“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”  - John Waters


If there's one resolution I am going to be bothered to make for the year 2013, it is this : to read more. That's it. Just to read more books. I have fallen into the miserable habit of buying books, not reading them, and then buying more books anyway. The last straw came a couple of weeks ago when I returned from the Big Bad Wolf warehouse sale (bless the people who put that whole shindig together, by the way; it's essentially heaven for sad broke people who like words) with almost forty new paperback tomes and no space left on an already long-suffering shelf.

It's also an unfortunate side effect of being an English major that reading for pleasure just doesn't seem to have any room in my life's routine. I'm already tired and pissed about being told what to read and when to read it. Casual page-turning just isn't my idea of a relaxing time anymore. The minute I have any time to myself, it's straight to the laptop ; scrolling away into the wee hours of the morning until my eyes glaze over and I've been sitting there refreshing Tumblr's home page for half an hour. The Internet is great and everything, but there are things about reading that I miss deeply, and I intend to make more time for the printed word from now on.

It's not just the cliched shit that I miss ; the smell of ink or the sound of pages rubbing together or the texture of leather binding or anything like that. I miss that feeling of getting lost in a book. Being immersed in a time and place. Going back to re-read a phrase or a sentence that particularly struck you, and then rolling those words around in your mouth for a while (not your real mouth, though - more like the...mouth of your mind?). And the really good books, the totally 100%-immersive-experiences ones, they take a while to leave you, don't they? A few days, perhaps. You walk around having breakfast and going to classes and watching TV with that book still hovering somewhere in the periphery of your mind - names and faces and snatches of dialogue and places and smells. That book was a part of your world for however many days or weeks it took you to finish it, and for a while, Middle Earth or 1920's Detroit or post-war Greece or pre-Independence India feels as real to you as the bus stop down the road. And I never want to tear myself away from the pieces of the stories that choose to float around in my consciousness before making their gracious exits. It's a bit like reverse drowning in slow motion. You've been so completely lost in an entirely different place that it will take time to find your feet back in dull old reality. The last time I remember feeling this (which would also correlate with the last time I bothered to read a book at all) was when I sat down to finish The Hobbit for my children's literature module. I spent the entire week feeling as though half my body was still stuck somewhere in the Lonely Mountains, while the other half carried on with mundane everyday things.


I miss this feeling. I miss books. I miss having entire worlds living in my head. I miss reading. Which is why I am going to turn off my computer right after I've published this post, and finish reading Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. That poor lump of tree pulp has been waiting patiently for me long enough.

BAP'S Tyrannical Book-Handling Rules.

I am notoriously anal about books. I've almost entirely stopped lending my books out to friends because I feel truly bad about subjecting people to my list of rules and restrictions, which include the likes of these :

• NEVER EVER leave the book lying face down, to the point where the spine bends or cracks. How would you like it if your backbone got bent over itself, you barbarian
•  NO dog-earing. I expect you to either use bookmarks or just go with your memory.
• When you're reading paperbacks, DO NOT flip the book so far open that you bend the spine. It is entirely possible, and not as difficult as it sounds, to hold the book open at an angle that doesn't damage the spine while you read. This rule is negotiable when hardcovers are involved.
• DO NOT take the book with you into the bathroom or shower.
• DO NOT bend, fold, or crease the covers or pages.
• DO NOT eat or drink anywhere near the book. The only acceptable stains are when the pages turn brown with age, not coffee.
• DO NOT take the book with you to school, work, or generally anywhere outside your house where you can drop it, misplace it, leave it behind or otherwise lose it.
• Highlighting, scribbling, underlining, or defacing the book in any way is punishable by a slow, torturous death. Or maybe a smack upside the head. It all depends on my mood, really.

Yeah I don't know how I still have friends after all that, either.

I should probably explain that all these apply only to books that I own. If the books are yours, or if they are a gift from me (and I do love buying books for people ; all future nephews and nieces can look forward to a book for every birthday and Christmas and THEY WILL LIKE IT dammit) you're free to do with them as you please ; drop them in the toilet, lose them at the train station, smear the pages with foodstuff.

Most people I know subscribe to the life philosophy of letting the copies of your favourite books show exactly how much you love them. Torn, creased, folded, stained, falling apart and held together with tape and glue, or the pages bloated because of the one time the book fell in the toilet bowl or when you had to run across the campus parking lot in the middle of a thunderstorm or something. Books that show signs of life, of having been loved and handled and shared and passed around, bearing dozens of fingerprints and coffee-and-chocolate stains and smell like that one brand of perfume you used almost every day when you were sixteen. That's fine. That's great. Whatever makes you happiest, whatever way in which you choose to cherish your reading material, go for it. I say this with no trace of sarcasm.

My own books, on the other hand, look almost exactly as they did the day I got them. Spines intact, no creases or lines on the covers ; still in mostly pristine condition. The only sign that the copies are not actually brand new can be seen in the yellows and browns of old paper. Visitors look at my bookshelf and proclaim that "it looks like no one has ever read these before!", which to me is like a compliment wrapped in a taco of insult. I have read every book on  my shelf at least twice, and many of them are copies I have owned since early childhood. I love those books. I treasure them and I remember how and where I acquired every single one of them. They are my babies. I even keep the books I don't particularly like and will probably never read again because I'm afraid of making them sad if I give them away (I have issues, I'm dealing with them okay).

And I genuinely resent the idea that I (and other nitpicky pieces of shit like me) am somehow less of a book lover because I am too obsessed with keeping my tomes in mint condition to actually enjoy the words, the content. I resent the idea that I am some sort of an incarnation of a demon librarian because I won't allow my books the liberty of relaxing just a little.

Don't judge a book by its cover, but also don't judge a reader by the way they read. Their...readeringship. Methods. Thing. You know what I'm getting at. I still cringe to the very core of my being when I see someone holding a paperback so wide open that the spine cracks and I can see where the pages are already coming loose. But do I see them as barbaric uncouth uncultured Philistines who have no idea how to treat literature and thus are not worthy of the joys and wonders of the printed word? Yes!

NO.

NO I mean no.

No of course not.

How you read and keep your books really have no bearing on the kind of the reader you are. It took me a while to learn this, and to stop judging people who felt no life-defining need to handle their books like the tree pulpy equivalent of cut glass dinnerware. These days, as long as we can sit down over a cup of over-expensive pearl milk tea and totally fangirl over Neil Gaiman's brain and leather jacket collection, we're good. Just keep your unrefined paws off my copy of Good Omens. 


This is post is brought to you by Tom Hiddleston, who thinks reading is totally sexy, especially if you put on a suit for the occasion.

And just a smidgen of lens flare. Ooooh.

p.s All that being said, I do have a thing for old books. Especially the kind you can find in university libraries, with musty pages and cloth-bound covers and check-out cards with return dates from the 1950s stamped on them, and handwritten notes scribbled into the margins. I sometimes go to the library just to sniff them, like a creeper.

Real Men Wear Cravats : BAP's List of Literary Crushes.

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to fictional boys, the bulk of my attention is reserved for those on screen, but doubt not the fact that I have had my share of infatuations with men who dwell in lands of ink and paper as well. And considering the fact that I am majoring in English Literature, dammit, I'd say this list was a long time coming.


Before I go any further, I'd just like to get mushy for a bit and quickly mention that my aunt was probably the single largest influence on my reading habits as a kid. She would take me by the hand into a bookstore every time she came over to visit, and turn me loose in the children's section with a “Take whatever you want, and however many you like”. I was a good kid, and honestly lousy at taking advantage of people, so I'd never go beyond a RM15 purchase if I could help it. My aunt rectified this by piling more books into my arms anyway ; everything she had remembered reading and loving during her own childhood, she wanted me to read and love. There was never such a thing as a budget when it came to these special shopping trips.

And it's largely thanks to her that these days I cannot imagine going through life without a book within arm's reach whenever possible. Consequently, she's a part of the reason that I'm doing an English degree at all, and it's a fucking shame that she is never going to see me graduate. And perhaps unsurprisingly, she's the one who introduced me to and/or bought me pretty much every book on this list. We fangirled over all the Austen heroes any chance we got. We walked into a person's house and immediately (and unfairly) judged them based on how many books they had in the place. Every time I pick up a novel to read, it is because of her, and it is for her, and I owe her big time for that.


Here we go, in no particular order, and with many pretty pictures from various TV and film adaptations, where available, to make up for the fact that this is one long-ass post :

1. Julian Kirrin [The Famous Five series, Enid Blyton]

Enid Blyton's Famous Five series was my first foray into the world of proper full-length books, as a wide-eyed eight year old. This was where I met the big brother in the mystery-solving Famous 5 gang, and I was completely taken in by his bossiness, protectiveness and adorable arrogance fueled by what I now recognize as the male ego. And although the kid who played him in the 1996 TV adaptation looked incredibly dopey :


He kind of got really hot in the space of roughly 15 years :



'Sup Julian.




2. Laertes [Hamlet, William Shakespeare]

Here's the thing – I had a crush on Hamlet first. I had this picture in my mind of a tortured, conflicted Scandinavian supermodel prince with really great cheekbones. Like this.



To be hot, or to be hotter?

For the first few acts, I was completely smitten with Hamlet and his tragic predicaments. And then he just got whinier, angstier and ever more spineless. I found myself reading monologue upon monologue of him waxing philosophical about mortality and sin, which is all well and good, but damn I wished he would just go and kill someone already. And on top of all that, he decides to take out his frustrations on the only other character even more vulnerable than himself - Ophelia. What a dick.

It was only then that Laertes, brother of Ophelia and Dude Who Works As A Something For The Danish Monarchy But I Don't Remember What, began to seem far more appealing. Laertes, while perhaps nowhere near as intelligent or poetic as Hamlet Prince Of Emo, was most definitely noble, courageous, honorable, and devoted to his family and duty. His adoration for his sister was heart-melting, and it is utterly tragic that he had to lose his entire family and then his own life, for no other reason than the fact that Hamlet was taking too long to make up his mind. Also if a ghost had appeared to Laertes in Act I and told him to kill someone in the name of righteous revenge, Laertes would have marched right up there with this sword and taken down names and chopped off some heads by Act II.


3. Fitzwilliam Darcy [Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen]

Mr. Darcy was my introduction to the world of brooding, silent heroes, and to the world of Jane Austen, and consequently led to my fascination with anything labelled "British", "period" and with the word "cravat" mentioned somewhere. While Austen novels and their adaptations provide plenty of great fodder to analyze through the lens of class, social structure and gender issues, I won't lie ; it is the brooding hot men of the (mostly) upper classes, who once in a while will threaten to loosen a cravat or unbutton a shirtsleeve or two, that keep me holding on. The ones with the seemingly icy, douchey, self-important exteriors, the ones that appear harsh, obsessed with propriety and have no time for the frivolities of lower class women and their insistence on having dances for no reason all the time. The ones who hide boiling passions, good hearts and noble, sensitive souls beneath their impeccably-mannered, coolly dismissive, exquisitely coiffed and cravat-ed facades (I really like cravats okay). And Darcy was the original. I won't get into much detail here, since there are and have been far too many women throughout history who have been extolling his hot, hot virtues. While many other fictional men, of the Austenian persuasion or otherwise, have come and gone, Fitzwilliam Darcy always has a place in my otherwise oh-so-fickle heart.



We'll always have Pemberley, sir.


4. St.John Rivers [Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë]

I'm sorry, but Edward Rochester does not hold a candle to the celibate sex bomb that is St.John Rivers. He is every bit as intense, charismatic and smouldering as Rochester, if not more. He is also not likely to lie about locking up his poor, insane wife in an attic, or be an immoral, selfish opportunist. His source of intense broodery is his deep and passionate love for a young local lady, which he denies himself on account of his dedication to religion and bodily purity. Edward Cullen, this is how you make abstinence HOT.

Sure, St.John has every intention of marrying Jane and then running off to Africa together to do the Lord's missionarying, but at least he is completely direct and forthright about it. Also, he's HOT. He also sees Jane as his intellectual and emotional equal, something Rochester was never able to do, and if not for him and his sisters our heroine would never have developed and strengthened both her individuality and her position in a class-obsessed society. And what does she do? Why, run back to Rochester of course, albeit now as a strong self-made woman. But back to Rochester. Ugh. Not even casting Michael Fassbender in that role is likely to change my opinion of the character, and mind you, someone has already done that.



On a more Rochester-positive note, The Fassbender is totally working those mutton chops. You go gurrrl.


5. Mr. Charles Bingley [Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen]

There is a tendency for adaptations of this novel to turn him into the bumbling, slightly foolish source of comic relief. In reality though, Bingley is sweet, sensitive, sunny, trusting, generous, bright, utterly lovable, quite incapable of disliking anyone or anything, and basically free of both pride and prejudice (suck it, Darcy). The only drawbacks to his character are his self-admitted short attention span, a certain lack of initiative in matters of the heart, and his habit of losing his backbone around his sisters, who are a couple of snooty, pushy,manipulative and vile little bitches. He is a delightfully refreshing change to the dark, complicated, brooding romantic hero with seemingly shady secrets. The nice guys of literature deserve some cred too, you guys.



Also, pretty ginger men. I demand more pretty ginger men in my 19th century literary adaptations.


6. Robbie Turner [Atonement, Ian McEwan]



I will admit that I was only interested in reading this after learning of the existence of the film adaptation starring my Scrawny Scottish Sex God, James McAvoy. I even got the movie tie-in edition of the novel , with James on the cover, because who says you can't enjoy award-winning serious-business LITERATURE! and nomworthy boys at the same time amiright? Reading and watching Atonement is a devastating experience of guilt, lies , lives being torn apart and the futile search for - well, for atonement, set against the backdrop of World War II. And if you know me, you know that soldier stories make me cry, but especially this one, because James McAvoy Robbie Turner spends all his time in the war hanging on to his intense and pure love for Kiera Knightley Cecilia Tallis to keep his humanity intact in the face of the unspeakable hell he needs to deal with every day. And when that final reveal comes towards the end of the book, and the enormity of everything you have just read about Robbie and his life really hits you? If you don't weep just a little bit, then you are surely not human.

Bonus James McAvoy in an emotionally devastating suit.



7. Remus Lupin [All of the Most of the Harry Potters, J.K Rowling]




Most internet fangirlism energies are concentrated on three of Harry Potter's ultimate bad boys ; Sirius Black, Severus Snape, and Draco Malfoy (hahaha what?). They were misunderstood, conflicted, tortured, and gave birth to millions of angst-ridden (read:slash) fan fiction. But I developed a crush on everyone's favourite werewolf right about three sentences after he first appears in Prisoner Of Azkaban. Gentle, firm, composed, lonely, obviously intelligent and evidently hiding something, Lupin was probably the most compelling adult character in the books (right after Dumbledore of course, who sometimes made me apprehensive and nervous in ways Voldemort never managed to).

I was especially touched to find out that J.K Rowling saw him as the best teacher she never had , and that he was one of her favourite characters. Everything about Lupin breaks my heart, to put it simply. Sure he was just as tortured and tragic and conflicted as say, Sirius Black was. And lonely, oh so very lonely. But what really got me was how good Lupin was, despite all the shit he had to deal with in life – that quiet determination to always do the right thing, to place faith in people who needed it, and to always believe the best of the kids under his care. It's tough for a girl not to melt just a little bit. This man deserves a lot more love than he's getting.


10. John Ridd [Lorna Doone, Richard Doddridge Blackmore]

I first read Lorna Doone in 1999, and I still have no idea how my 9 year-old self managed to understand anything of what happened in that story, let alone what any of the characters were saying. All I knew was that one day, I too wanted a boy who would love me enough to scale a waterfall barefoot to save me from my evil oppressors.



11. Mr. Knightley [Emma, Jane Austen]
Mainly because I picture him in my head as Richard Armitage (take note, casting directors of the earth). But Mr. Knightley is just refined, mature, bossy, kind, loving, intelligent, manly, sensitive and hella sexy enough to make me resist the overwhelming urge to punch Emma Woodrow in the mouth every time I so much as think about her character. And when I think about her, all I see is Gwyneth Paltrow, so perhaps the character is not all to blame in this case.


This is Richard Armitage. He's really hot when he's wearing a cravat, loosening a cravat, or taking off a cravat. These credentials are indisputable. Make another Emma and put him in it, stat.



12. Michael Moscovitz [The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot]
The Princess Diaries found a special place in my girly heart all those years ago when I first read it as a 13 year-old who had just watched the trite, predictable Disney adaptation, and wanted to get in on the book series [and when I say trite, I mean it – instead of the protagonist's father being a survivor of testicular cancer, the film just decided to kill him off and turn him into this mythical, inspirational dispenser-of-paternal-wisdom-through -journal-entries. Like Mufasa, only his head doesn't appear in clouds.] And let me tell you that the movies have not come anywhere close to doing the source material any justice. Meg Cabot transcended puerile princess culture with heavy doses of wit and intelligence, with an awkward, pop-culture savvy heroine determined to become her own individual, surrounded by characters you wanted to have as best friends, or your crazy neighbours. If I ever end up with a young teenage niece or cousin hankering for some fluffy princessy chick-litty stuff, these are the books I'll be putting in her hands.



But I digress. Anyway, the crushworthy character in question is the Most Perfect Boy in New York, Michael Moscovitz. He writes his own songs. He codes his own computer programs. He knows all the Star Wars movies by heart. He is romantic in an incredibly low-key, sweet way. He runs his own webzine. He makes prototype robotic limbs. He's sensible, mature, level-headed, and for a teenage boy, that is a big deal. He's usually perceptive to others' feelings (he has his numbskull moments but he's so perfect in every other way that it wouldn't be fair to punish him for those rare lapses in his usually pristine state of... perfection). All this, may I add, by the time he got into his first year at college. In other words, Hottest Geekboy Who Never Existed. We should all be so lucky to find our own Michael Moscovitzes in life.



13. Faramir [Lord of the Rings, J.R.R Tolkien]
I could never understand the infatuation with Aragorn's character; not in the book, and certainly not in the films, where pretty much all I felt was a strong and non-erotic desire to give the rightful King Of Gondor a good shampooing. Faramir, on the other hand, is where it's at. Gentle, noble , sensitive and tragic , with an appreciation for poetry and song. He is like the Renaissance man of Middle Earth (I'm pretty sure they have a term for that). And unless I am very much mistaken, he was one of the very few people in the books who could actually resist the evil lure of the ring, because he is that freaking pure of heart, you guys. Not even Frodo could pull off that shit. I could never understand why Faramir got so little attention, and was utterly thrilled to see him get together with my other most favourite person in LOTRdom, Eowyn The Bad ass. And to be fair, David West is pretty easy on the eye.



Y U NO HAVE MORE FANGIRLS, FARAMIR?

14. Captain Frederick Wentworth [Persuasion, Jane Austen]



The fictional character responsible for The. Most. Romantic. Thing. Ever. Written.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."


Brb, swooning forever.

But no, seriously. On top of that letter, they (they being the BBC) go ahead and cast Rupert Penry-Jones in the role for the TV adaptation, cravat and shirtsleeves and all. Have you no mercy, British people and your hot hot culture?


15. Atticus Finch [To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee]


Everyone knows Atticus Finch. Everyone knows that he is the closest thing to a perfect human being that could ever exist. There are no words to describe his wisdom and compassion and courage and extra-hot DILFness. Instead I give you bonus young Gregory Peck, in uniform.



Guuuuuhhhh.

A notable exception here would be the ultimate Byronic hero, Heathcliff. I do still enjoy reading Wuthering Heights for its intensity, complexity, creepiness, fucked-up relationship dynamics and stockpile of "Holy shit that did NOT just happen!" moments. But Heathcliff, that abusive, intimidating, foul-tempered, vile, bitter, manic-depressive, necrophiliac puppy-murderer? I DON'T THINK SO, EMILY BRONTE. I DON'T THINK SO.


Also guys, feel free to steal this, like I did, and post your own lists at your leisure. Our love for hot men who don't exist but really should must always be shared. I leave you with one last luscious tidbit of literary wisdom which Google Images saw fit to throw in my direction this evening, and I share it now with you.


You're damn right they do.

OMGWTFBBQFAIL

We now return to one of my favourite pastimes ever ; Twilight-hating! I was skimming through the last (or hopefully the last) instalment of the atrocious thing, when I came across what is possibly the worst sentence Stepehenie Meyer has written.


"I guess my brain will never work right. At least I'm pretty. "
-Breaking Dawn ch.20 p.406

Actual words in an actual book which is actually published and is an actual literary and pop culture phenomenon. I fear for my generation. If that line had been written by anyone else I may have stopped and considered the possibility that those last four words were uttered under influence of sarcasm but I know all too well by now that Bella is too STUPID to be sarcastic in any form.

Other notable offenders from this sorry excuse of a novel;

1. My mother is part albino.
OMGWTFBBQ I don't even know. When read in context of the rest of the page, this is officially the Most Random Statement Ever.

2. I had been vacillating during the last month between Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker.
18 year old girls don't use the word "vacillating", SMeyer, however intelligent they may be. In Physics homework maybe, but not in their deep, intense and passionately romantic bloodsuckage memoirs.

3. It was all I could do to keep myself from falling backward. He'd probably just drag me along anyway if I did.
Says the girl who is so pathetically dependant on her undead boyfriend that she can't even walk straight without his guidance. WTF Bella. Your clumsiness, no doubt meant to be endearing and quirky, does not charm me in the slightest.

4. His liquid topaz eyes were penetrating - trying futilely, I assumed, to lift the truth straight from my mind.
a. I'm not entirely convinced that "futilely" is a real word.
b. Imagine phrases like "liquid topaz eyes" and "alabaster skin" all repeated a few thousand times across 400 pages or so and you have a rough idea of what it is to read this book. I beg you to resist the urge to defenestrate yourself at the mere thought.

5. You...made...me...faint...
You...trigger...my...gag reflex...

6. His voice was sad. He was wallowing.
Yes yes wallowing. In his own stunning liquid topaz beauty.

7. I should be afraid - I know I should be but I couldn't find the right kind of fear.
And therein lies one of Twilight's biggest problems - the absolute lack of tension. Because Bella is far far too dumb to have any sense of self-preservation. A vampire is lusting after her blood in particular and she remains in some hazy hormone-induced fantasy of electric skin-to-skin contact and almost-but-not-quite-kissing and "OMG will Edward be in Biology today?" and "Oh god he's looking at me he is so hot I wonder what he smells like". It's basically Sweet Valley High with some supernatural beings thrown in to give it the impression of badassery, complexity and intensity. All of which it does not possess.

8. Stupid shiny Volvo owner.
Not entirely sure if the adjectives refer to the owner or to the car, but they'd be accurate either way. Edward does sparkle in the sunlight, after all. And he's pretty stupid to boot.

9. He unleashed the full, devastating power of his eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial.
Does this read like bad fan fiction or does this read like bad fan fiction?

10. His voice was like melting honey. I could imagine how much more overwhelming his eyes would be.

You learn a lot about Edward's eyes. It's like the weather report up in here, peeps.


IN CONCLUSION!

I May Lose Some Bloggie Friends Here, So Please Help Me God If You're Really There And Then We Can All Try And Keep The Hate At A Bare Minimum.

Before I go on with this review I'd to extend my heartfelt apologies to International Mastermind, Random Irregular, and Irregular Kiki. These three ladies have been trying to get me to read Twilight for months now, and it pains me that I must be harsh. So please please please don't hate me for being honest! I love you guys! I do I do. I love you like I love Jensen Ackles and chocolate fudge ice-cream. Together or separately, doesn't matter. Now, on with it.

The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer has long been touted as the "replacement" for the Magnificence that was Harry Potter, and I got sick of people telling me how wonderful Twilight is, so I went out of my way to borrow a copy from a friend, who passed it to me in an orange paper bag with very strict instructions as to how exactly I was supposed to hold the book and turn the pages ( which I did not mind one bit, since I torture others with the exact same instructions anyway). I read it in three sittings, and I have decided to review it in parts, as I usually do.


What Its Basically About
Bella Swan (Seriously. Bella Swan?? That's what you name your heroine? I realize I spent nigh on a decade following another fantasy series where characters had names like Dedalus Diggle and Nearly Headless Nick , but Bella Swan, in my humble opinion, is kinda pushing it. )
So anyway, Bella moves from Phoenix to a little rainy town called Forks, in Washington (of her own accord, may I point out) to live with her father, so her mom will be happier with her new squeeze. And to cut a long, long story short, at her new high school she catches the eye of like, the gorgeousest boy ever, and then she falls in love with him, and then she finds out he's like, really weird because he's like, totally a vampire, and he (Edward) finds the scent of her blood almost insanely unbearable but he controls himself because he loves her and doesn't want to hurt her, but then a bunch of not-so-good vampires (unlike Edward and his Gorgeous-Beyond-All-Reason family, who only drink animal blood) who totally want Bella's blood and it's up to Edward and His Gorgeous-Beyond-All-Reason family to save her.
That's what pretty much happens, except that for at least the first 300 pages we are treated to a mixture of over saturated teen angst and overly-disgusting teenage love. Seriously. Almost 300 pages full of Bella waiting and waiting to see if Edward will show up at lunch, or to 6th period Biology and I, of all people, understand obsessions, but this is just pathetic. Mainly because I don't really like Bella.

What I Didn't Like About Twilight

*Bella Swan
Never before have I come across a heroine who is so bland and so disgustingly drownd-ded in her own little obsession. She has virtually no personality, and her only positive trait seems to be the fact that she can make a mean lasagna and smells nice after a shower ( which I do too. So there). She arrives at her new school all sour and depressed and quite determined not to make friends, and then whines about how nobody seems to really want to talk to her. She moves to Forks of her own accord, mind you, and then goes abouts being all glum and oh-I'm-so-bored. Freaking martyr. And if her clumsiness and klutzy behaviour (banging into furniture, passing out frequently, etc) is supposed to be cute or endearing, well then, cute and endearing my *insert not-so-polite-word-here*. And screw the fact that Wuthering Heights is one of her favourite books. The fact was only mentioned in passing, and we only see her reading it once, almost like the author simply wanted to let us know that her heroine reads classic literature and therefore must be excessively intelligent. She's smart? That's nice. She's not funny. She's not particularly kind or generous. Everything nice she ever does for her family is tinged-no, soaked- in buckets of martyrdom. Her devotion to Edward is nauseating. I wouldn't even call it devotion, really. It must be some kind of classified mental disease. I mean, the guy's been breaking into her room every night for weeks to watch her sleeping and she finds that not only acceptable but also romantic? Can you say ICK? Dude. Bella. Really. Reading the story through her eyes makes me feel suicidal for the fact that her character even exists, and that millions of teenage girls see her, of all possible fictional characters, as a role model or one they can connect to (Hermione Granger! Hermione Granger dammit!). And I truly am sorry for being so harsh (especially to I.Mastermind and the Irregulars) but Bella just makes me so..so..so.........angry.


*The relationship between Bella and Edward.
I like Edward. I really do. Look beyond his Gorgeous-Beyond-All-Reasonness and he's actually a pretty nice guy. I feel bad for him actually. He's the one who has to constantly resist the lure of Bella's blood, and has to utilize every inch of his willpower to keep her safe from himself. And Bella, blockhead that she is, has no fear or concern at all for her own safety or even for Edward's own internal struggle. She continues to hang around him, letting him do all the abstinence-ing and self-controlling. Selfish *insert-you-know-what-word-here*. It's a totally unhealthy and unbalanced relationship, when Edward is the only one who has to take full responsibility of both their lives and safety and well-being. Sometimes I feel like clobbering him on the head for being such a doting fool. Why can't he go find some hot vampire chick somwhere, eh?
Another thing is the fact that you have virtually no idea why they're so deeply in love in the first place. Edward's reasons, if we ever get to find out, may be a little less superficial than Bella's. But in her case, the only impression I seem to get is that she's mad for him because he's so, well, gorgeous. Practically every single page is littered with descriptions of Edward's beauty. Sweet, honeyed, icky, worshipping descriptions of his lavender eyelids, or the perfect marble curve of his throat, or his impeccably sculpted lips. And you pretty much lose count of the number of times Bella had her stupid breath taken away by the sunlight's glow on his eyelashes or the way the lights in the Biology lab set off the contours of his nostrils or whatever. On. Every. Single. Blessed. Page. There were some that had me quite literally laughing out loud in disbelief, and thinking that what a shame it is that trees had to die in order to have this stack of ICKiness printed by the millions.
So why are they in love?
Because Edward's gorgeous.
Seriously, Ms. Meyer. Stop bloody objectifying your own male characters.


*Plot
Or the lack of it. After the first two points I think it's safe to say that pretty much nothing happens. Nothing that got this reader even mildly tense or interested anyway. In fact, I was kinda hoping somebody would just off Bella.

*The fact that this series actually exists.
Enuff said.


What I Actually Did Like About Twilight.

*Jasper Cullen
Jasper strikes me as being probably the Gorgeousest of his entire Gorgeous-Beyond-All-Reason blood-drinking family. And that's saying something since I have no clue as to what he's supposed to look like in the movies. He's the most interesting person in the entire book, mainly because he speaks the least and spends the rest of the time skulking in the background. I have a thing for characters who don't talk much and skulk in backgrounds. His special power is being able to control emotions, which makes me want to see him on Heroes really badly, because that would just kick ass. Being quite a recent vampire initiate, Jasper still has only minimum control over his vampirish urges, which makes him far more interesting because of the unpredictable, uhm, danger element. The boy seriously has no leash on him. And if anybody is likely to drain all the stinking blood out of Bella's icky body, it's Jasper. And if I ever pick up another book from Twilight series to read, it will only be to discover Jasper's fate and/or how he evolves. (Pleasedon'tdiepleasedon'tdiepleasedon'tiepleasedon'tdiepleasedon'tdiepleasedon'tdie)

*Twilight. The movie.

Look at all them pretty pretty peoples! Can somebody tell me which one Jasper is? I'm too lazy to Google. Oh wait. Sorry. They all come with labels. Oooooooo.....
Also I really liked Kristin Stewart in that other movie she was in, and maybe, just maybe, she could redeem Bella Swan just a little bit in my eyes.


The Verdict
Books me no likey.
Movie? I'm up for it. I can forgive almost anything if you stick an entire cast of gorgeous young people under my nose.
And more apologies to the Mastermind, the Random and the Kiki. Please girls, minimum hate! Please! I love you! Jensen and fudge! Just like I said earlier. Remember?

(A special shout-out to the BadTempered Zombie for presenting me with the awesome honour of a Superior Scribbler award! I shall blog about that next time, and present said Superior Scribbler Award to 5 of my own bloggie friends then. You want this award, you be nice to me. Start sucking up. Like, right now.)

Hate Is A Strong Word.

Bawanie has been pretty stoked about this particular post for quite a while now, since she was the one who came up with the idea, and I haven't exactly been breaking my neck trying to get it done. Things like this take time and consideration. I mean, picking 10 girls/women in all of Fictiondom that you hate enough to want to strangle? That's serious business, people.


10 Fictional Female Characters I Would Very Much Like To Strangle

Jane Eyre (from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)
Yes, I realize that she is an icon of classic literature, and that I'm probably stupid or delusional. Or both. There's plenty of evidence to support it. But Jane Eyre, from the third chapter onwards, was always going to join the ranks of Strong Independent Women I Despise. She was always so righteous, so patient, so confident of getting her own way, so annoying in her self-assuredness and so utterly stupid for falling in love with that idiotic, irresponsible, apathetic Mr Rochester. She was bland, dull and virtually emotionless. Nothing about her struck me as being fascinating, or interesting or the least bit likable. The minute I was done reading her pointless story, I tucked The Complete Works of Charlotte and Emily Bronte right at the back of my shelf and vowed never to take it out again, unless I wanted to reread Wuthering Heights.


Meredith Grey (from TV's Grey's Anatomy)
The one Annmarie fondly refers to as "The Sleepy-Eyed Whore". It is possible that if any actress other than the wooden and annoying Ellen Pompeo were to play this character, that I may even have considered liking her. Anybody who can be that screwed up either deserves sympathy or derision, and Meredith really is too pathetic to merit much of either. Mummy issues, Daddy issues, Boyfriend issues, I-Failed-My-Intern-Exam issues, I-Slept-With-My-Best-Friend issues, and the show doesn't seem to be slowing down much in any of those departments. She's not a bad person exactly, but I don't hate bad people. I hate annoying ones. And unless the writers do something drastic, like re-cast the character or kill her off, preferably, then Meredith Grey remains exceedingly worthy of strangulation.







Molly Weasley (from the Harry Potter novels by J.K Rowling)
It would be hard for me to point out exactly what riles me up so badly when it comes to this woman. Is it her uber-maternal instincts? Her nagging? Her constant poking her nose into everything her dozen-or-so children do everyday? I'm usually quite tolerant of maternal tendencies. The nagging and lecturing really don't bother me as much as I assume it should, for an adolescent. This also extends to other people's moms' maternal tendencies. But when it comes to Molly Weasley, something or other just touches a nerve with me. I'm not quite fond of the other Weasley woman either; Ginny, the youngest. Molly is often hugely biased, impulsively judgmental, rashly jealous, hot-tempered and just a tad shallow. I could say the exact same thing about any one of her sons, but I adore them all. Those traits the boys have inherited, to varying degrees, seem amplified and more concentrated in their mother, thus making Molly Weasley one of the few fictional females worthy of a spot on this here list.


Dr. Allison Cameron (from TV's House m.d)

Yet another pious, hypocritical, righteous, morally conscious prat who is also just dying to get into House's pants. She is constantly judging everyone else's actions and motives while remaining quite blissfully unaware of her own faults and foibles, and blind to her own moments of human impulse. I hope she gets a rare disease that even House can't diagnose and dies an incredibly painful and tormented death. And after that she can go to hell.


Katherine Carr (from the novels What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge)
Katy started off as an extremely lovable twelve year-old. She was lanky and awkward and uncomfortable with her body, but she was a hell lotta fun, with her imagination, her made-up stories and games, her methods of lording it over her younger siblings, her habit of getting into huge trouble and the joy she took in defying what the society in those days believed a proper young lady should be like. And then she broke her back and got herself bedridden, and her stupid invalid Cousin Helen came along, and trained her in useless things, like how to be sweet and kind and patient and say your prayers every day. And by the end of the book, Katy was unrecognisable. It was a travesty. She had turned into the very thing she spent her childhood trying to defy and scoff at; society's idea of a proper young woman. Even the way she spoke was different. Instead of the half-cocky I'm-The-Big-Sister dialogue, she now used things like proper grammar (the horror!) and a soft,gentle tone of voice. It nearly drove me mad. I don't want to strangle Katy because I hate her. I still love her, in spite of myself. I am simply hoping that depriving her brain of oxygen for a little while can turn her back into the old, pre-accident Katy.


Simone Deveaux (from TV's Heroes)
I believe I have ranted about her quite considerably in the past. Even though she has already been shot dead by her boyfriend (or one of her boyfriends, at the time) I still hate her enough to want to kill her a second time. Enuff said.












Anna Karenina (from the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy)
Why the heck did she have to go have a shitty affair and make Tolstoy here write over 900 pages of classic Literature?? For being the title character in the only book to have defeated me thus far (I've been reading it since 2006, on and off, too afraid to get stuck right in), welcome to the suck, Anna.


Susan Pevensie (from the Narnia movies)

Perhaps it's the way she often speaks like an annoyed mother. Perhaps it's that ridiculous pouty face she makes when shooting her bow and arrow. Perhaps it's the way she does almost nothing wrong. Perhaps it's her dull blandness. And perhaps it has something to do with the fact that actress Anna Popplewell is gorgeous and she got to kiss Ben Barnes, possibly more than once. The fact is that Susan is a cyborg and her wooden perfection annoyed me to no end in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and this year's Prince Caspian was not much better. I'd strangle her, but I fear she may stick an arrow in me before I get anywhere within 200 yards of the girl.


Ginny Weasley (from JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels)
It happened too fast, with no warning. Out of the blue she and Harry are in love with each other? And not just that; in love, as in, what, soulmates? Bloody hell. No, I'm not jealous. I couldn't care less who Harry chose to have babies with. But she is a Weasley woman. Not my favourite breed. And she may be essentially cooler and a lot more agreeable than her mother, but Ginny annoyed me far more often than it would be wise to. Her wisecracks and Fred/George wannabe pranks were never funny, for one thing. There was no time, by the sixth book, for anybody to really even contemplate any emotional connection between Harry and Ginny. I think most of us had already forgotten all about Ginny's preteen crush on the Potter. She was simply Ron's kid sister. A little spunky and feisty, perhaps, but that was all. And here's another thing; when feisty, spunky women outdo their own spunkiness and feistiness, they annoy the crap out of me.
And out of the stinky quagmires of teenage love, JK simply threw this sudden, abrupt relationship in our faces and expected us to get used to it by the time the grand finale rolled around. Not good, Jo. Not good.


Liz Parker (from TV's Roswell and the Roswell High novels)
It's been a long long time since I last watched or read any Roswell. But I distinctly remember Liz Parker being rather annoying, very much in the style of Susan Pevensie crossed with a little bit of Meredith Grey. I never liked her or felt any compulsion to root for her. Besides, I was always more of a Maria DeLuca girl. You know, because at least she was funny. And she had the hotter boyfriend. By a country mile.








Well there you have it. I don't think it's quite my best, but it will have to do for now, anyway. Coming up, sooner or later, also specially requested by Bawanie ; 10 Male Fictional Characters I'd Like To Defenestrate.