Jessica Stanley

[Amivera]

I agree to a point. She was like a 'mean girl', but only in the sense that her thoughts were mean. She wasn't one of those girls that went right out and insulted someone to their face.

I could see her gossiping about someone if she didn't like them, but I could also see her being a good friend. She's one of those people you could just call up when you're lonely and she would chat at you until past midnight.

[moon sidhe]

I think she was someone caught up in the normal trials and tribulations of high school life. But I also think she was the kind of person who would talk about you behind your back. I dunno, I didn't have patience for that stuff in high school. I'd rather hear the mean crap said to my face than have someone pretend to be friendly and then gossip about me to everyone else.

[waiting tobe dazzled]

I would rather have someone tell me to my face what they thought of me as opposed to going behind my back and yet still acting as if they are my friend.
I don't know, I guess I have always just viewed that type of person as the ultimate bad girl. At least when you are dealing with someone who is blunt about it, you know what they think about you and who your friends are. I would rather know who my real friends are rather think that she was my friend and share all my thoughts with the very person who was wishing for my demise.

[Amivera]

Mike could have been wishing for Bella's demise as well.

I think in Bella's case— and in a lot of cases (especially for people who are new to a place)— you don't need to fret over what someone is thinking.
Jessica is a good friend to Bella. She gets jealous on the inside a lot, yeah. I thought that was really exaggerated. It wasn't realistic, in my opinion. In Twilight, Jessica acted like a good friend. Bella knew she was jealous, but Jessica was nice and she helped her out. She listened.

In New Moon, Jessica was forgotten about until months later. She agreed to go out with Bella even though Bella was a freak. She ended up being turned off by her when she almost fell into a horrible situation, because of Bella's stupidity.

Oh, I'm just repeating what I said before.

Maybe the problem wasn't Jessica, but her creator. >.>

[moon sidhe]

She gets jealous on the inside a lot, yeah. I thought that was really exaggerated. It wasn't realistic, in my opinion.

Oh I most definitely knew girls like that in high school. Sweet as honey to your face and quite nasty behind your back. I still know girls like that, some people don't grow out of it. Lucky for you if you don't actually know anyone like that.

[Amivera]

^Even those people, however, have many sides to them, and I'm not just talking about sweet and sour.

Humans are more complex than just backstabbing, gossiping, social ladder climbing, mean girls who act kind to your face and gossip behind your back.

I think what I was most disappointed with was Edward— and Smeyer's— portrayal of Jessica in Midnight Sun. Actually, a lot of the character's thoughts were disappointing. I thought perhaps we might learn something new. We might find out Jessica was extremely attached to her grandmother and later this grandmother could die, it could happen just around Bella's zombie-months, and so Bella would not have been there for Jessica which would lead to more annoyance and anger.

Haha, now I'm digressing. What I mean, though, is that if Jessica were a 3D character, she would have more story than that. Midnight Sun would not be the heartless mind of a shallow mean girl, but there would be DEPTH.

There we go. I was hoping for some more depth.

[moon sidhe]

Sure, even outwardly mean people have their reasons, but ultimately, this is a love story about Bella and Edward. There's not really time to dissect the motivations of every single minor character. And frankly I have no desire to know The Inner Workings of Jessica Stanley. I just didn't find her that interesting. She was meant to be a minor character, and she was.

Also, bottom line, this is not great literature. By any stretch of the imagination. It's young adult fiction. It's fun! I enjoyed reading it. However, it doesn't really lend itself to minute dissections and I don't think it was intended for that. I think it's good to maintain some perspective here. If you're going to run around critiquing these books like you're expecting Stephenie to be the next Proust, well, yeah, you're going to find a lot of problems with the books and with her. They weren't written for that. They're not "deep and meaningful." If you want to discuss something that has some real depth to it, I have some recommendations, otherwise it's silly to critique asinine details that were or weren't included in a series of young adult romance novels.

[Amivera]

Well, as this is the Jessica Stanley thread, and as she was given quite a few lines of mind-read-magic in Midnight Sun, and a few lines of assumptions from Bella, I thought there might have been given a *tad* bit more depth to her character.

That is all. Perfectly reasonable, I'd say. It doesn't take many more words to change "I can't wait for Mike to ask me to the dance!" to "I hope my sister's feeling better by now, she can help me choose a dress." Or something that would show more depth.

[moon sidhe]

I understand your point. Ultimately the point that I'm trying to make is that I don't think these books were intended to be anything more than a fun diversion. For me, they achieved that, regardless of whether Jessica Stanley was given enough depth, regardless of whether the Cullens were or weren't saint-like, regardless of whether Edward and Bella could have been more fleshed out as characters. Admittedly I also fall into the trap of over-analyzing what I'm reading, but sometimes you just have to remind yourself not to take it so seriously. When I want some serious reading that I can really sink my teeth into, I go to Kafka, or Kundera, or Camus. But this stuff is just meant to be fun, and I don't think it's worth anyone's time to read too much into subtext or tone or whatever else. If you really want to do that, and you want to reap some rewards and personal discovery out of all your efforts, there are better books to do it with.

[Amivera]

If you really want to do that, and you want to reap some rewards and personal discovery out of all your efforts, there are better books to do it with.

No, no. I'm not on these discussion forums so I can make some huge discovery of demonic messages hidden within the syntax.

These are *discussion* forums, are they not? They're to discuss the characters, and if there is no deep discussion, what exactly is there to do? O.O