Gabriel's Inferno (and other musings on Twilight fan fiction)

I am justifying writing this at work because I am actually working on an article about Twilight fan fiction, and the Gabriel's Inferno trilogy is one of the many published works that have their genesis in that genre (others include Fifty Shades, Alice Clayton's Wallbanger, JM Darhower's Sempre (Forever), Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia, and the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren).  If you are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, you might immediately think, "wait, there are vampires in Fifty Shades??"  Nope, as far as I know, not a one of these books includes any supernatural creatures, much to my chagrin.  But the thing with Twilight is that most people who flocked to this series are not regular consumers of supernatural fiction.  I'm pretty sure Anne Rice readers actively ran away from any and all things Twilight.  The pull of the series is the dynamic between Edward and Bella, the love triangle, and the promise that even an ordinary, socially-awkward girl from a working-class broken home can in fact become extraordinary (if she finds the right man, of course).  Now, I am a scholar, a feminist, and generally a pretty smart person who thinks about and analyzes the way race, class, and gender function in the world, but let me be clear -- I read the entire Twilight series FOUR TIMES.  If you read my previous post, you will know that I rarely ever get through a series for even the first read.  I admit, often with some degree of shame, that these are in fact some of my favorite books of all time.  In fact, I would be hard-pressed to think of another book or series that has had the impact on my reading life, and even my writing life, and possibly my entire life (yikes) that these books have.  And I know from formal and informal research that I am not alone in this.  One of my good friends echoes the sentiment of book blogger Maryse (maryse.net) that she wasn't much of a reader before Twilight.  Now these women inhale multiple books every week.  I can say the same for myself.  Twilight re-introduced me to the kind of voracious reading habits I had as a child, but ironically lost the more educated I became.  The kind where I would always carry a book with me, and take any opportunity to read a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence.  The kind when I would just live in that world, and miss it terribly when the experience was over, like being lost from one's home.  Twilight re-introduced me to that, and I think I have spent the last 7 years or so trying to figure out why: what is it about that series that continues to inspire so many women (and not just young women -- I am far from young) to read similar books, and then to produce books themselves?  It is no surprise that Fifty Shades is also on the short list of series I have actually completed, and would probably read again, had I not loaned out and thus lost my copies.  And I am certain to finish the Gabriel's Inferno series, problematic as it may be, as I just finished the second book and the third is on its way (although I did start re-reading Interview with the Vampire in the meantime, so that could derail or at least detain my progress).

Okay, so Gabriel . . . first of all, there is something really, I don't know . . . trying-too-hard about Sylvain Reynard's prose.  Neither E.L. James nor Stephenie Meyer are going to go down in history as authors of serious literary fiction, but their books don't try to be that, and I think in some ways Reynard's does, and I think it would be much better if he(?) just dropped that pretense.  So I don't like his writing style at all, and Julia's characterization just takes the sexism of this stock character to a whole new level.  I actually don't have a huge problem with Bella or Ana, as I think an argument could be made for them as strong female characters, but Julia?  Nope, not really ever.  She is portrayed as overly weak, frail, and waif-like to a nauseating degree.  And to a degree that isn't even believable.  She is also depicted as an out-right saint (overtly stated) with zero flaws.  Paul, the Jacob in the story, is similarly drawn.  So of course the only character with any degree of complexity is Gabriel.

So let me just draw you a map of how the plot (so far) of this series parallels Twilight:
Gabriel meets Julia and is a total asshole to her at first.
This was the case with Twilight except that Edward was a jerk to Bella because he wanted to suck her blood; Gabriel has no reason.
Then Gabriel and Julia realize they have this past/family connection and that Gabriel was actually Julia's first love (the fact that Gabriel doesn't remember her is patently ridiculous).
Bella and Edward's connection is that for some reason Bella's blood is particularly tasty to Edward, hence the asshole-ism.
These obstacles are obviously overcome, and the respective couples fall in love.  Then . . .
Gabriel gets in trouble for dating a student (duh).  To save Julia's academic career, he pretends to leave her, except that, of course, Julia thinks it's real.
Edward leaves Bella after Jasper tries to suck Bella's blood.  Except that Edward actually does try to leave her.
There is the requisite period of tortured separation during which the women pine and the men go off the rails.
Also during this time, Bella forms a platonic-ish relationship with Jacob the werewolf and Julia forms a similar relationship with fellow scholar Paul.
But of course, the primary couples eventually get back together, and then get married.
I'm assuming book 3 of Gabriel's will be about the kids.  I'm interested to see what the conflict will be and how that will parallel Twilight, as the conflict after Renesmee was born was about an all-out vampire war.

So my only review of Gabriel's Inferno so far is that it's written in a style that is probably even more unreadable for connoisseurs of literary fiction that Twilight or Fifty Shades.  The characters are much flatter, and there are many plot points that don't even make sense.  So why have I invested over 1200 pages of my life in this series?  Frankly I have no idea.  That's why I keep writing about it.

Series I'm in the middle of

This is crazy; I just went through my books and wrote down all the series that I have started but not (yet) finished.  The book number, if not currently reading is the next one I have to read in a series.  This is not counting series in which I haven't yet finished the first book (Bared to You, Outlander, A Kiss of Shadows, Game of Thones, Captivated, Marked, Witches of East End), or Harry Potter or Beautiful Creatures, which I didn't finish but intend to re-read all of them at some point.

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (#1) -- currently reading (although I read much of this series back in high school -- I think I got to The Vampire Armand -- but I am re-reading at least through Queen of the Damned because I want to read Price Lestat which is the sequel to Queen)

Sylvain Reynard's Gabriel's Inferno trilogy (#3) -- this book is on its way and I just finished #2.  I'll probably have a separate post about this series since it is the most current (besides Rice).

Sarah MacLean's Love by Numbers series (#2)

Rae Carson's Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy (#3)

J.A. Redmerski's The Edge of Never Series (#2)

Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments Series (#3)

Kristen Cashore's Graceling Trilogy (#3)

Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Series (#11)

Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy Series (#2)

Christopher Pike's Last Vampire series (#2)

Anne Rice's Wolf Chronicles (#2)

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle (#3)

Lauren Kate's Fallen Series (#4)

Some of these I'm sure I won't finish, but for all of these I own at least the next book in the series.  Some of these I haven't read for years and would probably have a hard time remembering where I left off, but if I went back and re-read every book beforehand, then I would never get through them all (which I probably won't anyway).  The ones I feel are worth the effort (Vampire Chronicles, Harry Potter, Beautiful Creatures series), I will do that with, the others, I'll just either read summaries online or figure things out as I go along.  This list would indicate that I rarely finish series I begin.  Exceptions would be Twilight, of which I have read the entire series 4 times, The Hunger Games, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Fifty Shades of Grey.  Oh and the Chronicles of Narnia.