis or resolution. In the first book, we are told repeatedly that James is a threat (B1C18) only to have him killed off-page without much effort (B1C23). We are told early on that Edward can't drink Bella's blood and then he has no problem doing so. In the second book, Bella overcomes assurances that she can't possibly reach Edward in time by cleverly reaching him in time (B2C20). In the third book we are shown little of the allegedly epic Vampire vs Newborn battle (B3C23) and instead are treated to Edward and Sam fighting Victoria and a newborn, who they dispatch with little difficulty (B3C24). In the final book the werewolf infighting is fixed by a royal blood line. The great vampire vs. werewolf war is fixed by sudden imprinting, which coincidentally ALSO fixes the horrible ongoing love triangle between the main characters. Finally, the greatest climactic undermining in the entire series has both a Deux Ex Machina (Alice returning with another half vampire) AND the final climax is resolved by committee, thus sparing many lives and saving the reader from anything exciting or dramatic after all those chapters of build-up for a great vampire war.
- The Main Characters. None of the main characters in the books are likable for any period of time. Meyer paints Bella as a Mary-Sue character throughout the series, ranging from the early attention at school to her magical vampire powers at the end. Shockingly, Meyer also prevents Bella from ever realizing any information, accomplishing anything or providing any value to the book except as a cameraman/narrator and damsel to be protected by her super-powered friends. She is at her worst manipulating the emotions of those around her, especially Jacob and Edward. Edward is an inhuman statue who lives to forgive and tolerate Bella while doing nothing on his own. At his best he exists only to be there for Bella and at his worst he's an emotionally distant boyfriend who's only coping skill is in bargaining. Jacob starts as a believable alternate boyfriend/buddy who works hard to establish himself as a viable, likable character only to resort to sexual assault and emotional manipulation.
- "Love". There is little love to be found in this "romance" series. Bella's relationship with Edward is essentially given to us in the first book as fiat, cast in stone by the gods above (the author in this case) and never to be questioned. Like imprinting, this robs it of all value. It simply is, but without any support or growth or depth it rings hollow and holds no value. The only relationship that is ever allowed to build is between Jacob and Bella, and that turns into an ugly mockery in the third book where both Bella and Jacob manipulate each other with it for their own ends. Brief moments of fondness and caring can be found, but they sadly only exist between secondary characters far from the central story.
- The Cuckolding of Edward. It pains me to revisit this travesty of storytelling, even long after I've finished the books. Edward is never a sympathetic character and by the end of the second book I had grown to actively dislike him. He did not, however, deserve the ugly treatment that Meyer insists on heaping upon him. From the ludicrously conceived camp scene to the ultimate conclusion where Edward begs Jacob to impregnate Bella, there is no shred of manhood left in poor Edward.
The Constant Annoyances
There are numerous, ongoing horrors that never rise the the ugliness of the big 5.
- Cheating the POV. Meyer has chosen first-person narration as her voice, allowing her to present her heroine's feelings immediately and intimately to the reader. The downside to first-person is that your field-of-view is limited to what the character can see. Unless, of course, you cheat. How? Edward is psychic and willing to tell Bella everything. The werewolves are psychic and willing to tell Bella everything. Alice can see the future. Renesmee is psychic. Bella hears things while she's sleeping. Jacob reveals huge chunks of backstory as myth and lore. The werewolves are perfectly happy to reveal everything they are and know and their entire history over a campfire. The vampire family is open and honest and chatty. The villains are open and honest and chatty. When the person who IS the first person is incapacitated, Meyer shifts cameras to a different person (Jacob). These cheats rob the plot of tension, telling the narrator (and thus the reader) everything needed to simply plow forward.
- Weird Monsters. Meyer can modify vampire and werewolf lore all she wants for her story, but she doesn't seem to considered her choices beyond "make them inhuman". Vampires drink blood but have no fangs, which means they must digest it normally or have some kind of altered digestion, which seems like a lot of work. They don't breathe, which means they can only get oxygen from the blood they drink and yet they're super-fast energy machines. They have extra chromosomes, which is senseless. They are immensely beautiful, but need to maintain a low profile. Werewolves are psychic and mind-slaved to their nobility-style pack leader, which raises numerous problems. Vampires have X-Men style random powers. Newborn vampires are crazy killing machines who somehow then lose power. Half-vampires are just a grab-bag of nonsensical choices. If a vampire and werewolf had a kid it would be an epic freak-show of powers and physiology.
- Meyer Hates Humanity. Time and time again Meyers raves about how great it must be for Vampires. All the messy humanity is robbed from them: sweat, flesh, actual sex, digestion, real-time pregnancy, raising messy, fussy human babies. Once you are a statue with no need to sleep or rest or put out human excretions, it'll all be perfect.
- Eye-Moting. Of all the descriptive failures by Meyer (the wedding comes to mind) the worst is the emotional eyes in the first 2 books. Meyer manages to break herself of the habit (or I started ignoring it) but it highlights a bigger problem. Meyer has the capability to describe things well: events, places, conversations, actions; but she fails to do so with terrible regularity. The eye emoting is the most obvious (B1C3, B1C10, B1C11, B1C12, B1C13, B2C11, B2C23) but time and again you get short, perfunctory chapters where the action is forced forward so we can get to a climax that will ultimately be deflated.
- Weak, Late Characterization. Secondary character backstories are introduced in every case only to highlight the current plot: Carlisle is introduced right before the Hunt story so we have a doctor ready to save Bella at the end (B1C16). Alice gets a tiny flash of story at the end of the Hunt to fill us in on how her powers work and how James knew how to bypass them (B1C22). Edward introduces newborns to Bella before the Victoria plot (B3C2) followed by Jasper's story to flesh out newborns (B3C11). Vampire babies are introduced so we have a plot for book 4 (B4C2). Only Rosalie gets any sort of real story without an obvious connection to the immediate plot, and that comes in book 4!
There's more, of course, spelled out in my individual chapter reviews. I am, however, tired. The series was horrible, not only for the reasons listed above, but because there were moments when this actually felt like I was reading for pleasure. Early in Book 2, during certain parts of the last book, here and there in just about every book there were real moments when I was in Forks, Washington watching a few teenagers and monsters. They were brief. They were always eventually spoiled by horrible writing and bad ideas and they made the low points all the worse by existing at all. You don't know how much I have raged at this series, how much I loathe it as a whole and how disappointed I am that it has become so popular.
Perhaps I don't really hate Stephenie Meyer, but I hate this series. I don't begrudge her the mountains of dollars she's no doubt earned, but I hope she knows that what she has written is truly abominable and that every one of those dollars came at a price.
If you loved this series despite it's flaws I envy you.
The end.
