After moving from Phoenix to Forks, WA, Bella Swan meets Edward Cullen (who acts a little odd around her, has been bringing sexy back since 1901, and is a vampire, which Bella discovers after he saves her life a few times and is warned by werewolves, who are not great fans of the local undead). While she struggles with being the new kid in a small school, living with her father/fending off her worried mother’s e-mails, and avoiding death-by-car, she slowly falls in love with Edward, who is himself chemically attracted to her — at least, to the smell of her blood.
Artfully written, particularly for a debut novel, Twilight is both engaging and suspenseful. Despite starting off like any other girl-moves-somewhere-weird-and-feels-awkward novel, as the plot moves to a head characters undergo genuine transformations and become products of a novel that has the potential for carrying more than YA appeal.
Rather than sticking to a bats-dissolving-in-daylight mythological motif, Meyer deviates from tradition. Vampires become more attractive in daylight (the better to seduce you with, my dear), and while they still have superhuman strength, they have some creepy corpse-like qualities to match. Unfortunately, this doesn’t prevent some things from being too easy. Selective mind-reading skills mean Edward can get information about Bella constantly (from the minds around her, if not from hers) and so when he saves her life it seems too convenient. Other things that were weird: the emphasis on cold skin, the running-faster-than-a-car-but-still-driving-even-once-people-know-you’re-undead-thing, and the unspeakable-except-at-great-lengths beauty of the undead.
Meyer also avoided many of the pitfalls that seem to stake other YA novels. Writers sometimes underestimate what their readers and have very purified views of what teenagers actually do, possibly because their parents might have been reading and you never know. Meyer doesn’t do that, and while she doesn’t reach the soft core porn line that books like Maureen Johnson’s The Bermeudez Triangle hit, she doesn’t keep to the chaste side of hand-holding either. Of course, by the end of the book, Bella — a seventeen-year-old girl — is talking in a mortality-laced way about spending forever with Edward, who both loves her and seems to regard her as a particularly juicy steak, but their relationship, while a little weird, is far from contrived.
The biggest problem with the book was all the fainting. Under attack? Fainting is OK. Lightly caressed? Fainting is not OK. Bella’s low blood sugar and deference to men took away from her otherwise strong character, and while sometimes it is nice to get the guy, it’s even nicer to have female characters kick ass. Which is a bit of a problem here.
Nevertheless, I’ve already gotten a hold of the next in the series.
One Comment
14 July 2008
A well written review. I actually read through this while contemplating whether or not I should poke at Twilight. I decided to pick it up, and I’m glad I did. Although her writing style is a bit… faulty, I enjoyed it.
I couldn’t agree with you more about Bella’s fainting spells. Her fainting got on my nerves too. That and how she goes on and blames herself for everything most of the time (not sure if it’s just in this book; it’s something I noticed after reading all of them). I’ll go on about my New Moon rantings once I read that review.
Oh, and am I the only one who appreciates Edward’s shinyness (for the lack of a better word…)? A lot of people online criticize it like mad, but I think it’s pretty creative idea. Maybe it’s just because I love shiny things…