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