The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide is a companion book to the Twilight Saga novels. Much like The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, this book was published a few years after Breaking Dawn, the final installment of the series – too far after my reading of those books for me to remember much – so I decided to save it for when I reread the series. Since I just completed that reread a couple of months ago, it was the perfect time to pick up the Illustrated Guide. I found it to be a very informative book that gives readers all sorts of insights and background that you don’t get merely from reading the novels and which can help to enhance the reading experience. A book like this could potentially be dry, but I found it be show more quite readable and I very much enjoyed learning all of the facts it had to impart.

The book begins with a 65-page transcript of an interview Ms. Meyer did with her good friend and fellow author, Shannon Hale. I thought that it might largely be stuff that I already knew, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find new information in it. That may or may not be true depending on how closely you follow the author. I know quite a bit about her, but since I’m not an obsessive “stalker,” I can’t speak to exactly how much of the interview covered new ground. I just know that I personally enjoyed reading it and found myself relating very well to Ms. Meyer, one author to another, and to how certain parts of our writing journeys and writing experiences mirror one another. That wasn’t necessarily surprising given how much I enjoy her work, but it was a welcome discovery anyway.

The bulk of the book is an encyclopedic reference to every character in the Twilight universe, broken down first by species: Vampires, Werewolves, and Humans. Then they’re further categorized by coven, pack, or friends and family relationships. This part was quite fascinating, because Ms. Meyer offers impressively detailed backstories on virtually all of the characters. Generally speaking, the more important they are to the story, the more detail we get. There were so many characters whose stories weren’t told in the main Twilight Saga novels. This is in part because they weren’t pertinent to the plot, but also because most of it is told in Bella’s first-person POV, meaning she wouldn’t have been privy to it unless someone recounted it to her, which in many cases, would have slowed the pace. So getting to sit down and learn all about these characters was a sweet treat. I particularly loved finally getting to learn Alice’s complete backstory, as well as learning about Sam and Emily’s love story. But I also enjoyed finding out more about the main Volturi members, the wolf pack members (the family trees tracing each of their lineages back to the original three werewolves was awesome), and some of the other coven members. Benjamin was always a stand-out to me, so his story was nice, too. Really all of them were interesting. At the beginning of each section, we also get background on each of the different species, things like physical attributes, special abilities, laws, myths, inheritance, lifestyles and lots more.

The final 100+ pages are a mixture of ingredients. We get a complete time line of events that affect the Twilight world starting in 1400-1200 B.C. and moving forward up through all the events in the books. Then there’s a full summary (kind of a cliff notes version) of all four novels of the series. After that, there’s a section with all the specs on the cars that play a part in the series. I can’t say I’m much of a car geek, but I did enjoy drooling over the pictures.:-) The author also offers up the full playlist of songs she listened to while writing the series and which specific moments in the novels that the music inspired. Then the book finishes up with a fan art gallery, a gallery of international book covers, a few deleted scenes, and finally a FAQ section, which much like the rest of the book, had some things in it that I hadn’t known before.

Overall, The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide was an excellent companion piece to the greater Twilight Saga. In addition to getting a wealth of new information, I also enjoyed seeing the artistic concepts of the main characters, as well as certain places and scenes within the series. The pictures simply added a new dimension to what was already a really great group of books. I definitely highly recommend this book. For die-hard fans of the series, like myself, it’s a must-read. show less

I mostly found it enjoyable to read as I've never read any of the Twilight saga but I feel that this is just an elongated spark notes for the series. As it's very much just 'here's a set of pages for each character' and 'here's a section detailing the cars every character drives' and 'here's some bullet points of the plot chapter by chapter book by book.' Like I don't understand why anyone who has read the series would read this except for maybe the crumbs of new info. But it also feels like word of god stuff in that way which I overall despise.

That said, I do agree with those online who've said that the other Cullens/vampires have way more interesting stories than that between Edward and Bella.

From its first inception as a dream, expanded and plotted out into the now well known romance of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, there is no denying that their story has a little of everything, romance, action and the supernatural. More then a series on vampires and werewolves it is a story of love. A supernatural romance that has swept the world up in its embrace.

This is the guide that takes you behind the books and inside each character offering you more then you could ever have wanted to know about the Twilight series. Not just an offering on the influences and background of the series but also an in depth look at vampire covens, werewolf tribes and the humans that have played a part in this series, as each character mentioned whether show more they are human, vampire or werewolf are given a personal bio of their history and personality.

The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide is not just for the hardcore Twilight fans, but for anyone who has shared in the romance of Edward and Bella. It is surprising just how much detail and background information is offered on practically every aspect of this series. Not to mention a whole bunch of extras including a section on cars, listed play lists for each book and outtakes from the series. This guide has everything Twilight you could have ever wanted, and then some. show less

This book is 543 pages of awesome. If you are a huge Twilight Saga fan (like myself), you will love this book. I read it straight through like I would a novel, but it can also be used as a reference. I found it especially helpful to remember all of the vampires that show up in Breaking Dawn, but I was pretty much fan-girling over the whole thing.

This encyclopedia (as I hereby reference it as) is jam-packed with great things. It has character information and backgrounds on literally every character that appears in the stories. Obviously it has all the wolves and vampires, but it has all the humans too. Not just Bella, her family and her friends. It also has people like Mr. Banner (science teacher) and Mr. Berty (english teacher). And show more some minor characters have really in-depth backgrounds. It made me constantly amazed by the world Ms. Meyer has created. She did not just create the plot lines in the Twilight Saga, but she practically writes a novel about characters who maybe appeared for three pages throughout the series. Lover or hater, no one can admit that that is not impressive.

Also, this encyclopedia is filled with drawings. There are drawings of how Stephenie Meyer pictured the characters (I found Laurent extremely amusing because it was completely opposite to the Laurent from the movies), as well as pictures of things like the Cullen house and Bella's wedding dress. There are also family trees of Jacob's tribe which trace not only the Black history, but also other important families.

What else I found really great was that towards the end there is both a timeline from the start of vampires until the end of Breaking Dawn which touched on key events. But if that was too vague for you, there are also pages that recap the events in each chapter of each book. It is a good refresher.

I could go on and on, but I'm going to stop now because I think it is fun to discover all the little tid bits for yourselves. The book is beautiful; from its content, to its pictures, to its pages (they are glossy like a magazine, but thinker). Sure, the book is pretty expensive, but it is worth it entirely if these books changed your life. show less

Might be interesting/helpful if you're a husband being dragged to the movies (like mine) and are confused about who all the characters are, but if you've read the books, don't bother. Unbelievably repetitive, and only a few tiny morsels of new information. I couldn't finish it (and I can force myself through nearly anything).

I wasn't expecting to like this so much, but it had a lot of good stuff and is worth getting. My favorite parts were the interview with Shannon Hale (another author I enjoy), the Outtakes and the FAQ. I wasn't much into the character information because most of it was repetitive, but seeing the other covers and some of the fan art was pretty cool. Yes, I did spend hours on Youtube listening to the playlists- most of the songs weren't my thing, but it was interesting.

We all knew it would happen sooner or later. I was missing my new Rick Riordan file when I finished Feast of Crow and so I turned to here. In a day and half I'm between 1/3rd and Half, so it shouldn't take to long.

I probably should be running a tally on this really and notes beside it so you people can watch me tear SM apart in my head. Age and maturation is a topic Stephanie gets to listen to me rant about a lot, since the setup is so poorly done.

I like some small details (like the murder of Esme's first husband, and the loan to Emmett's family) and not others (Carlisle suggested Alice and Jasper get married what?). I wish there was more flushing out of the characters who showed up in book four than we've gotten so far, but it's show more still more than the book ever saw, even in its scant.



Writing this makes me want to write fic a little. The crazy AU, especially now that I gave a grasp on Chelsea. And the antics of Laurent and Borias, most recent. show less