Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature at TBR's celebrating Indie and debut authors. This week I have the pleasure introducing readers to:
ANNE TIBBETS
~Author of The Beast Call~
Find Anne on the Web~Twitter~Facebook
The Bella Syndrome
by Anne Tibbets 2011
I have a confession to make: I have not read the Twilight series. Shocking! I know, right? Here I call myself a Young Adult author and I haven’t read any of the most popular paranormal romance teen series since…since…I don’t know when…
Pathetic.....I’ll take my flogging To Go.
Anyway, with that confession out of the way, let me tell you why. First, my best friend’s mother is in love with Edward. This would be perfectly acceptable except my best friend is in her forties, and her mother is in her sixties. So, somewhere out there in the world there’s a sixty-ish year old widow with an Edward pillowcase, an Edward doll, an Edward throw blanket, an Edward poster behind her bathroom door, and a dog named Bella. I know this because I was with my best friend when she bought half of those items. I found this a little creepy. So, my first impression of Twilight was that Edward was the world’s most perfect man, er, vampire, enough so that a grown woman could lose her senses over him. Call me skeptical, call me cynical, call me a total drag, but I found this very hard to believe. It made me suspicious.
So in my heightened state of curiosity I made a critical error, I watched the first Twilight movie, before reading the book. BIG MISTAKE. It’s one of my cardinal rules, it’s something I preach to my children and any child who asks me my opinion on whether or not the movie of a book is better or worse…The book is ALWAYS better. Right? So why I decided to rent Twilight one lonely night while my husband was out of town is beyond me. Stupid. Needless to say, I didn't much like the movie, for one rather large and glaring reason.
I hated Bella.
Forget liking Edward, who to me, was a bit too stalker-ish for my taste, but I could not for the life of me figure out what he saw in Bella. Okay, so she smells good. What is he, a dog?
The sole purpose for his obsession is because she stinks well? Oh, and he can read minds, but he can’t read hers? Is that right? I seem to have blocked the details of the movie out of my mind in an effort to erase the experience from my memory. But, I press on: this guy lives for over a hundred years, has literally thousands of women to choose from, and he picks the sulkiest, most depressed, un-colorful, expressionless blob of a girl he could find?
“No, no!” my best friend protests. She’s read all the books along with her mother, and though she doesn’t have any throw pillows she’s definitely in Camp Edward. “Bella is better in the books. You understand her more. She and Edward are soul mates.” Really? How can Edward tell? Certainly not from looking in her eyes and seeing the love and emotion come pouring out, or did I miss something?
So the movie ruined me. After that, I had no desire to read the books, no desire to see any more of the movies, no desire to have anything to do with vampires, except buy a funny tee shirt I like to wear at writer’s conferences that reads, ‘Buffy Killed Edward.’ Still, in all truth, I owe the movie Twilight a debt of gratitude.
Why, you ask?
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| "Angel Who"! |
Because during my ranting and raving over how much I disliked Bella, and my reasons why, I happened to mention that I wrote a book with the anti-Bella - The girl who isn’t obsessed with her boyfriend -The girl who doesn't need to get saved every fifty pages -The girl who isn’t afraid to stand on her own two feet, and fight, even physically fight if necessary, for what she believes in.
And my friend actually said, “And why isn't it published yet?” Well, because it was sitting in my desk drawer collecting dust and I hadn’t really tried to sell it. Drum roll please…AND – that brings us to The Beast Call. Now, it’s no Twilight. But, if you leave a comment and your email address at the end of this blog post, I will gladly send you a Smashwords.com coupon code for a FREE copy of The Beast Call. I’d love to hear what you think about my main character, Dray. Let’s see how she stacks up. And just on another completely separate note: I send my respect and apologies to Stephenie Meyer. Because without the mediocre movie version of, I’m sure, her very decent book, I would not be where I am today. So, thanks for that.
LOL, I think Twilight has affected all us readers and writers in different ways. Meyer's certainly created a teen genre all her own for the lovers and created the anti-Bella movement for the haters. Ill respectfully disagree that Bella cant hold her own, by the end she turned into a really well rounded gal. But I will agree with you 110% that Twilight the movie was a huge turd!! Thanks Anne for stopping by today and for your generous giveaway.
GIVEAWAY
You heard it folks, anyone who comments on this post gets a Ebook copy from Smashwords!
Please leave a comment and your email to enter.
The Beast Call by Anne Tibbets
Seventeen year old Dray is no ordinary human. But possessing a magical capability to talk to animals in a land where magic is feared, is dangerous. When Dray's adventure hungry brother leaves the family farm to join a rebel militia, Dray follows him, but as Dray discovers her natural warrior capabilities, and word of her magical talents are discovered by the rebel General, Dray becomes an intricate part of the revolution, and the evil King Nuro would like nothing more than to see her destroyed.
Twilight photos courtesy of BeyondHollywood.com
Buffy Photo: Credit the WB- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy Photo: Credit the WB- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Laughing so hard!
ReplyDeleteTwilight does have a huge base of followers which is not based on age at all.
While my 13 year old sister would probably call the police or get her baseball bat if something like Edward appeared outside her window.... my 25 year old bestie would no doubt throw herself all over him.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me guest post!
ReplyDeletei so want the shirt XD that would pretty cool to wear.
ReplyDeletethanks for the giveaway ^^
witchvela at web dot de
loved this posting...i must confess...i haven't read 'the twilight series' either...but not because of that reason :)
ReplyDeletethanks for the giveaway.
karenk
kmkuka at yahoo dot com
OMGosh, love your voice! Great post.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, the first Twilight movie would ruin the series for anyone, it really sucked and I'm a huge Twilight fan.
LOL @ Buffy killed Edward. She totally would. He's a little too metrosexual for her.
I would love to read your book. :)
Karenk - re: giveaway - My pleasure!
ReplyDeleteJoy - what's your email address? I'll send you the coupon code!
Good one, Anne!
ReplyDeleteBTW Dray kicks butt.
That was quite heated! :) Love the post, Anne.
ReplyDeleteYour book sounds awesome! I would love to read it!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the awesome post!
Kari
[email protected]
Whoops, sorry Anne. My email address is joygleeg(at)aol(dot)com
ReplyDelete