This is an AWESOME book about two hearts that were doomed to love each other from the start. One of them holds a deadly and dangerous secret that the other is determined to uncover. When she does, it only causes her to fall even more desperately in love with him. This thrusts her in to danger and leaves her forever changed.

I LOVED this book. I saw the movie first and I just hated it. I though it was the stupidest vampire movie I had ever seen (this coming from someone who devoured Ann Rice books and was addicted to Buffy). I had no intention of reading the book. Then I signed up for child lit and saw that it was on the curriculum for the semester and on the list of books required for the class. So I bought it and it sat in the office for weeks. One day i was bored so I picked it up to get a head start on the reading assignment due at the end of the semester. A week and 1/2 later, I finished "Breaking Dawn". It was THAT good.

I thought about how I would integrate this into the curriculum in public schools. I guess I could use it as a modern day Romeo and Juliet. There are a lot of allusions to the Shakespearian play in the book. I could ask the students to draw a parallel between the characters of the play and the book and also point out the contrasts between the two. In my opinion, the love between Bella and Edward is much deeper and less fickle than that which existed between Romeo and Juliet.

I want to tell everyone right off the bat why I read this book. I read this book 1st. Because it was one of two choices offered in my college level Children's Lit. class for review, and 2nd because my daughter (eleven) is gaga over the Twilight series (even though she has never seen ANY of the movies, or read ANY of the books.) So before allowing her to read the book I made it my choice for review and picked it up, already with some bias in my mind, thinking that it would be none other than a sappy pre-teen style romance.

In summery the book is about Bella, who goes to live in rainy, Forks, Washington with her father for the school year. Lonely as she is, she meets STRANGE Edward (of course he is the vampire). He WARNS her away (sorta) but is hopelessly attracted to her and does not stay away. Bella appears to be like a lost puppy without him, unable to survive or even manage on her own. Over half of the book is devoted to character development and then maybe about a fourth of the book is a decent suspense/action adventure with some real plot. I yawned my way through much of the book but found some value to the attention the author gave to fleshing out her characters (I felt like I really knew them). I really wish she could have been a bit more brief.

I thought the messages in this book were VERY unacceptable for teenagers, ESPECIALLY girls! I borrowed some of the bellow references from another (anon.) reader, so I cannot guarantee the page accuracy. I can vouch for the validity of the content presented, so I want to share with you the compare/contrast between Bella (our heroin) and Edward (love interest/villain/hero???)
Bella, Our Heroine:

Pg. 117: I tried to keep up better this time through the woods, so naturally I fell a few times.
Pg. 191: ”I fall down a lot when I run.”
Pg. 210: ”[I’m] so clumsy that I’m almost disabled.”
Pg. 212: ”Are you referring to the fact that you can’t walk across a flat, stable surface without finding something to trip over?”
Pg. 221: I somehow managed to hit myself in the head with my racket…
Pg. 231: The pressure made me more clumsy than usual…
Pg. 284: ”Bella, I’ve already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive.”
Pg. 442: I tripped several times, once falling.
Pg. 485: …I fell down a lot…

Ahh, my friends! my friends, take a gander, take a glimpse now at Edward, simplified:

Pg. 253: He wasn’t smiling at first….He laughed….He chuckled….He laughed again.
Pg. 256: …godlike creature…
Pg. 258: He smiled….He smirked....His smirk grew more pronounced.
Pg. 260: …literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.
Pg. 285: …he simply bent his face to mine, and brushed his lips slowly along my jaw, from my ear to my chin, back and forth. I trembled.
Pg. 287: The light of the setting orb glittered off his skin in ruby-tinged sparkles.
Pg. 292: …godlike creature……dreamlike in his beauty, but no longer the fantastic sparkling creature of our sunlit afternoon.
Pg. 302: He laughed his quiet, musical laugh. He’s laughed more tonight than I’d ever heard in all the time I’d spent with him.
Pg. 306: I could feel his cool breath on my neck, feel his nose sliding along my jaw, inhaling….He chuckled, and then sighed….He chuckled.
Pg. 333: His smile widened over his brilliant teeth….He smiled.
Pg. 338: He chuckled darkly….He laughed.
Pg. 339: …he sighed….He smiled half a smile….he said, smiling.
Pg. 341: …a gentle angel’s smile lit his expression.
Pg. 344: He shrugged, smiling slightly……his smile faded and his forehead creased……a faint smile touched his lips.
Pg. 345: Then he flashed a wide, wicked smile….he chuckled….he grinned….he just laughed.
Pg. 346: …was still chuckling quietly….was grinning.
Pg. 349: He assured me with a grin….he smiled…he grinned widely.
Pg. 362 His nose drew a line up the skin of my throat to the point of my chin.
Pg. 473: His mouth looked as if it was chiseled from stone.
Pg. 486: He grinned, and then chuckled.

It concerns me deeply that Edward is described as "Godlike". As a middle aged woman I am all too aware of what happens when women/girls start looking at men/boys as little miniature gods! Boy are we/they disappointed, and think of the pressures we put on the men/boys. Anyway obviously this book is a fantasy to I could let SOME of that slide, but STILL, it is rife with sexual tension (don't teens have enough problems with sexual tension without having to be tempted by a BOOK). And lastly, I was very concerned about Edward who is VERY much older than Bella, pretending to be younger than he really is... he stalks her, hunts her and "dazzles" her... Seems very pedophile like and less animalistic/predator, which ultimately nauseated me to the point of choking down the last 100 or so pages!

Having said all of this; the ONLY reason I could fathom that teenage girls (my daughter tells me the boys could care less about this book/movie) would be interested in this book/movie is the BOY/MAN factor.. Which means ultimately that this book has just enough sexual tension to attract teenage girls (and younger) like little magnets. I will call it, ***The Vampire Factor***.
Final thought: I interviewed three girls age 11-15 about Twilight the book and movie. Never once did any of them talk about the story, the feelings, or any particular events or scenes... The entire conversation was "WHO WAS THE CUTEST."

I WOULD NOT CHOOSE THIS BOOK FOR USE IN A CLASSROOM OR FOR ANY REASON ASIDE FROM PRIVATE SELECTION IN A HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY. SO THERE ARE NO EXTENSION ACTIVITIES.

I rest my case. ( )

When I was fourteen years old I was really into the Flowers in the Attic series by Virginia Andrews. This, as far as I can make out, is the modern equivalent. I wanted to find out what all the fuss is about so I tried reading it. Twice.

The second time I made it to the point where Edward stood Bella up at the beach but it was just so... wet. I think Meyer has tapped into her audience beautifully. It's just that I am no longer an innocent teenage girl, so I can't help but be a little sickened by the sap, and worse, by the unhealthy messages: the erotics of abstinence. I think Judy Blume did a much better job of handling teenage female sexuality... back in the nineteen seventies.

Women's lib has regressed. I find that just a little bit sad.

Anyway, I watched the bloody movie, which saved me several hours' reading but bored me to tears in places, especially the bit where Bella declares her love for Edward in the forest while he says over and over how she needs to be careful of him or he 'might lose control' (jizz in his pants, or what?). So I won't bother finishing the book. The language is way too clunky and the frequency of unnecessary adverbs annoys the hell outta me.

I don't think I'll bother with the rest in the series either, now that I know what all the fuss is about. (I think.) ( )

After having heard all the hype about this series and reading the reviews, it made me curious enough to go out and buy Twilight. Since so many people seemed to either love it or hate it, I had to know what it was about this series that was provoking these reactions. So I bought it, but it sat on my shelf for a month or two because I kept thinking that I'd made a mistake, I wouldn't like this book. Well, after finishing a book I'd been reading, I decided that now was the time to read it, and I'm glad that I did finally pick it up.

The story centralizes around the development of the relationship between Bella Swan, a teenage girl who moved to the town of Forks, Washington to live with her father, and Edward Cullen, one of a family of vampires who are living in Forks, passing as humans. I found it amazing that Twilight has almost no real plot, but still the book enthralled me. Nothing really major happens until near the end of the book. This entire book is devoted to development of characters and their relationships with each other. There is not a single author or book I've read that has successfully pulled this off, and still kept my attention. It is one thing after another that keeps you hooked. For me it was, if Edward is a vampire, what is it that makes him different from the normal, run of the mill sort? Then it turned to interest in the way Edward and Bella interacted and how their relationship developed.

While I did greatly enjoy this book, there were a couple of things that bothered me. Edward's mood swings are one thing, and I see this complaint a lot. His mood changes are so abrupt, it made me feel like he was bi-polar. Though I did see the reason behind the sudden mood changes, I think that it could have been written a little better than him laughing one second, and the next he's angry. The other thing that bothered me was how obsessed Bella becomes with Edward. I kept thinking, "I know you love the guy, but come on!" I don't like that type of love that becomes "I can't live without you! Anytime I spend away from you is agony and you're all I can think about!" I mean, don't get me wrong, I love my significant other to death, but I would never consider offing myself should anything happen to him.

Twilight is truly wonderful. I did not put this book down for long while I was reading it, because when I did, I kept thinking about what could possibly happen next, and when imagined what it might be, it made me pick it up again to find out. I am very, very impressed with the character development in this novel, and I fully intended to continue reading the next in the series, New Moon. ( )

Worst book I've ever read. ( )