Oh gods he's licking the muffins.

Here I was, all set to write a huge long steaming post of ire, and "In A Big Country" comes on.  It's profoundly unfair, how quickly that song pulls me out of a snit.

I'm in that uncomfortable position where I want to write, but I can't think of anything to write.  It's like I'm so wound up in the general shit-fan that life has become that I can't divorce myself enough to fully immerse in the worlds I'm working on.  ... I guess in some ways I'm afraid that the drek will cross over and contaminate their world, and they have enough problems already!  So, instead of writing, I will now bitch about someone else's! 

I read Twilight today.  Yes, I mean I read the whole thing in one day.  (If you aren't already aware of this facet of a Char, it's true.  I can read 500+ page books in a matter of hours.)  I went into this novel knowing I was going to experience pain.  I mean, I had already forced a chapter of Breaking Dawn down my gullet (what do you mean, "read them in order"?  I was trained in Pern-jitsu.  READING IN ORDER IS FOR SISSIES), and that experience is so intensely painful that I'm thinking of recommending it as a scene activity on BDSM forums.  

Bella has to be the most steadfastly moronic person I've read since... uh... Lessa.  In fact, they seem to share that "tee-hee he's abusing me it's totally love" illness.  She even admits that she should be mad that he's been freakin' staring at her at night while she sleeps, but... she's FLATTERED.  This alone would be painful enough.  Unfortunately, my misery is flavored with the bitter spice of "oh hell I was like that as a teenage girl, too".  Only, I grew out of it.  Not our Bella!  I've read the beginning of Breaking Dawn.  Her mental age was frozen long before her physical. 

If there was anyone whom I ever wanted to stick a pointy-toed cowboy boot through their eyeballs, it's Edward.  Creepy fucking stalker for starters, poster boy for DO NOT RESCUE TEENAGERS BY TURNING THEM INTO VAMPIRES as a nice "also starring".  Lulzy glittering thing aside, I had to admit there were points where I was all "hmmm, I can see the attraction", but... but guys, I've already proven that I have an unfortunate IRL attraction to creepers.  (No, I'm not going to share stories.)  My moments of attraction are a bad sign.

Worst of all, Edward's attraction to Bella can be described as the agony of an anorexic at a bakery, wandering around smelling all the fresh-baked bread, with that warm brown smell, picking up a carrot cake muffin and holding it under his nose, inhaling the spicy-sweet odor of it... and licking the plastic wrap around it.

People, he loves Bella like I love a good Humdinger hamburger.   Only I actually eat the damned burger.

Also, they are so the poster children for co-dependancy hell.  This is not a couple you want to point to when you're educating your kids on being responsible and finding a good partner for a healthy relationship.  

All that aside, if it weren't for Bella's utterly fucking insane fixation on Edward and how perfect and gorgeous and perfect and godlike and did she mention perfect he is, I might have actually liked this book well enough to actually buy.  As much as I think Stephanie Meyer needs to stay away from relationship-writing (if anyone has proof that she wrote bad het fanfiction, there will be rewards, because I SWEAR I know her from fandom SOMEWHERE), she didn't do half-bad on the scenes that weren't focused on his angel face and godlike chest.

This is where I'm kind of torn about the book.  The relationship kills any urge I have to buy this book and keep it on the shelves, dragging it out for the occasional masochistic laugh like I do with John Ringo's Ghost.  On the other hand, the story itself is good enough to keep me from purchasing this book for ritual exorcism and destruction, which I admit I had begun planning somewhere around page 193 (and canceled later due to unexpected interest).  

There is one maddening reason I hate this book overall, though.  It made me want to read the next one.  Yes, I am going to keep reading the series, in spite of Bella's fucking Edward-gushing.  Who knows.  Maybe I'll hate the series enough to invest in purchasing the whole thing, then ritualistically destroying it and recording the events via photoblogging and YouTube.  Maybe I'll love it enough to buy it and keep it around for the occasional scream-fest and OH BELLA SWAN NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  I'm betting, though, that when I finish this series, I'm going to watch it get boxed up and packed off to Powell's for exchanging with a palpable sense of relief.