Well, I have just finished up Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer’s third trashy vampire book. In case you were wondering whether all the trashy continues unabated, the answer is a resounded and unqualified YES.
Basically, in this book, Bella and Edward have lots of anxieties for several reasons, including 1) she misses Jacob and wants to play with him; and 2) he (Edward, not Jacob) wants to get married and she doesn’t; and 3) she wants to have sex and he (still Edward, not Jacob) doesn’t; and 4) a vampire they pissed off a while ago is making a massive army of baby vampires to kill Bella. The angst is ceaseless.
Also, Jacob still loves Bella. He’s more twenty-five-y than sixteen-y these days, so everyone can stop worrying about whether Bella’s a pedophile. Because, yes, that’s been bothering me a little bit as she inched closer to nineteen and he was still only sixteen. I did the equation and figured out she’s still okay until he’s 16 and a half, but nevertheless it was bugging me a bit. He is also no longer cooler than Edward, because now he’s threatening suicide in order to make Bella slip him some tongue. Lame. If there’s one thing I hate even more than your garden variety emotional manipulation, it’s emotionally manipulative suicide threats.
To return to the point, however: My stars, this book was trashy, and for some reason, not as absorbing as the first two. I’ve been trying to decide why that is, and I think it may be because we’ve got all the characters now and nothing new is really being developed. In Twilight, there was Edward, and Bella was working out things with Edward; and then in New Moon, there was Jacob and she was working out things with Jacob. In this one we’ve already got them both and Bella’s just being wishy-washy and working nothing out at all except that she really, really, really doesn’t want to get married right out of high school, because she’s afraid of being trailer trash or something. She wasn’t doing anything, and neither was anyone, except getting very protective of her. There were lots of pissing contests between Edward and Jacob – first the nice normal pissing contests and then the more subtle ones where they were both all trying to love Bella the best. And it got tiresome. I quit reading it and went to bed. If the next one isn’t more interesting, well I’ll just be. You know. Cross.
Hmm – do you think I’m becoming jaded and growing to hate all books everywhere? The last several books I’ve read haven’t impressed me. Maybe my brain is on new book overload. But no, because I’m enjoying Night Watch a lot. But maybe, because if I can’t enjoy a trashy vampire novel, WHAT KIND OF SOUL-DEAD CREATURE AM I?