NPR Books Coverage: Now with snark!

NPR blogger Linda Holmes is reading Twilight and blogging about it -- with results more hilarious than I would've expected.

In one of her most recent posts, she transcribes a conversation she had with another reader:

Marc: Maybe Meyer's like the guy from Memento. Maybe that explains why she constantly repeats herself, why she describes Edward's face over and over again, why she says "the boy named Jacob" a page after she introduces him by name (meaning that she could have just said, you know, "Jacob"), why she keeps changing his eye color and why she writes "traitor tears were there, betraying me." Because she can't remember what she's already written.

Linda: "Happy tears were there, being happy."

Marc: "Green leaves were swaying in the wind, greenly."

Linda: "He took me in his arms, and we embraced, and he hugged me, and we put our hands on each other's backs."

Is there anything not to love there?  There's also a whole bit about "dust moats" vs. "dust motes" that just destroyed me.

For your reading pleasure, here are the links so far:

You Asked For It: We Will Read 'Twilight'
Selected Tweets From The 'Twilight'-Reading Project
More 'Twilight': Is Bella A Sympathetic Teenager Or A Weird Marble Fetishist?
The Writing Style Of 'Twilight': We Kick Off The 'I Will If You Will' Book Club
'Twilight': Edward The Vampire Sulker And His Beloved: Does This Story Work?

I haven't read 'em all, so I'm hoping that this is all just riffing on Twilight and that there aren't any of those irritating sweeping generalizations about YA as a whole... if there are, I'm sure that I'll get all worked up and my traitor tears will betray me.

Comments

[margaret]

Absolutely zero generalizations about YA as a whole. So let uncontrollable laughter ring out uncontrollably!

[Leila]

Hooray!

[Ms Avery]

Yay, more Twilight snark! This stuff never gets old. :D

(I'm a copy-editor IRL, and the line about traitor tears makes me break out in a cold sweat. Because seriously, if you were tired and/or pressed for time, and if -- hypothetically -- there were a lot of other mistakes to fix, you might just not notice something like that. And then, for the book to become such a massive best-seller, with everyone picking it apart and pointing out every little flaw... it's like being naked on stage!)

[Ms Avery]

(Uh... my cheering of the Twilight snark was still genuine, though, not sarcastic, in case that wasn't clear.)

[Leila]

Oh, totally. And, YES. While stuff like that is always funny, there is the (admittedly tiny) part of my cold, cold heart that feels bad about it -- mostly because the thought of being on the receiving end of the snark would make me want to barf. (Then again, I would -- hopefully -- be barfing while on my way to the bank to deposit all of my huge paychecks, so there's a bright side.)

[Sarah]

well I know how I'm spending my lunch break. Can't wait to read these!

[tanita]

*gasp!* NPR!!!! and SNARK!? NEVER!~

[patti]

I've been enjoying the NPR posts quite a bit. Extremely funny and quotable. The last one (I assume it is the last) discusses quality in terms of whether it is ok it is bad since it is written for teens. Which made me scratch my head, but I guess it goes hand in hand with people asking YA authors when they're going to write a real book.

[Gina]

"Sic the bunnies!" Hee!

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