Book: Breaking Dawn

Title: Breaking Dawn (2008)
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Genre: Young Adult, Scifi, Romance

This review was actually an email that I sent to my favorite librarian right after I read Breaking Dawn. Here it is, slightly edited.

As I'm sure you know, the current YA book craze is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga. I hope you haven't had to read them (especially the last book) but I have. Partially a work related duty (keeping up with what customers read) and partially due to the crack I'm convinced the publishers put in the paper. I wanted to give you my review of the last book, Breaking Dawn, because I think it's important for you, as teen library kingpin, to know what all these teenage girls are reading.

DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SERIES TO ANYONE UNDER 15ISH!

The first three books, although bordering on promoting abusive and generally unhealthy relationships, are basically fine. Poorly written vampire/human/werewolf love triangle, but not anything objectionable really. But the fourth book? I was almost physically ill while reading it! What follows is me being really weirded out. Being me, I babble on, so I've got bullet points at the end of my rant. I assume you don't care if I spoiler at you, but just in case, that's what I'm about to do.

So the vamp and the human chick get married in the beginning of book four. The chick is just barely 18 and both her parents are totally fine with this. The happy couple goes on a honeymoon (after which he will be turning her into a vampire) and, of course, they have sex. Nothing graphic. It's all "the water was warm and perfect. I wrapped my arms around him..." and then she wakes up the next morning. But after the sex...

Since he's all super strong, he was all worried about hurting her. When she wakes up, he's all angry and doesn't want to touch her because he accidentally bruised her entire body. What follows is a twelve page conversation in which she convinces him that it's ok that she's bruised because she knows he really loves her. Does this wave a "let's validate abusive relationships" flag for you too?

Don't get me wrong. I've got no problem with people having rough sex. But these books are being marketed to the 13-18 crowd, and being read by kids as young as 10. And Meyer does not make a clear distinction between rough for fun and rough "by accident" because one partner is stronger than the other!

OK, so the chick gets preggers with the vampire baby (which took a lot of explaining, but hey if vampires sparkle...) and the fetus grows hellsa fast. She starts showing a week or so after the sex and is ready to deliver within a few months, or maybe less. The biggest problem with her being pregnant (other than the part where she's just 18) is that the baby is a lot stronger than her. It starts attacking her from the inside every time it moves, so she ends up having a pregnant belly covered with super huge internal bruises. Also, the baby cracks her ribs multiple times and her pelvis. Since the baby is all half undead (again, it's complicated) it starts feeding on live mommy from the inside. It basically drinks her blood and won't let her eat anything. Until they all figure out that she can drink human blood.

This is a really sickening view of pregnancy and it just feels wrong and twisted. I might be a little biased because I think babies and babymaking are gross anyway, but I've never had this kind of reaction to reading about a pregnancy before. Even the part where the baby is a leech that's destroying her (the leech joke is one I've made many a time) creeped me out because of the way she was writing it. I'm not sure what it was, but I was reading it and fully convinced that the author must have had miscarriages and was putting all her pain on paper in gruesome metaphors.

This whole time that she's carrying baby, she loves it to death. Of course. The vampy father wants her to have an abortion (though they never use the word) and so does his vamp sire (who just happens to have been a doctor since the 18th century). In a conversation that vamp daddy has with the wolf boy (his rival and point 3 of the triangle) he explains that the only reason that they didn't use their superior strength to force an abortion, is that one of the female vampires has been protecting the pregnant mom. The female vampire in question has been presented as a very unlikable character throughout the series, and is portrayed as a self-serving crazy person while she's protecting the pregnant main character. And the author definitely presents the physically forced abortion (again, not with that word) as the best possible option!

In the same conversation, vamp boy suggests that if she just wants to be a mom, they could abort the undead baby and have the wolf boy father another child for her, in the hopes that it wouldn't kill her. Cause that would take care of her need to mother. Yeah. She goes there. And the two guys definitely consider sharing her because "it would be worth it to save her life." While Meyer doesn't present this as though it's a good option, she does have the characters we're supposed to really like suggest it, and they don't really ever decide it's a bad idea. Uncomfortable and something the chick would never agree to, but not ever that bad.

The only way the mother survives childbirth is that the father chews the baby out of her stomach and then turns her into a vampire. When the baby eventually is born, crazy times ensue. The wolf pack does this "imprinting" thing where the first time they meet the eyes of their soul mate, both parties immediately love each other and realize that they are perfect for each other and are completely devoted to each other forever. There is no choice in the matter and it doesn't matter how old the two people are. Can you see where this is going? Yeah... the wolf boy who has been madly in love with the human chick this whole time imprints with her newborn half undead girl. EEEEW! So what this means is that he's super protective of her and cares about her. Nothing sexual, but you know it's going to turn into that when she's old enough. And it's apparently ok because the kid grows up extra fast. And the characters explain it away by saying "I guess this is why we never worked out: we loved each other, but just as family."

OK, so that last part is really weird, but not unreadable. The other stuff, I do not think 11 year-olds should be reading. I think the book is insidious. I could be wrong, but I just don't want girls thinking this stuff is ok. As promised, here are the bullet points.

• Girl gets married and preggers right out of high school, and her parents and the author are fine with it.
• After sex that leaves the girl bruised all over her body, girl convinces boy and readers that it's ok because boy really does love her and it's not really his fault.
• During pregnancy, fetus starts attacking mommy from the inside, bruising her and not allowing her to ingest anything.
• During pregnancy, the only reason boy doesn't physically force an abortion on mommy against her will, is that a stronger bad character is protecting her.
• As a suitable way to convince mommy that she can abort and still have a kid, babydaddy suggests she sleeps with another guy so that guy 2 can father the child, and the guys will just share her.
• And finally, boy who was in love with mommy and never gets with her, ends up being the soul mate of mommy's newborn baby.
  

Maybe I'm just a prude, but that was my opinion.
DO NOT RECOMMEND THESE BOOKS TO YOUNGER READERS

Film: The Midwife's Tale

Title: The Midwife's Tale (1995)
Director: Megan Siler
Writer(s): Megan Siler
Actor(s): Stacey Havener, Gayle Cohen, Carla Milford, Anthony Shaw Abaté
Costume Designer(s): Korina Fitzgerald, Alex Yaeger
Rating: NR because it is not a big enough release. I would probably call it PG, for for one hanging and one interrogation (neither of which are at all graphic) and for the concept of abortion, which is kind of hard to have to discuss with the little ones.

The box for The Midwife's Tale describes the film as "The Princess Bride for alternative families." While this film definitely lacks the sharp dialogue, humor, and overall brilliance of PB, I see why the comparison was made.

The Midwife's Tale starts with a little girl looking at pictures of medieval men and women (including a "knightess") when one of her moms comes home and sits down to tell her a story. The story is about Lady Eleanore, the beautiful, sword practicing, and unsatisfied wife of Lord William. In William's land, the church is actively cracking down on practitioners of the old religion (not really specified, but they make some Beltane and female god references). One day, while out riding in the woods, Eleanore finds herself in a clearing where a beautiful midwife (Gwenyth) is using traditional folk remedies to help a woman in labor. Eleanore is fascinated and, when she finds out that she is pregnant, she calls for Gwenyth to come serve her in the castle.

At this point the plot becomes somewhat convoluted. Eleanore remembers her own mother dying in childbirth. There is an old midwife who is accused of consorting with the devil. Eleanore becomes convinced that her child will be stillborn and that she will die giving birth, and tries to convince Gwenyth to help her abort it. But at some point we pick back up, with Gwenyth fleeing so she won't be hanged for witchcraft, Eleanore being locked in a tower by her husband and hatching a plan to escape. With the help of her faithful maid and her kind (and possibly gay) cousin Sir Giles, Eleanore disguises herself as a man and rides off to find Gwenyth and live happily ever after.

The story is should have been simpler than it was, but the overall effect is very nice. It was clearly pretty low budget, but they worked well with what they had. The costumes were relatively decent, and clearly not the point of the movie. The whole look and feel of the film reminded me a lot of The Polar Bear King. I didn't enjoy how preachy it became when dealing with the big bad Christians, but given the point the director was making and the reality of the church's influence at that time I understand why they did it. And it was nice to see the plucky queer women be able to end up together and show their strength in a completely non-violent way. It's a very sweet film with a positive feminist message and is completely family appropriate.

Film: Inglorious Basterds

Title: Inglorious Basterds (2009)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer(s): Quentin Tarantino
Actor(s): Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Brühl, Michael Fassbender, etc.
Costume Designer: Anna B. Sheppard
Rating: R (strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality)

With and Quentin Tarantino movie there are a few preconceptions I always have:

1. There will be lots of violence. From start to finish. It will be graphic, brutal, and probably gratuitous.
2. The film will have at least one reference (whether direct or stylistic) to B movies of the seventies.
3. The dialogue will have that distinctive Tarantino cadence. Regardless of the content of the dialogue, the rise and fall of the actors' voices will be interesting to listen to.
4. He will manage to use the word "nigger" at least once.
   

Given these expectations, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. I had some doubts about whether or not Tarantino could pull off a period piece, but it turns out he can.

Inglorious Basterds (Christoph Waltz), an SS officer who has been nicknamed the "Jew Hunter" by the people of France. The farmer is suspected of hiding a Jewish family and, as the scene progresses, has a few plotlines weaving together to tell the stories of some different people in WWII German occupied France, and is told in chapters. The film opens on a scene in 1941, with a French dairy farmer (Denis Menochet) being questioned by Col. Hans LandaLanda wears him down and gets him to admit to it. The structure of this opening scene is excellent. It would work equally well as a one act. And Waltz playing Landa was amazing to watch, both times I saw the film. The scene culminates with Landa's men killing the whole hidden family (mostly we just see guns fired), except for Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent) the teenage daughter of the family, who runs away covered in her family's blood.

Chapter two is about the "basterds" in question. Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) gathers together a group of Jewish Americans and takes them to France for one purpose: "That's killing Nat-zees!" This band catches groups of Nazis, kills them, scalps them, and carves a swastika in the forehead of any survivor, so that even when their uniform comes of they will be easily identifiable. This segment is brutal. It is graphic. It is not for people with faint stomachs. The character of Sgt. Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) is a total psychopath. It is clear that these characters may not be Nazis, but they're also not good guys.

In the third chapter, we again meet Shoshanna, living under the alias Emmanuele. It is now 1944 and she owns a movie theater in Paris, where she is forced to play German films. She is reluctantly being pursued by Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) who is a German war hero (and very cute) who recently starred in a film about his own exploits, directed by none other than Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth). He convinces Goebbles to move the premier of the film to Shoshanna's theater, and she hatches her plan to burn all of the Nazi attendees alive.

At the same time, the OSS finds out about the movie premier and decides to do something about it. Mike Meyers has a cameo as a British general, which is actually the one thing I don't think works about the film. They pick Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), a British soldier and expert on German cinema, to liaise with their double agent, famous German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), and the Inglorious Basterds. Their plan is to blow up the theater. The scene at the rendezvous is so well crafted. It hinges on cultural differences and language.

I'd hate to give away the ending. Suffice to say that I was not expecting it to turn out the way it did. And again, the end is brutal and interesting.

The script was clever and, most exciting for me, was only about 65% in English. The rest was in French and German, both of which I sort of understand. Listening to the Tarantino dialogue in those languages was kind of like a mental exercise, and very enjoyable.

The violence in this film was graphic and brutal. Heads were bashed in, throats were cut, scalps were cut off in close ups, people were basically massacred. I think what disturbed me the most was actually the close up of Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) carving a swastika into someone's forehead. But on the good side, the violence wasn't start to finish.

The B movie references were all there, from the music to the aside about one particular member of the Basterds, complete with a voiceover by Samuel L. Jackson. And the use of "nigger" was certainly present, but in German. I was pleased to see that Tarantino had it being used by Goebbels, who is obviously and unequivocally evil. Actually, Goebbels is probably the other part of the film I didn't like. Sure he is clearly ugly and evil, but they really camp him up and make him kind of comical. I think I would have preferred the architect of Kristallnacht to either be less like the comic relief or more broadly comic relief.

All in all, I really enjoyed the film. I'm hoping that when it comes out on DVD I can figure out a way to cut out most of the violence to show it to people who can't handle that sort of thing, because everything else about it is really worth watching.