I have to say that as an outside observer, I've found the events surrounding the release of Breaking Dawn the "Sparkledammerung", the leak and all subsequent reactions to it to be rather entertaining.
Not so much for the events themselves but the wondeful coverage of them by various sites (okay, mainly fandom_wank, and also ONTD), to be hilarious, though that's more because of the reactions of people peripheral to the whole events, like the occasional crazy fans, and RPatz. The fact that the main actor so obviously in all interviews, struggles to find words not to insult the book with... is just hilarious.
I mean, I'd like to say that I sympathise for the author... but I kind of fail to find redeeming qualities in her work. Also, it was originally only a three book, and then she re-negotiated to 5 books, and the 4th was largely hated and the 5th is basically recap, so really it's not a great loss at all if she quits the series, but personally I think she will finish it, and that this is just huge *flounce* on her part.
I guess the highlight of the whole Sparkledammerung for me though was her brother who runs her website (fansite?) replying to a letter from a number of fans about their criticisms and whatnot about Breaking Dawn, to which her brother replies [only very partial quote]
"...You say that you are not looking to hurt her, but it would be ignorant to believe that criticism of any kind does not hurt the person to whom it is directed."It's just... boggling to my mind how this author is such a special snowflake that she needs to be shielded from any and all criticism (and this was before the leak even happened) and totally fails to really be responsible for her writing and actually recognise that this is not just a fun hobby, people are actually *paying* her to read her work.
Oh, and the quote from SMeyer herseld;
"When I write the story, it's not like I'm thinking about what I'm doing..."*facepalm*.
I anyone's interested in reading the full text of what I've quoted, you can read the fandom_wank post here:
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1173559.html