In Twilight, we meet Bella Swan, the new kid in her small school in the small town of Forks, WA (the rainiest place on earth).
Bella has just moved from her home in sunny Phoenix, where she lived with her mom. Now she’s living with the dad that she’s had only a superficial relationship with until now. And if that weren’t enough, her “newness” makes her a curiosity at school.
It doesn’t take long until she starts making friends and figuring out which group she fits in with. But then there’s the one table of students in the school cafeteria that she can’t take her eyes off of. They seem so different – all of them unnaturally beautiful and distant from everyone else.
After a rocky start, Bella starts to be captivated by one of the students in particular. Edward Cullen. It turns out that he’s absolutely perfect in every way…except that he’s a (friendly!) vampire masquerading as a human.
I have never been interested in vampire books. There’s just nothing about them that piques my interest. So when I kept hearing about the Twilight Saga, I ignored the hype. I thought they were for weirdos who read vampire books. ;)
These are NOT just for weirdos who read vampire books! OK, the literary merit of the books isn’t fabulous, BUT the story is completely addictive. Action, Adventure, Romance…these are hard to put down. I read Twilight in one day, and it’s a thick book (probably nearly 600 pages).
New Moon is the next book in the Twilight Saga. It picks up the loose ends from Twilight and moves the focus from (friendly!) Vampires to (friendly!) Werewolves (Forks is a really weird town!). I don’t read werewolf books either, but it’s a good story!
New Moon is a lot slower paced than Twilight because Edward doesn’t feature as much in it, but it picks up late in the book.
All that being said, here are my gripes (some may be spoilers, so beware):
1. Bella’s character is supposed to be clumsy. I think it plays into the storyline so much that it makes her clumsiness completely unbelievable. I can believe that someone will trip over her own feet only so many times.
2. Bella is as dumb as a sack of hammers. (Are you seeing a recurring theme yet?)
Key elements of the story are laid out for us early on in the story and Bella is totally in on it…but she conveniently “forgets” and takes chapters and chapters to figure things out? C’mon.
3. The parts of the story that don’t feature Edward seem to drag by. Clearly I have a crush on a literary figure. Sue me.
All in all, though, this is a great series. I am on the library's waiting list for the next book in the series, Eclipse. And the next and final installment of the series, Breaking Dawn, is being released tonight at midnight.
I haven't seen this type of book obsession amid the book-loving community since the Harry Potter books. Hooray for Stephenie Meyer.
4 comments:
Yup - I keep avoiding them because of the vampire content. Sounds like everyone is enjoying this series though - vampire lovers or not!
I couldn't imagine myself liking a vampire book but in the last year I've read the three Twilight books and two others. And really liked them all. I'm looking forward to Breaking Dawn. I personally think both Edward and Jacob are too good for Bella.
I just recently got around to reading this since I figured I'd go see the movie in December (I have a crush on Cedric Diggory, what can I say), and it was...ok. Not great. Quick read, but really not at all as good as I'd expected having read such raving reviews. But I hear the next two (now three) get better, so I'm on my wait list at the library.
(Popped over from Semicolon's roundup - should have introduced myself!)
Another single day reader! (grin) I have to get on the waiting list for the next one - and then set out a day for it.
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