If you thought Twilight was bad (New Moon, part 3)

http://bookswithoutpity.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/newmoon2

I want to speed up faster, like the vampires run, but there are choice, ultra-retarded bits in between.

Soon, Bella is on the outs with Jacob, and she doesn’t know why. Maybe you because you whine too much? Talk about your old boyfriend? You’re annoying? Insane! Any and all of these choices are acceptable. Jacob’s dad is lying for him and saying he’s not at home; ah, that old line. Face it, sweet cheeks, you’ve been jilted again! At least Edward told you to your face, even if he did leave you to make a spinster-y death-nest of dried leaves and dirt.

Chief Swan, Bella’s dad, warns her away from the woods because there have been some wolf sightings in the area. Do you think she heeds such things as important warnings, especially for an accident-prone chica as herself? If you said yes, you’re really not paying attention. And going to the woods anyway doesn’t make her a spunky heroine, it makes her fucking stupid. She moseys along to the woods and finds trouble galore, but not in lupine form.

 

If you thought Twilight was bad (New Moon, part 2)

http://bookswithoutpity.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/newmoon1

The next important thing is Edward breaking it off with Bella. He walks in the woods with her and tells her a bunch of dross which could be better summed up as, “You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel.” He also says that he and his family are going to Alaska, where the other coven of friendly vampires lives.

And then he turns and walks away from her. How cavalier.

She, for her part, stares stupidly after him, then curls into a fetal position on the cold, cold ground and stays there. Buh? You’d be better served with a draught of whiskey – oh, wait. Never mind.

Bella is found some time later by her father and some of his buddies from the police department. They take her home and put her to bed. The ensuing torpor that surrounds her is told, not shown, by four subsequent pages with months on them, nothing more. Lame. It takes her four months to “surface,” and when she does, she can’t believe people saw through her pretenses, even though she hasn’t interacted with her friends, or gone out anywhere, or even really communicated with her father; on second thought, that last one doesn’t mean anything.

 

If you thought Twilight was bad . . . (New Moon, part 1)

Books Without Pity readers are in for a treat.

Stephenie Meyer is gliding ever closer to the precipice in her sequel to Twilight, New Moon.

You might be asking yourself, “If you disliked the first book so much, why would you bother to continue reading the series?”

I’ve asked myself the very same question, believe me. All I can say is, a trainwreck is hard to back away from.

With this sequel, Meyer shows us two things (disregarding the plot entirely for a moment):

1. not only is she a bad writer, she is a bad writer with poor self-editing skills. Each book is longer than the last.

2. this imprint of Little, Brown should be ashamed of themselves for not doing a thorough job. Actually, I’ve seen it happen before – once a publishing house has their metaphorical “cash cow,” they aren’t as diligent with editing. I picked up some typographical errors in this book – step it up, people, there is no excuse.

Ready for the preposterous storyline? I might have to break this up into several entries . . .

 

Quick Gripe

Via Interlibrary Loan, I received There She Is: the Life and Times of Miss America by Frank DeFord a few weeks ago. As prepared as I was for cheesy 1970s prose about a now-archaic institution (which is still nonetheless popular, as certain television programs show), this book was so laughably bad that I could not even read past the first few pages.

A sample from page 11:

Pageants are, of course, perfectly harmless. Very few sex maniacs start out their careers hanging around them.

Oh, sweet naïveté.

And chapter 4 (I think), entitled “How to Be 36-24-36 in a Swimsuit,” just feels a bit . . . well, slimy.

I would heartily NOT recommend this book.

 

Twilight Sucks, or, Sometimes You Can Judge a Book by its Cover

Ah, the Twilight series.  “A love story with bite,” sayeth one review. A pair of star-crossed lovers for the new millennium. The young-adult world has not seen a book craze this outlandish since Harry Potter.

My friends began the craze, swapping the series at our monthly book club meetings. In trying to foist them on me, they’d say, “Oh, you’ll love Bella; you’d identify with her.”

“I’m not going to read those books. I have so many other things I’d rather read,” I said.

Then my co-workers, many of them older adults, began to succumb. This time, they cited the “powerful love story” and “exciting plot” as selling points, as well as one who is obsessed with “dreamy Edward.”

“I did all my vampire reading in high school,” was my reply. “You remember Anne Rice did it first, right?”

All of this to no avail. They were incredibly persistent, so much so that finally I threw up my hands and said, “All right, all right, I’ll read the first one.” I must admit, they had piqued my curiosity. Why are so many people obsessed with these books?

And so, I was lent a copy by a co-worker and I read it in less than a day. I’ve always been a very quick reader, which is lucky if I’m reading something particularly awful.

Twilight, dearest reader, is pretty awful.

Now, perhaps you have been slumbering peacefully under a boulder, co-existing in harmony with moles and the like, and haven’t a clue as to what I’m referring. Let me proceed by telling you the plot.

 

And so, I return.

Even though I’m not entirely sure of my audience (STILL)  and whether they would care, I feel the need to explain my absence. In brief, ill health, my new job and reading too much – is there such a thing?

I find myself glad that I did not choose a blog name that would tie me to sex ed books and sex ed books only, as I feel my focus has shifted. Dr. Howe’s book was very difficult to slog through; it wasn’t fun anymore, as you can see by my not quite finishing the book. I only had twenty more pages to go, people, but I just. couldn’t. do it.

Please do not think that this means I shall abandon them completely – perhaps I will just pick and choose choice phrases and review them in entirety, letting you see them for yourselves, if you wish.

For now, however, a break. A speed-up to modern times. Which brings us to . . . Twilight?

 

Don’t worry . . .

This blog is not dead, despite the impression you might have gotten from the previous entry. Retooling is forthcoming. Watch this space!

 

Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence by William Howe – Chapter Ten

Chaper X – Continence. Dr. Howe begins this chapter with quite a “duh” statement: every organ, nay, every atom of one’s body has a purpose assigned to it. “There is no exception to this law.” Ooh, I have one – the appendix! Beat that!

When an organ fails to do its required function, the good doctor tells us, it becomes impaired or even destroyed. He gives as an example the joints; when one is splinted or otherwise has its natural movements curtailed by surgical implements, the joint becomes impaired, and if kept this way for too long, will be permanently disabled. If one does not use his eyes, they will become blind, as those fish who live in caves so dark that they have become blinded.

This transitions into the genitals, OF COURSE. The law stated above also applies to them. A man may go without having sex for years, then marry and have no issues in the bedroom, but Dr. Howe believes this to be an exceptional case. The genitals are for propagating the species, and this is to be done by adults, and obviously, very healthily in married life. So he believes that all healthy men should marry by the age of 24.

 

Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence by William Howe – Chapter Nine

Chapter IX – Diseases that Result from Sexual Excess and Masturbation. It appears that the good doctor is repeating himself, but no, here we have new disorders. The first is cerebral anemia, which appears to be a sort of slow-leaking brain aneurysm. This occurs because a person is, what else, masturbating too much; it is more likely to occur when the digestion is out of order from gas pains.

What happens when you have cerebral anemia? Vertigo. Dim vision. Fainting “fits” leading to possible insensibility. Some say they have a “lost feeling,” where they feel partially unconscious. He cites another doctor named Jones, who natters on for a very long paragraph about how important this all is. They believed cerebral anemia was caused by deficient blood and that’s why people suffering from this event did not benefit from tonics.

Cerebral anemia can lead to chronic brain softening. This becomes a definite “yes” when the person has been playing with himself. Even though he says that he has not found a case where the cause of brain softening/cerebral anemia was directly masturbation, he claims to have enough cases to tell him that it is direct. Brain softening is a result of malnutrition, not from food, but nerve sources. Whaling on your dork takes a lot of nerve energy, leaving them enervated; an excessive waste of force in your body! Tut-tut.

One of the first symptoms of brain softening is memory failure. Now, Dr. H. does attribute failing memory to other things, such as worry, overtaxed brain, and dyspepsia. He cautions medical students not to automatically assume, unless there are other symptoms to go on. Brain softening is curable if found in its early stages. He claims to present the cure later on. I await it with a snicker.

 

Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence by William Howe – Chapter Eight

Chapter VIII – Diseases of the Genitals Associated with Spermatorrhea and Impotence. In this chapter, we begin with phimosis, which is when the prepuce, or foreskin of the penis, will not retract. Now, not being a dude, I had no idea that that’s pretty common until puberty in a number of males. Anyway, it usually doesn’t cause pain, modern doctors say, unless you get an infection from not being able to clean that portion of your penis properly.

Dr. Howe says that the discharge begins and is almost cheeselike, but overtimes becomes dry and hard, which causes males, especially children, to do strange things such as masturbate. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that they were looking for relief so they kept moving the skin the best way they could? Nah, it’s because they are sinful creatures! Anyway, if it keeps up it makes intercourse hurt and makes the man temporarily impotent. It also sometimes gives men symptoms that affect other areas of the body.

And now, a story, because Dr. H always has plenty of stories. A patient of his, a clergyman, who of course had “good habits” and the like, was having issues with his throat. It took many a minute in the pulpit afore his voice could be heard expounding on the wrath of God and what have you. Everything that had been tried had failed. And for years, the head of his penis ailed him every time he attempted to make it with his wife. So, of course, he stopped trying and was having constant nocturnal emissions, the same old story. When he was examined by the good doctor, he found that the prepuce could not be pushed back. So he circumcised him, putting the patient under an anesthetic, wonder of wonders! In modern, gross slangy terminology, it appears the smegma had accumulated under his foreskin and hardened, so it had to be scraped off. And then the entire portion was dressed with a cloth covered in olive oil! And surprise, surprise, when the clergyman returned to the pulpit his voice was no longer affected. You see, boys and girls? This is why all body parts need careful cleaning and attention!