Twilight: Was it Worth the Read?

             Hi! For my final blog post of the year I decided to review Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In summary, 17 year old Bella Swan moves to Forks, a small town in Washington, to live with her father. At school, she meets Edward Cullen, a mysterious and handsome boy in her grade. Edward and his family are treated as outsiders in the town. No one sits next to Edward and his siblings during lunch time, and everyone seems to be wary of them. As the story continues, Edward and Bella are drawn to each other and start dating. Bella notices some odd aspects of Edward’s life. For example, he frequently misses school to go on “hiking trips” with his family. Bella questions Jacob Black, the son of her father’s good friend, about the Cullens and he tells her an old Quileute legend of the “cold ones,” also known as vampires. Afterwards, Bella confronts Edward and he admits to being a vampire. However, he explains that he and his family are “good” vampires. They are morally opposed to drinking human blood, and instead rely on the blood of animals. He explains that the supposed “hiking trips” are actually to go hunting for animals, suppressing his “thirst” for human blood. Edward has a special thirst for Bella’s blood, which makes her especially attractive to him, but causes his human desire to keep her alive and his vampire instincts to wage war within himself. For the remainder of the book, Edward and Bella have to navigate through the dangers of a Human/Vampire relationship and the complications of any teenage romance novel.

What I liked:

            I enjoyed Twilight's description of vampires because it matched modern day vampire tropes. For example, Edward and his family are extremely pale and always have circles under their eyes. Also, similar to the common myth that vampires only come out at night, vampires in Twilight glitter in the sun, which is why the Cullens decide to live in Forks, which is supposedly almost never sunny. Furthermore, vampires do not need to sleep, which allows Edward to spend every night keeping an eye on Bella (more on that later). 

            Also, I found the plot of Twilight generally well thought out and compelling, making it hard to put the book down. Although there were a LOT of aspects that annoyed me, the book was good enough for me to finish rather than quitting halfway through.

What I disliked:

            In my opinion, Bella’s character was quite dry. She only had four distinguishing characteristics:

                        - Insecure about her appearance

                        - In love with Edward

                        - Loves classic English literature

                        - Clumsy

            That’s it. Bella doesn’t do anything to drive the plot forwards, it’s only her reacting to things that are happening around her. Yet, the book tries to portray her as an amazing character because of how everyone around her loves her so much. For example, at the beginning of the book she has four different boys who are obsessed with her, and she leads them all on while only liking Edward. 

            Another thing I strongly disliked was Bella and Edward’s relationship. First off, Edward is attracted to Bella because of his desire to suck her delicious smelling blood. And, Bella isn’t much better, initially only liking Edward for how hot he is (which gets mentioned at least a hundred times). Also, I was extremely disappointed by how Bella reacts to finding out Edward is a vampire. She doesn’t seem to care, or even be remotely surprised. Then, Edward stalks Bella, and spends every night watching her sleep, which Bella finds romantic somehow!? As well, Edward is very possessive of Bella, and doesn’t want her to spend time with her other friends. And, vampires are immortal, so although Edward may look seventeen like Bella, he’s actually one hundred and four (HELLO age gap). Finally, Bella is miserable for a lot of their relationship because she feels like she’s not good enough for Edward. Their romance seems to be built on idolization of the other person, which does not make for a healthy relationship.

           All in all, I think Twilight was worth the read, even though I have mixed feelings about it. I did enjoy the action and suspense of the plot, even if I was not a fan of the romance. At least now I can say I've read the book!

Thank you for reading!

Clara



Comments

  1. Hi Clara, I have also been hesitant to read twilight for a while. I know some people that really enjoy it but Ive also heard about some very cringy aspects of the plot. I really enjoyed the way you described the things you liked and disliked this blog post was a very entertaining read!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Comment Written by Naomi:

    Hi Clara! As you know I am an ironic Twilight lover. I agree completely with your points. I probably do like it more than you do-- mostly because I find their cringe to be quite entertaining. Perhaps a more accurate title for the story would be, "Girl With the Personality of a Sock and Guy Who Can't Read Her Mind and Literally Wants Her Blood Fall in Love: Will it Work?" That's basically the series, anyway. Thank you for the great post about an (ironically of course) great book!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice blog post! I read Twilight in I think sixth grade. I remember it being alright but it was too cringy for me to want to read the rest of the series, and I felt like Bella needed something more to make her character compelling. Like you and Isa said above, she just lacked any personality to make her interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think this is the first blog review I have read where the main character Bella is two-dimensional and the secondary character Edward has depth. Bella also has a very thin view of the world, which is completely centered on a thin "slice" of Edward. The author could have done a lot more to give Bella a true background and a personality. The other characters besides the couple seem to be one-dimensional, as we know little about them. Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Clara, I agree with you so much on this book! I also found Bella's character sort of boring and the age gap was super weird.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment