It pains me to admit this. It really and truly does. But I just reread The Host and I must admit that I love it. LOVE IT. It is a book that I know I will reread again and again. It is hard for my to comprehend that the same person that wrote the Twilight books could write such a poignant and heart wrenching story that is basically about what it means to be human and what it is to struggle as a soul that is inextricably linked to a physical body. It is so amazing and the Twilight books are so stupid. Entertaining but dumb.
Stephenie Meyer tends to be fairly long winded and at points she is a little too repetitive but she has a gift for creating characters that have compelling and complex relationships. It is these relationships that serve as the momentum for her stories. Her plots tend to be anti-climactic and/or somewhat lacking but they aren't really the point when it comes to reading her books. She has a way of writing the with heartbreaking precision that pain and the pleasure of love and hate. As someone who is LDS I can also see a lot of religious themes in her writing and, while she is not on par with him, she definitely has a touch of the C.S. Lewis ability to both celebrate the spiritual without beating us over the head with it.
I guess this means I no longer hate Stephenie Meyer. As a matter of fact I rather admire her persistence in expanding technically and creatively. After the success of the Twilight series she could have easily just gone on to write whatever cheesy drivel she came up with. And people would have gobbled it up. Instead she took a decidedly sharp turn and challenged herself to do better. And she succeeded. As a writer myself I find that to be severely respectable.
She still needs help with the names though. Renesmee? Wanda? Wanderer I can deal with but Wanda? Eh. I guess I shouldn't complain. One of my main characters is named Enzo. But that is a cool weird name. Oh and her cousin's name is Aloha. Whatever... it's not up to me. Their names are their names.
What blow my mind is that she actually wrote The Host between writing Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. I mean, the writing is a little better in Breaking Dawn, but not at the same level as The Host. Weird. Also, I guess they're already working on a movie version of The Host. The thing that makes her books so much better than the movies (beside the obvious horrible directing and acting) is that the best parts go on inside the main character's head. You just can't translate that to the screen. But I hope they at least get all their huge mistakes out on the Twilight movies so this one will be much better.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am conflicted about the movie version. I just don't know how they are going to pull off the Wanderer/Melanie dynamic. I have a feeling there will be some heavy flashbacks. My favorite is the relationship between Ian and Wanderer though. I don't want to call her Wanda. So I look forward to that. PLUS I am almost a thousand percent sure that Stephenie Meyer based the book's Ian off of the actor Ian Somerhalder because he is exactly the same physically and he has the same name AND she wanted him for the part... which I am pretty sure he got. I'm just saying. If I was getting to make my stories into movies I would TOTALLY use the power to cast hotties.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose my favorite book out of the Twilight series I think it would be Eclipse. New Moon is close but Bella being so stupid annoys me. And by stupid I mean believing that Edward just decided he didn't love her. Bella annoys me. I feel like Eclipse had the action packed ending that stupid Breaking Dawn couldn't deliver. Although I do love that she shows Edward all the memories of him that he never got to see. That part is a sweet ending.
It is so early in the morning. I really need to go to bed but I am all riled up from doing articles all night. LOVE YA!