Mind Over Matter

I will get through this blog post.
Mind over matter.
(...ksauhhhgh...)
Speaking of mind over matter, that's one of the chapter titles in the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer, and speaking of Twilight, I intend on writing a review on that book like...

Here.  Today.

People have asked me for my opinion of those fangirled books, and before today, I had been able to evade that question by telling them I honestly didn't have an opinion because I had never finished the series.  So why was I trying to evade the question, you ask?  Because - it's sadly true - while I've never finished the series, I have read pieces of books two and three and four plus two-thirds of Twilight (the book) and...don't kill me now but.....
Well, to tell the truth, I thought they were decent books.

There.  I said it.

Now before this heavy storm of rotten tomatoes gets any worse, I'll just tell you this:
I thought they were decent to an extent.

Yes, Stephanie Meyer definitely knows romance.  Some of the things she mentions - such as laundry being for the hands not the mind...and...wanting to touch someone sitting next to you during a movie...and...squeezing your own arms to stop that want - admittedly, I do and have done those things.  Funny, I know, but exact phrases that she's uses to describe Edward Cullen, I've used to describe my story characters and my.....
Uhhh...
Yeah.
My characters.
*clears throat*

But on the other hand, I really didn't like the series because of the absurdity of all romance novels.

Real life romance:
Guy meets girl or girl meets guy.  Mutual interest.  They go as far as social relationships are allowed then decide to cross over to a more intimate relationship.  Sometimes, they break up; sometimes, they don't.  Sometimes, they get married; sometimes, they don't.  The end.
Novel romance:
Guy meets girl or girl meets guy.  Mutual interest.  They go as far as social relationships are allowed then decide to cross over to a more intimate relationship.  Added complication.  (Like...vampires...or social issues...or family issues...)  Sometimes, they break up; sometimes, they don't.  Sometimes, they get married; sometimes, they don't.  The end.

Romance works in novels because it's complicated.  Period.  Stephanie just did a good job of putting added complications into an already complicated plot, and that was the thing that drove me craaazy.  I mean, if I put my romance life into a book, I could be a Best Seller too.  (Come on, hasn't my romance life been complicated too?)  Love works in that people like it, and people like to hear about it.  Just have a handsome male, a hormone-sick girl, and a bunch of fantastic phrases like marbled musculature, excruciatingly beautiful, and agonized eyes, and bam - instant viral book.

Seriously.

You can have this:

 

...this:

...and this:

But, somehow, when you put them together into a this:

People start screaming and gasping and blushing and oohing and awwing and hemming and hawing.

"Fangirlism, ladies and...ladies."

Write on!

Clove