TWILIGHT--Girly Girl Girl's Girl

A lot of my students are reading Stephanie Meyer's TWILIGHT books, and I decided to take a look at the first one in the series, see what all the fuss was about.  The way everyone talks, they'd discovered the next Harry Potter.

Nnnnope.

Now I should say that Stephanie Meyer has certainly hit a nerve.  Go her!  I'm insanely jealous.  But I'm definitely not the audience for this book.  It's clearly a girly girl's girl girl girly girl book for girly girls.  The pages slosh with estrogen.  If that's what you want, you're all set, but the novel utterly lacks universal appeal.  I'm about two-thirds of the way through it, and I don't know if I'll finish.  I've only gotten this far out of a perverse desire to see what everyone else sees in the series.

Let's be clear here--this book is part of the vampire romance sub-genre, and it never manages to be more than that.  The book is completely standard, filled with tired old tropes.

( Spoilerish Comments Behind the Cut )

Like I said--a girly girl girl's girl book for girly girls.  If that turns you on, the series will send you into vampire bad-boy heaven.  The rest of us are better off re-reading Harry Potter.

How To Speak R2-D2

This site is kind of fun:

http://www.r2d2translator.com/

You can type things into the translator and it'll translate it into R2-D2 sounds.  You can download them as MP3s as well.  I created a couple for download.  Now when a message arrives, R2 says, "You have mail."  And when my phone rings, R2 chirps, "Answer the damn phone!"