awsome book! ( )

Twilight is a good read but has a suprisingly simple plot. While it made you truely care for the characters, I feel Stephenie Meyer's true writing ablities were not shown. I see nothing different in this book then what has been written time and time again by other authors with the same ideas in mind. Stephenie Meyer is a wonderful author without a doute but I just feel she could have done so much more than this. ( )

I never tire of this book no matter how many times I read it! Stephanie Meyer's writing is truly unique. I have never read anything like it. ( )

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) by Stephenie Meyer (2006)

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) by Stephenie Meyer (2006)

I love vampires and vampire stories. I love Dracula, by Bram Stoker. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I love Angel even more. But I'm a little conflicted by these Stephenie Meyer vampire stories.

I'm conflicted because the writing is lame to the point of distraction; but I really wanted to like Twilight because many of my reader friends like it--"can't-put-it-down" like it; "read it again and again" like it.

The gist of the story is that this girl falls in love with a vegetarian vampire--a vampire that doesn't feed on humans. Ha ha. He reciprocates, even though she is a clumsy dork who has never kissed a boy. They engage in lots of adolescent sexual tension: shivers, cheek touches, hair smelling, meaningful glances across crowded rooms, and a couple of kisses. It's very chaste.

It's also repetetive and harlequin romance-esque, with eyes that brim with unshed tears and lips that quiver, hearts that pound, and innocent touches that send electricity coursing through lovers' veins.

Read the rest of my review here: http://greenroomthoughts.blogspot.com... ( )

This book has to be one of the worst I've read in a while. The female protagonist is neither admirable in any way nor is she an interesting character that develops as the plot goes on. In fact, for 400 pages, I was left wondering about whether there really was a plot. In fact, the film only focuses on the last 50 pages where a plot is forced to happen. The writing is very poor and the book lacks structure. I can definitely see why this book has found itself in the bestselling charts for so long and has achieved international fame. The fact that Bella Swan is described to be an ordinary, average-looking girl who crosses paths with the dashing Edward Cullen would definitely appeal to a lot of teenagers, but is a story that revolves around the superficial attraction of both partners really going to be insightful in teaching the next generation important lessons?

Spoiler:
In short, Bella is attracted to Edward for his unbelievably good looks, whilst ignoring all the people that genuinely want to befriend her as she starts at her new school. Thus, Bella comes across as a whiney, stuck-up and superficial character. The author made a vague attempt of trying to portray her as a smart and even witty character, but all this went out of the window when she repeatedly made moronic errors of judgement, forcing Edward to save her, and forcing a plot. Edward, the vampire, is attracted to Bella because unlike everyone else he's met, he finds himself unable to read her thoughts. She also possesses a mouth-watering smell that he can't shake away. He is scared that he will hurt her, but can't stop thinking about her. Bella, on the other hand, spends the whole book moping about him in a manner that invites the reader to reach into the book to punch her in the face. ( )

It's Twilight. Need I say more? Absolutely fabulous! ( )

An amazing book which truly inspired me to read the other books in this series.

this is by far one of my fav books!
i love the fact that you can never predict what is about to happen

I must say, these books are not just for teenage girls. Meyer is a compelling author and I know several men and women, who love it. Twilight is a love-story first, the vampire stuff comes second (in my opinion), it's just a twist. ( )

This was a good book!Im 9 years old and i read it !It was awsome im going to watch eclispe on june 30 2010 ( )

Full review at:

http://readingthroughlife.blog.com/20...

Snippet:

All in all, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. It was entertaining and fun, but by no means a great book. For my intended purpose (relaxation during the winter break) it suited just fine, and it would probably be equally as good for things like beach reading. But definitely don't go looking for a great piece of vampire canon: Meyer does not compare in any way with Rice or Stoker.

If you're going to read it, check your seriousness at the door. Just take Twilight with a grain of salt, and read it for what it is - a guilty pleasure, delicious but not nutritious. ( )

There's no doubt, this is the best Saga of Love & Vampires ever. Edward is the boyfriend who any girl would want to have. Stephanie could make vampires look so cute in the book that when you read it, you'll wish to become one of them.

Seriously...best series ever, best love story ever told...I'm sorry, but it is true. I Love these books...love. ( )

Surprisingly good for an adolecent book. ( )

i love the whole twilight series and think that this one of the best books eva writen. ( )

An overly long book about a 100 year old virgin, desperate to 'eat' a school girl. He is also an intolerable cock. 3/4s of the book is teenage flirting, & as soon as the interesting chase starts, it's over. ( )

This story is about a girl named Bella. She moved in with her dad in Forks, Washington. When she moves to Forks, she is considered an outcast. That is when she meets Edward, who has a deep dark secret. She falls in love with Edward and his family. Then she discovers they are vampires. Bella meets a friend named Jacob. She then discovers that Jacob is a werewolf. Jacob falls in love with Bella, causing a viscous love triangle. Bella gets into a lot of trouble and is even attacked by an enemy vampire, and Edward comes to her rescue. Edward saves her and they live happily ever after. The story continues with the next book.

I love this book! It is now my favorite series! I highly recommend it to anyone. I do not however recommend the movies.

I am not sure how I would use this book in the classroom. I think that it was a good book to do literature circle with. I think this book would only be good for the older kids, such as those in Junior High School or High School.

Classic teen chick lit! Bella’s voice is so real that when I finished reading it, I immediately started it all over again because I couldn’t bear to stop ‘talking’ with Bella. Not to mention the yummy Edward Cullen... ( )

I usually don’t review books that everybody has heard about anyway and can check out for themselves, but after having read so many well-reasoned reviews about why this is not a good novel, either as a work of literature or as a message to young girls, I wished to add my thoughts to the discussion.

The most common complaints about Twilight seem to be that its style leaves something to be desired, that its characters are either too perfect or too selfish and spoiled, depending on whom you ask, that it’s a work of religious propaganda and that its heroine who needs to be saved by the hero more than once, lets him make all the major decisions and becomes “obsessed” with him flies in the face of the feministic egalitarian spirit of the present day.

And yet, it’s one of the few young adult novels I’ve read in the last few years that have actually pleased me *as a feminist*. Why? Well, the first time the main characters speak with each other, which happens to be in a science class, an unconscious competition develops between them, and she proves to be as good as he is every step of the way. Granted, she’s done this lab before, but he’s done it *many* times before, plus, he has the advantage of a vampire’s extra quick reactions and an instantaneous total memory recall – and still she easily holds her own! Subsequently, as a relationship develops between them, he subjects her to an inexhaustible barrage of questions, eager to get to know her as a person: “he questioned me relentlessly about every insignificant detail of my existence. Movies I’d liked and hated, the few places I’d been and the many places I wanted to go, and books – endlessly books. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked so much. More often than not, I felt self-conscious, certain I must be boring him. But the absolute absorption of his face, and his never-ending stream of questions, compelled me to continue.” Personally, as I was reading this, I thought I’d have liked to know the answers to these type of questions about Edward himself, and, judging from the questions I’ve seen readers pose to the author or their requests for prequels about the Cullens, I’m hardly unique in this. However, I’ve never seen anybody ask such questions about Bella or inquire about possible prequels about her life before she’d moved to Forks. We all tend to assume that she’d led a fairly ordinary, uneventful life, filled with school, home chores, occasional mother-daughter or girls outings, and the sort of books most literate American girls read today. It’s Edward and the other vampires who had seen and lived through so much, been everywhere, met so many, and read and studied everything that intrigue us. But to the worldly Edward everything about Bella is fascinating, and that is the miracle of love. And finally at the end, when some predatory vampires target Bella and one expects her to take a backseat and let the Cullens handle it – after all, they’re the ones who have experience with their kind – not to mention to be too scared to think clearly, it’s she who comes up with the best solution and persuades the others to adopt it. So much for letting Edward make important decisions.

Being an atheist as well as a feminist, I naturally don’t favor religious propaganda in fiction (or in non-fiction, to that matter), but for a novel whose protagonist never prays, goes to church, or thinks about god at all in the beginning of the book, and remains likewise at the end of it (and at the end of the entire series as well), Twilight hardly appears an eloquent promoter of religion. In fact, it’s only at the end of the first book that it accidentally comes up in conversation that Edward is religious in response to a question of Bella’s, and the subject is never pursued or mentioned between them again, except for an episode in the next book when Edward makes a decision based on his very strongly held religious beliefs, it goes horribly wrong, and Bella has to race to save his life (yes, a fragile female human manages to save a superhuman male vampire). I honestly don’t know where the author thought she was going with this, but to me the message seems clear: beware of blind faith unsupported by any empirical observations.

But what about Edward persuading Bella not to get physical till they get married and Bella deciding to continue with her pregnancy at a great risk to her life (in the last book)? Isn’t that religious propaganda? No, that’s moral propaganda. That is, the author may have such views because of her religious beliefs, but that’s not what motivates the characters (he follows the moral norms of his day, she just wants to have a baby with him and this baby in particular). There are non-religious people who would agree with one or another, or both, and there are religious people who wouldn’t. But what does it matter, if it’s religious or moral propaganda? It’s still propaganda! Well, the problem is, most people have some form of moral views, and if they’re writers, their moral views find their way into their books, even without the writers’ conscious intents. (And I think it’s quite plausible that Meyer didn’t purposefully insert moral propaganda into the series and was guided by how the characters would feel in any given situation, as she claims – it’s very natural to feel that any decent person would feel the way we would in any moral dilemma.) In any case, moral propaganda is almost inescapable in literature. Many novels and stories about war contain pacifist propaganda. Little Prince is a piece of moral propaganda from beginning to end. Jane Austen’s novels contain moral propaganda, and so does Lady Chatterley’s Lover (of a very different kind). We mostly notice this when we happen to hold views different from the author; otherwise, the characters’ thoughts and actions feel very natural, of course. Personally, I agree with Stephenie Meyer on some things and disagree on various others, but I do recognize her right to write books based on her moral views, and the feelings and actions of her characters do feel natural to me (even if I wouldn’t necessarily have felt similarly in their shoes).

And speaking of characters, I’ve read many opinions that Twilight is so popular because Edward exemplifies many women’s ideals of a perfect man, being handsome, gentlemanly, and highly intelligent. This may be true, but it’s also true that there are plenty of novels out there in which an ordinary woman or girl meets a guy who is handsome, noble, and smart, and very few of them, if any, achieve the sort of popularity Twilight has. To create a perfect character in fiction is easy, but to create a character, perfect or otherwise, who feels real to many readers – that takes real talent, and the real strength of this series is in its plethora of appealing, but different characters who walk off the page, inspire the curiosity of the readers and kindle their imaginations. Just walk into a bookstore and see how many covers with perfect men you find there (and there are *plenty* more with more subdued covers, both for adults and for teenagers); then go online and see how many of them have reams of fanfiction written based on them. (The quality of said fanfiction is not the point, because in order to write good stories one must have talent in one’s own right which most people simply don’t have, whether they are inspired by Twilight or Pride and Prejudice or any other work of fiction. The point is that few writers can create characters that live in the minds of their readers. And sure, not everyone feels that way about Twilight’s characters, but then I don’t know a novel that everybody likes either.)

Is it all it takes to be a good writer, then? Well, of course, there’s also plot, style, and well-put observations regarding human nature, human society and life in general. Still, without characters who feel real to the readers, a novel will fall flat on its face, whatever its other strengths, so I’d say that it’s the most necessary component of a piece of fiction. How does Twilight measure up in other respects? Well, in my personal opinion, its plot is fairly average, nor does it offer much food for thought (but then few novels really do). I have no complaints with its style, though. Consider the following passage, for example, which describes a tidal pool: “The bouquets of brilliant anemones undulated ceaselessly in the invisible current, twisted shells scurried about the edges, obscuring the crabs within them, starfish stuck motionless to the rocks and each other, while one small black eel with white racing stripes wove through the bright green weeds, waiting for the sea to return.” Doesn’t this paint a picture? Personally, I liked the romantic dialog too, beautiful in its simplicity.

Many people who disapprove of Twilight also point out how un-feministic it is that once Bella falls in love with Edward, her life begins to revolve around him and his family, so that when they leave (in the next book) her existence becomes completely blank for a few months and she goes to extraordinary (and dangerous) lengths to keep at least the memory of him alive in her mind. And actually, I would agree that while anybody would be intensely miserable if a very happy relationship ended, the last bit takes it too far. But it’s not sexist, for at least Bella gradually began to take some pleasure in life again and by the end was ready to move on and contemplate settling down with another, happily enough. Not so Edward. By his own admission, as time went on, he was holding up worse and worse instead of better, and by the end he was ready to go back and beg her to take him back in any case. Without her “there was no more reason for anything.” Even after the happy reconciliation he was planning to commit suicide when she died someday – something she was not going to do had he died before her. Obsessive? Perhaps, although some people do react like this in real life (men actually more often than women, according to statistics), and, as he pointed out, there wasn’t much for him to do without her – other than endlessly repeat high school and college courses and hunting trips, which would probably get to feel rather repetitive after a century or so.

Nor do Bella’s interests change after she falls in love with Edward. She still reads books, cares for her father and misses Jacob. True, she doesn’t have close human friends, but it looks like she never did, even before she moved to Forks. Some people do find it rather objectionable that Bella doesn’t show much interest in “normal” life, but I think it inherent in a fantasy novel. After all, why would a reader be interested in reading about a made-up world if it weren’t more interesting than the real one? Yes, Twilight is a romantic novel, but the moment Bella meets Edward also represents the moment magic enters her life, much like the moment Harry Potter receives the admission letter from Hogwarts, or the moment Mary Poppins first enters the Banks’ household. Not coincidentally I’ve also come across complaints from some people that the magical world in the Harry Potter books is shown to be more interesting and, therefore, more attractive than the real one (despite being no utopia), although as far I know nobody has so far complained that Harry doesn’t have any Muggle friends. Interestingly, the Banks children also become very dependent on Mary Poppins, are desolate after she leaves them, reject all the subsequent nannies, and nothing in the house and the whole street goes right till she comes back and everything becomes sunny again, metaphorically and literally. And yet, strangely enough, I’ve never heard anyone complain about that. Perhaps, back when Mary Poppins was written, people were wiser about the fantasy genre. One more important aspect of writing where fantasy fiction is concerned is the author’s ability to create an unreal and unrealistic world which nonetheless feels real and fascinating enough to the readers to persuade them to spend hours watching it unfold. So, yes, the more individual the author’s portrayal of vampires, werewolves, dragons, or a magical universe is, the better. If all fantasy writers followed the same canon, the genre would become highly predictable, and we would be robbed of the fascinating journey of discovery of the new world, as I’ve enjoyed in Twilight alongside Bella.

I’d like to mention one more aspect of books which I greatly appreciate in literature, although it wouldn’t make any professor’s list of what matters in a book, namely warmth. Today in particular, “dark” has almost become synonymous with “complex,” although a good utopia is much harder to write than a good dystopia. This fad has gone so far that even ordinary novels and films, whose creators make no pretense of being the next Orwell, run galore with dysfunctional families, violent criminals and psychoses of all kinds. So it is a rare reading pleasure to come across a novel suffused with warmth, especially if one’s interests don’t run towards romance or village Eden genres. It is all the more impressive that Meyer has managed to create such an atmosphere in Twilight, considering that there aren’t that many family scenes in it (I sure wished there were more!).

I guess I should also mention, for objectivity’s sake, that there were some parts of Twilight which I found strange or just didn’t much like. For instance, there’s a reference to 17th century London vampires who lived in sewers from which they emerged at night, but what kind of sewers could there be in London in the 1650s, other than open sewers? Edward’s assurance that although they prefer to drink the blood of predators, they only hunt them where an overpopulation of them exists, I’m sure was meant to make them seem ecologically responsible, but everything I’ve read on the subject says that the reproductive rates of predators depend upon the amount of prey available – when food is scarce predators often don’t reproduce at all. Also, although a new girl in a small town where the same families have lived for generations would certainly attract attention from boys, I doubt it’ll go on as long or be as persistent as it’s described in Twilight. Finally, when Edward confesses to Bella that he did hunt people regularly for a time, she takes it totally in stride because “it sounds reasonable,” even before he tells her that he only killed violent criminals. Sure, it’s reasonable for a vampire to go after human blood, but then it’s also reasonable for James (the villain of the book) to torture his victims before killing them, given that he’s a sadist.

Still, what I liked about this book far outweighs what I didn’t, and so I went on to read all the sequels when they came out. (Usually, if I don’t like a book, I put it aside and move on to another; I certainly don’t read three sequels – I think that would have been kind of obsessive….)

In conclusion, I’d like to apologize for writing such a long review and for not providing a synopsis of the novel (I figure anyone who hasn’t read it already has seen the movie – by which you definitely shouldn’t judge the book, as usual.) ( )

This book is about a young girl named Bella who moves to a new town to live with her father Charlie. There she a boy who saves her life named Edward with who she becomes infatuated with and wants to learn more about him. She finds out that he is a vampire and the two of them fall in love. However all doesn't go well when another vampire named James shows up and decides he wants to hunt Bella. Edward manages to save Bella from James and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire like Edward, to which Edward refuses.

I didn't care much for this book mostly because it doesn't even target my demographic so I'm not surprised. The book felt too detail heavy and I never felt any emotional attachment to any of the characters.

If I were to use this book in the classroom I would use it in a unit on American fiction. ( )

Twilight is ubiquitous. In bookshops, on the internet - even corners of the net one expects to be Twilight-free, in casual conversation. (One of my lecturers last semester suggested it should become a drinking game - you drink whenever someone mentions Twilight.) Even though I don't go looking for them, reviews of Twilight are there. Writing my own review in response to my irritation with the unavoidable presence of everyone else's might not seem logical, but I also get irritated when the reviews are so polarised, either adoring or despising the novel. This is an attempt at some sort of unimpassioned considered middle-ground.

A work of literature Twilight is not - it is undeniably genre fiction. YA fantasy. Its writing is both its strength and its weakness. Being lightweight and conversational makes it easily readable, but these very qualities which create its accessibility also mean it is unappealing to those who prefer more original prose and literary depth. Nevertheless, for those who are unaware of, or prepared to overlook, its literary shortcomings, the story can be appealing.

Bella Swan is a character with whom many can identify, especially if you have ever been (or felt like) an outsider; an introverted, bookish person; someone who doesn't make friends easily; an insecure teenage girl; and/or uncoordinated. (Bonus points if you feel sick at the sight of blood, thought high school sport classes were a form of torture, and/or had to leave class because you were going to faint. Because these aren't exactly desirable traits to have and it is comforting to feel that you are not alone in possessing them.)
Twilight takes this girl who is ordinary and overlooked, and gives her the seemingly-unattainable.
I imagine Edward is desirable to different people for different reasons - because he is a "forbidden love", celebrity/superstar-level attractive, a superhuman hero, intellectually and emotionally mature, because he makes Bella his priority (and goes to considerable lengths to do so) or because, sexual intimacy being out of the question, it is obvious his relationship with her is because of who she is and not just because he's hoping she'll sleep with him.
(There are equally many reasons for not finding Edward appealing and contrary to popular belief, falling in love with Edward is not a prerequisite for enjoying this book.)
Ultimately, as a vampire prepared to ignore his base desires to drink her blood and kill her because he values her as a person and he wants a relationship with her, Edward is paying Bella a pretty big compliment. I suspect most people desire to be someone's first priority, to be loved for who they are, to be affirmed and told they are special. I suspect a lot of girls dream of a hero.

Whether this all makes for healthy relationship in real life is a different matter. (There are certainly good arguments against Twilight for idolising a relationship lacking - at this point in the story – a certain equality.) But I don't believe wistfully dreaming of a hero automatically means this is what one wants in reality. I can see the flaws in Twilight (which many people have done a good job of highlighting, so we’ll skip that part of the review), just as I can see the flaws in the stories I sometimes make up for my own amusement, when I'm feeling tired, or simply bored, and the critical parts of my brain are switched off.
It is perhaps worth reading Twilight critically to recognise the reasons why Bella isn't necessarily role-model material and understand why personal characteristics, behaviours and choices which seem to be desirable and reasonable in the novel are not necessarily desirable, reasonable and healthy in the real world, in real people.* However, Twilight is merely a story to read and enjoy (or to not read, if you aren't inclined). It's a fantasy concerning wish fulfillment. Clearly not the fulfillment of everybody's wish, but it is a wish which has some near-universal elements.

There is more I could say but I’m sure the world can do without any more verbosity from me on the subject.
Rated four stars when I read it two years ago, because I found it addictive, suspenseful and entertaining, not to mention appealing. I would rate it differently now, but the point of this exercise was to stop feeling that my opinion was unrepresented in the world of Twilight-reviews, rather than reassign stars.

* On a slightly related note: Twilight isn't as a how-to book for human relationships, it's a how-to book for human-supernatural relationships. There is a very specific context to the behaviour of many of the characters which pertains directly to their proximity to the supernatural. And while it still may be debatable as to whether this excuses the behaviour, it certainly offers an explanation which wouldn't apply to a situation in real life. ( )

I like the basic story of Twilight. It kept me interested. I had a hard time ever putting the book down because I had to know what happened next. I do wish, though, that the characters had a little more depth to them. ( )

Twilight is bad. I mean, really bad. A true teen read to say the least. I mean, there are teen books I enjoy because they manage to blur the line well enough that I don't feel like I'm too old to be reading it. This is not the case with Twilight. It is so high school at times that it made me crazy. Those kids, Edward and Bella, literally hung out for 2 days and were professing their undying love for one another! Bella could not go a full night without spazzing about the separation. I mean, yes, in high school some kids do take their infatuations a bit far... but really??? It was disgusting! I would have been able to tolerate the book, had it not been for how overdone the emotions of the characters were. And only the main ones too... everyone else in the book seems normal. And don't try the, "It's an unexplained attraction, they're unique" bit on me. They're wack, end of discussion.

I had seen the movie. I knew what I was in for. Thankfully, the movie didn't overdo the emotional ish like the book did. I was going into this willing to overlook the violations to the norm (Seriously- vampires sparkle in the sun, not burst into flames?!) And I'm all for the vamp/non-vamp thing. I have seen every episode of Buffy and Angel. I love Buffy with Angel and Spike. Hated the other normal guys! But this book was so bad that even overlooking those details didn't save it! Hell, even Sookie has relationships with Bill and Eric in the Southern Vampire Mysteries. Those books were AMAZING. I thought they were good before, but after reading Twilight, I hold a new appreciation for them!

I will admit, I'm determined to see it through to the end now. If not for the love of the series, at least because I'm determined it has to get better. Steven King was right, this woman cannot write. At all. At least they're a fast read. I made it halfway through book 2, New Moon, in all of a few hours. ( )