Twilight

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It's a hit!

This weekend was chilly, and a review of a good book, due on Monday, was the perfect excuse to stay inside. Admittedly, we took a break from readi... (show more)

This weekend was chilly, and a review of a good book, due on Monday, was the perfect excuse to stay inside. Admittedly, we took a break from reading to watch the best rivalry in college sports, the Ohio State vs. Michigan football game, but when it became clear that was going to be a blow out, we got back to the business of getting in touch with our inner-16 year old, reading “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer.

First, an admission: this review is being written by an unabashed, get the book the day it comes out, opening night midnight show watching, crazed Harry Potter fan. Initially, the comparisons made between the two series were a turn off for me. They made me uninterested - does anything really live up to your first love? Well, yes, of course it does, but I digress... There are some who will disagree, but this reviewer believes the associations made between the two book sets are unwarranted, perhaps doing a disservice to both.

Stephenie Meyer’s technically poor writing was the first thing I noticed when starting the book. Many of her sentences are awkward to the point that I found myself rereading passages to understand what she was trying to describe. Maybe this is just what you get with a first time author. A LivingSocal friend, who has also read “Twilight,” advised me to stop rereading and just skip the phrases that are confusing, but I found this difficult to do particularly before the plot hooked me.

It is impossible to argue that the premise itself isn’t intriguing: girl meets gorgeous boy; boy is vampire; boy and girl fall in love, and try to make it work. Those who haven’t given up a weekend to “Twilight” may not understand, however, that ultimately, what makes it difficult to put the book down is that it is about normal teenage problems, framed in a totally abnormal way. Trouble with parents, being the new person in a new environment, feeling baffled by the opposite sex, and becoming infatuated with someone you know you shouldn’t: we’ve all been there.

Beyond caring what will happen between Bella and Edward, you won’t want to stop reading just to get answers to the questions you have about vampires (How do you become a vampire? Can they stand garlic? Need I go on?). Best of all, there ARE answers. I, for one, appreciated Meyer’s lengthy passages devoted to Edward answering each of Bella’s (and readers’) questions about the vampire way of “life.” These conversations helped flesh out the characters and the world in which they exist.

Though I may have come late to this obsession, I will be headed to the bookstore soon to pick up the sequel to “Twilight,” “New Moon,” and let’s be honest, I’ll have probably devoured the rest of the series by Christmas. Best of all, I no longer have to decide which movie I want to see in theaters during the Thanksgiving weekend. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a compelling story and isn’t afraid of a little blood. (show less)

 

 

by LivingSocial Editor

No, it's a flop!

I know I may be flamed for this, but I'm just not a fan. The story-telling was amateurish - it was poorly paced, words were used in a redundantly... (show more)

I know I may be flamed for this, but I'm just not a fan. The story-telling was amateurish - it was poorly paced, words were used in a redundantly repetitious manner that reflect the writer's lack of creativity and experience. It was full of cliches and unnecessarily belabored details that can just bore an educated reader to death. The characters were flat, trite and stereotypical. The supposedly "mysterious" and enchanting" Edward, I found simply petty and effeminate, even borderline psychotic.
I.m.h.o., "Bestseller" does not necessarily mean "good literature". The reason it probably DAZZLES certain readers (particularly young females and teenagers) is because of the love/lust dimension that everyday romantics can easily relate to - i.e., the fantasy-like ugly-duckling love story, the needlessly (and tastelessly) prolonged accounts of sexual tension. Coming to think of it, "Twilight" just reads like a young woman's frustrated romantic fantasy. (show less)

 

 

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  I've been a determined hater of the Twilight series for awhile now. Mostly because of the slightly demented fans I've come across. I finally decided to give it a chance and read it a few days ago, during Hurricane Ike of all times. The beginning was tolerable. It isn't until Bella and Edward fall in love that the book descends into sheer idiocy. Bella repeats over and over and over again how gorgeous Edward is, how he looks like a statue of Adonis, how his skin is like marble, even what color... (show more)

  I've been a determined hater of the Twilight series for awhile now. Mostly because of the slightly demented fans I've come across. I finally decided to give it a chance and read it a few days ago, during Hurricane Ike of all times. The beginning was tolerable. It isn't until Bella and Edward fall in love that the book descends into sheer idiocy. Bella repeats over and over and over again how gorgeous Edward is, how he looks like a statue of Adonis, how his skin is like marble, even what color his eyes are until I wanted to scream in frustration. Bella herself is the most annoying thing of all though, even more annoying than poor writing or bad plotting. This girl could drive a saint into a murderous rage. The girl screams Mary Sue as bad as any character I have ever seen in published fiction. She moves to a new town and everyone promptly falls in love with her. All the boys want to date her and all the girls, with two notable exceptions, want to be her friend. The two exceptions, Lauren(a minor, minor, minor character) and Rosalie Cullen, dislike Bella, not because the girl is sheer Mary Sue evil, but because they're jealous. Yes, that's right. An impossibly beautiful, immortal, superpowered vampire is jealous of a clumsy girl with freakishly low self-esteem and zero positive personality traits. But back to Bella's Mary-Sueness. Edward Cullen has been a vampire for over one hundred years. Out of all the women he's met, not one has captured his heart until Bella, seemingly in the blink of an eye. Also, Edward can read everyone's mind, yet Bella is impervious to his power and an explanation is never given. *checks another item off the Mary Sue Detection List* Then we're constantly reminded in the early chapters that Bella has read all the school books, was an honors student, yada yada yada. So it's clear the girl is a Mary Sue. But then there's the way she behaves towards Edward. Essentially the book's message seems to be that women should be totally obsessed with their man and be totally helpless without him. Bella is like the ultimate damsel in distress. She tells us over and over again that she can't live without Edward. She constantly relies on him to save her, never making an effort to help herself. I could go on, but it's just sickening. The really sad thing is the Cullens are actually pretty cool. But when Bella comes into contact with them, they do stupid things. A good example is Alice letting Bella call her mother's house when they're fleeing James, the evil vampire. It never occurred to Alice that James just might find Bella's old address and go visit? How could anyone be that dumb? Answer, Bella sucked every ounce of intelligence out of her. And when Bella isn't making the vampires ridiculous, Meyer herself is. I can handle stripping away the usual vampiric weaknesses, since a lot of them are just weird and random, but making them sparkle in the sunlight instead of exploding in a cloud of ash? That's just stupid. The last problem I have with the book is the attitude that Bella displays toward her fellow humans. Almost every human character in the stories is derided, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly. Count up the amount of times Bella compares a human to a dog or makes some other snide remark. Ccompare that to negative things she says about the vampires. About the only thing I can think of is the time she says James is average looking. Oh, the horror, the horror! Bella sounds almost like a Death Eater, sneering at Muggles and worshiping pure bloods.
  So long story short, don't read Twilight unless you can laugh at it. (show less)

   

   

  by Nathanael Sumrall on Sep 16, 2008 at 05:53AM

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  What a disappointment. I certainly wasn't looking for any literary revelations, and I didn't get any. The lack of engaging plot, however, was a surprise, considering it's a book about freaking VAMPIRES.

  Until about the last 50 pages, the vast majority of the text reads like the protagonist's journal:

  Dear Diary,

  Today it was sunny so I wore the cotton sundress with the blue gingham check.
  I saw Edward again. Why won't he look at me?!!?
  Then I made grilled cheese sandwiches.

  Love,
  Bella
  ... (show more)

  What a disappointment. I certainly wasn't looking for any literary revelations, and I didn't get any. The lack of engaging plot, however, was a surprise, considering it's a book about freaking VAMPIRES.

  Until about the last 50 pages, the vast majority of the text reads like the protagonist's journal:

  Dear Diary,

  Today it was sunny so I wore the cotton sundress with the blue gingham check.
  I saw Edward again. Why won't he look at me?!!?
  Then I made grilled cheese sandwiches.

  Love,
  Bella

  ...it's hard to imagine a more banal take on romancing the undead.

  Furthermore, the inane, trivial ramblings of lovestruck Bella make it all the more incredible that a character like Edward Cullen would be drawn to her in any way.

  I haven't decided if I'm willing to give this series another chance. I've heard the writing improves in the next book, but unless it features an extended torture scene for the protagonist, I might not be able to stomach it. (show less)

   

   

  by Erin M. Callahan on Sep 09, 2008 at 06:52AM

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