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TWILIGHT
Stephanie
Meyer
 Twilight,
author Stephanie Meyers first book and the first of the series by the
same name, is an intense and gripping page turner directed mainly at the
young adult genre, however just suspenseful and compelling enough to
attract readers from every generation.
I’m going to be completely honest with you, I am in no way a
seasoned critic of literature and the way I judge books, for the most
part, is how quickly they compel me to turn the pages.
After finishing the first installment in the Twilight series I
loved it, taking only 2 days to work through the 500 page book.
The
incredibly long book almost feels like two books with the first two
thirds engrossing the reader with vampire romance, smouldering eyes,
palpitating hearts, mood swings and a touch of fantasy and then moving
into an action-thriller with the final third. However, in spite of the
length of the novel, it’s incredibly easy to find yourself having read
one hundred pages in a blink of an eye and desperate to continue for the
next one hundred, regardless of your own bodies need to eat, drink and
move from the bedroom to the outside world for a dose of vitamin D.
Isabella Swan, an inelegant and clumsy seventeen year old girl, is
the lead character and moves from her home in the large city of
Phoenix
to live with her father in the small town of
Forks
, after her fickle and erratic mother re-marries a sports-star.
Despite
her extreme dislike for the monotonous, constantly raining and
ever-sunless town Bella discovers upon her arrival and induction to her
new school, not everything is as dull as she first thought.
Bella finds herself, to her own irritation, fascinated with the
group of five remarkably beautiful and mysterious teenagers of the
Cullen family, and more importantly the one named ‘Edward’.
As she grows to know, and eventually love Edward she becomes aware
of the family’s secret that they are in actual fact good natured
vampires – refusing to feed off humans like cattle and drinking only
from woodland animals they have hunted.
However, when a roving group of tracking vampires come to town
with their sole purpose fixated on her the family is drawn in a
desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst.
While I loved the book and shamefully have now, gotten myself two
copies for at home, there are some basic issues and flaws that you will
become familiar with as you read, mainly the author’s repetition in
the description of characters, especially in relation to the vampire
family. There is also the
feeling that despite the sheer size of the novel and regardless of the
level of in depth development of the main characters, the link and
growth of non-central characters was rushed, leaving the reader wishing
they knew more about the other residents in the town of
Forks
, which almost becomes a dimensional character in itself.
However
some will argue that this rush to overlook the promotion of other
characters of the book almost mimicked Bella’s tunnel vision for her
love interest.
Stephanie Meyer’s writing, while not to the taste of those who
live for true literacy marvels, captures brilliantly her uncanny
abilities with suspense, romance and love without ever crossing the line
into the erotic, leaving Bella’s infatuation with Edward and the
danger of their inherent love along with Edwards inner struggle to be an
almost perfect metaphor for the sexual tension that accompanies everyday
adolescence.
© Hayley, Ingham, Australia
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