Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) Reviews

• How is this book so popular?

  
  By A3N436IQD8XPN8 on 2007-04-12
  This book was a huge disappointment. I was eager to read it at first, because a.) I love young adult lit (it's one of my areas of concentration in my Master's program) and b.) I love vampires and the supernatural (Buffy and Angel are two of my favorite shows.) So I bought it thinking that I was going to read a literary exploration of adolescent love with vampires thrown in there to boot. Instead, I got this overlong, melodramatic, Mary Sueish wish-fulfillment fantasy.
  There are so many things that bother me about this book, it's hard to know where to start, but I suppose the characterization is one of my biggest gripes. Let's start with the narrator, Bella Swann. I mean her name! It basically translates into "Beautiful Swan" fer Chrissakes! What kind of name is that for a teenage protagonist? Then there's the fact that we're obviously supposed to believe that she's special and wonderful and that she lives her life by putting others ahead of her--or at least that's what the author says. But if you look at the Bella of the novel and her disdain for her fellow classmates, her blatant manipulation of Jacob, and her barely-there relationship with her father--well I call BS on that account. In fact, she seems downright sociopathic at times. Hasn't anyone considered the moral implications of her burning desire to be turned into a vampire? She's going to spend all eternity as an enormous danger to the humans around her, quite possibly killing someone if she loses control for one second. Eternity is a long time...that's a lot of seconds that you could end up possibly losing control. So basically, she's asking to be turned into a potential murderer. Sure, an interesting ethical quandary, but the author scarcely seems to acknowledge it. I guess it's no surprise that this thought hasn't entered Bella's head--girlfriend doesn't seem to have too much going on upstairs. We spend the whole novel reading her thoughts and they basically consist of: "Forks sucks. I hate cold weather. Edward is beautiful and gorgeous and perfect. Forks sucks. People here actually have the nerve to be nice and try to include me in social activities. Obviously they're just using me. Edward is beautiful and perfect and gorgeous. What stupid thing can I do today to get myself nearly killed? Edward is beautiful and perfect and gorgeous. Edward is a vampire. His instinct is to rip me to shreds. But he's beautiful and perfect and gorgeous. I can't exist without him."
  And Edward! The most boring character in existence. Yes, he's supposed to be gorgeous, yet I have no picture of him in my head. Also, he doesn't have one interesting, charming, or funny thing to say. His dialogue can be divided into three categories: 1.) "Bella, you are my moon, my stars, my sun, my pearl among swine, my angel amongst the unwashed masses...You are marvelous, you are amazing, I adore you...of course, I don't know you at all, because I just met you two weeks ago, but I love you very, very much. Oh and I'm perfect." 2.) "Bella, you silly, silly girl. Who told you that you get to think and state your opinions? I'm the vampire, I'm the one who knows everything, I get to make all the decisions...remember, I'm perfect." 3.) "Behold my [pick one] beauty, strength, power, speed, marvelous, endearingly quirky sense of humor, my amazing family...have I mentioned that I'm perfect?"
  And the themes! I'm not one to think that children's/YA lit should be preachy and full of Very Special messages, just the opposite, in fact, but Good Lord! If there was ever a book that deserved the medal for Worst Messages of All Time to Send to your Teenage Audience, then this is the one. Girls, life is not worth living unless you have your man. It's okay to have no dreams, ambitions, hobbies, interests, goals, ideas, friends, etc... as long as you have your man. It's okay, and in fact desirable that you stay with a man forever, even though he may very likely kill you, or at least injure you, in the future. Growing into mature adulthood and eventually old age is a fate worse than death. True Love is based on appearances and physical aspects. And the list goes on.
  Hey vampires are awesome, but not so much when they're turned into superhero supermodels who wear way too much glitter body lotion.
  
  

• rabid fangirls please dont attack!!

  
  By A2X9TSWP9AZFS4 on 2007-05-17
  the amount of rabid fangirls lurking on this page and leaving 'unhelpful' votes to any review that has less than 4 stars makes me not even want to bother but hopefully if you are reading this it's because you're looking for an honest review and not because you're besotted with Edward Cullen.
  
  I listened to this as an audiobook read by Ilyana Kadushin so I can't vouch for the typos and grammatical errors other readers have mentioned. Ilyana's voice was pleasant, soft and a bit raspy, once in a while some sort of accent drifted in but quickly disappeared. Sometimes she came off as if she was just reading boredly off the page without putting any emotion into the sentences at all. (In comparison to the vivid and lively Jim Dales reading of the Harry Potter Series or Anne Hathaway's reading of the Princess Diaries) all in all an ok performance, I'd give it 3 1/2 stars.
  
  I felt that the story itself was very boring. A girl falls in love with a good looking face to the point where she's willing to give up all her friends, her family, her life, even her soul. Sounds like an alcoholic or a drug addict. Apparently the boy feels the same way too but he's more in love with her smell.
  It's all pretty shallow. If Edward was fugly would she even care? Edward would be like "OMG Bella I love your smell! Plzbe my g/f!!" And Bella would be all '"GTFO Creep!" I glared and grimaced!'
  You know I'm right!
  The next bunch of chapters is just dialogues where she cringes, grimaces and glares glares glares, she literally glares at least once per minute. and if shes not glaring someone else is. I understand that when theres lots of dialogue the author wants to put tags there to make sure the reader can figure out who said what but this was pretty ridiculous.
  after about 8 chapters of glaring the story suddenly picked up when three other vampires show up out of nowhere and the leader randomly decides he wants him some Bella. so, instead of just squishing him like a bug, the gang goes on a wild goose chase in which lame predicatable drama ensues and THEN surprise the bad guy gets squished like a bug.
  and then Bella and Edward sigh glare grimace and cringe at each other some more. the end.
  
  I really did want to like this story but it really feels like Meyer has taken a story that she had in mind that would have been enough for one or two books tops and stretched it into like 8 books to make her publishers happy. We probably wont find out why Edward cant read Bellas thoughts until we shell out $70 or so more bucks for all the other books to come in the series.
  
  And by the way... GLITTER VAMPIRES!?!?! Enough said.
  
  

• Not just for young adults

  
  By A2RZ9O4PSL16V4 on 2005-09-30
  I am a big vampire genre fan, so when I saw this book in a magazine, it caught my eye. I have to admit, I felt a little funny even thinking of buying it, because it is listed and shelved as a young adult book. Well, I decided to "bite" the bullet, and I purchased it, curled up with it over a weekend, and could not put it down. Don't let the fact that you have to visit a different section of the book store stop you from reading it, (or of course, purchase it on Amazon, no one will ever know if you don't want them too). This is a really great book with real emotions all wrapped up in a vampire story, a young woman's story of having to grow up faster then she maybe should have because of her parents, and yet still dealing with all the issues that growing up brings with it. All in all, a great book, glad I decided to overlook the age description.
  
  

• Bad vampire romance novel for teenagers

  
  By A2IX96OBV3BGR3 on 2006-01-14
  I managed to read the first couple hundred pages, but after that it was so dull, trite and clichéd that I just skimmed along, picking up the important plot points along the way. All one of them.
  
  This is quite literally a romance novel, but written with teenagers in mind. It has all the prerequisites of your run-of-the-mill romance (note that I don't say "good" or even "mediocre"). Let's check them off:
  
  1) Impossibly beautiful heroine who has no idea she's beautiful.
  2) Mysterious two-dimensional hero with a dark secret.
  3) Frequent urple prose descriptions of hair and eye colors.
  4) The doormat of a heroine needs rescuing every few pages.
  5) The Neanderthal of a hero runs roughshod over any opinions and desires the heroine has of her own, unless, of course, they coincide with his.
  6) They suddenly fall in love. No build up, no rationalization, no sense, just a statement of illogical fact.
  7) The hero's Deep Dark Secret is revealed and much angsting on his part ensues.
  8) Out of nowhere the heroine's life is threatened and she makes an incredibly stupid decision that nearly kills her.
  9) Rescue at the last minute and declarations of twu lurv all around.
  
  The only thing this novel doesn't have is horribly urple sex, and that's what gives it the teenage-appropriate feel. Certainly it's not the characters themselves.
  
  Edward, with his too-adult speech, at least has the excuse of being over a hundred years old. What's Bella's excuse? No seventeen-year-old I've ever met speaks like that. She sounds like a thirty-year-old masquerading as a high-school student. It really feels like the author just used her own words and made no effort at capturing what a real teenager would sound like. No, Bella doesn't just sound mature for her age, she sounds utterly unbelievable.
  
  And as others have already commented, what was up with her clumsiness? Unless she has some sort of medical disorder, the only reason for it seems to be to set up scenarios for her to be rescued. No one is ever that "conveniently" clumsy in the real world, not unless it's an act to get attention.
  
  Bella's character itself gets more and more annoying as the book goes on. To the point where you want to slap her and yell at her to stop making the female half of the species look bad. I've seen jellyfish with more spine than she exhibits through most of the book. She lets Edward dictate to her and push her around and never does more than sulk and glare. She never makes any real attempt at enforcing her own opinions/desires. The one time she actually shows some initiative, it's to do something so deeply stupid that you wish the two-dimensional bad guy had just killed her and taken her out of the breeding pool.
  
  And good god, has this woman no common sense? I can give no credence to her claim of having grown up in a big city, not when she goes wandering brainlessly on her own down empty streets in an unfamiliar city. No woman who grows up in even a small city would do such a thing. We know better. Bella acts more like she grew up in the suburbs or the country, where they're still under the delusion that crime can't touch them there. She'd be far more believable as a character if that was the background she'd been given. But coming from Phoenix? I don't think so. It just makes her look like, "All new: Victim Barbie! Push a button and she screams for her man to rescue her!"
  
  As for this new sort of vampire the author came up with, I have to give her credit for having some interesting ideas (and some really bad ones: glittery vampires? Is this like some new, Halloween version of My Little Pony?). "Vegetarian" vampires (ones who only feed from animals); cute bit of irony there. Some of them possessing different powers, how hard they are too kill, the fact that they don't sleep at all. That's actually interesting. But nothing much is really done with it, either. The focus inevitably shifts back to Edward and his angst and Bella and her increasingly mindless devotion.
  
  There's a short paragraph in the book itself that, I think does the best job of summing up the many flaws of this novel:
  
  "Oh well. He *is* unbelievably gorgeous." Jessica shrugged as if this excused any flaws. Which, in her book, it probably did.
  
  And I think that's what the author is hoping for here. That her audience will be so blinded by the pretty people and shiny romance that any flaws will be overlooked. And judging from the gushing reviews I'm seeing, it looks like it was a good gamble.
  
  

• I Grimaced, and Grimaced, and Grimaced

  
  By A2F93XZWQJ7TXK on 2007-03-26
  Twilight is fine example of how a book does not have to be especially well written and well-edited in order to earn a huge advance and become a bestseller. It's all about MARKETING. 500 pages of fluff. On practically every page, the weak, dependent heroine (great role model btw) "grimaces" and ruminates endlessly about how this "god" has deemed her undeserving self worthy of even talking to. Romantic? Hardly. Emotionally abusive and unhealthy, positively. Bella is so bright, she can't even figure out there is a prom coming up (don't ask!). The moral of the story seems to be that if you are "hot" that's all that matters, as evidenced by all the well intentioned Human suitors that get turned down because they can't measure up physically to an undead bad boy. After all, the key to a healthy relationship is not in stability, but in giving up your humanity to hang with a vampire hotty.
  
  
• a redundant snooze-fest
  By A1I477ADGMLVJM on 2006-05-11
  This book was: Contrived, languid, repetitive and vapid.
  
  Meaning it was a slow-moving, overly crafted knock off of every other "romantic" vampire novel written. Meyer had a few good ideas, like the venom theory, but reading about yet another clutzy, slow-witted, dull heroine becoming an inexplicably fasicnating love object to yet another beautiful immortal who despite his many eons lacks the imagination to latch on to anything more interesting should have us all giving up on the vampire genre all together.
  
  Reading this book dragged like a government job, with the exception of pages 374 through 422 where the story briefly picks up and looks like it might actually go somewhere beyond the silly infantile romantic lingerings of Bella & Edward. (wonderbread, anyone?) Don't be fooled, it dosen't.
  
  I'm guessing Meyer was trying to make an arguement for chemistry to explain an attraction that makes no sense at all. But I got bored because repeating a half-formed sentiment over and over is not really an explaination. Unless you are sleep deprived there is nothing to gain from this rather empty literary exercise.
  
  
• what a stinkin piece of tosh
  By A1KIR8MPNBOAZ1 on 2007-08-07
  I am disapointed by how many teen girls think this is the best literature avaliable. This book has practically no substance. Unless you count endless discriptions of Edward Cullens "amber eyes and full lips". I am not exagerating when I say that if these discriptions were taken out the book would be about half its size. Bella, the main charactor, is pathetic and boring. She practically passes out every time Edward (her gorgeous vampire boyfriend) comes in a room, it is rediculous.
  
  The whole book is basically: "Today I went to school. Edward gave me a ride home. I couldn't speak for his amber eyes were oh so mesmerizing! When I got home I made dinner for my father and cleaned the entire house. Then I got myself into mortal danger and Edward saved me. His eyes are soooo amber and mesmerizing."
  
  DO NOT READ THIS BOOK
  When I first read it I absoulutely loved it. Then I realised how utterly stupid it is and how degrading and antifeminist. EXAMPLE: Edward stalks Bella and watches her at night. Bella is flattered. After I came to my senses I was a bit humiliated I ever liked Twilight.
  
  If you must read it, fine, but I warned you. Just think about how this is a romance between a 100+ year old and a 17 year old.
  
  ALSO- It is an insult to Harry Potter to even be mentioned in the same sentence with this book.
  
  
• I never knew vampires could be so boring.
  By A2DN0YEW15X4FZ on 2007-01-03
  I think my biggest gripe about this book is that the protagnist has NOTHING going for her outside of the fact that she catches a vampire's eye. She has no hopes, no apirations, no dreams, no hobbies. She cooks for her loser father and placates her shallow mother, and that's IT. And I suppose it aggravates me that the vampire falls for her, because I can't figure out what's so interesting about her. For someone who has been around for 100 years, one would think they'd go for the bizarre or truly unique, instead of shoes that any faint-hearted strumpet could fill. But perhaps that's the book's rather vapid appeal.
  The rules of the vampires are somewhat original, but I think if they glowed like solar diamonds in the sun they'd be a lot more obvious.
  
  
• Sucks like a vampire on your neck
  By A9H8FQ9LDFK2H on 2008-01-19
  I bought this book because I believed all the hype. Silly me! I fell for that ploy yet again. It seems these days that sometimes the bigger the hype, the bigger the disappointment I'll feel.
  
  Usually I don't write a review before I've finished reading a book. But I've read over 200 pages of 'Twilight', and I'm not sure if I can bear reading the rest, so I think I may as well review it now.
  
  How best to describe this book? Hmmm...
  
  Remember back to when you were a little kid in school, and your teacher would set you an essay-writing assignment on 'What I Did At School Today'? Well, this book reads like one of those essays, only it goes on and on and on and on and on, day after day after day...I don't get why it's so important to tell us EVERY SINGLE CLASS that Bella goes to at school, for months on end, especially if it's totally irrelevant to the storyline. It's like reading someone's school diary, the kind that outlines which classes to go to at which times each day and which assignments are due, but leaves out any of the juicier, more interesting gossip you'd get in a normal diary. And the same goes for Bella's homelife - we get to hear what she eats and when, what she does for homework, exactly how well she slept each night, and so on, every day. And it's almost never interesting facts that are relevant, it's dry, boring, repetitious stuff. Bella's life is so DULL, I think you could read instruction manuals for watching paint dry that were less boring. Ugh! If my pillows were this overstuffed with fluff and filler, I'd have to sleep almost in a sitting-up position.
  
  And Bella was annoying. Whingy, self-centred, quite rude to her 'friends' at times, and totally lacking a sense of humour or a modicum of intelligence or any genuine concern for anyone other than herself or her pretty boy boyfriend, she grated on my nerves like a constantly dripping tap. I could understand why no one at her old school liked her. I couldn't understand, though, why everyone at her new school seemed to treat her like royalty and wanted to be with her constantly, right from day one of her arriving there.
  
  Using first person narrative can be a wonderful thing, in the hands of a good writer - it can be used to convey the central character's feelings and thoughts and motivations so much more effectively than third-person narrative. But this author wasted this opportunity, and gave us practically nothing in the way of the narrator's personality, or nothing positive, anyway, unless you think that being a whingy sociopath is a positive. The other trap with using first person narrative as a writer is that you can fall into the trap of making too many 'I' statements, which gets really dull, or even annoying. This author fell right into that trap. It wasn't uncommon to find an entire, long paragraph where every sentence began with 'I' (like on page 114, for instance). Perhaps if the character of Bella had thought about others more often, instead of just herself, or had made witty commentary about current events or what was going on around her, she wouldn't have had a need to start so many sentences with 'I'. Clearly, a very self-centred character, written by an author lacking in imagination or experience, or so it would seem.
  
  And the hero of the piece, Edward, was dull - his only features seemed to be his unbelievably godlike good looks and his flashy car. I want more to my heroes than that, thankyou. And as for the other characters in the book, we learn practically nothing about them - they only seem to exist to help or interact with the heroine; they don't seem to have any lives or character or quirks of their own.
  
  I found this book REALLY painful. I hate quitting, and I usually see books through to the end. But this one is so bad, I don't know that I'll be able to force myself to finish it, and I don't think I should - I'm just not a fan of masochism. I've been having to force myself to read it, for a few minutes at a time, here and there, over months, just to get to page 200+. Spending time with this book is like being forced to visit relatives I don't like - I sit there, lamenting that I don't like them, that I have nothing in common with them, that they're about as exciting as a day spent staring at the wall, that it is a waste of my valuable time to be there, and I count down the minutes until I can escape. Better that I had never visited them in the first place - in other words, better that I had never started reading this book in the first place.
  
  I think that if I crave any vampire tales in future, I'll just stick to watching Buffy reruns or reading Patricia Briggs' wonderful 'Mercy Thompson' series of books. I definitely won't be reading any more of Stephenie Meyer's books, anyway.
  
  
• reads like bad, bland slash fiction
  By A24YSRIURKGEJ2 on 2008-01-20
  I may just sue Ms. Meyer as it is possible that she stole the fabric covered books I wrote my own fantasy novels in when I was 13 - this book is written in the exact same style. The protagonist is a "slender" brunette, apparently so lovely that boys fall over her as soon as she arrives at her new school, including a superior and (as we are continuously told so as to avoid actual description) "godlike" and gorgeous vampire who never bothered with any other girl until he was spellbound at first sight (and evidently, smell). This is not a typical YA novel heroine considering most readers cannot identify or sympathize with someone so amazing and physically attractive. Then I took a look at the author... oh yes, I get it now. We have a term for this and it is MARY SUE. The author has made the main character a thinly veiled perfection of herself and provided absolutely no personality to the character. In fact, every character in this book is barely even a cardboard cut out - no one has any real personality beyond some fleeting stereotypes and everyone behaves predictably and completely unconvincingly. It is like reading "slash" fiction, as Edward only speaks in that way that only exists in slash - males do not act like this in real life, they do not poke you gently on the nose, beg you to tell them ALL about every minute detail of your life and treat you like a newborn baby. Only in slash. Of course this book doesn't even have any sex in it - why? because (as I understand it - remember nothing here makes sense) if he makes love to her he may squash her head like a grape. I'm not making this up people.
  
  I adore YA novels but this is livejournal-post quality, not bound published book quality. With that said, it is possible that this may be one of the few instances where the movie might be better than the book. Actors can breathe life into the characters, and the simplistic writing will most likely not show through. Hopefully Edward's tiresome and silly "push me pull you" act will take up no more than a few minutes of screen time. It takes up almost all of this sad little book.
  
  
• Well, at least you tried...
  By A9UMJ3I4NB7Q1 on 2006-07-15
  Twilight is a sham. Sorry, it had to be said. Now now, ravenous fangirls who threaten my life, i know what you're thinking. But, yes, Twilight is nothing more than a sham. *Sigh* People who read and love the book, A.K.A the female population, are fans of this book simply because of the way it makes you feel. When reading the book, they unconsiously place themselves in Bellas shoes and, at least while they read the book, can feel that they are loved as much as Bella apperently is. A sham, folks, a sham. What is Bella to do, say when college becomes necessary? Judging by the hyper spasm she had at the end of Twilight, she couldn't possibley be seperated from Edward for more than seven hours, tops. If you read teh outakes on Stephanie's website, you'll see that, when seperated from him for a mere six hours, she becomes worrisome and fretful. Geez. I swear, has she no sense of self. Her entire future has been put in the bin due to Edward. And the constant clumsiness, as was earlier stated, must be some sort of neurogical problem, because she is hopless and doesn't know how to walk properly. And Edward, as is the ailment of most beings that are considered more impressive than humans, is vain and finds humans petty and dull. Thanks a lot. Their love is based on feautures, sadly, as most loves are, but both seem to be suffering form child like symptoms that infants normally suffer when forced to go to preschool. They are Overattatchment, Overobsessivness, and Singular Goal difincany. Pretty self explantitory. Why we love such a book is beyond me, but, hey, if that's your kink, read on. But, I warn you, do not think that this book is the best book you have ever read, even if it is the only book you have ever read. The conversations, for example, are dully predictable. Example: Edward: "You are beautifuller than whole lots of things." bella blushes a deep beet coloured colour. Edward chuckles at the blushing, because, for some reason, he finds it amusing and attractive. Freak. Bella than snaps a 'witty' retort at said chuckling, conversation. follows. Look in the book, You'll find several conversations like this one. TWILIGHT IS A SHAM. TWILIGHT IS DECIEVING. If you plan on staying cool, calm, colected, and sane, please refrain from reading this book.
  
  
• A young romance novel
  By A3QBWPI2PJHCEL on 2006-12-25
  Do *not* buy this book if you are looking for fantasy. If you love romance novels or vampire novels, and you are young, you will probably like it.
  
  It is 498 pages of moody teenage girl swooning over dangerous teenage boy and dangerous teenage boy dazzling her and saving her from one peril or another.
  
  I was very disappointed because it had such high Amazon ratings -- I couldn't even read the whole book. But then, I am not young, and I'm not into romance novels. :)
  
  
• Near Nonsense
  By A2N33UX1AVFE1K on 2008-01-12
  I wasn't going to review the novel at all because I simply hated it too much and, well, why spend more time dwelling on it than necessary? But the amount of people who claim her writing is flawless, the story is original and perfect, and the book appeals to all ages just drove me crazy. No, her writing is not flawless. In fact, it's very juvenile for someone who has had as much schooling as Stephenie Meyer. The story itself is completely predictable from the drab and ridiculous Preface, to the very last sentence. And the overall plot of the series? Well, I'm not actually sure there is one.
  
  Don't get me wrong. I understand why this book appeals to young readers. It has every girl's fantasy, doesn't it? A handsome boy falling madly in love with the supposedly plain new girl. The story is so simplistic and so centered on this love story that, frankly, it can become addicting whether you like what you are reading or not (and I will freely admit to reading it in about six hours). I would not shy away from giving this book to preteen friends of mine.
  
  However, I think the bias has to end somewhere. This book makes Harry Potter a literary masterpiece. This book makes Anne Rice's novels appear well-constructed. This book does not do anything new for the genre--which is not wrong. No one needs to set out and create a new precedent. No one is under that obligation. That doesn't negate the fact that the entire story was very tired. I had no interest in Bella's questions. I had no interest in the long blocks of explanations. There is a good reason Jo Rowling left most of her explanations scattered through seven books of varying length, and not all at once in every chapter. For someone who is hanging on the fence, boring descriptions and Q&A sessions are a killer.
  
  Additionally, and perhaps the real reason I disliked the book, Bella Swan made for one of the worst protagonists I've ever read. Reading Meyer's website, I was amazed that someone who loves her characters so dearly manages to create such lifeless, flat personifications of them on paper. Bella is your typical self-insert of the author. She shares the author's hometown. She has a beautiful name--Isabella Swan! She's so clumsy that you figure she probably has an inner ear problem. She's constantly miserable, irritatingly oblivious to the world she's describing to us, and overdramatic.
  
  And none of these are endearing traits.
  
  Handled differently, they could be. Handled differently, they would be. Third person would have been preferable, rather than first. In a romance story where the author is not quite sophisticated enough to actually provide realism instead of fanfiction, first person kills the narrative. One moment, Bella is weeping over how horrible her life is. The next moment, she's discussing how unattractive she is while rebuffing three invitations to the dance in one day--after having no relationships at home. These are not endearing. These are the hopes and wishes of very young teenage girls, and perhaps a few older ones. But it makes for a very ridiculous read through. Personally, I believe Meyer should have worked on reading a bit more structured works before sitting down. She ought to have researched fiction writing and the dynamics of creating a proper heroine, because she has managed to make someone that is very unrealistic to the point of frustration.
  
  You see, it's frustrating because I know Meyer is trying to make Bella realistic instead of perfect. What girl doesn't think she's ugly sometimes? What girl doesn't stumble gracelessly over her own feet? The only difference is, in a novel, these traits are the superficial flaws of a Mary Sue. Simply, they aren't flaws at all. They are excuses to make Bella "less perfect" while achieving the exact opposite. Had Bella been genuinely shy (she so wasn't shy!), genuinely unhappy, genuinely boring, it might have been less irritating. But she was clearly outgoing. She was clearly beautiful. She stumbled into horrible situations only to be saved by a gaggle of boys. And all the while, she remained oblivious to all of it. That isn't a flaw--that's convenience. And it's very immature writing.
  
  I also think all of the Prefaces should have been removed. Upon reading Twilight's, I burst out laughing. Coming forward to kill her, eh? The writing couldn't handle the suspense or drama the author was attempting to create--it left no room for either. This is where first person kills the narrative completely. This preface then set the tone for the entire book, and I laughed similarly at about half of the descriptions she used.
  
  There is no need to reiterate that Edward is perfect. If you trust your reader, you should trust them to remember that Edward is, apparently, a Greek god or adonis with an angel's face and runway model physique with black eyes sometimes, topaz eyes sometimes, ocher eyes sometimes, and golden hair, and that he drives fast, has a lot of money, is a musical savant, sparkles in the sun, dresses impeccably, etc., etc. You only need to say someone is perfect a couple of times over the course of the novel for anyone to understand.
  
  All the overdesigning of Edward's appearance ended up feeling like was the author relishing in this personal fantasy. And that's great. We all have personal fantasies! But this book doesn't quite deserve the enormous praise it's receiving from all corners. Dissect the writing. Look at the ridiculous romance novelesque style of it all. Don't tell me writing doesn't matter when it's Young Adult. The YA genre is expanding. Teenagers are writing exquisite pieces of literature and not publishing them anywhere. There is no excuse for poor writing.
  
  If I wanted to read a romance novel, I would have picked one up. At least romance novels have plot. Meyer all-too-frequently used 'scowling' and 'glaring' as the only method of communication between people. And Edward's behavior was indecisive to the point insanity. His constant 'please go away I can't love you I'll kill you but don't go away I love you please go away' would drive any sane human being into a psychological tailspin. If you made the movie exactly how she wrote the book, Bella and Edward would be consistently scowling at one another and arguing over everything. And there would be no plot until the last fifteen minutes.
  
  Because, frankly, there was no plot. After the lust between Edward and Bella was reconciled, my interest left completely. After the relationship became whole, I was done. Everything else Meyer threw in seemed very, very half-hearted. And that's a shame, because I know she dedicated as many years into her characters. I only wish her results were better.
  
  May your writing improve in the future, Stephenie Meyer. You have serious potential, but you probably jumped on writing and publishing these novels too soon. You definitely needed more time in Washington, as well.
  
  
• Sweet vampire romance
  By A5YOMBZZ9RYC7 on 2005-10-24
  Alright - I'm a bit bias. I'll read anything that's about vampires. But this book was not only well written = the characters were relatable. I won't even say "for a young adult novel" It's not fair. It was a good book that I'm looking forward to a sequel - or 2 - hopefully.
  The vampire myth is a bit tilted - which is nice, actually. Adds a bit of mystery. It's a sweet slightly dark romance that is perfect for the season.
  
  
  
• Glittery vampires? Oh yes.
  By A2N31EBCPQOVIL on 2007-07-30
  In a way I feel like the only teenage girl who really disliked this book and isn't head-over-heels for Edward Cullen and his God-like perfection. While I am perfectly aware that this is a YA novel and should be treated as such, even YA deserves some good ol' criticism sometimes. After all, nobody feels bad about ripping apart the Harry Potter books in a review, and they are aimed at an even younger audience.
  
  Twilight could very well be the epitome of Mary Sue fiction. It read like something you would find on a fanfiction website and is clear from the very first chapter.
  
  Bella Swan, the main character, moves to Forks, Washington, a city that seems to constantly be under siege by rain. She, of course, does not want to be here. She's not fond of her father; she misses her mother, but decides to make a great sacrifice by moving so her mother can travel with her baseball-playing boyfriend while Bella finishes school. From there the author blesses us with lines like: "Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful.", and "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?". If you haven't already guessed, Bella's life is terrible because she's shy. However, when she steps foot inside the school, despite her being oh-so depressed, cynical and stricken with a social phobia, she has already made a horde a friends and has boys on her tail, even if she isn't physically appealing. Still in the first chapter, she spots a family of flawless, gorgeous human beings. Here we meet the Cullen family- Edward Cullen in particular. Naturally, she is enchanted by them. Poor Bella finds that, by the power of cliché coincidence, she sits next to said Cullen in Biology. This is where the magic begins.
  
  To make a long story short, her life is saved by Edward, she finds out he is a vampire and boom! They're in love. Madly, deeply in love. No suspense and no build-up at all. It just happens. All within the first few chapters. The rest of the book? Lots of smiling, glaring and explanations about Edward's gorgeous eyes, hair, smell and affection. Every time we see him, Bella comments on how his clothes bring out the muscular shape of his body and about his "beautiful crooked smile". Only within the last pages of the book do you get an exciting (which is up to interpretation) story that includes an antagonist. The first 400-some pages were as bland as bland can be.
  
  The real fun is with the characters. They have no depth. They're almost laughable.
  
  - Bella is beautiful but doesn't believe that she is, despite the fact that she has a vampire and the entire male population of her school drooling over her. Meyer tried to make her a strong heroine, but didn't quite make it. While she may write reports about misogyny in Shakespearean works, she also cooks and cleans for her lazy father who expects nothing less from her and follows Edward's every word religiously with no second thoughts.
  - Edward is a brooding, angsty vampire with no flaws, perfect hair, beautiful eyes and a body to die for. Enough said.
  - Edward's family members are cheerful (except for Rosalie. I think she was the only character I liked, because she was snarky and real) and, once again, flawless.
  
  I finished the book and came online to see what other people had to say about it only to find that it had a rather large fanbase and tons of perfect reviews. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. Different strokes for different folks as they say. I'm just a bit surprised that it is popular in some of the communities it is popular in- fanfiction writers who scoff at the idea of Mary Sue characters, for example, as if Bella and Edward can be excluded from this.
  
  On the positive side, Stephanie Meyer has an interesting perspective on vampires: the fact that they can't sleep and some of the special abilities she gave them that not all vampires have and so on. Then again, she also made them glittery in the sunlight.
  
  I've heard there are a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes in Twilight, but I did not notice them so I can't comment on it. I have poor grammar myself, so it is not as noticeable to me as it is to some people. *shrug*
  
  
• did anyone actually read this book before it went to print?
  By ADFLBRY00Y70G on 2007-11-29
  there are so many problems with this book that i can't even begin to address them all. but i will say this, 'twilight' is probably one of the worst, if not THE worst, books i've ever read. the writing is amateurish at best [cliches, stereotypes, purple prose--how anyone can applaud meyer's prose is puzzling]; the editing--or lack thereof--is appalling [this is a 200 page novel, no more and probably less]; the grammar and syntax are unforgivably bad; the plot is onion-skin thin; and the characters are uniformly dull and uninspiring.
  
  it's hard to imagine how so many people got suckered into this book. the novel's protagonist, bella swan [really? i mean, really?], is a complete idiot. she has no dreams, no motivations, no ambitions, no hopes, no goals, and not a single original thought of her own. she spends 500 pages spewing endless platitudes and commenting on edwards 'perfect face,' 'amber eyes,' and 'perfectly-muscled chest' ad nauseum [those references number in the HUNDREDS, easily]. she constantly wonders why edward, a 100-year old domineering vampire, wants her. apparently she's the only one who doesn't realize how 'beautiful' she is. honestly, this is the kind of novel you'd expect see selling for $1.99 at the supermarket checkout, not winning all sorts of awards. at one point i was half-expecting to close the book and find de-shirted fabio on the cover. and a glittery vampire? gimme a break.
  
  frankly, i'm mystified at its popularity. if nothing else, i guess it goes to show what clever marketing and stories of wish-fulfillment and so-called 'forbidden love' can do to some women. it's made meyer a multi-millionaire, i'm sure, and turned her publisher into a cash cow. i don't begrudge anyone his or her success, but when it comes via a turd like 'twilight,' it's well, more than a tad saddening.
  
  what's even more disheartening are the 'twlight' apologists who say that 'at least young women are reading!' [as if reading trash is preferable to not reading at all.] i guess you could make that argument, but with that kind of logic you might as well congratulate an anorexic for eating a marshmallow.
  
  
  
• Poorly written
  By A364ZCM7K7LTBZ on 2006-10-25
  "Average" girl from Phoenix moves to Seattle to live with her father after her mother's remarriage. Suddenly, she's beautiful and popular. Meets boy who looks like Greek god. Falls in lurve. Boy says "I'm too dangerous for you". Girl says "I don't care. I loooooooove you." Boy turns out to be vampire. Girl doesn't care. Because she looooooves him. They makeout for the remainder of the book. The End.
  
  Here are my problems with Twilight:
  1. S.A.S. Selfish, Angsty, and Shallow. Once Bella and Edward realize their love for each other, they simply don't care about anybody else. "True Love" is never selfish. Honestly: Edward is over 100 years old--yet he never seemed to have got over the angst stage in life. Both Bella and Edward come across as extremely shallow and unbelievable. Bella faints when she sees a drop of blood, but she doesn't give a darn that one of the reasons Edward likes her is because he wants her blood. Also, she is unaccountably clumsy. People as clumsy as Bella usually get put in straight jackets---except Bella's clumsiness is (italics, please) attractive.
  2. The characters are not believable. Bella talks like a whiny, middle-aged woman, not a "mature" 17-year-old. Edward is the reverse: he comes across as an angsty teen when he is really 100+.
  3. The whole "damsel in distress" plot is getting old. One hundred years ago, it could have been believeable, but things are different now; Bella needs to buck up and use her brain for once.
  4. After Bella and Edward meet, they fall in love without getting to know each other. They spend more time making out then talking to each other. Love-at-first-sight doesn't mean that you're all set to have a relationship with that person without actually knowing them.
  5. Plot holes. So many plot holes. The novel was not thought out very well. Maybe the first draft was published by accident. The biggest plot hole was in Bella and Edward's attraction for each other. Basically, Bella fell in love with Edward because he was different, amazing, perfect (just to top off a long list of dazzling adjectives). Edward fell in love with Bella because she was different--although I didn't buy that one. Bella begs Edward to turn her into a vampire, but neither of them seem to realize that if Bella is a vampire, their attraction for each other is over. Then Bella is stuck in immortality with a guy she no longer feels attracted to.
  6. Bella, again. The whole time I was reading Twilight, there was something nagging me about Bella and I couldn't figure out what it was. I turned the last page and saw the picture of the author. She looked almost exactly like my mental image of Bella. It occurred to me that the author used A LOT of personal experience in creating Bella. Big mistake. You can't try blending yourself into a fictional person. It's an unbalanced equation: it just won't work.
  
  This book made me almost ashamed to be a 16 year old female. Are teenagers of the female sex all this stupid and pathetic? For the love of God I hope not. If you want a modern vampire story, read "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley.
  
  
• Vampire-Fantasy Lover Disappointed
  By A2RXSMFOM9SLRQ on 2007-06-18
  Let me preface this by saying I am not a (jr.?) high school girl and I did not go into reading this book expecting it to be a high school-oriented novel. If you are a high school girl and you want a vampire book, if I recall The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause was much better than this one. The reading level aside, the book just didn't live up to the hype. The characters were flat, uninteresting, difficult to relate to, and hard to believe. The situations they found themselves were stock-vampire story ones, and the action, when it did happen happened in that anticlimactic way that reveals that the author remembered thirty pages before the end that "oh yes, I need conflict besides the fact that she's human and he's a vampire." In short, there was absolutely nothing about the story as a whole that would make me want to read the second one. I suppose this was a good attempt on Meyer's part - I have read worse - but its one of the first books I've read in a long while that I'd describe as boring. Read it if you'd like - but get it at the library, the $9 isn't even worth it.
  Some alternatives that you might want to check out would be the earlier (1-9) Anita Blake Series (Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Book 1)), the Women of the Underworld Series (Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 1)), and the Cassandra Palmer Series (Touch the Dark (Cassandra Palmer Series, Book 1)).
  
  
• Am I supposed to like these people?
  By A2KUX3M0GSPH38 on 2006-08-16
  This has got to be one of the most boring books I have ever read. I can't stand any of the two-demensional characters. And now, vampires SPARKLE? Because it atracks humans? If I saw a glowing human, no matter how hot they were, I would assume that they were raidioactive. Then I would walk away without looking back.
  
  And the whole "Oh, Bella, I'm addicted to you! I vant to suck your blood, but I must restrain myself since I am IN LOVE with you!" When did he have time to fall in love with her? When did she have time to fall in love with him? They're both increadibly beautiful people, so maybe they bonded over that.
  
  Bella is more squeamish than any real person. When she sees a drop of blood, she faints. FAINTS! And then her dead boyfriend wants to eat her? What the heck?
  
  Why do these senior citizens go to freakin' HIGHSCHOOL? Does anyone else find this just a little bit unreasonable? And then one of ye olde folk falls in love in love with a teenage girl? Am I the only one who thinks that this is only mildly disgusting? I mean, the guy was old enough to be sitting around at country club playing shuffleboard and bingo! But it's okay, because he looks young. My grandma looks young (thanks to numerouse face lifts), and wants to be a twenty-something.
  
  Bella is the opposite of what feminists have been striving for for hundreds of years. Edward must be getting tired of saving her by now,
  
  This book is a waste of trees. Don't buy it.
  
  
• Intoxicating and addictive
  By A33CLVW2K7SL1P on 2006-09-24
  "Real" Rating: 5+
  
  For any potential readers concerned that this might be a retread of twelve combined seasons of Buffy and Angel, set your fears aside. It's not. That said, now go and buy the book.
  
  Buffy and Angel were never set in "our" world - the real world. It was the "Buffy" universe, and/or the "Angel" universe. At first glance, it seems inconceivable that Bella not realize what Edward is. Most of the requisite indicators are evident. You find yourself reading and wondering how Bella could possibly guess "Peter Parker" instead of "vampire", but then it sinks in. Bella can't conceive of such a thing because this book is firmly, irrevocably set in our world, and that, indeed, is the magic of this story.
  
  It is a remarkable accomplishment, often attempted, but rarely achieved, and far more rarely executed with such (apparent) ease.
  
  I did not expect to like this book, and started to read it only as a courtesy to the person who gave it to me for my birthday. But twenty pages in, I was hooked. If we want to follow that metaphor to its inevitable conclusion, I was so hooked that by the time I finished it I was in the fisherman's pail, flopping around as if gasping for air. Instead, I was begging for a sequel. Thankfully, I already knew that the sequel was out.
  
  To quote a character from the book, "W - o - w". I haven't sped through something like this since I picked up the first Harry Potter book.
  
  Ms. Meyer handled the developing relationship between Edward and Bella with the mark of a seasoned professional, not a first-time novelist. We need to remember that this is coming-of-age book, or a romance - more a combination of "Catcher in the Rye" and "Pride and Prejudice" than a vampire story. It certainly has far more in common with those two books than "The Vampire Lestat". (And, of course, Buffy and Angel.)
  
  It is very difficult to write a coming-of-age story. Why? It's been done a million times, and finding new material to mine becomes more difficult every month. It's also difficult to write a vampire story. Why? Same reason. Yet those reasons didn't give Ms. Meyers, it seems, any pause. It would have given me considerable pause. Kudos to her bravery.
  
  Edward Cullen, the vampire, is perfect - and we are reminded of exactly how perfect nearly too often. While reading the book, I found myself frustrated with the never-ending descriptions of his perfect body, perfect hair, model-like looks (maybe I was jealous?) but then I realized that the book wasn't being written in the third person. It's a first-person narrative, so we're getting the story as *Bella* tells it, and how Bella sees it. His burning black eyes, or warm topaz/butterscotch eyes, are magnets to her, as are every single movement he makes. It's not difficult to step back into high school and remember your first love (or crush) and recall similar feelings. Their eyes never ceased to captivate you; their smile melted you; when they kissed you, you felt faint. And you felt these things every single time you saw that person.
  
  One of the more interesting aspects of the book is that we never get a sense for how unique and beautiful Bella is until we start to see her through Edward's eyes. This being a first-person narrative, it takes a while for the reader to understand how Bella - so awkward that she can trip while walking on a flat surface - could have fascinated such a magnificent...creature. I even questioned it myself while making my way through the book. But again, Ms. Meyer's deft hand brings the realization of how special Bella is very slowly and deliberately - much the way in which we didn't find out why Bella moved to Forks until page 50 or so, and why we never knew exactly why Edward had such a powerful, apparently repulsed reaction to Bella when they first came close to each other.
  
  That's just one thing that makes a writer truly exceptional - the ability to hold back, and tell the story as the story needs to be told. Or to put it another way, to know exactly how the story needs to be told. That might just be the most difficult task a writer has. There are a million ways to tell the story in the writer's head, but to find the right way is often elusive.
  
  This was such a remarkable and refreshing story. Even when Buffy and Angel similarities started to pop up, they quickly fell away as Ms. Meyer staked an irrevocable claim to this story as absolutely her own. Nothing borrowed, nothing...
  
  The representation of the vampires, their unique talents, and the unique way in which they blend into society is marvelous, and provides a firm backbone to the story. While this is a story that is decidedly told in our world, and while I have said that this is more of a coming-of-age story than a vampire story, there are still vampires in it, and the vampires - the fantastical elements of the story - need to be believable. If not, the entire story, no matter how well told, falls apart, and the reader is left wondering why the vampires are even in the story. Her vampires, and their lore, are distinctly drawn.
  
  I wanted to title this review, "My brand of heroin", from a line in the book, but thought twice seeing as it's a young adult book and I didn't want parents or anyone else thinking that I was advocating heroin use, or claiming to be a heroin addict, etc. But this book is absolutely intoxicating and perhaps addictive. Thankfully, the worst side effect of the intoxication is you might suffer a lack of sleep on *one* night (if you have the time, it shouldn't take much longer), and the addiction - to a book - is harmless. Unless, of course, that book actually contained heroin, and then we'd be talking a bit differently about this one.
  
  
  
• Are You KIDDING Me?
  By ABGQX7ANPBU2L on 2008-03-04
  I understand setting. And build up. And suspense. So after reading 100 pages of this book, I didn't give it too much thought that nothing had happened. Here is my report of what happened after that:
  
  200 pages: Nothing has happened.
  
  300 pages: Nothing has happened.
  
  350 pages: Nothing has happened.
  
  400 pages: NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.
  
  Are you Kidding me?
  
  Wait. WAIT. On page 441, something happens. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. O my God, this is it. Something is really going to happen! I plodded through this padded wasteland and finally something is going to happen!
  
  Oh. Wait. It's resolved by page 451.
  
  I'm not making this up.
  
  So let me sum it up for you.
  
  Bella falls for Edward because he is attractive (we are told he looks like an "angel" "is angelic" "is seraphic" and oh, again, "looks like an angel," on about pages 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 17, 20, 33, 34, 35, 40, 44 . . . you get the idea. I understand that "angel" might not be in a thesaurus, but FOR GODDSAKES, find a new description. Also, his hair is described, alternately, as auburn and bronze. Did anyone else have a problem with the fact that these are completely different colors? Seriously.
  
  So Bella loves Edward for his looks. How precious.
  
  Edward loves Bella for her smell.
  
  What a beautiful, timeless romance.
  
  Spare me.
  
  Also, was anyone painfully unimpressed with the whole Alice side-story? Meyer obviously planted the hints about Alice's missing memory, only to explain it away later to *shock and surprise* us, with something completely uninteresting. It's like the saying goes: if you see a gun in chapter one, it's going to go off in chapter three. But if the gun goes off in chapter three during target practice and only manages to hit a tree branch, did it even NEED to be in chapter one in the first place? The Alice thing was pointless. Call me when you have a real twist.
  
  I imagine this book is lovely for ambitious twelve year olds who want to tackle a five hundred page novel. They will find it easy to do so, because Twilight reads like a painfully long letter an immature but stuck-up pre-adolescent writes to her pen pal.
  
  I am SO SAD this passes for good teenage fiction.
  
  And this is why, when someone announces she writes Young Adult fiction, that people say, "Why don't you want to write real books?"
  
  And that
  Sucks.
  
  
• I'm sorry to say this
  By A26FEJTPYJ934F on 2007-06-07
  I wanted to like this book. I REALLY did. After all the hype it got, I thought I'd find at least something good in it, but I couldn't. The characters were flat and unoriginal. The story, predictable. And all that SAP! I'm sorry. I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
  
  
• Giving Vampires -- & Teen-aged Girls -- a Bad Name
  By A1589VHTTJMKJF on 2008-03-10
  My well-meaning younger sister loaned me this book, thinking it would be a distraction from a stressful time, & the most I was hoping for was a quick, fun, slightly trashy read. I'm a huge Buffy fan, so a vampire romance sounded like a great guilty pleasure.
  
  Instead, this book only succeeded in angering me, over and over, in its depiction of Bella Swann (beautiful swan? seriously? does Stephanie Meyer read a lot of those Harlequin Romance books?) -- selfish, uninspired, flat -- and of Edward, the most devastatingly BORING vampire ever. Do we really need infinite descriptions of Edward's 'marble lips', his 'crooked smile', his 'bronze curls'? I'm not even sure what color Bella's hair is. I do know she has no hobbies, interests, ambitions, etc, other than to bask in the glory of Edward & his family.
  
  Gross.
  
  There's a season 2 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which the gang finds themselves at a place called "The Sunset Club" (whose theme is, "vampires, yay!"). The club members insist that vampires are exalted, misunderstood creatures. Angel (a vampire) grumbles about the club members, "They're children making up bedtime stories of friendly vampires to comfort themselves in the dark."
  
  This is worse than that. This is a grown woman making up schmoopy-woopy vampire lovestories in which the ideal love object is an undead boy who is manipulative, controlling, prone to stalking, but can be forgiven all these things because he's soooooo gorgeous & would never do anything icky like actually have sex with you.
  
  Again, gross.
  
  
  
  
• Don't waste your money...
  By on 2007-05-06
  There are SO many things I dislike about this book. One, am I suposed to LIKE these people or something? Um, vampires that sparkle? I think the characters are very poorly developed, and 300+ pages of the book was Bella swooning over Edward and him saving her from everything under the sun. Secondly, if they'd only known each other a few months, isn't it a little weird that they fall madly in love all of a sudden? It would probably take much longer than that! And out main character is supposed to be "soooo smart," yet she acts like a complete idiot. Plus, I couldn't relate to her at all. And the endless descriptions of Edward's perfect eyes, perfect hair, voice, etc. get very tiring throughout the book. I think they used the word "grimace" about 10 thimes in each chapter, that's how irritating it is, and I'm serious! Mostly the whole story is Edward and Bella talking about how much they "love" each other. For some reason, even though Bella faints at the sight of blood, she isn't bothered at all by the fact that partially the reason Edward likes her is because he wants her blood. That really bugged me, too. Don't waste your money. If you want a good vampire book, read Bram Stoker's Dracula...or if you want horror, read The Phantom of the Opera. I like the characters and the storyline much better in that one! But DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON TWILIGHT.
  
  
• Possibley the only teenage girl who doesn't love this book
  By A2Z0CWX3Y1KSKS on 2007-06-16
  This book was reduntant and shallow. Meyer kept repeating words (how to describe Edward or facail expresions) and I never got attatched to any of the characters. When you read a book, you usually fall in love with the heroine, but in this book, I just thought that Bella was annoying and shallow. There was pretty much NO reason for her to fall in love. Oh wait... he was "perfect" apparently. Perfect eyes, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect perfect perfect, blah blah blah!
  
  It almost seemed like the author was trying to make the main characters seem mature and adult, while every other person at the school is just a shallow teenager. But then when Bella and Edward were together, it was all fluff and "I love you" "I love you too" and page after page about how they would do anything for each other. Alright, we get it. Move on.
  
  And Bella was told more than once that living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be, yet she didn't listen. She wouldn't even think about it. Apparently she had never read (or watched) "Tuck Everlasting".
  
  And what was with the vampires??? I respected the whole Glitter thing at first, but after thinking about it, it was just annoying. And what about the powers that they had? Edward could read minds, Sally (or whatever the hell her name was) could see the future. Vampires are not super heroes. They're the living dead!!! Changing things by using your imagination is great to some extent. But c'mon.
  
  I love fantasy books, but this is the worst thing I have every read. A good story idea... wasted.
  
  The only person I ever liked was Jacob.
  
  
• very overrated
  By A1GDIX635IZCUF on 2008-04-20
  I admit I was biased before reading this book. I had noticed that it had gotten a sort of weird cult following and that a lot of people seemed to be strangely obsessed with someone named "Edward Cullen". Now, I actually thought this Edward Cullen was an actor or somesuch at first, until I finally googled it out of irritation and saw that he was the protaganist to a rather emo-looking book. I immediately had no interest in reading it.
  
  However, my friend convinced me to, saying she loved it, and I did. I somehow managed to get through it. All I can say is, what idiot thinks of this book as literature? Throughout the whole book, I had to chuckle at the heavy-handed and poor writing - I actually checked the author section to see if it was a teenage author (no offense, Stephenie Meyer). The protaganist is duller than a slab of rock. Her name is "Bella Swan", a name that sounds like it belongs in a trashy romance novel. She is constantly falling into damsel in distress positions, whether it be from a car zooming toward her, or four guys following her and apparently attempting to rape her (because she is just that awesome, that she can't walk through a town without guys chasing after her), or some random vampire deciding to fixate on killing her. Never does she ever use that useful thing called a brain, but acts like an idiot. She doesn't even endear the reader with some kind of fiery determination.
  
  This is what bothered me a good amount as well. Despite her excessive dullness (the only trait she seems to possess is clumsiness), just about every male in the story falls in love with her. She is fought over about the spring dance by three different guys; by the end of the story, FIVE different guys crush on her: Mike, Eric, Tyler, Jacob, and Edward. None of them serve any interest to the plot besides Edward, and to a a small, minute, barely-there extent Jacob. In fact, the book could easily do without Mike, Eric, OR Tyler. Eric has probably five lines in the whole book: was there ANY purpose in creating him? It was as though the author's saying: "Look, everyone loves Bella, you should too!" She's telling us instead of showing us. How about show us something good about Bella that would make her so fascinating to all these guys? Couldn't she be clever, or funny, or smart? She hasn't a drop of any of these things, so I fail to see how she is so amazing to every guy in a five foot radius. Especially considering there was no purpose to making her so, it was just for the sake of showing off how great Bella supposedly is.
  
  Though, come to think of it, there isn't much plot. I can sum it up fairly quickly: Bella loves Edward. Edward loves Bella. But shocker! Edward is a vampire. But they still go out anyway, even though Bella is stupid and almost dies about a million times. The end. With such an empty plot, perhaps it would be character-driven, but that too is handled in a piss-poor manner. The characters are stagnant, despite the love that blossoms magically between them. No characters are complex or interesting or suspenseful. They are unbelievably boring. Even Edward, who has the potential to be an awesome character, sucks. All that exists in this novel is their love story, and what trash that was: their 'romance' reminded me of the kind of fantasy a twelve-year-old with a vampire fetish would have. They rarely actually bond - they just spend time together being ungodly boring and WHAM! True love! She is so in love with him that she actually wants to leave her family, her life, her future, EVERYTHING, to be a vampire. What a sick, deluded girl. How is that in any way admirable? Give up everything for a guy you barely know? Wow, what a great concept, feed that idea to teen girls everywhere.
  
  Perhaps if this premise was used by a more capable author, a better story could come of it. As it stands, this book is the biggest waste of paper ever.
  
  
• Contrived and formulaic
  By A3QJ9B6HNXFKFE on 2008-02-24
  The quick version of this book: If you're pretty and pouty, you too can land yourself a gorgeous vampire boyfriend who will continuously save your a**.
  
  Let's take our main character first - Bella Swann. Yet another heroine who doesn't know she's beautiful and describes herself as shy but never exhibits the trait. The book is told in first person, which is unfortunate, because that means the reader is at ground zero for all of her insipid thoughts. She moves in with her father in his small town and holds contempt for just about everyone she meets at school, even though all they are doing is being friendly and including her. Not that any of this matters to Bella once she spots beautiful Edward. The next 500 pages are filled with purple descriptions of his magnificence, of how she's not worthy, of how could this god-like/Adonis-like creature stoop to love her.
  
  I'm going to try to condense my irritation with Bella into a series of points:
  * She's ridiculously clumsy, which is meant to be a fault, is passed off as charming, but basically just gives her an asinine reason not to run so Edward can save her.
  * She "falls in love" with Edward within weeks of knowing him, and after a couple hundred pages, if he even mentions leaving, she hyperventilates and acts like her world will freaking collapse. Stalking is illegal in all 50 states, Bella.
  * Whenever Eddikens so much as barely brushes his lips with hers, she either tries to rip his clothes off (natural) or her heart stops beating and she passes out. The girl hit the floor so many times in this book she put Giles to shame.
  
  Which brings me to Edward. Angsty telepathic vampire Edward. While we have very little clear idea what Bella looks like, we get to hear about Eddiken's gorgeous, transcendental face and body over and over and over again. He's impossibly frustrating because he's been crammed with so many character traits, depending entirely on what the author wants him to be like at the time. He calls himself a monster and thinks he should have died all those years ago, but then totally lords his awesomeness over the mundane humans. And he is awesome. Lest you forget it, he's even awesomer than the rest of his vampire family at everything.
  
  But the worst part about Edward is how he treats Bella. He is initially attracted to her because her smell is particularly attractive to him (okay, I'll bite) and because he can't read her thoughts. (Trust me, Eddikens, I'm lookin' right at 'em, and there ain't nothin' up there worth wondering about.) He knows he's a danger to her (woe!) and tells her straight off that it's better if they not be around each other (sorrow!)...and then he proceeds to hang all over her! He berates himself once every few pages for putting her in danger but never has the guts to fix the matter because he "just can't stay away from her" and "[she's his] life now." *wretch*
  
  The author's writing style is unimpressive. Not bad, per se, but it wasn't giving me anything new. It all felt rather generic. Her vampires weren't bad - the "ultimate predators" and all that - but they were slightly ruined by her reasoning of why vamps can't go out in the sun. It's not because they'll burn up and die - it's because they glitter. That's right - these are GlamRock!Vampires. I also can see how Bella never takes Edward seriously when he tells her he's dangerous and she shouldn't want to be cursed with vampirism. Honestly, the author never shows us anything negative about the condition. It's all quick reflexes, superiority and baseball games with the fam.
  
  The plot is bogus. Four hundred pages of ill-conceived romance and then a quick 100 pages of worse-conceived conflict. The romance, to put it frankly, is a little disturbing in how it borders on the obsessive, especially on Bella's side because he's just so, so, so beautiful!
  
  And that's what bothers me the most about this book and the message that it sends to all of its rabid readers: the importance of beauty. Not inner beauty, either. Edward and his wonderful vampire family (all of whom are good because they don't feed on humans) are described over and over again in all of their wonderful physical qualities. They're cardboard characters for us to admire. Bella, of course, doesn't think of herself as beautiful, but the fact that she has four other boys in addition to the vampire falling all over themselves to please her begs to differ. I was willing to forgive the beauty of the vampires as a trait they acquire when they're turned, but a few others turn up later that are described as "nondescript" and ordinary-looking. And of course, they turn out to be the bad guys. Really, Stephanie Meyer?
  
  I'm not buying it. Or your sequels for that matter.
  
  
• You might gag!
  By A37YJCNKM3NDPK on 2007-07-16
  This poorly-written piece of juvenile fiction is tailored to 12 and 13-year-old girls. It's all about "his gleaming eyes," "his crooked smile," and on and on. Don't expect any logic, either. The main character is a girl who has moved from her old school,where she never had a boyfriend, to a new school, where the guys can't leave her alone. And the logic goes downhill from there. But hey, since when did pre-adolescents need their fiction to make sense? If you're an adult, don't waste your time or money on this.
  
  
• Disappointed
  By A2P8P4833S5U3B on 2006-05-02
  I read this on recommendation by the Young Reader division manager of my favorite bookstore. I love children's books and usually trust their judgments. I must say I am utterly disappointed by this book and am surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reviews. There is NO STORY in this book but scenes after scenes that seem to have copied out of cheap romance novels. The writing is as trite and corny as can be..."His angel face...his unexpected closeness...His golden eyes mesmerized me." "...he pulled me around to his face, cradling me in his arms like a small child....carefully placed me on the springy ferns." "He gazed unrelentingly into my eyes...until my head started to swim that I realized I wasn't breathing." Can you see Fabio or is it just me?
  
  The book cover has a review that compares this book to Anne Rice's vampire series. I should have taken the hint. Interview with a Vampire is somewhat readable but not others in her series. This is not even halfway Anne Rice. This book has no substance but plays to some women's (most likely bimbos') desire to be pampered and adored.
  
  I think I am going to give myself a treat after this book and go buy the sequels to Golden Compass.
  
  
• 144 positive reviews - and they're right!
  By A1ER5AYS3FQ9O3 on 2006-03-06
  This time the readers got it right. This is a book well worth reading and an absolute MUST for fans of themes revolving around vampires. Buffy fans should be delighted by this one as well.
  
  By the way, don't be put off by the fact that it was written for the Young Adult crowd. It has plenty to engage any adult reader as well, from romance, bittersweet moments and, of course, the dilemna of vampire meets human, including romance and danger.
  
  THere are also two competing vampire "clans" leading to moments of great suspense.
  
  

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