Book #11

Twilight
by Stephanie Meyer


Because Toni quite liked it, and because I wanted to use it as something of an example for my students who are starting their book reports, I read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I was a little apprehensive that it would be a stupid teenaged narrator, since that's what Hairstyles featured, but it wasn't. I quite liked it, as well, though it was a violation of my most basic belief about vampire books: vampires should be monsters. These vampires are magnificent, not only beautiful and sexy and young and immortal and powerful and deadly, but also possessing special gifts such as telepathy or clairvoyance, able to go out into the sunlight (and when they do they sparkle like diamonds) and smelling nice enough to drive girls wild. And while that makes sense for a romance, it does leave me feeling a little resentful: I feel like the author is denigrating humanity by making non-humans so much more in every possible way than we could ever be, and then comparing the two directly. It seems the only flaw in a vampire's life is the need to kill human beings -- oh, wait. These guys don't even do that. Well, they have to live alone and watch their loved ones die -- oh, wait. No, they can turn their loved ones and have the perfect mate for eternity, which six of the seven featured vampires have done (The odd man out being our hero, who has, of course, found the love of his life.). It seems that the only flaw in being a vampire is that it hurts to turn into one. Except for the girl who doesn't remember that, of course. So every time I read about some other magical thing that Edward or his family could do, I was a little more irritated, though I did relate better to Bella because of it, since she reacted as I would have: she gets a little miffed and keeps looking for something, anything that Edward doesn't do better than everyone else on Earth -- and when she can't find anything, she wants to become a vampire. I did like that part, especially since it ended with him protesting that he didn't want to ruin her experience of living, and her saying, "This isn't finished." That was good.

Otherwise, it was a great book; I loved the heroine, I liked her writing, I thought the villain was excellent -- though the end of the villain's big scene was lame; Bella never should have given in that quickly and gone to see him, and he shouldn't have made the hunt so easy by trying to lure her in. If his eternal existence is all about the thrill of the hunt, wouldn't he try to make the hunt more thrilling? Instead of just relying on others to make it harder for him? He doesn't treat it as a game, and he should. So that I didn't like either, though I thought the whole resolution of that -- what he did to Bella, including pounding her around so badly, and how he ended up afterwards, that was good.

So I liked it overall and I look forward to reading the next one. I'm hoping we'll find Edward's big flaw soon. Though I personally think kissing and touching someone as cold as stone is the opposite of thrilling; I just can't see that as attractive.