All things Romance- Novel Reviews, Thoughts etc.

Twilight fans everywhere were distraught last week when Stephenie Meyer announced that as a result of an accidental internet leaking of the first 12 chapters “Midnight Sun” was to be put on hold indefinitely. I'm afraid that after reading the first 12 chapters I can only be thankful that the rest of Midnight Sun is unlikely to ever surface.
Midnight Sun is the story of Twilight told from Edward's perspective. When I heard there was a possiblity of this being the next in the twilight series I was excited. I rank Twilight as one of the best romances I've ever read but I did find Bella quite limited, of course she was she was a 17 year old girl who knew nothing of the world. So I always wanted the story from Edward; older, wiser, deeper, more intelligent, everything pointed to it being a good story.
Only it wasn't a good story. The Edward of Midnight Sun is 100% mentally unhinged. Please don't think I expected him to be perfect, perfect is boring. I always expected him to have issues; raging wars between his guilt at having killed in the past, his inability to fit in to human social situations, the restlessness of repeating the same few years of school and college over and over, and the constant question of why he is denying the very nature of what he is. But NO Stephenie Meyer decides to turn Edward into a psycho; he becomes scarily obsessed with Bella almost as soon as he meets her, bye bye there goes my jaded world-hardened hero, to make things worse he sits in her bedroom whilst she is sleeping!! OK so we knew he used to listen to her talking in her sleep before they were together I figured well he's curious about her, he has super hearing and he doesn't have to sleep he could stroll past her house and stand outside for a while to see what he hears. But No, Edward climbs in through the window (which he later OILS so it doesn't make as much noise) and at one point even covers her in a blanket cos she looks a bit cold. If this isn't bad enough he spend a whole bloody week lurking in the shadows following her around. You may as well stick a neon sign over his head saying stalker, HELLO THESE BOOKS ARE FOR YOUNG GIRLS WHO ALL ADORE EDWARD YOU WANT THEM TO FALL FOR GUYS LIKE THAT?!
Also Edward's thoughts consist only of; Wow Bella is so perfect and OMG I'm just so not good enough for perfect Bella. This makes me sick. Edward is cultured, mature, struggling with faith issues, hiding his identity and privileged/cursed with the ability to see everyone's uncensored thoughts, even the bad things that we think but would never dream of saying. Please tell me this guy has more to him than love-sick puppy issues.
I'll make you a deal Stephenie, you step away from the manuscript, lock it in a drawer, throw away the key, and I'll pretend like this whole thing never happened and I can still admire your storytelling abilities.

I found myself thinking today about what was my favourite romantic story. Of course I considered all the regulars; Romeo and Juliet, Layla and Majnun, Antony and Cleopatra, the building of the Taj Mahal or Braveheart, but then I remembered the story that made me a romantic in the first place and I love it so much I thought I'd share it with you. It comes from Greek mythology and was written in Plato's Symposium, I believe it was the original concept of soulmates. I wont just find a quote and bung it in here I'll tell it how I remember it.
Once, long ago in the ancient world man was made up of two heads, four arms and four feet. These men had incredible strength; physical strength, strength of mind and strength of heart, they were also very happy. The Gods watched these humans of their creation from Mount Olympia and were both scared that these humans would attempt to take their place and also jealous of the absolute happiness.
The Gods decided that the humans could not be allowed to continue living as they did but they could not decide what to do with them, some of the Gods wanted to destroy the humans but others were reluctant to completely destroy their finest creations. Finally Zeus came up with the solution. He hit the humans with his thunderbolt splitting them in two; each had one head, two arms, two legs but only half a soul. Then Zeus took these halves and scattered them across the globe separating them all.
With time the bodies forgot that they had ever been anything but one head, two arms and two legs but the soul never forgot that it was only a half or forgot the strength it had as a whole. It is this half a soul that drives the body to continue searching for the other half of itself. Like shells scattered on the beach there are many that look similar and may even live comfortably side by side but there is only one that is the perfect fit. A shell only has one other half, as does a soul and on occasion when these souls are reunited into one they regain all their former strength of heart and spirit; for whilst the body forgets how to become one the soul never forgets.

That story made me a hopeless romantic, and it keeps me a hopeless romantic.