Dead Until Dark...

Overall I can honestly say that I am not a fan of these vampire stories, but this one seemed to catch my interest more than any of the others. It just seemed to have a thicker plot involving more than just the main character, Sookie. Also, Sookie actually developed into a character that I can actually have respect for. When I first started Dead Until Dark, I said to myself "uh oh" this is gonna be just like Twilight. Sookie just seemed so fragile and naive. But she actually began to find herself and her confidence and towards the end of the book she was not this little American girl that was in aw at the vampires and showed a little bit of heart to talk back to them in a few instances. It just seems to me that this book started very similar to Twilight, but it soon changed into something much more gory and full of things that vampires actually do.

Anita Blake - Comic Novel?

For the most part, I enjoyed reading the Vampire Hunter. It wasn't as sappy as Twilight and had a sort of twistedness to it that made me wonder and want to continue to keep reading. The fact that it was originally a novel transformed into a comic book has many pros and cons to it. At first I was excited about the pictures and scenes that were displayed but after only a few pages I was losing interest in the illustrations. They were great illustrations and gave me a visual as to what I was reading about it, but I felt that I completely different idea of Anita in my head. They portray her to be somewhat weak and harmless looking when it is obvious she is far from that. Another problem I had with the comic book layout was that is was hard to follow the text. Being that it was originally a novel, the text bubbles over the characters heads often times had a lot of writing in them. Every now and then I would catch myself reading the bubbles in the wrong order which definitely lead me to be confused about the story at a few parts. Other than these problems I actually did enjoy the comics. I get very sidetracked when I am reading for extended periods of time, but while reading this book to control my attention deficit I just glanced at the illustrations for a few minutes and til I found myself ready to keep reading again. Altogether I thought it was a good novel, but would have been better if it were to remain as just that, a novel. Trying to change it into a comic book, especially with scewed images that don't accurately depict there character is a creative idea that just didn't work out for the best.

“What was it in my own life that created the impulse and the safety; the wanting that led me and the knowing that kept me safe from harm?”

The fact that this quote touches on the wanting and knowing of sexual experiences is what caught my attention. Obviously sex is something that at least most people are curious about, and more than likely want to try, but you must have certain knowledge to keep yourself safe from the many risks that one would put themselves through during a sexual encounter.

“By the time I was eighteen I was fluent in the language of sex…”

I chose this quote simply because she relates sex and sexual encounters to a language. She says that she can speak sex fluently, which is a good analogy for the fact that there are many individual details that go along with a dialogue/ language that make it complex and sexual experiences tend to have just as many, if not more details to make it work or even make any sense.

“… I had mastered the art of transforming myself into what I thought each man would fall in love with.”

I chose this quote because I think it is a true statement. I have known girls that put on different faces around different people. She speaks of this being a good thing for her but I think it is living a lie. Granted she is allowed to be whoever she wants to be, but the fact that she is leading people on, on only showing part of her personality to her partners seems deceitful to me. It just seems fake.

“The question is not whether young women are going to have sex, for this is far beyond any parental or social control. The question is rather, what do young women need to make sex dynamic, affirming, safe and pleasurable part of our lives?”

This quote is very well constructed. There is no way to stop young women or men from the curiosities of there own sexualities, so it is not worth it to try and stop them. The best thing to do educate them on how to be safe and smart about there sexual encounters so that they can make the best decisions for their own life.

Twilight, exactly what I expected...

There were many reasons why I never wanted to read the book Twilight, and now after reading it my predictions were all correct. I knew that it was going to be some sappy love story where the "pretty boy" Edward Cullen would make the "self-conscious school girl" Bella Swan fall in love with him with using the corniest lines possible. Then in the midst of all this they somehow make it a story about vampires. This book simply takes advantage of the average adolescent problems that teenagers go through. The author Stephanie Meyer takes the average teenage love story and adds twist of vampires on the top. By doing this she has attracted young women AND men to read these books. All in all I guess my biggest problem with the book is that I have never been the average teenager or had the average teenage problems.

Edward Cullen is described to be beautiful and not handsome. He has the features of a woman but is still an attractive person to women. Bella Swan is an average looking, clumsy, self-conscious girl, who would never expect to be found as an attractive girl. When Edward expresses interest in her, she does not hesitate to show her interest right back. This is where the book lost me. I do not want to hear about how good her new boy toy smells, or hear the two of them have dialogue for what seems an eternity where all they do is ask questions. Before I even knew what was going on they started telling each other how much they love one and other. They barley know each other, he is a vampire who has feminine features, and she is an average adolescent girl who has a crush on a horror movie monster. The whole thing is just way to far-fetched for me to get into.

Even after the love story, I still have trouble finding interest in the vampire part of the book. Yeah, it is cool to be really fast and really strong, and especially cool to like driving fast in cars, but the fact that Edward is a good vampire and tries as hard as he can to not drink human blood just softens up the coolness of being a vampire. But then what really boggles my mind is that the first time he truly has an urge to drink human blood is with his new little girlfriend just makes no sense to me. I mean how could he not want to harm just some random human, and then when he actually likes one, that is the one he wants to hurt. I guess this could make sense if drinking blood was correlated with sexual passion like we talked about in class, but the idea of that just seems rather odd.

I could see why a bunch of people would be very into these books, but it just really isn't up my alley. I mean I love horror movies with monsters, but Edward is not really that scary. Bella has a role that makes girls seem too easy be manipulated, which is not the truth in the slightest. I tried as hard as I could to keep an open while reading this book, but had trouble finding interest in it. I hope this was not my sub-conscious telling me that I would never like it, but even at that I gave it a chance and it just didn't work out for me.

ITSA ME

OK so this is my vampire blog. I have heard that English 306J is a stressful class, but so far it seems to be pretty interesting. I was expecting to read some boring books about some boring stuff with some boring people, but I couldn't have been anymore wrong. Just after the first 2 days I can assume this class will be quite entertaining throughout the second half of summer.

I never wanted to jump on the Twilight bandwagon but always was a little bit curious why it was interesting to so many people. Now i guess that I have a pretty good excuse to find out what all the fuss is about.

The OG vampire