Twilight

So I just read the three books of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in four days. About halfway through the first book I realized that the fourth (and final) book would be coming out August 2nd. If I'd known before I started, I would have waited and read them all then so I would only have to go through Twilight-verse withdrawal once. But I didn't know, and once I'd started the first one, there was no way I could stop.

I feel like I should mention that I decided to read the first book because I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie. Honestly, it looks a little "B" and slightly Covenant-ish, but it also seemed kind of sexy and appealed to my sensibilities. Teenage vampires are my drug of choice.

Anyway, I'm just going to talk about Twilight in this one and leave New Moon and Eclipse for another post (possibly the next post).

Twilight

My main issue with the book is this: Why do the Cullen "kids" have to be in high school? None of them look really young. They all seem like they can pass for 18. Why don't they just pose as the Cullen's kids who aren't going to college and work around town? Or just random young people who've moved into town? Or commune hippies? I mean, until they met Bella, they certainly weren't going to school to socialize. I know the goal was to be able to stay in the same place for as long as possible without anyone noticing the lack of aging, but when everyone but Carlisle seemed to be a recluse anyway, it doesn't seem like it mattered much. I guess this wasn't so much of an issue, it didn't decrease my enjoyment of the story any, so much as it was just a plot device that I found humorously unfounded.

I also found it kind of odd how quickly Bella and Edward's relationship progressed. It seemed like they went from her figuring out that he was a vampire to sublimely happy couple really quickly. I kind of expected more angst, although I'm pretty pleased that there wasn't more. I guess it had to be crammed in between the "setup" that took a lot of the beginning of the book and the "conflict" which took up the end.

Speaking of the "conflict", I thought it was a little weak. I never really felt any concern that James was going to kill Bella. Of course this could be due to the fact that I already knew there were sequels, but even so, I never found myself even anxious about her fate. It might be because she was really the only one in danger. In New Moon and particularly in Eclipse there were a number of endearing characters that were in danger and pretty much any of them, with the exception of Bella, could possibly be killed. It made for much more suspense in the climactic scenes.

I don't know why I always start with the criticism. It makes it seem like I don't think too highly of the book when in reality I really, really love it. I thought Bella was a great character. The clumsiness played to the extreme so that it became a joke was entertaining. But mainly I just found her to be so true. She had those aspects that made her mature for her age, but they couldn't keep her from reacting to certain situations in true teenage girl fashion. She was book smart and relatively clever sometimes, but she could also be a complete idiot. And her antisocial behavior was obviously born out of a few extreme anxieties and a general fear of rejection, the way it is for most teenagers...or people in general. Basically, normal. A real teenage girl. A girl that I remember being. And I appreciated that. Towards the very end she became kind of annoying with the constant nagging about wanting to be turned, but I'll give her a pass on that because I know I'd be exactly the same way.

The Cullens! They're brilliant. It was a little odd that there were so many of them, mainly because everyone but Edward, Alice and Carlisle was pretty underdeveloped. It felt like there were a lot of extraneous family members. Of course, that changes in the following books when most of them get fleshed out a lot more. Alice was certainly the shining star from the beginning. She's really enjoyable whenever she's around, but it's also just generally entertaining whenever Edward mentions her and refers to her "sight". Years from now my most prominent memory of this specific book will probably be "Don't bet against Alice."

I found the whole vampire mythology established in the book to be pretty interesting. Mainly because it had a lot of aspects that were quite novel, at least to me. The venom as the...turning agent, I guess you could say...rather than the almost ubiquitous "mutual sucking" method was certainly new. Also the sparkling in the sunlight thing was definitely different. I feel like sunlight as something harmful is possibly the most commonly used vampire trait in fiction. The idea that they can't go out in the sunlight because it makes them so sparklingly, blindingly beautiful that people would instantly realize they aren't human is a fascinating take. This reminds me, the way the Cullens lived, there didn't seem to be a single thing bad about being a vampire.

Okay, I think that's enough. After I write about the other two books I might also post my thoughts on the movie, mainly about the casting.