Twilight (Twilight Saga, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

[Angie]

Twilight is a hard book for me to review. I’ve read it twice and enjoyed it a lot both times, but there’s so much about it that bothers me, that I feel like this might read as a negative review rather than a positive one. It’s just hard to put into words how much I do like this series, despite its obvious problems. It holds a special place in my heart though, since it’s the book that got me back into reading.

For such a thick book, it’s a surprisingly fast read. That’s probably mostly do to the writing being very easy and everything just flows nicely. Is the writing particularly good? Well, no, in fact it’s extremely repetitive. It also doesn’t help that Bella has a one track mind: Edward, Edward, Edward!

On my second read through, my immediate first (second) impression was that Bella is actually quite unlikeable and has no real personality. She’s only memorable because she’s Bella Freakin’ Swan! She’s extremely judgmental and complains about everything, and I believe she’s a closet mean girl. She silently thinks she’s better than everyone around her, and smarter, too. She also manages to be quite manipulative when she wants something.

Then she admits that she doesn’t like to make decisions, but when she does make up her mind she sticks with it whether or not it was the right one, and then whines about being depressed instead of doing anything to change it! She also has absolutely no reaction when Edward admits that he wanted to kill her and everyone around her to get to her blood. No reaction at all! Same when James is after her. All she can think about is being with Edward. She’s barely present in her own life. No wonder her only goal seems to be to get into Edward’s pants.

I think I ended up liking Edward better this time around though. Sure, I still found it extremely creepy that he broke into Bella’s house almost every night since meeting her and watching her sleep (something else Bella no reaction to other than being embarrassed that she talks in her sleep!). He does attempt to get to know her though, once his big secret is out, and they can be together publicly. I noticed that all Bella wanted to know was how to become a vampire, rather than learning anything about Edward as a person. So bonus points to Mr.Cullen!

As for the plot…well, there isn’t much of one until the last 100 pages. Even then it seemed like kind of an afterthought. There was no real reason or explanation as to why James was so adamant to kill Bella. He’s a tracker, so what? What does that mean exactly? This desperate situation didn’t have any sense of urgency about it. There was some tension when Bella was out of town, but that’s probably due to having no idea what James was up to. Then it just ends abruptly. Edward saves the day without even breaking a sweat. One page Bella is dying, and the next she’s healing in the hospital. Not very exciting.

Basically, Twilight is nothing more than a very intense love story with the worst possible female role model. It’s so much fun to read though! There’s some very funny moments sprinkled through out that kept a smile on my face, and I couldn’t help but grin like a maniac whenever Charlie or Alice made an appearance. I must say that I definitely prefer the movie.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.