5.
Her magical high school is not sufficiently fleshed out.
Where are the unicorns? Where are the rainbows and fluffy lambs? Wait. What? It's not a magical alternate dimension paradise?
Then how come a 17 year old new girl, who is painfully negative and unsociable all the time, is so instantly popular? Bella Swan (yes, ironic initials) "stumbles", "stutters", "glares" and "mumbles" through the whole miserable series and yet she is strangely attractive to all the boys.
*cough*BS*cough*
4.
Ms. Meyer treats punctuation like confetti at a parade.
Throw a random handful in the air, watch it fall prettily and let it sit wherever it pleases.
3.
The "dust moats stirring in the sunlight" sentence.
Although I am curious about that one... Do dust moats still need a drawbridge? Is it like quicksand? Does the sarlacc* lurk under the surface?
2.
The vampires sparkle.
For no known reason since there is absolutely no creation myth given to support this. They just step into sunlight and ta-dah! Sparklefest. And just to make it more confusing, they only sparkle in sunlight. A photosynthetic allergy sparkle that only reacts to the correct frequency spectrum.
1.
Edward is horrifying.
And no, I do not mean in a sexy chill down my spine vampirey way.
He's condescending and superior, calls her an idiot often, "sighs" at her attempts to do anything by herself, threatens her "for her own good", creeps into her room and watches her sleep, is jealous, moody and controlling. He graphically describes the way she would look dead, licks her tears and objects to her friendships with anyone other than the pre-approved Angela. He even takes her truck apart so she is forced to stay home when he says she should. Sex with him leaves her covered in bruises.... Am I the only one who sees domestic abuse parallels here?**
Bonus point:
Ms. Meyer seems to follow the "Baby Kangaroo Tribbiani" method of synonym use.
Right click, pick one, run with it. The bigger the better, right? Even if you end up with phrases like "feathery barrenness", "his eyes dissected my expression", and "little sprouts of hope... budding in my mind."
Edit:
** Went loafing cyberspace and discovered that I'm not! Check this out. Weird but true. :)
Also see this for grammar and editing fun-a-palooza.
This is a re-blog because I was editing on Blog 1.0 and suddenly realised this was a List! Yay.
