#thinking it over i probably prefer twilight among the b&b retellings including jane eyre. not over rebecca though

[cto10121]

well i’m bored so might as well review the new twilight book, midnight sun. yeah

you know, if someone had come up to me circa ~2000s and told me “yo cto10121, i have a novel in mind, it’s kind of a beauty and the beast/romeo and juliet high school fantasy au, think it’ll work/make a ridiculous amount of money???” i probably would have said no, but cool fanfic, yo, you do you. but as stephenie meyer came up with twilight and literally spawned ya books as a marketable genre...it goes to show that it really isn’t the idea that matters, but the execution of it. too bad she got the most ridiculous amount of slack and bad faith criticism for it though - people really do not know their vampire fiction from their gothic romances

enter midnight sun in edward’s point of view, and now we’re in full-on b&b/hades and persephone territory (literally, the myth is alluded to so many times it’s ridiculous. on the other hand, meyer’s self-awareness is just so. refreshing. for a moment there all the ya romances shamelessly stealing based on r&j always had to mention something about how awful r&j was. my palms continually itched to strangle some fools from 2008 onwards. dark days, my friends, dark days). so let’s see how it goes

it starts off good: edward is appropriately haughty, arrogant on the side of an actual god complex, intelligent but also very quick to judge, and angsty about his bloodlust-y state. bonus points: he doesn’t think bella is all that at first and dismisses her from the word-go. so appropriately...beastly. i also like how in this version bella’s willingness to challenge edward on his bullshit, and the cycle of  edward assuming something about bella and then his assumptions turn out wrong, is much more evident here. of course, this is edward’s journey from beast to prince, so he gets to realize some truths about himself: he can’t control everything, he really is not a good judge of character, much less human character, and just...let nature take its course sometimes ffs

but alas, since pacing is everything in a romance, i felt edward’s realization that he is in love with bella came a little too fast - pretty much by alice’s vision of bella as a vampire it was confirmed and he was like wup guess i love this sweet-smelling now. i would have liked some more denial and resistance on edward’s part, probably moved alice’s vision way later, since that would have been in line with his all-knowing character and then show that he cares through the narrative. bella’s fascination with edward is woven through her POV so it did not have to be outright stated until very late in the game (the french title actually would have been more apropos - fascination. pretty much says it all). twilight actually has the structure of a mystery, so it’s sad that that aspect so quickly discarded

also - and this was a weakness of twilight too - the vampires are way too overpowered, to the point where immortality is much more of a sweet deal than ancient curse, and so edward’s beast-like angst over it a little less understandable. i know this is the fantasy equivalent/allegory of rich douchebags with obscene wealth, but still. some limits would have been very nice. how far can these vampires move? the super strength is particularly too much. on the other hand, there was more a fleshing out of the eras the vampires lived in and their backstories are still top-notched - you did believe the cullens came from another time entirely, especially edward.

but by far the greatest weakness is that there was too much detail - meyer no doubt found it difficult to stick to the original plotline so there was much less room to maneuver. this led to too many details, particularly unnecessary ones, and not the stuff you actually want to know re:character and lore (for my part, as an example: edward’s bloodlust situation was not at all unique, so why don’t the vampires have a name for it already? the volturi called the human a cantante - why is there no english equivalent, even if it’s just a transliteration? edward literally had to explain it fully to carlisle. but ignore me i’m just a language nerd). it served to dilute the romance, not enhance it. there should have been a lot more introspection, i feel

so that’s midnight sun for you. as for more structural criticism...well, the reason why i would not (normally) think b&b/r&j would make a good mashup is because of the two different character dynamics involved. b&b is essentially a may-december romance, with an older more experienced (and rich, the guy is always rich in these things) man with a tragic past/dark secret and a young, beautiful ingenue. r&j is an immediate mutual attraction, usually a coup de foudre whirlwind passion between two people of similar ages but who cannot be together because of an obstacle. there is obviously plenty of overlap, but the resolutions are different: b&b requires that the beast change his ways into a prince with the help of beauty and r&j is essentially tragic - when the obstacles are too high to be overcome and when the love is too strong to give up, lovers die and (sometimes) the obstacles too. twilight slides between the two poles fairly well, but ultimately goes on way too long. usually romances are one, two books at the most. either bella and/or edward should have died mutually, or bella should have turned into a vampire by the end of book two. the series never resolved the two fundamental diametric poles, only adding the feuding-houses aspect (vampires vs. werewolves) and the rival love interest. i will give midnight sun this, though: like disney’s b&b, it benefits from shifting the development on edward’s part, not bella’s. 

in sum: started out strong, but then lost the plot somewhere around the middle. the meadow scene still slaps, though. not one kiss and yet it’s hotter than the sahara at noon. i’ve forgotten how much the movies sucked, adaptation-wise; the series is pure gothic romance and they turned into an indie high school flick and then a fantasy coming-of-age flick.