Sunday Salon: Week Four

This week I've finished off Twilight and The Opposite House and started The Awakening (The Vampire Diaries I) Let's start with Twilight.



I mentioned last week that I bought Twilight well over a year ago when I was working at Borders in San Antonio. There were a lot of Dad's who came in to buy the latest sequel for their teenage daughters, which at that time was the third book Eclipse. I have a soft spot for Young Adult fiction and decided to give it a go. While I found the book quite readable and interesting I stopped at pretty much the most exciting part of the book and didn't pick it up again for a year. I started from the beginning and again, it's an enjoyable book but I can't say it is one of the best books I've ever read, or even one of the best Young Adult books I've ever read. I liked Bella a lot, but I agree with people who say that it was frightening to watch her become obsessed with Edward and lose sight of everything else in her life except for him. Is that the message I want to be giving to young readers, especially girls? Er...no. I found the brooding Edward to be a bit annoying too. That said, I'll probably give the second book a read but not for a while and I won't be buying it. I'm sure the library is chock full of copies. I might also watch the movie when it comes out, mostly out of curiosity to see how the book to movie transition goes.


I'm faintly surprised that I managed to finish The Opposite House. A strange little book that I came by via the Writers on Writing podcast (if you're reading this, you're very welcome for the link to the podcast Terri!) and I was impressed by the author's poetic turn of phrase and her youth (she's about 24 I think). I don't know quite how to explain or describe this book. It's an experience, not a journey. It doesn't always make sense, and in fact usually doesn't. I'm not sure it is supposed to. It starts somewhere, then goes nowhere but in a peaceful way. It's overblown, but incredibly subdued and small. It's a study in contrasts, I guess. I stated last week that I wasn't sure if it was incredibly brilliant and not able to be understood by the mortal mind, or if it was utter crap and we just think it is brilliant because we don't understand it. What is certain is that Helen Oyeyemi has a poets mind and some of her phrases are amazing enough to make me want to weep at her gift. This is "high literature" at a peak and I don't think I'd rush to read anything by Oyeyemi again, however this one will live on in my mind for quite a while methinks.



I read about The Awakening in someone's Sunday Salon post...I wish I could remember who it was! I think the discussion was about Twilight, which peaked my interest as I was reading it at the time and the blogger recommended this series over Twilight. I'm about half way through and it isn't shaping up to be a bad little book. The cover you see above is not the cover on my book - mine is a very early-90's horror cover where they have tried to do something clever with a crow and a vampire, but it just comes off looking cheesy. The book cover above reminds me a great deal of the Twilight movie promotional posters, which is probably the point. Perhaps these books will experience a comeback. There are certainly worse books out there - our heroine Elena (the Queen of her high school, orphan and all round supremely beautiful being) has the hots for the new boy in town Stefan who is (dum, dum, dum , DA!) a vamp with a mean brother. We seem to be building to something, and this is the first in a four book series so its on slow boil at the moment. I just wish there were more teen books about regular teenagers. Not the really popular ones or the really outsider ones. It gets a bit old after a while. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Happy Sunday!