Monday, November 23, 2009

Response to a New Moon Review

I know what you're thinking - don't I have a novel to write? And you're right. I might possibly be procrastinating a little bit.

BUT I had a problem with some of this review of New Moon.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the biggest Stephenie Meyer fan, and I haven't seen the film adaptation of New Moon, as of yet. (I'm not really sure that I want to.) So I'm not commenting on what the review says about the actors and the plot-line and the subpar directing. Maybe the reviewer feels as I would, maybe not.

What I had a problem with came from reading this:

"The film's objectionable suggestion is that it is acceptable to make major life decisions when one is barely out of one's teens."

This statement doesn't exactly apply to me - I have been out of my teens for awhile. Yet I resent the implication that people shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about their own life when they're "barely out of their teens." Doesn't being "barely out of one's teens" make "one" an adult? I know that a lot of parents seem to think that it is their job to protect their child from making "wrong" decisions, but there comes a time when a person has to take his or her life into his or her own hands.

Making poor choices is a part of life. People in their late teens and early twenties are going to regret some of the choices they make...and so are people in their forties and fifties.

This argument has been used for other purposes, but a person is allowed to join the army at eighteen. That's a major life decision.

A person is allowed to choose a college to attend - another major life decision.

What the reviewer really seems to have a problem with is a person who doesn't want to conform to what people generally accept as "the next step" in life's journey.

If a person isn't ready, or just doesn't want, to go to college, then that person wasn't ready to make a major life decision.