It's been so long since I blogged, so long since I wrote anything, really, that I should probably do a little table setting.
Eff it. It's a blog, you guys.
Better than Twilight?
That setup's a little facetious because, really, how could anything be worse than Twilight?
In answer to my own question, yes, it is better than Twilight.
Here's how:
We've sort of been down this road before, so you might guess the main reason I like these books -- young Clary Fray is a woman of action. I've got a soft spot for brave little toasters.
We meet her standing in line at an all-ages club with her obviously-crushing bff Simon. Clary notices a cute boy in line, then again in the club. She thinks nothing of it when the cutie heads off to the supply closet with a beautiful girl. But Clary's wise to the tattooed teens following the couple with knives and dispatches Simon to get the bouncer. Still, her curiosity gets the better of her, so Clary slips into the closet to spy . . . the tattooed teens and the beautiful girl teaming up to gut the cutie right then and there.
Soon she's discovered, but Clary bravely insists that the police are on the way and the kids are going down. Of course, it doesn't help that the dead cutie's body disappears. The trio bounces, and Clary's forced to make up a lie when the bouncer finally arrives.
The next day, Clary responds to a distress call from her mom. When she gets home, her mom is gone, and the apartment is torn up. Clary barely has time to register the loss when she's attacked by a demon. She manages to fight it off and even kill it but not without suffering a grievous wound.
That's the first three chapters. Just imagine how much more incident author Cassandra Clare packs into entire 400 page novels.
Don't get me wrong -- following kids with knives into a darkened, enclosed space is dumb. Running home when your mom tells you not to because it's not safe is a bad idea. Clary's mind is a bad idea circus at which the Starks are sitting ringside.
But they're her ideas. She's fiercely loyal and believably teenage, full of rumbling passions and angry fits that have no real source or direction. She's brave and more than a little reckless, but it comes from a good place.
Being better than Bella isn't much of a challenge, naturally, so Clare goes one further: she experiments with other viewpoints to actual success. Yes, it can be done!
It starts out small in the first book - just a page or two from a couple of different characters. Clare grows in confidence and style as she builds her spellbinding world. By book three, City of Glass, there are whole sections from other POVs that neither directly involve Clary nor comment on her. Yes, other characters with desires, motivations, and actions of their very own! It's pretty cool, actually. (Mostly 'cause I love Alec and Magnus).
Better than Hunger Games?
The series isn't finished yet (the sixth and final book comes out next year), so it's a little early to tell. I've just finished book three and am taking advantage of its natural conclusion before getting swept up again. (If it were an old-school TV season, it's the March break before the back nine).
That said, it's hard to imagine anything could have the bone-crushing impact of Katniss' climactic decision in The Mockingjay. (Trying to stay as spoiler-free in this one as I can).
Best guess: probably not. The stakes are equally high, but Clare's world of demons, vampires, werewolves, fairies, warlocks, and the half-angel, half-humans who police them, while rich, drops you in medias res and never really gives you a sense of what or who these people were before their lives blew apart. Suzanne Collins', however, absolutely nails the soul-crushing despair of living in District 12, and the world building of Catching Fire lends real gravity to the world destroying of The Mockingjay. Plus, no human alive nails the chapter-ending cliffhanger as well as she does. The Hunger Games would make THE BEST tv series.
The Movie
If you're looking for the next Twilight, you've got to have the movie. The Vampire Diaries is a killer tv show (even after the uneven fourth season, I'm still hooked), Beautiful Creatures slipped in and out of theatres in the dead of winter unnoticed, and The Hunger Games is another beast entirely.
To be honest, I've got my doubts here, too.
Not that I'm not glad to see Magnus, but remember those two action items way, way up there in this post that made me fall in love with Clary? Well, it looks like they botched both of them. And let me tell you, it's pretty hard to come back from botching the heroine.
If Clary doesn't save herself from that demon (or die trying), just who will she be to me? Because the world doesn't need another damsel in distress. It needs a hundred woman warriors, then a thousand more, and a million more after that. We shouldn't settle for anything less.
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