Stephenie on Ellen 17/9/2008

Just a quick post for today.

I was looking through YouTube videos to find one that would show you best how great Stephenie is. (I actually didn’t even consider looking for it until my lovely friend suggested it, well, I suppose passions develop best when you share them with friends.)

This one comes from the Ellen’s Show:

It doesn’t give you a lot of information about the books but it’s a great sample of who Stephenie is. She could be your teenage neighbour, for Cullens’ sake! She’s so spontaneous and funny :P

I generally hate Ellen but she occasionally makes a good joke, like “This is a very long dream, you sleep a lot.” LOL

“A very thick book, very impressive” on the other hand was just stupid, what sort of comment is that? She obviously didn’t read it at all…

Twilight, the fun facts

Now it’s time for some fun facts about the book!! :)

Everything there is to know about the “Twilight” books is on Stephenie’s website.

(I’m obviously talking about Stephenie Meyer, the author of the books, if you were confused at any point, please let me know, I’ll have to work on you!).

I have to say, that’s the best fan site I’ve ever encountered. It’s co-hosted by Stephenie herself, it’s filled with fun facts about the book, including how it was created; it’s updated on the pretty much day-to-day basis, and in my humble opinion it’s not a website about the Twilight series, it goes alongside with it - You can’t read the books and not visit the site!

Now, my favourite facts about “Twilight”. :)

1. The idea for the book occurred to Stephenie in a dream, literally, she started creating the book when she was asleep.
Stephenie wrote the first draft on the 02/06/2003 right after she had woken up from the dream starring an average looking girl and a stunning hot vampire. That’s right, she wrote her dream down because she fell in love with a young and sexy vampire! (She’s a mum of three and she’s happily married :P )

2. Surprisingly, the middle of the book, the crucial scene in the meadow was the very scene pictured in Stephenie’s dream as well as the very beginning to the amazing series we love! Beginning with the meadow, Stephenie worked her way through until the very end of the book and afterwards, she wrote the beginning!! How crazy is that?!

3. She was so passionate about writing this book (and at this time she wouldn’t even consider the book being published, she wrote t for herself), she kept a notepad and a pen next to her bed so that she could write down all of her sudden ideas, even in the middle of a night, even in complete darkness. Now, that’s the spirit! Thank you Stephenie!!

4. Did you know Stephenie lives in Phoenix? :)

5. You probably noticed Bella likes to read, well so does Stephenie. She even graduated from English literature and if you’re interested in her literature taste you should visit her Amazon's website. It gives a list of books she recommends as absolute essentials.
I suggest reading Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen first, you’ll find an Edward in both of them. ;)

6. What would you say for Carol and Ronald instead Rosalie and Jasper? Yeah, that’s what I though.. Luckily Stephenie changed her mind in time.

7. Speaking of bad names, did you know that Twilight’s original name was “Forks”?

8. Oh, Forks does actually exist! And so does La Push reservation and the Quileutues! Spooky.. There are some beautiful pictures of the park on its website.

Actually, there exists a special website with the most important places from the book! You can take a a free tour of Forks here.

9. Before the magnificent book was published, Stephenie received many rejection letters from printing houses, and kept them! I would give so much to read them! :D I’m dying to know what exactly they say! “Sorry Mrs Meyer, I think your book is boring”, “Unfortunately Mrs Meyer, we don’t predict any interest in the story you’ve written.” ?! These people must have had so many sleepless nights…

10. The book cover presents an apple which symbolises the biblical forbidden fruit, the Snow White’s “one bite to fall into an eternal sleep yet not die”, or as Stephenie said, a choice.

There are many many more fascinating little things on the website, like a suggested soundtrack for the book, pictures of cars described in the book in case you’re a girl like me and anything more than a colour confuses you (I believe Bella’s quote was: “I don’t speak car and driver”); but the juiciest bit are the pages that were never used in the book! See here.

I do greatly recommend the website for further research ;)

Now, my personal research,

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR VAMPIRE NAME?

Twilight, the book

My personal review.

The saga begins when a “middle-aged” teenager, Bella, moves in the small town of Forks, I’d say somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Coming from a big and noisy Phoenix, she finds Forks too slow-paced, boring and quiet, especially since her arrival triggers a lot of excitement and puts her in a centre of attention. She hates all the sudden interest and in particular she doesn’t understand the adoration she gets from boys. Bella sees herself average-looking, shy and unnoticeable, and when she notices a group of gorgeous pale-skinned students, she cannot believe anyone would be interested in anyone but them. She pays attention to those five could-be-fashion-models more than anyone else in the school, which, obviously, makes their paths cross inevitably.


It’s interesting how differently Bella perceives the beautiful pack to anyone else in the school. According to Angela, Jessica, Mike and Eric the Cullens and the Hales are indeed incredibly attractive as well as smart and rich but they’re also self-absorbed freaks who hang out with no one outside their family and in general, are fairly boring. Bella’s first impression is way more flattering – she believes they’re truly fascinating! Her interest and unusually detailed perception isn’t beneficial for the Cullens who are trying to keep their profiles low. When Bella starts noticing some odd visual features and behaviours in Edward, the youngest looking and the only single of them, he attempts to keep her off the track from his family’s secret. But the harder he tries, the more he realizes he’s in fact in love with his stalker. Who would have thought, huh? It might have been fairly obvious from the beginning that those two will fall for each other but what I cared most was, how would Bella find out the Cullens were vampires and how could Bella’s and Edward’s love develop and survive? And most of all, would there be a happy ending?


I don’t have to say I enjoyed the book; I don’t even have to say how much I loved it since I devoted an entire blog to it. What I should concentrate on, though, is why I became a fan so quickly. There were a few major reasons.


Firstly, Stephenie Meyer broke so many traditional canons that “Twilight” isn’t just another book about vampires. Unlike Stoker’s Dracula, Edward can walk in the sunlight, he isn’t afraid of crosses, garlic or holy water; nor does he turn into a bat. All of it made reading so much easier and so much more eager – getting to know all the differences and learn about vampires in a context of a small town living was absolutely thrilling. Looking back I could have feared some Buffy flashbacks but Meyer’s vampires are more humanlike – they chose their path of being “vegetarians” rather than feeding on people, they want to fit in and live human lives, they’re far from being monsters!


Secondly, because I’m a little old fashioned myself, I loved it how mature the characters were, how Edward’s 1900’s upbringing influenced his language and his manners, and I absolutely loved the vampire names! Edward, Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmet, Jasper, even Alice. The poor attempts of giving children unique names like Lemon, Honda, Suri, Brooklyn, or anything alike sound even more pathetic when compared to the Cullen names. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a little baby boy Emmet?! :) If only he grew up to speak in Edward’s nonchalant manner, too… I often weakened in my knees when he talked to Bella. One of my favourite phrases is ‘Bella, you’re utterly absurd’, and there are many more, though they don’t sound as good when taken out of the context.


Finally, I fell for the unique love story. Falling in love with a vampire and being a vampire who falls in love with a human girl bring up so many new questions and possibilities! Your judgements aren’t biased on other romantic characters (although Bella makes several comparisons to literary lovers, Romeo and Juliet; for instance), the situation creates a carte blanche background for their romance. Will Edward be strong enough not to kill her? Will Bella become a vampire to spend the eternity with him? Will he let her? How does it feel to kiss a vampire? How does she smell to him?


There were a few other reasons too, like how funny the book is, to give an example! :P

Welcome to my blog :)

Hi everyone,

Let me introduce you to my recent obsession, the marvellous creation by Stephenie Meyer – the Twilight Saga.

This guide is dedicated to all of you who only just discovered the books and are bombarded with information about Twilight from all around. I’d like to take you step by step how Bella’s world has taken over my mind…

I firstly heard about the book from a very good friend of mine who simply said: “You HAVE TO read it.” I trust her literature taste so I tried it and immediately fell in love...