Twilight

Special bonus review!

The iconic cover. Pretty sweet.

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

Bet you didn't expect this'un! (Unless you caught the sneak preview when I accidentally published an early draft. Ahem.)

So I can admit when I am wrong. I wasn't struck with Twilight fever or anything, but I concede this book is not as awful as it was made out to be. In fact, I could immediately point to something Meyer did right- the prologue. Unlike The Swan Kingdom's prologue - my only complaint - this one works. It's short. It grabs your attention. It adds to your reading of the book. The prologue slips in an element of mystery to what is basically a forbidden love story. With romance, the usual page turning element is the mystery of will they- no, how will they end up together. Meyer's prologue kicks it up a notch by throwing in an actual (murder?) mystery before we even know who's in trouble. So props to S. Meyer.

Anyway, this is going to be less of a review and more of a 'why the book works where the movie didn't'. Consider yourselves warned. Onwards!

I assume you're familiar with the story, but the short version is this: Bella is human, Bella loves Edward. Edward is a vampire, Edward loves Bella even though he thirsts for her blood like a mofo. The book is written from Bella's POV. This actually (surprisingly to me) does the book a lot of favours. Book Bella's (BB's) internal monologues make her much more likable than the movie version where she basically just pines over Edward and bites her lip. I still thought she was a tad pathetic for falling so hard, so fast for a guy who was originally kind of a jerk to her and has this controlling streak throughout, but when she thought to herself 'I'm so pathetic, why can't I stop liking him?!' it helped. She knew it was weird and crazy and she tried(ish) to stop, but couldn't. I can get behind that a lot more than the almost instanteous defeat of Movie Bella (MB). And when BB gets herself in a situation where it looks like she needs to be rescued (again) she considers multiple options (escape, concede the battle to win the war, attack), formulates a plan of action and prepares to act it out and then when she is rescued it doesn't seem like another cop-out. You think for a second she might be able to handle it. Without the magic of internal monologue, MB just kind of spazzes and gets saved and that's it for character growth.

I think the most important movie fail was the mystery of 'what the hell happened to Book Edward's (BE's) sense of humour?' Suddenly he's super serious All. The. Time. In the book you can't stop that guy from smirking every two seconds. Luckily, I have a thing for arrogant jerks with a sense of humour so that works for me, though I could see how others might find that annoying. But who on earth does Movie Edward (ME) appeal to with his constant glowering? In the book he dazzles girls which seems to be a combination of good looks and charm. ME possesses neither. I don't get it.

So yeah, the book is alright. The description of the scenery which Bella supposedly hates was nicely done. Both characters are more appealing on paper. The love was a whole lot more believable. The barely suppressed sexual tension that found expression in the lightest of touches with hands and lips was hotter than some sex scenes I've read. And it was very readable. (Like, thinking to yourself at 12:30am you'll read one chapter and stopping 80 pages later at nearly 2am. Hypothetically.) I don't know if I'll read the rest of the series because my twihard friends admit that New Moon is kind of hell to get through (the movie trailer looks interesting though?) and I know it gets crazy in Breaking Dawn with *spoiler alert* womb-destroying babies who have questionable bonds with fully grown sexy werewolves. Never say never though.

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