Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Twilight

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Book 1 in Twilight Series
Trade Paperback, 498 pages
Little, Brown and Company, 2005
ISBN-13: 9780316015844
Young Adult Novel

Synopsis:
About three things I was absolutely positive:
First, Edward was a vampire.
Second, there was a part of him–and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be–that thirsted for my blood.
And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him. (pg 195)
My Thoughts:

Twilight is a young adult novel. It's target audience is young teenage girls.
Now, my inner 13 yr old is squealing with delight over Bella's relationship with the dangerous Edward, who sparkles. And he's dangerous, but not too dangerous because he tries to be good. He's not really a bad boy, out smoking and drinking in the school parking lot. But he does cut classes. And his skin sparkles like diamonds if he's in the sun. I can see where Twilight would have a large fan base in that young teen girl demographic. What I'm not understanding are the adult fans.

I agree with Stephen King. Meyers can't write.
While Twilight is poorly written, I will concede that Meyers is a story teller. She's not a good writer. My inner 13 yr old doesn't care because she's all caught up in the danger and the sparkles, but the lack of quality in the writing matters very much to me, a 50 yr old woman. The characters are flat and one dimensional. Bella is annoying and constantly whines. Edward comes across as a stalker, a stalker who's old enough to choose a more appealing victim and yet seemingly not smart enough. Their obsessive love for each other is creepy. The high school isn't like any high school out there - not even way back when I went to high school. It's like a cardboard cut-out of a high school.

I am glad that I finally read Twilight, though, so I can tell people exactly why I didn't like it and would not recommend it. I also understand the references to sparkling vampires.

I read Tw
ilight as a Critical Monkey selection, but technically it can't count as one of the official books because I had previously read Meyers The Host and should have learned my lesson.
I'll be counting Twilight as part of the Don't Be A-Hatin' Amendment




Quotes:

I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this. opening

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven - now fifty-eight - students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together-their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. pg. 9

Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?
I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning. pg. 10-11

It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. pg. 18

And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino. pg. 18

But all this is not why I couldn't look away.
I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel. pg. 19

His fingers were ice-cold, like he'd been holding them in a snowdrift before class. But that wasn't why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When he touched me, it stung my hand as if an electric current had passed through us. pg 45

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for your honest review and for including excerpts from the novel. Reading those confirmed my suspicions that the Twilight novels were not worth the vampire hype.

Lisa said...

Oh now you've done it. You'll have people coming out of the woodwork to tell you what an idiot you are for not seeing how awesome it is. My review is more "eh" than negative and I get crap all the time.

Lori L said...

I can't believe people give you crap over a "eh" review! I certainly hope people don't take issue with this review. I think I was very fair. I understand why teen girls love it - and it's a YA novel so that's the demographic. I will never understand any other 50 yr old woman loving it. Even my daughter in college wasn't that impressed with it.

Warning to new visitors: If I get bad comments, I will delete them and ban you.

Lisa said...

It was on my short lived group blog:

http://ratherread.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/twilight-by-stephenie-meyer/

just skim the comments!

Lori L said...

I actually enjoyed many of the comments and agree with them, LOL!

Corey said...

Ugh, I'm reliving the experience of reading it. AUGH!

Unknown said...

I am just catching up reading other Critical Monkey reviews -- and sadistically enjoying the shared suffering! Just looking at the covers of the books you have choosen so far has me shaking in my boots....I wonder what your next book will look like?