Reviews by Kyle Ellis

We don´t need no water, let the pyrokinesis burn, burn one hotter with obsessive compulsive forced washing mysophobia, burn.

The, at the time of publishing still hot, cold war spy conspiracy secret agency setting with the human free drugs experimentation background, makes it a suspenseful read, especially as it escalates towards more complexity than in other of King´s works, especially including a kind of meta level, not focusing on the local dread and terror or cosmic horror, but on the consequences superpowers could lead to in real life.

This makes it kind of untypical, one doesn´t fear the protagonists or a mysterious, paranormal activity, but the consequences of the decisions of the puppetmasters in the background, making it a psychological thriller that uses the character´s abilities to create suspenseful scenarios and fuses plot and character. Something the mainstream superhero genre should possibly once restart considering when including psi abilities because it has enormous potential for completely fresh ideas from romance to horror.

Sharp, direct, and switching between different plotlines, also not usual for King, this is one of his underappreciated, early masterpieces. Maybe, instead of including the cold war setting, it could have been changed to a general military government conglomerate world domination conspiracy setting, because the idea of having kind of superheroes in such a scenario was, in a book, fresh in these days.

King´s novel The Institue is a darker, horrible continuation of this idea, leading to the uncomfortable, final, often asked, and never answered question how big the real secret human experimentation complex, next to the secret prisons, secret killings, secret special black operation forces, etc. might be. Thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands? Millions may be a bit exaggerated over the top, but it might be a few superheroes and many average people getting special, potentially fatal final treatments by their governments to breed übersoldiers.

Fun fact: King told in an interview how his wife owned him by saying something like this: "You wrote Misery about a man in a bed together with a crazy woman. Then you wrote Gerald´s game about a woman tied to a bed. Next, you´ll write a novel about a couch without anything happening." When I first saw the plot description I couldn´t resist thinking of her ingenuity in pointing the finger at the fact that her husband truly has a tendency to rererecyle ceratin ideas and topics, as in this case, Carrie with fire. But hey, he is the King, he has the right to do whatever he wishes.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
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So I cheated on my local library last week. I don't think she knows yet, and I feel kind of bad about it. I discovered a smaller library that was actually much closer to my house. She definitely caught my attention, but I never went because it just seemed like the selection was going to be much smaller, and my current library and I have a great thing going right now.

But now I'm involved with two libraries and, boy, is my life going great!

I found this book at the new library where I couldn't find anything else that jumped out to me. I mean, the fiction section is like three rows, maybe four. That includes every genre of fiction. No mystery, romance, horror... it's all fiction.

This is the book I left with last week, and this is now my favorite Stephen King book. This is King at the top of his game. It's the perfect length with all six parts, it ends well, and he doesn't rely on horror or too much salty language to tell a fantastic story.

I've always said King is the best when he stays under 400 pages or so and doesn't write about vampires or monsters. He dabbles in the supernatural here, but not for the sake of scaring the reader. He just really, really hit a home run with this thing.

I liked having six separate parts combined into one novel. Each new section felt fresh with a new plot element, and King helps reset the scene from where he left off before. The characters are all well developed and none of them are too outlandish or over-the-top. Even the antagonist. That was great.

I have a solid love/hate relationship with Mr. King, but I loved this one. Seriously, this is my favorite book I've read from him. Go read it if you haven't already. And watch the movie because it's a classic on its own.

And, thank you Stephen King for a beautiful first date with my local library. I hope our future encounters are this incredible.

'Misery' is a gruesome story of torture with blood, guts, and a psychopath. It's a well told tale, the characters are well developed and the fact that there are only two of them never gets boring. It's a real page turner, in fact I finished it tonight after getting off the subway on the platform before I walked home. But, this book is more than just a thriller, just like King is more than just a pulp writer.

I read an article by the ever optimistic and cheerful Harold Bloom in college about how dismayed he was that young people like Stephen King so much. All the literature crtics I've read hate King and it seems like it's just because people actually enjoy reading his work. Yeah, Bloom, I said 'work' just like I would about Tolstoy's 'work' because Stephen King as damned hard worker. Think of all the books he's churned out over the last few decades. I'd like to see Harold Bloom show enough imagination to write fiction instead of just criticizing it all the time.

I'm actually new to Stephen King's fiction. I've read a few of the essays and articles he's written and a really great graduation speech he gave at UMaine awhile ago in which he extolled the virtues of our mutual home state, but this is only my 3rd novel by him. I like this guy, and I know why too. It's not just because he makes me scream and I have a hard time putting his books down, it's because King loves writing. He has a real and self-aware relationship with what it means to be a writer. He knows he's not Tolstoy or Faulkner, he doesn't try to write that way. He knows how to tell a good god damned story and he has a passion for it. I appreciate his self awareness as a writer and the fact that he ackowledges how difficult the whole process is while not making us feel like he's somehow superior because he's figured out how to do it.

In 'Misery' it's almost like we get to watch King write this story. He doesn't just set us up for a crazy story and watch us discover things about his characters, it feels like he actually comes with us and makes the discoveries at the same time we do. That's what makes a good storyteller. And I don't give a damn if Bloom likes him or not.

When people talk about bathroom scenes, there is always this psychobabble, but I prefer to remember this ode on teenage dirtbag cruelty with psi.

I assume everyone knows the story, so there are unmarked spoilers in the spookhouse club.

King loves outsiders, losers, and outlaws, so what could be better than to start one´s career with a meanwhile legendary pop cultural reference to serious puberty issues and female problems? So that the unwilling antagonist unleashed, but sadly not controlled and cultivated, dark elemental forces, to become for instance instead a classy dark fantasy black witch and thematized premenstrual syndrome. Sorry, I couldn´t withstand the bad pun, please don´t high voltage energize and burn me.

There is definitively symbolism I should have had more focus on when reading it the first time, but even without that, the idea of using menstruation as a plot device is something predestined for the master of horror. Probably there are cultures censoring this part, but leaving the slaughter in it. Blood out of piles of corpses good, sexual related blood bad style.

I guess everyone knows the story that it nearly wouldn´t have come to King´s career if his wife wouldn´t have found the manuscript, but there is something else about the development of this book I keep asking myself. Did he get this inspiration while working as a teacher, was a young lady who asked to go to the toilet or home because she had cramps the reason why one of the best authors of all time had his breakthrough? Is human reproduction to thank for that we got all these amazing works?

The harshness and directness of this very young writing King is amazing, I remember so many details although there is close to no real action or plot until everyone gets a surprising finale event fun horror bloodbath.

Religion and its potential negative side effects on the wellbeing, extraversion, and self confidence, not too speak of sex education, play a key role here too, because all of this couldn´t have been possible without a mixture of hardliner extremism and madness, resulting in poor Carrie having anger management problems that are not really reduced by the sociodynamics of hormone high high schoolers with horrible attitudes highlighted through the hilariousness of human culture and tradition. I don´t know why I h ed so much, sorry, maybe possession, especially strange because I am a bit too old for that and have the wrong gender, possibly and hopefully it´s a succubus after long, hard years of trying to invoke one or, why not, as many as possible.

It could have happened so much earlier if there wouldn´t have been this lack of virginity and already inherent madness problems that made me look less attractive to possess than an innocent, naive virgin, I have to keep an aesthetic, erotic, sadomasochistic, love hate , sick roleplay, memory picture for the next resurgence to wait and save myself up for the perfect monster girl and discipline my weak flesh to not faint in the face of other, cheap, worthless, earthy, fading, seduction. But finally, the self flagellation, animal sacrifices, and sexy female devil worship have made sense and I bravely sacrifice myself to help expanding their power.

But whatever demon it might really be, if it´s true, beware many enemies mine. Everything is possible for a true believer in the dark forces. Mwahahaha

Fun fact: It speaks for itself that the movie adaption of a tale about a victimized girl exaggerating self defense had the German title „Carrie Des Satans jüngste Tochter.“ Carrie, the youngest daughter of Satan. I find it extremely inappropriate that she has been discriminated and falsely accused of satanism, when her only real crime was killing a few hundred people. Shame on my native tongue!

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
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so i DID like this, and i don’t really have anything cool or fun to say about it for a review. but i just realized that i forgot to mention the boob euphemism of choice for this book was JAHOOBIES. i just wanted you all to know that....ok bye

4/12

Why?
Many years from now, historians will look back on this story and wonder why it was so important. And believe me, my friends, important it was. Today, most thrillers and police procedurals gets measured against it.
For this review, I will refer to TSOTL as the story, because I'm going to talk about the book, movie, facts, fiction and some of my own opinions.

TSOTL was the second Dr. Hannibal Lector story. It was also the second movie adaptation - wait just a damn moment, you might be saying to me, Red Dragon was the first book but it was made after the TSOTL movie was so successful...
Correct.
However, there was an attempt at a screen adaptation of Red Dragon a few years before TSOTL, called MANHUNTER. It was directed by Michael Mann. To the best of my knowledge, it was a flop at the box office.

There are a few things TSOTL had going for it that counted in its favor. By all means, Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer - if you've read any of the books you will know this. But most movie freaks and geeks will agree with me that the story is probably one of the best adaptations from book to screen ever.
Then you look at the cast - Jody Foster managed to play a vulnerable yet strong female (IMPORTANT) lead. You know she is intelligent, yet she knows that she has no chance against the superior intellect of Dr. Hannibal Lector. In comes Anthony Hopkins, whose portrayal of the psychopathic genius is so convincing, it catapults him to one of the biggest super villains of all time, yet he is so charming that the audience can't help but like him.
And, of course, Buffalo Bill is played by Ted Levine, who is utterly convincing, even if you've seen him as the cop in MONK.
With a strong cast and story, this movie became an unlikely contender at the Academy Awards. And they won a few!

Right, lets take a step back, to the research phase of this story.
Thomas Harris, in the early 80's, were doing research and was fortunate enough to get involved with criminal profiling, which at that time had been an unproven and highly speculative science. It was during the time when they were on the trail of one Ted Bundy. If you know a bit about this famous serial killer, you will probably know that he used to fake injuries by wearing a cast and asking victims for their help - Do you remember how Buffalo Bill got that girl in the back of the van?
And while Bundy was incarcerated on death row, he was willing to help the police do a profile on another serial killer of the time, The Green River Killer. I believe Bundy told them not to remove a body when they discover it, because the killer will go back to his treasure - something that was later confirmed to have happened. Remember that agent Sterling asked Dr. Lector for his help?
And then there was the killer Ed Gein, many decades before, who robbed graves and ultimately killed people to make himself a female skin, which was apparently hard to sow without tearing. Need I explain this one?

The fact of the matter is, while some things may have seemed preposterous to us in the early eighties, like they could only happen in the movies, there were some truly messed up people out there who were doing some truly messed up things - wow, it's been a while since I've kept a sentence PG like that...I will accept your applause humbly.

Also, there was and, unfortunately, still are some stereo types about women in the FBI. Harris took the opportunity to make a statement, maybe very subtly, but still very important, about power vs. emotion. At no time does this story feel like a Hollywood blockbuster, where the star is cocky and always has a way out of a sticky situation, where it's all guns and fire and explosions, etc. No, this story was meant to cut close to home, to show the possibilities, for we are all vulnerable in this world. Agent Clarice is scared, she fears for her life, she doesn't know if she will survive, but she fights the big, bad (Goliath) killer. And she wins.

This story is also important from a psychological point of view. Whatever your feelings about profiling may be, they have discovered so much and found impossible connections through their research, and we will never know how many lives it has saved. It's a kind of Paying-it-forward thing: By doing what they do, they prevent things that may have been inevitable in a different world.
I once saw something (I can't remember exactly where) about some research they were doing on inmates. They took brain scans of a number of them, and noted that those who were certified as psychopathic, had an underdeveloped area in a certain part of their brains. If I can remember correctly, it had something to do with the mother producing too much serotonin during pregnancy, or some such scientific thing.

How is this helpful, you may ask?
Well, this is my personal opinion, so if it offends you, stop reading:
Casey Anthony...
Is she a psychopath who got away with murder?
Yes, when I look at the facts of the case, and the things her attorney's did to get her free, I'm sickened to think the jurors couldn't believe a mother would do that to her child. Nobody LIKES to believe it, but I wish I could have seen a brain scan of her compared to those other psychopaths. I wish there was a psychologist who could have explained it to them.

But enough about that.

This book is, was and always will be important, because it brought certain realities home to the world we find ourselves in.
If you haven't read it - but managed to get through this long review - what's the matter with you?

But I am not trying to convince anybody of my point of view, so feel free to disagree.

journal entry

today i am 15 years old. everything is all bullshit, as usual. i can't believe how fucked everything is around me. like i'm surrounded by zombies. i can't talk to any of my so-called friends, i can't talk to jamie, i can't talk to my parents. who would bother listening anyway. i cannot wait to leave orange county! this place makes me fucking sick. everyone is a hypocrite. everything is so goddamn bright and shiny and sunny and meaningless. FUCK, life is so full of crap.

there is one good thing in my life though. just read this book Catcher in the Rye. blown away! i don't know how a book written decades ago could say exactly what i would say. it is like the author was reading my thoughts and put it all down in this book. things i didn't even realize i felt were right there on the page! I LOVED IT. i think this is my favorite novel of all time. which is not saying a whole lot because there is a ton of pretentious bullshit out there and i bet mrs. durham will force us to read it all. man i hate that bitch.

journal entry

today i am 20 years old. life is great as usual. just enjoyed my wednesday morning wake-and-bake session with j-p, the sun is shining, the san diego weather is beautiful, and tonight i'm off to rob & gregg's to destroy them at bullshit. love that game! gregg says that joelle will be there (yes!) but she'll probably bring that prick pete with her. one of these days i'm going to lose it and kick his ass. "i'm in a band"...fuck you, pete! i will never spin your records.

all i have on the agenda today is to go to the gym and then off to keracik's american lit class. it is not a bad class, although it is nowhere close to gender studies with halberstam. or davidoff's survey of modern postmodernism last semester. now that was a class! it blew my mind. so many things to think about. the reading in american lit has been okay. but we've been assigned to read Catcher in the Rye and it is terrible. can't believe i ever liked this book. caulfield is a whiny little bitch. the book has no depth. there is literally nothing going on with the narrative, style, theme, characterization, it is just one rote cliché after another. he thinks he is such a rebel-without-a-cause but in reality he is just another tired representation of rootless, stereotypical masculinity and gender essentialism. completely inane and without meaning. i think my essay will use some acker-style postmodernist techniques to show how simplistic this trite "classic" truly is. i'm going to deconstruct the shit out of this novel, baby!

journal entry

today i am 25 years old. another gray, drizzly san francisco morning. i wish christopher would wake up, i really need to talk to him after all that shit last night. notes on my pillow, really?? time to grow up dude, i will never "complete you". well actually i'm glad he's still asleep, my throat is too sore to get into it right now with him. plus Food Not Bombs is happening this morning and i have to get the kitchen ready. john is probably hard at work already, typical over-achieving behavior. i bet the wisconsin kids are still crashing on our living room floor. it's time for them to leave! they've seen The Vindictives at every single Epicenter or Gilman show now and it is time for them to hit the road. or learn to take a shower. this apartment is not the world's crashpad!

i woke up early this morning and thumbed through A Catcher in the Rye. i remember hating this book in college for some reason. probably wasn't po-mo enough for me. or "challenging". feh. what a pretentious idiot i was. this is a beautiful book. it changed my life as a kid, i'm not sure how i would have survived orange county without it. just re-reading parts of it brought back all that old angst about all the fucked-up shit in the world that kids have to deal with. i'm not sure there is another book as insightful or as meaningful. or funny! that part with the clipping-of-the-toenails is hilarious. ackley is such a douche. this book is the foundation of every zine that i have ever loved. a perfect novel. it is so...."human", i guess.

journal entry

today i am 30 years old. man my head hurts...so hungover! my birthday party last night was awesome. even got to spend some time on the turntables (thanks kraddy for actually relinquishing a tiny bit of control for once). i must have made out with a half-dozen people. sadly, no real action. i think last night's party will be the last big party i will ever throw. things have got to change. no more partying like the world is about to end, i still have my entire life ahead of me! tomorrow i am going to go into AIG and hand in my notice. i am not an entertainment insurance underwriter, that is not me. fuck them. if erika can get me that job working with homeless kids at Hospitality House, than i am set. although moving from the biggest room in the flat to the water heater closet will be no fun. i'm 30 years old now for chrissakes! still, i've got to do something meaningful with my life. it cannot all be about booze, drugs, hooking up, and paying everyone's rent when they're broke. things have got to change.

i cracked open A Catcher in the Rye yesterday before the party and read some of my favorite parts. what an inspiration! seriously, that is a classic novel. it is packed with meaning. i'm twice caulfield's age but i still somehow connect with him in a very direct way. my life is going to change and the attitude expressed in that book is at the heart of that change. i love you, holden caulfied. it's not too late for me to learn from you, to find some meaning in life.

journal entry

today i am 35 years old. another intense, sad, but deeply fulfilling week has passed. every day something meaningful happens, something so emotional and real. sometimes i find myself just losing it in a fetal position because of the things i've seen. working with people who are drug addicted or who have been abused or who are dying is HEAVY. but it is also beautiful. it's hard to believe i am dealing with all of that and supporting my folks too. thank God i have good friends to talk to about these things. anyway. so now marcy wants to have a kid. i just don't know how i feel about that. this is such a fucked up world, do we really want to bring new life into it? i dunno. it seems....selfish, somehow. she should just quit her job with the d.a.'s office and get back to her roots in the public defender's office instead. does she think that having a child with me will bring more meaning into her life? my life has meaning enough already. and i really am not sure i can handle that responsibility on top of everything else.

i skimmed A Catcher in the Rye yesterday, after an awkward talk with marcy about having a baby. it was not an inspiring read. caulfield is so full of misplaced angst! i'm not sure i even understand him anymore. why is he so pissed off? he's seen nothing of the world and what the world can actually do to people. i want to like him, i want to re-capture that feeling of affection i had for him, but now his contempt and his anger just seem so meaningless, so naive. he really does not have it so bad. there is so much worse out there. i don't know how i would handle a kid like that. i hate to say it, but i constantly rolled my eyes when reading it. oh the emotional self-absorption of youth! just you wait, caulfield. it sure gets a hell of a lot more complicated once you grow up.

journal entry

today i am 40 years old. when did i become a boss? it is like i woke up one day, mysteriously transformed into an old man. am i really a "leader"? what does that even mean? sometimes i feel like i am just faking it all and someone is going to figure it out and blow the whistle on me. last week i made a huge play on the Council, i had all my ducks in a row, and all the votes came in just as i had planned. everyone has their own agenda and the way to get things done is simply to recognize and engage with that disappointing fact. some folks got up and started clapping and then the whole room joined in, even council members who voted against my motion - feh, phonies. the experience was sort of amazing but it also made me feel very odd, almost disconnected from myself. is this who i am now, a public policy figure, a community advocate, a mayoral appointee? ugh, i can't stand the mayor. i don't feel like me. there is accomplishment there, and some satisfaction... but i am missing something, something visceral, something real. sweet Jesus, is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? it is a weird feeling, like i know everything that i need to know about the world, about the people around me, how everything connects, but yet i still feel like i know so little about life. oh, such angst, mark. surely you've outgrown this?

i've started re-reading A Catcher in the Rye. it's so strange, during different parts, i felt like crying. a wonderful and moving novel. i feel like i really understand holden, like he is my guide, my son, my brother, my friend... myself. i think of him and i know that change in the world and changing myself can still happen. it just has to happen. that's life after all, right?

Why do we write reviews?
You have a lot of reasons I guess.

But for this review there is only one. I am writing this for my conscience.
Ever since I have rated this book, I always end up asking myself that, have I rated it with something it deserved or was it just out of sympathy (some call it pity vote)?

Reading other reviews (although most people just rate it and proceed) posed me with many other questions and also gave me idea of what people generally think about her and her diary.

So I’m going to start with-
DO WE DESERVE to review or even rate this book diary?
Yes it is a diary not a book. And aren’t diary meant to be something personal? Yes they are, but it was Anne's wish to get her diary published and she even went on to fictionalize the diary by changing names.

When I started this book I knew how it would end and who doesn’t! I had the least of the expectation, knowing that she was 13 years old but she just surprised me by the outlook she carried of life. She thought and wrote over few such things that didn’t occur to my mind until I read it but have applied throughout my life.
She at times made me laugh, at times made me feel sad. If she felt something, her writing definitely made me experience it and thus she overcame my expectation by large margin.

I have read in lot of review that her thoughts were way ahead of her age.
Of course they were, difficult conditions make you mature and responsible, but there were also other people living under the same roof and in same condition, the suffering had even effect on them. I remember the letter exchange between two sisters, at that point after reading Margot’s letter, for the first time I realised Anne was still child among them.

Some say she could visualize herself and her thoughts and actions from different perspective and thus realise her fault.
The thing with diary is that it is a lopsided view of the events. She would write her thoughts and what she wrote of others were her interpretation of them.....I have it in my mind but can’t put it in words and why should I! Does it matter what kind of girl was she? 'NO’ from me.

Last thing that occur to me is that many people found it uninteresting and tiresome.
I liked it, it couldn’t get any better. I mean they were in hiding for their life in a same house for two years without even opening the window; they were not solving murder mystery. I remember that when I was halfway through the book, I would every now and then turn to the last diary entry and count the days that remained. I felt very sad and depressed and it would have been the last thing to occur to me that it was uninteresting; I was just taken by her wish to see the outside world again, feel the fresh wind and to go to school, but...

This is not a book to enjoy much; we read it to gain the insight of hardships that people had to go through during this holocaust. Through this book she give us best view of the worst of the world. No one has ever benefitted from war; all it gives is pain and misery.
All this being said there is nothing to review the book, but accept it as written account of the vices of the war.

The worst question that seemed to have been slapped across my face was: Would this book have meant the same if Anne had survived the holocaust and lived to become old? Would it have been famous as it is now?
Well she didn’t survived and with her ended answer to this question and no one can bring her back.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If you loved Breaking Dawn and don’t want to see it criticized, I’ll warn you now not to read my review. That being said, let me begin by saying that when I first read Twilight, I was hooked. I read New Moon in one sitting. I awaited the release of Eclipse with great anticipation. Sadly, Eclipse was the beginning of the end. It left me disappointed enough not to have high expectations for Breaking Dawn. Even at that, Breaking Dawn shattered my lowest expectations. I am stunned at the depths to which this once-revered author has plunged! From this point on I will refer to Breaking Dawn as B.D., aka “Bitter Disappointment,” or, if you prefer, “Boring Depravity,” “Bloody Drama,” “Brain Drain,” or my husband’s personal favorite, “Bloody Diapers”.

Where do I begin? How about with my least favorite character, Bella? She began the series with a lot of promise. Sure, some people said that she wasn’t well defined in the first book, but I never had a problem with her. Throughout New Moon and Eclipse, her character starts to decline. In B.D., Bella becomes intolerable. This girl is unbelievably selfish. She begins the book whining about the beautiful, expensive car Edward bought her. She whines about the wedding preparations, the dress, the ring. Poor thing has to *gasp* marry the man of her dreams! The injustice! She is far more concerned about nameless, faceless people mocking her for getting married young than she is about the happiness of the man she claims to love more than life itself. And her treatment of Jacob! Where to begin? This is a good kid had the misfortune to fall in love with her and though I had issues with his manipulation of her emotions at the end of Eclipse, still, he’s a teenage guy and you have to cut him some slack. But come on, Bella! Once she realizes she loves him, but that she loves Edward more, she chooses Edward. Fine. So let the poor guy go! Let him move on with his life! But no, she has to have her cake and eat it too. She hurts both Edward, the one she has chosen, and Jacob, the one she has rejected, by refusing to cut ties with him. She claims to hate herself for hurting him, says at one point that it’s “criminal” to injure him as much as she does, but will she love him enough to let him let go and move on? Nope. She wouldn’t “feel whole” without him, so she continues to cling to him. Even after she’s married. The culmination of this extreme selfish lack of consideration for anyone’s feelings but her own is when she slips and refers to the unborn baby as “EJ”. Did she even think to consider whether Edward would be happy about having his child named after his rival? No, she just did what she darn well wanted to do, and gave no thought to what Edward would want. Bella has become a tyrant. What Queen Bella wants, Queen Bella must have.

Now, a little bit about Edward. He was what made Twilight so magical. He was mysterious, romantic, beautiful, all the many things that the hero of a good book should be. Edward stole the hearts of most of the female readers of this series. Yet, by the time you finish B.D., you find yourself either feeling terribly sorry for him because he chose such a lame heroine, or just contemptuous of him for becoming a doormat, a slave to Bella’s whims. I thought I’d scream if I had to hear him say “If it makes her happy, I’ll do it, even if it’s not what’s best for her” one more time. In B.D., the author sends the message through Edward that love and blind devotion are the same thing. They aren’t. Truly loving someone isn’t giving them free reign to stomp all over you and everything in their path, just because they think it will make them happy. Real love encompasses the occasional appropriate guidance of the loved one away from self-destructive desires toward a better way. But here, we are taught that if you love someone, you let them have what they want, all the time, without exception.

As for the story development, my greatest frustration is that the author created a very intricate world, complete with detailed descriptions of what could and could not happen in it. Then she decided not to play by these rules. Yes, I am referring to the sudden and inexplicable ability of a vampire to father a child. This felt very contrived and unbelievable, and introduced such a bizarre, nightmarish chain of events that I could hardly believe I was reading the story that began as Twilight. This baby feeds on the blood of its mother and slowly sucks her life away? Bella has to drink human blood, while she’s still human, to save her life and the life of her child? And she LIKES IT? This is the same, human Bella that turned green and almost passed out while doing blood typing in Biology class, right? Okay, I could see that her aversion to blood was going to go away after becoming a vampire. But while she was still human? Really? I felt sick the whole time I read about her drinking gallons of blood a day to sustain the child. Bleh. I still don’t get the whole scene where Edward asks Jacob to offer to make babies with Bella. What?!? Again, is this the author’s attempt at showing us the extent of true love? It was twisted and disturbing.

And the delivery of the baby…that was just plain disgusting. Bella vomiting gallons of blood, her bones snapping right and left, blood vessels popping in her eyes, Edward biting into her womb to get the baby out, and the tender moment when mommy sees baby for the first time is marred by said baby taking a bite out of her mommy. Ick! And I’ll just join the legions of people who are saying, “RENESMEE?!?” You’ve got to be kidding. This from the author who tastefully chose names like Edward, Bella, Carlisle, Alice…why didn’t she just name her “Brangelina” or “TomKat”? Or “Bedward?” I will also join the protests against Jacob imprinting on Bella and Edward’s daughter. I could see when the concept of imprinting was introduced that it would be the author’s way of making a happy ending for Jacob at the end of the story, and that was fine. I like a happy ending, and of course I wanted to see Jacob happy. But are we so inflexible that we can’t be happy with Jacob imprinting on a nice, new girl to the story? No, Bella must have her way. She can’t be happy without Jacob as a part of her life. And we’re supposed to feel happy and satisfied that she gets her way in the form of Jacob as her son-in-law? How is that a happy ending?

At the top of my list of grievances is the destruction of the message that was communicated so clearly in the first three books. Once Bella falls in love with Edward, she is confronted with some very difficult choices. If she wants to be with Edward, she must choose to leave human life behind her and become a vampire. The value of Eclipse was that it forced Bella to look long and hard at what she was choosing if she decided to become a vampire. She would have to cut ties with her human life…her mother, father, and everyone human that mattered to her. She could never have children of her own. She would have to deal with the bloodlust of being a newborn vampire. She would spend a significant amount of time developing the self-control and restraint that the rest of the Cullens had achieved. One of the most compelling elements of the first three books is Edward’s angst, his agonizing about the state of his soul as a vampire. He grieves what he sees as the loss of his soul. This is at the heart of his great reluctance to change Bella, the reason for his disappearance in New Moon. All the vampires who have chosen not to feed on humans hate what they have become. They are conflicted about who they are. None of them who remember life as a human can say with conviction that they wouldn’t go back if they could. Bella has to confront all of this and choose to sacrifice the value of her humanity for the love she feels for Edward. All of this is well and good and presents a very thought-provoking storyline. Then, in B.D., every one of these issues is neatly sidestepped in order to create an obstacle-free path to a happily-ever after ending for Queen Bella. First of all, from the moment she opens her eyes as a newborn vampire, everything is better. The world shimmers. She experiences everything so much more intensely, things are more beautiful, more colorful, more wonderful. What’s not to love about being a vampire? Within minutes, she is exhibiting the self-control that everyone else took decades to achieve. And how about the whole I-have-to-have-sex-before-I-become-a-vampire-because-all-
my-human-emotions-will-be-gone-for-awhile? Nope! Not only does she still experience all the emotions and passions she had as a human, but they are intensified! By the time we’re finished reading about Bella’s new life as a vampire, we have to wonder why anyone wouldn’t want to be a vampire. All the build-up for Bella to grow and mature through sacrifice and self-denial, wiped away. So much better for her not to have to suffer through that stuff, right? And she manages to get immortality and a baby, to boot. We have to wonder if everyone who claimed that becoming a vampire was a serious, heavy choice was just delusional. The nobility of the message is sacrificed in order to create a neat, happy ending for everyone.

I haven’t seen much, if any, speculation on what the cover of the book is trying to communicate to the reader, so here’s my take. The big white queen is, you guessed it, Queen Bella, the white vampire. The red pawn is you (or I), the blood-red reader, about to be sucked dry in the wake of the Queen’s destruction. Beware!

I wish Stephenie Meyer had ended with Twilight or at least an extended version of New Moon. I think I’ll be hauling my copies of the last three to the local library as a donation and trying to just enjoy Twilight for what it was before the rest of this mess came into play.