Breaking my Skull as I read: How Breaking Dawn is one of the Worst Pieces of Literature Ever Conceived

I know what you're thinking--why the fuck would I read this book? It was for school; I had the opportunity to review a book published within the last three years, and Breaking Dawn just made the cut, and why wouldn't I want to really examine the absolute comedy that is this book? Here's my review, as I turned it in. Complete with pictures!

It’s no secret by now that the four books that comprise The Twilight Saga have pervaded nearly every part of our culture in a way that demands an explanation. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to actually come up with an adequate explanation that did not completely write off the entire phenomena as “who knows, people will read anything if they don’t have to think about it.” The series concerns vampires and werewolves, two types of characters with a long, rich history in fiction. However, the vampires in this series, as everyone knows by now, are completely unlike any vampire ever created in a work of literature or cinema before; they sparkle. They play baseball. They show how human they really are, pouting in their teenage angst in a way that assumes just biting people’s necks and turning into bats just isn’t as fun as everyone says it is. All of this aside, the first three books are bad, but the fourth book, the “thrilling” conclusion to the saga (as an aside, I probably should not put thrilling in quotation marks like that—thrilling does not do justice to the mind blowing events in the fourth book) reads like the fourth installment to a horrible series that has been dipped in vampire crap, pissed on by a werewolf, eaten by a whiny teenager, and regurgitated into the collective mouth of its readers.

It would be comical to think that Stephanie Meyer would write the final book in this series like Anthony Burgess did with A Clockwork Orange. Burgess’s novel is divided into three parts to draw on opera symbolism. Meyer’s novel is divided into three parts, but that’s more likely because she cannot count past three than it is for any symbolic reasons. Her choice to divide the book into three parts is puzzling, given her decision to make the first and third parts told from the perspective of annoying angsty teenager Bella Swan and the middle part told from the perspective of annoying hunky werewolf Jacob Black.

Bella’s first section begins on her way to her wedding. “Engine snarling like a hunting panther, the car jolted forward so fast that my body slammed into the black leather seat and my stomach flattened against my spine.“Arg!” I gasped as I fumbled for the brake” (6). If this isn’t a signal to put the book down now and walk away, the pain that comes from continuing to read it is deserved. Now, Meyer has made it overwhelmingly obvious that she does not know what a vampire is like, but apparently she’s not too keen on panthers, either. One would assume that a panther would hunt stealthily, refraining from noises such as snarling so as not to scare away whatever it’s about to murder, but this is Stephanie Meyer we’re talking about. Notice Bella’s reaction to this painful description: “Arg!” I’m not sure what’s going on here—either the only intelligent response Bella could come up with after slamming her body in a way that flattens her stomach against her spine is to yell “Arg!” Or, this is Meyer, completely incapable of an intelligent thought herself.

Genius.

Fast forward a bit to the key event in the novel’s opening, her wedding to the brooding vampire hero Edward, and more hilarity ensues. For context, it should be known that Edward and Bella’s irritating relationship has not included sexual intercourse, because that would be immoral to do before marriage, and the largest concern involving a whiny teenager and a ridiculous vampire should be one of morality, so Edward promises to consummate the relationship after the two are wedded. Naturally, the sexiness commences on the honeymoon. Unnaturally, the honeymoon commences on an island off the coast of Brazil that Edward’s family owns. Edward is a vampire, as is his family. They own an island off the coast of Brazil—this bears repeating. Vampires not only sparkle and play baseball in the Twilight universe, they fucking scuba dive. Perhaps most absurd, however, is Edward’s super vampire ability to speak Portuguese. Meyer must have thought better than to actually put this to the page, however, because instead it is glossed over: “Unable to understand a word of Edward’s Portuguese instructions to the driver…” (53). It only gets funnier, however, when Edward awkwardly shows how nervous he is to make love to his new bride: “It’s a little hot here. I thought…that would be best” and “I tried to think of everything that would make this…easier” (55). Those ellipses are not there to signify a missing piece of text from that quotation—that is Meyer’s uncomfortable style of writing shining through like the glistening skin of her vampire characters. He asks her to join her for a swim, a favorite vampire past time, and as he leaves, she goes through her suitcase, noting the “very lingerie-ish lingerie” as the reader’s eyes slowly start to just fall out. She joins him, the description of the two having sex in the water is again glossed over, and she wakes up the next afternoon to realize they had sex. Edward, in an attempt to prove his critics who are always harping on his angsty teenage whininess wrong, uses his amazing vampire strength, knocking Bella unconscious for a span of nearly a day, and then probably smoking an entire carton of post sex cigarettes. They try again, and this time, Bella becomes pregnant with a telepathic half vampire baby.

Caution: Do not have sex with this man.

The baby becomes trouble for Bella, kicking like any baby would, but kicking her like a vampire can kick, and thus breaking her ribs and severing her spine. Yes, the unborn baby severs her spine. In an inexplicable twist, Edward recommends Bella abort the baby; apparently his Christian morals Meyer made it such a point to give to him end at premarital sex. Bella claims she feels a connection to the baby and opts to keep it. Jacob’s perspective enters.

Jacob’s story lasts past Bella’s hilarious childbirth. In the previous novels, Jacob’s character is what Stephanie Meyer would attempt to call a foil character, competing for Bella’s love with Edward. However, he does not get the girl, and his wolf pack plans to kill the baby and Bella, because it’s clearly evil. Jacob doesn’t like this idea, however, and forms his own wolf pack, presumably while donning a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle. He shows his toughness and his appeal to young people when in anticipation over the conflict, he says “Back in the day, you could count on Paul for a fight pretty much whenever” (94). Granted, this series is aimed at a younger demographic who mindlessly speaks in this manner, but where other authors attempt to show some semblance of intellect, Stephanie Meyer chooses to reduce her characters to the mind numbing form her readers have by this point become so familiar with. To quote from anything else he says would be an affront to the English language, so instead one needs only to look at the list of chapters that comprise the second part—chapters with titles like “Why Didn’t I Just Walk Away? Oh Right, Because I’m An Idiot”, “You Know Things Are Bad When You Feel Guilty For Being Rude To Vampires”, and the brain shattering “What Do I Look Like? The Wizard of Oz? You Need A Brain? You Need A Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have” (3).

Coming soon to a university English class near you.

The action becomes worth mentioning again when the time comes to give birth to the wretched vampire baby killing Bella. Before she goes into labor, Bella, Jacob, and Edward are all hanging out on the couch, when Edward starts communicating telepathically with the baby: “It…he or she is…happy” (215). There is no one who could possibly read this as a beautiful moment; it’s written as awkwardly as this series was created, and the only appropriate reaction is a fit of laughter. Go ahead, laugh. The final chapter of Jacob’s section is called “There are no words for this.” Fortunately or unfortunately, there are plenty of words in this chapter, and if they do not work to make this book any better, they do work to make this book hilarious. As Bella starts erupting blood from her mouth when the baby’s placenta breaks and must be born early, Edward recognizes how dire the situation is: “I glanced over to see Edward’s face pressed against the bulge. Vampire teeth—a surefire way to cut through vampire skin” (231). This is Meyer’s subtle way of describing Edward’s c-section. Given with his teeth. The baby now delivered, Bella is dying, and to save her, Edward injects her heart Pulp Fiction style, but with his vampire venom, making her a vampire and saving her. The logic is comatose inducing. Jacob is nearly overtaken by a desire to destroy the baby that he believes has killed Bella, only to end his abomination of a story by saying it was the baby in his arms that held him in check (237). Nearly sixty pages later, it is revealed that Jacob’s murderous, vengeful desires are thwarted when he imprints on the baby. While this sounds exciting, (I guess), it’s not; what it actually means is that he has fallen in love with her, destined to love her forever. How beautiful.

I am so turned on right now.

The retarded plot aside, it is clear that Meyer also has a horrific inability to write. Jacob’s chapter names alone can turn an intelligent person stupid, and the examples outlined above barely scratch the surface of her piss poor writing that has somehow earned her the publication of four books in this series and an undying love from billions of teenage dimwits.

As stated earlier, there is no point in attempting to understand the ubiquitousness of The Twilight Saga in today’s culture; it simply cannot be done. What is more upsetting is how the stupidity of its plot is long surpassed by the horrendous writing in each book, all hundreds of insufferable pages long. A word to the wise: if thinking about reading this book, or any book from the series, consider first your own sanity and intelligence, and consider next how you would like to die, because it could damn well happen while reading this.

The Absurdity of College-Aimed Advertising

I was sitting in the gym yesterday after I had finished working out when I saw the back of a shirt I had seen a thousand times on campus before. This, however, was the first time I really contemplated how ridiculous the shirt was. If you go to college, you've probably seen one. It's a shirt for the women's cause, specifically, against sexual assault. Rape, if you're not following. It looks like this:



The back said something like "Real men respect. Real men listen. Real men get consent." Or something to that effect.

As I said, I'd seen the shirt a thousand times, and never thought about how offensively stupid its marketing was--the cause is great, I'm all for not raping people. However, whose idea was it to use this cheap marketing gimmick? Let's start with the front of the shirt.

"Got consent?" is a play on the iconic "Got milk?" ad campaign. I get the idea here--let's use an advertising means for this cause that literally everyone will recognize and identify with. But why got milk? Because a man must gain consent, thus playing on the "got" part? Again, I see where the logic apparently began, but to juxtapose this next to an image of milk, which is undoubtedly the image in conjures in everyone's mind upon seeing it, can't help the cause without causing many to laugh in its face. When I think of something as sobering as sexual assault, the last thing I think of is milk, unless I'm re-reading A Clockwork Orange or watching the film, and even then I have no trouble remembering the milk was laced with mind altering drugs. If I were about to sleep with a girl whose shirt read "Got consent?", I'd step back and say, "You know what? I've changed my mind."

Then there's the back of the shirt, another cheap marketing trick aimed to attack how stupidly vulnerable the male ego is. Now, don't get me wrong, men deserve every sexual label given to them, whether the individual is guilty of being a meatheaded sex crazed toolbox or not. We aren't all that way, and if we're one of the few, it's rather easy to dispel that notion by simply showing there's more on our minds than titties and motorboating. Or whatever you like. Men love to show how manly they are and prove their masculinity by showing what constitutes being a "real man", and this shirt goes after that. However, even the dumbest jock who flexes every morning in the mirror knows that attempting to put a spin on this by calling out those who don't listen, don't respect, don't show the human characteristics any intelligent woman will look for before promptly kicking the idiot man to the curb knows this won't work. In this sense, it makes both genders look stupid--females can't actually believe this will work, and men can't either.

How about instead of kitschy t shirts that don't accomplish anything, we make some sort of ad campaign that relies on something simple and intellectual if we want to effect change?

This shirt is child's play in terms of absurdity next to the "Save the tatas" campaign that's carried on for a while now. If you haven't seen anything with this emblazoned upon it, you're lucky--until now, because here's what it looks like:



Again, I have to question whose idea this possibly could have been, but again, there's probably no point. Here's the issue with this campaign: it's offensive on multiple levels. Obviously, it's offensive to breast cancer patients who aren't retarded, but since I'm not one of them, I won't try to speak for them--I'll just assume there's at least one and move on.

What's more offensive is how mind numbingly stupid it is. My brain bleeds just thinking about not only money being spent to put it onto bumper stickers and t shirts, but that women will actually buy it. Breast cancer awareness as a whole has taken a serious hit in its dignity--two years in a row now have brought Facebook status update trends surrounding breast cancer. Last year every girl posted the color of the bra she was wearing--but didn't say what an update that simply said "green" or "white" or "polka dot" or "Spider-Man" meant, prompting everyone to ask just what the hell was going on. This year it was "post where you put your purse when you come home, but precede the location with 'I like it'." News feeds were littered with updates reading "I like it on the floor" and "I like it under my desk" and "I like it hanging on the coat rack in the front entrance." As crazy as this probably drives all the boys, where exactly does this accomplish anything for breast cancer awareness or research? Oh, that's right, it raises all that money for it.

I saw a girl in a store one day wearing a shirt that said, and I'm not kidding, "Save my boobs."

There is no dignity left in any kind of advertising.

If awareness campaigns surrounding issues as serious as sexual assault against women and breast cancer are willing to sacrifice any self respect, there's probably no hope for any kind of change.

Where did this idea begin?

Probably somewhere between inane buzzwords like "sex sells!" and "gender stereotypes", but what does it matter? Clearly we all need to make sure men will get their acts together are to have a nice glass of consent, (consent mustache equally necessary) and they need to buy their girlfriend or wife a shirt asking to save her tatas. Mustache not required.

What's next? Mummies?

Granted, these usually come with a hint of bitterness, but consider this time, that this comes partially with the sour taste following last night's Celtics-Lakers game. Anytime the Lakers lose, I'm going to be frustrated, but when it comes in a game with fifty eight foul calls that make the game even longer and more drawn out, the frustration lingers. I saw nearly as many commercials as I did jump shots.

And it was during those commercials that the throbbing in my head became too much. ABC showed a couple promos for new shows this summer or fall--I don't really remember because I don't care, and because I plan to eat my own brain before it airs. And if this stupid shit can keep gaining the approval of network heads and actually making it on the air, I can in fact, eat my own brain.

The promo in question is for some show called The Gates. It's about a family of what appears to be vampires and werewolves. That's right, vampires. And werewolves. This comes following a slew of shitty vampire and werewolf movies that have made next to no money in the box office the last year or so. Oh yeah, and Twilight.

Seriously, fuck Twilight.

I'll put this into terms used in common parlance now to really put into perspective like a hipster or some other popular form of social scumbag would: vampires are the new zombies.

I spent a few years in high school watching zombies go from something only the weird kids who didn't have many friends whose most common interaction with other people didn't involve Pokemon cards to something every asshole claimed they'd loved their whole lives. It was zombie this, zombie that. You at one point, could turn your friends into zombies on Facebook. I never understood the fascination, but in a matter of four horrendous books written by some crazy moron from Utah, no one gives a fuck about zombies anymore.

What's next? Mummies?

If your intelligence hasn't already been insulted by the now common knowledge that Stephanie Meyer's vampires "glitter in the sunlight", and own islands off the coast of Rio fucking De Janiero, it should be in tears now that these creatures have pervaded popular culture to the degree in which they have.

I suppose this should be directed at how easily distracted by shiny objects society is, and how we've always been that way, but if it's society's job to abandon all reason and fall in love with stupid shit, then it's mine to bitch about it.

Go Lakers.

A Generation Without Logic

I normally take every invitation invite I get on Facebook and give it a brief glance before I ultimately click the “Not Attending” button. When I got one to attend A Day Without Shoes, however, I should have given it the courtesy it would ultimately deserve and at least read about it.

That would have spared me the awe I’d see when it was explained to me at school.
The explanation I got was roughly as follows:

“It’s to raise awareness to all the kids in like Africa that don’t have shoes, and it was started by TOMS, and like the first one hundred people to sign up for it got a free pair of shoes, and do you know about TOMS?”

The logic is mind numbing.

Let’s take this one blow at a time. The idea is to raise awareness to children without shoes overseas? Really? Are we not already aware that there are those without shoes? I couldn’t help but notice that there was no mention in this explanation, nor on the flyer I found minutes later for kids in this country without shoes. Interesting. Next, I see that TOMS has its name attached to this, that trendy shoe company everyone has practically thrown their money at because “for every pair you buy, they send a pair to kids in Africa without shoes.” Again, are there no other places on Earth in which kids don’t have shoes? I’m willing to put my paranoia aside regarding whether or not the shoes actually get there and will embrace that the idea behind it is genuine. However, the shoes are no more than slippers. Really thin pieces of fabric glued to a rubber sole, and they cost about sixty bucks. They look like this:






Sixty bucks. For a pair of slippers. Keep it up, guys.

Next is the blunt slap in the face to the people who are the subject to the cause. Let’s live like them for a day and not wear shoes, and as a reward for our humanitarianism, we get a free pair of slipper shoes. How wonderfully fantastic! Let’s all pick out the nice outfit to wear them with! The explanation ended with a question, asking my inquisitive friends and I if we know about TOMS. Part of me thought this girl worked for them, the rest of me thought she was just pushing their product without realizing it because TOMS has its name plastered all over this event. Why, why would a company want so much attention for what’s supposed to be a cause about humility? To further their own standing? Whoever wrote that episode of Friends in which Joey Tribbiani said “There’s no such thing as a selfless good deed” has now vaulted him into Socrates like status. It’s always the ones you least expect to be philosophers who possess the most wisdom.

So I’ll pose a question to you shoeless humanitarians: Should you step on something and cut yourself, acquire some sort of foot fungus, or scrape yourself, what will you do? Continue to embrace “what it’s like to be one of them” and not give yourself any medical attention? Or does it end in walking outside, leaving your shoes in your closet?

You want to make a statement? Do this every day. Don’t do this because TOMS said to do it, don’t do it for one day to “raise awareness” to something everyone is already aware of, do it because it’s more constructive than reposting a bulletin to end genocide in Darfur, or walking around barefoot.

This is my generation.