Twilight (Twilight, Book 1)

Stephenie Meyer

(Sorry about the wall of text- I can't seem to do anything about it.) <p> ...more

(Sorry about the wall of text- I can't seem to do anything about it.) <p> Personally, I cannot understand all the hype this book gets. Twilight is heralded as the authoritative vampire romance novel, and yet, as I was reading it, I could feel nothing but contempt for the book and every character in it. The main character, Bella, is the most well-rounded character out of the entire book, personality-wise, and yet even she only barely manages to creep past the two-dimensional phase. Basically, the only characteristics she has are that: A) she falls down a hell of a lot, B) she's afraid of needles and blood, and C) she's a naive idiot. (I'm sorry, but only an idiot would live her entire life in a big city and then, when she's being followed by a gang, proceed to RUN INTO AN ALLEY. My lord.) It's obvious that these so-called "flaws" are weak ruses to put her into danger, forcing her love interest to have to rescue her at least once a chapter, which to me does not constitute a worthwhile read. And am I the only person that noticed that Bella is continuously finding things to complain about? She chose to go to Forks of her own will, and yet says how much she hates it and how miserable she is every page, despite her mother all but BEGGING her to come home. And that's just one issue- she also complains about school, her car, the boys at her school, her mom, her dad, boys, her friends, her schoolwork, boys, I could go on and on. My point is, that despite her unusual situation, there is absolutely no part of the main character that holds any interest for me, and I'd have to agree with her when she (constantly) insists that she's a plain, boring person.<p> As for all the other characters, they don't even get the courtesy of being 2-dimensional, falling firmly into the 1-D category. After the initial animosity, Edward becomes little more than arm candy for Bella, and resembles greatly the marble statue that Bella so often equates him to. Edward seems to have two functions: petting/kissing/touching Bella, or Saving/Protecting Bella. Just because he says his life is all about her, doesn't mean that it has to be taken literally- the guy's still got his own personality, after all. Everyone else, without exception, is reduced to merely "he said this, she said that"s, showing us their actions but none of the reasoning or personality behind it. Never in my knowledge have I read a book where the author so utterly failed at getting inside the head of her characters. For proof, just look at Alice and Jasper. Bella spends all of chapters 20-22 solely in their presence, yet they act like cardboard cutouts through the entire thing. Meyer had a unique chance to flesh out two supporting characters, making them into people we could relate to, and instead shoved them aside and used them only for their plot value. Weak. Or if that's not enough, how about Carlisle? His vampire special ability is "compassion". As Edward explains, "[they] all bring something of [their] strongest human traits...into the next life, where they are intensified" (307). So I'm to believe that Carlisle never felt anything but kindness and warmth? That he had absolutely no other feelings strong enough to rival how nice he is? Well, looking at how he's portrayed as a vampire, I wouldn't doubt it. He's like a walking, talking niceness-dispensing machine. That's not characterization; that's laziness, plain and simple.<p> Of course, the book isn't without its good points. I will admit that the plot, although cliched and overdramatized and poisoned by broken characters, is actually somewhat catching. It can be summarized as "girl goes to town, meets boy, drama ensues", but hey, it's a cliche for a reason- it works. Also, the writing style is simplistic and entertaining, not bothering to get bogged down in complex, overdone sentence structure like so many young adult books nowadays. The dialogue usually holds my interest, if nothing else, and I found the scene where Bella and Edward went to dinner to be wonderfully amusing. But these are like needles in an entire desert's worth of hay; it's such a monumental task, is it even worth looking? <p> Overall, I felt that this was a book that would be somewhat impressive if it were written by a young teenager who didn't know any better; as it is, I simply cannot forgive Meyer for allowing herself to fall into a trap of shoddy characters and hackneyed drivel used as a poor excuse for a storyline. The story is rife with contradictions, plot holes, and unexplained occurrences, for which it makes no attempt at apologizing. I don't know; maybe there's something there that everyone else can see that I can't, which makes them salivate slavishly over each new page while I recoil in horror and pain. Maybe I'm too jaded, too acute to the negative. Maybe there's some secret moral embedded in the cheesy romance that's completely world-shattering, but totally flew over my head. Or maybe it really is that bad? <p> I was fervently recommended this book by a friend of mine, and stuck it out for her sake; now I sadly shall be forced to never speak with her again. See what happens when bad books get good reviews?   hide

Okay, so I thought I'd post a book review. Because people REALLY need to know the truth. I...more

Okay, so I thought I'd post a book review. Because people REALLY need to know the truth. I managed to read the first couple hundred pages, but after that it was so dull, trite and clichéd that I just skimmed along, picking up the important plot points along the way. All one of them. This is quite literally a romance novel, but written with teenagers in mind. It has all the prerequisites of your run-of-the-mill romance (note that I don't say "good" or even "mediocre"). Let's check them off: 1) Impossibly beautiful heroine who has no idea she's beautiful. 2) Mysterious two-dimensional hero with a dark secret. 3) Frequent urple prose descriptions of hair and eye colors. 4) The doormat of a heroine needs rescuing every few pages. 5) The Neanderthal of a hero runs roughshod over any opinions and desires the heroine has of her own, unless, of course, they coincide with his. 6) They suddenly fall in love. No build up, no rationalization, no sense, just a statement of illogical fact. 7) The hero's Deep Dark Secret is revealed and much angsting on his part ensues. 8) Out of nowhere the heroine's life is threatened and she makes an incredibly stupid decision that nearly kills her. 9) Rescue at the last minute and declarations of twu lurv all around. The only thing this novel doesn't have is horribly urple sex, and that's what gives it the teenage-appropriate feel. Certainly it's not the characters themselves. Edward, with his too-adult speech, at least has the excuse of being over a hundred years old. What's Bella's excuse? No seventeen-year-old I've ever met speaks like that. She sounds like a thirty-year-old masquerading as a high-school student. It really feels like the author just used her own words and made no effort at capturing what a real teenager would sound like. No, Bella doesn't just sound mature for her age, she sounds utterly unbelievable. And as others have already commented, what was up with her clumsiness? Unless she has some sort of medical disorder, the only reason for it seems to be to set up scenarios for her to be rescued. No one is ever that "conveniently" clumsy in the real world, not unless it's an act to get attention. Bella's character itself gets more and more annoying as the book goes on. To the point where you want to slap her and yell at her to stop making the female half of the species look bad. I've seen jellyfish with more spine than she exhibits through most of the book. She lets Edward dictate to her and push her around and never does more than sulk and glare. She never makes any real attempt at enforcing her own opinions/desires. The one time she actually shows some initiative, it's to do something so deeply stupid that you wish the two-dimensional bad guy had just killed her and taken her out of the breeding pool. And good god, has this woman no common sense? I can give no credence to her claim of having grown up in a big city, not when she goes wandering brainlessly on her own down empty streets in an unfamiliar city. No woman who grows up in even a small city would do such a thing. We know better. Bella acts more like she grew up in the suburbs or the country, where they're still under the delusion that crime can't touch them there. She'd be far more believable as a character if that was the background she'd been given. But coming from Phoenix? I don't think so. It just makes her look like, "All new: Victim Barbie! Push a button and she screams for her man to rescue her!" As for this new sort of vampire the author came up with, I have to give her credit for having some interesting ideas (and some really bad ones: glittery vampires? Is this like some new, Halloween version of My Little Pony?). "Vegetarian" vampires (ones who only feed from animals); cute bit of irony there. Some of them possessing different powers, how hard they are too kill, the fact that they don't sleep at all. That's actually interesting. But nothing much is really done with it, either. The focus inevitably shifts back to Edward and his angst and Bella and her increasingly mindless devotion. There's a short paragraph in the book itself that, I think does the best job of summing up the many flaws of this novel: "Oh well. He *is* unbelievably gorgeous." Jessica shrugged as if this excused any flaws. Which, in her book, it probably did. And I think that's what the author is hoping for here. That her audience will be so blinded by the pretty people and shiny romance that any flaws will be overlooked. And judging from the gushing reviews I'm seeing, it looks like it was a good gamble.   hide

“Twilight,” although a definite page-turner, is far from being the literary achievement...more

“Twilight,” although a definite page-turner, is far from being the literary achievement it has been touted as. Now, I could simply say that the reason behind this statement is that the book centers around a hopeless Mary Sue and her love interest, among other dazzlingly beautiful, uninteresting characters – and that would be perfectly true – but, unfortunately, people are never satisfied with short answers, and so I will elaborate. I found the main character, Bella, to be quite unbelievable in her character development. At the beginning of the story she appears to be a responsible but jaded young girl of seventeen, used to fending for herself and taking care of her somewhat flighty but loveable mother. When she makes the decision to move to Forks and stay with her father, she continues to be independent, headstrong, a little standoffish even from her new friends, cooking for her father and making good grades in school. However, as soon as Edward enters the scene, her dominant personality soon wears off and we have nothing left but a lovelorn damsel pining for her sweetheart. Edward can elicit any response from this once-strong heroine; he can make her cry, faint, or loose herself in a fit of passion. Of course – obviously – he is a vampire, and one expects this. However, what is sadly lacking at this stage of character development is Bella’s natural rebellion to his influence over her. Someone with the kind of independence she had would not be given over to his protectiveness so easily; yet it seemed to me that within two pages Bella had changed from a lonely, independent teenager with depth and personality to a helpless ninny clinging to the arms of Edward. The romantic parts were very engrossing, but soon became overdone. I don’t want to say it, but the best adjective I can think of to describe “Twilight” is “campy.” But personally, the character development bothered me more than the campiness. At about two-thirds of the book, before the exciting plot twist that gets you turning pages again, I was extremely unsettled at the lack of depth to Bella’s character. She should have had more spunk. She never seriously objects to Edward’s over protectiveness. And I found it very unconvincing that she accepted Edward’s explanation of why they could never have sex. Seriously, if a girl was that in love with her boyfriend, and he told her they could never have sex, it would be more of a big deal. There would be questions on where they were going with the whole deal, he would feel apologetic and incompetent, etc. etc. I guess maybe that is part of the reason Bella asks him to “change” her, but it is merely a guess, not intimated by the author. Besides my gripe about Bella’s character, there are more problems about the vampires. They are perfect. All of them, but especially Edward. Sure, they have a weakness – the thirst for blood that makes them want to destroy those they hold dearest – but this is their only weakness. One tends to think that a more creative author would have found another way to make them more vulnerable, less omnipotent. Maybe it’s just my nerdy role-playing alter ego, but I found that a part of me was screaming “GODMODING!” half the time when the author kept relentlessly emphasizing how wonderful Edward was at everything. Granted, she did use this aspect of Edward to give Bella some insecurity, but that insecurity never really surfaced, again showing that she missed the spot with regards to interesting character development with Bella. In short, I knew going into this that the book was nothing more than a vampire romance novel for teens, but I was intrigued to see what my friends were reading. Meep. My thirst has been thoroughly satiated (if you'll pardon the pun)…perhaps once I’ve recovered from the campiness I will attempt to finish the series and see if Ms. Meyer makes any improvement.   hide

Warning: Spoiler Honestly, I think there is only one thing that will decide whether or not you...more

Warning: Spoiler Honestly, I think there is only one thing that will decide whether or not you like this book. Now, how much you like it or dislike it depends on several other factors, but the main factor that throws you to one side or the other is whether or not you like romance. I have a tendency to read popular books, but I also have a tendency to read popular books a year after they become popular. Therefore, I just about always know the general plot line. Therefore, I knew all along that it was a romance novel and Edward was a vampire. This affects my opinion of the book in two ways. The first one didn’t actually alter my opinion much. Mostly it prepared me, slightly, for the extreme romance of the book. So, I knew it was romance, but I’m okay with romance in most cases. It certainly isn’t my favorite, but I’ve never read anything that could be easily classified as romantic and sappy. When I first started reading the book, I questioned how romantic it was going to be and whether or not I’d like it. There certainly didn’t seem to be much romance. The second part that effect my opinion is that I knew Edward was a vampire. I’m not sure how much it effected my take on the book, but it certainly got rid of the suspense and mystery. But yet again, I don’t know if that really made a difference or not, because I still liked the part that had the mystery. Continuing with the plot of the book. I absolutely loved the first couple chapters. When I picked up the book and read those chapters I thought I had picked up the best book I had ever read. I loved the writing style and I loved the plot. I ended up spending all day thinking about it. And then by the end of the day I was so sick of thinking about it. And then that night, the book wasn’t as good as it had been. But, it was just a little dull, so I wasn’t too worried. And ironically enough, by the end of the next day, I had convinced myself that I loved the book again. After that night, I unfortunately never thought that again. That night, the romance hit. This must have be the sappiest book I have ever read. I couldn’t believe how mushy it was. And this is where I think you are thrown to one side. You either like the romance, or you don’t. After that the romance did die down a bit. But, then it was just dull. At the end of the book, there was supposed to be a lot of tension. It was suppose to get exciting, but it just didn’t. I supposed it did a little, but certainly not as much it was suppose to be. I don’t believe action is Meyer’s strong side. Once I finished the book, I started asking myself, so why was it that even once the romance stopped I didn’t like it as much as the beginning? I finally decided that the beginning was very mysterious. Even though I knew Edward was a vampire, he still acted weird and different. It was fascination in the beginning, but in the end Edward was almost acting like a normal human. Even if you aren’t particularly fond of romance, you could still find this book to be pretty good. It might have helped if you hadn’t read this and therefore didn’t know that Edward was a vampire. And then you might have been a bit more intrigued by the mystery.   hide

I have no idea why this book is getting so much hype. I've been hearing about it everywhere, and...more

I have no idea why this book is getting so much hype. I've been hearing about it everywhere, and when I saw that there was an entire section of just this book at a local department store -- well, then I got really curious and picked up a copy.

I finished this book fairly fast in about two days (even though it's about 500 pages long). It kept me interested pretty much most of the time, but there were many things that I didn't like. The biggest complaint I have is of the relationship between Bella and Edward. For being such a central part of book, it didn't feel like it carried much weight.

Everything about this relationship just felt incredibly superficial. Edward is a complete ass to Bella. He's controlling, rude, yet she still falls for him because he's gorgeous. And not JUST gorgeous, "he's like a god with perfectly sculpted abs" and what not. Seriously, every time he has face time will Bella, that's the kind of stuff you'll always hear. It's always about how he looks and smells perfect in every possible way, and then when he's not around, she misses the fact that he's so perfect.

Honestly, I got tired of that fairly fast. When he's not being mean, he pampers the hell out of her by either of three ways: 1) He cups her face in her hands and says how much he loves her, 2) He kisses her lips or jaw and says how much he loves her, and 3) sometimes he gives a bit of variation on all of those things together by carrying her and THEN tells her how much he loves her.

And why does he love her? It's because she smells great. It's hard to believe that this perfect guy has been alone for 400 years only because of the fact that he couldn't find anyone that didn't smell right. I mean, seriously. The relationship just seemed entirely too fake. And yet, for 500 pages, I was still interested in continuing on. Why? The simple matter of fact is that behind the cheesy romance, it was mainly because of Edward.

He's still annoying, and seems to have anger issues with everything and everyone around him, but he's also interesting, and seeing him struggle with himself and having a bit of mystery around his background and family is what kept me going. So it's no surprise that I found the last third of the book to be the best part since it dealt the most with his vampire mythos. While most of the first part of the book is about Bella adjusting to Forks and trying to figure out why Edward is an ass her all the time, and the middle portion was mainly about their lovey dovey fake relationship, the last third of the book was the most interesting because that's when the plot finally moves along and brings us some truly scary consequnces of being involved with a vampire (yeah, I know how that sounded :P).

So in the end, was it worth it? It really depends. Obviously this is more of a 'chick book' so yeah, you're likely to enjoy it if you've got a thing for cheesy romance novels (Plus it plays on practically every females fantasy of that perfect looking dangerous guy). Personally though, I'm gonna say no. At least, not as something that HAS to be read. It's a fluff piece that can wait for a rainy day or for when you're in the mood for some light reading. The pay off in the end just simply isn't worth most of what you have to go through. I might give the sequel a try since things do seem to have turned a bit more interesting in the end, but if that doesn't impress me then I'll likely stay away from any more of Stephenie Meyers books.   hide