Sparkly vampires can be educational, too

This is another one of those posts where I admit something shameful, and then somehow turn it into something educational. I hope.

So, I have read the first book in the wildly popular (with teenage girls) Twilight series. I did it out of a combination of morbid curiosity (forgive the pun), and the need to know exactly what it was that I was making fun of. A little part of me even hoped that I would be pleasantly surprised. However, Stephenie Meyer has managed to write a story that is ripe for the mocking, and she hasn’t even written it well.

Luckily for the non-fans, the awfulness of the books has spawned quite the few entertaining reviews (including Alex Reads Twilight and Mark Reads Twilight). One of the ones I found surprisingly educational is the tumblog Reasoning with Vampires. Dana, the author, comments on and sometimes rewrites sentences and passages from the series, rather than reviewing chapters or entire books. Not only is it entertaining and enlightening (yes, he is a 100+ year old dead guy trying to date as well as not kill a teenage girl who is basically unlikeable), but it has proved to be a good resource for people who are looking to improve their own writing skills. You would not believe how many actual errors (spelling, punctuation, grammar) exist in the text, even if you ignore the questionable writing style.

Especially after reading some of these reviews (is it bad that I spent so much time doing so?), I won’t be able to respect the word sparkle for the foreseeable future. Luckily, Firefly fans like me have shiny instead.

Here’s a good example of what you can expect on RwV: