If you don’t give two shits about my review, I grant you permission to leave a completely unrelated comment…not that I’m a nut about that in the first place. Some of you are just too polite.
Roughly two weeks ago, I posted a blog about my self-assigned summer homework of rereading Twilight. I promised to post an in-depth, unbiased analysis of the novel when I was finished, and I may have suggested that said analysis would be in video format. Well, I spent an hour trying to film myself because my camera kept doing strange things, and then the video file turned out so large that it took forty minutes just to transfer it from my memory card to my computer. Needless to say, it was going to take at least twelve hours to upload onto YouTube. I said “like” every other word and didn’t even hit all the points I wanted to, anyway, so I trashed it. Instead, you get this picture of me reading and taking notes in my jammies and a written review.
Let’s start off with the negative, shall we? People always seem to be more interested in the negative (when the topic in question is not themselves, of course).
The novel, surprisingly, was not all bad.
Every time I closed the book for the night, I was disgusted with myself for reading such garbage. But somehow, during the next day, I would find myself anxious to pick the book up again and continue reading. Twilight, at it’s core, is an entertaining book. Push pass the poor writing and corniness, and you got yourself the base of a decent novel. Dozens of writers have turned many of the basic ideas in Twilight into much better novels (may I recommend Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series?), but Meyer knows how to write a novel that makes the hopeless romantic teenage girl demographic swoon. I have to give her credit for that. She may not be a great writer, but she understands the mind of her audience, and now she’s rich and we’re not. ‘Tis a funny world we live in. So funny that I may actually be looking forward to reading New Moon after finishing How to Read Literature Like a Professor…
I actually enjoyed this review! I was expecting another one just trashing the books, and honestly, those get old really fast. Yours wasn’t like that, though. I liked how you included what you liked as well, and I agreed with you on some of it, like how the eyes changing color is an interesting concept and Edward really is a good guy. It makes it easier to admit to myself that I used to like the books before all the hype. When everyone’s just constantly hating, I feel like I absolutely have to do the same. :P
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The covers are nice, I’ll admit. I’m a huge vampire fan, but I’m not a fan of Twilight for the sole reason that the vampires in Twilight try to act like normal humans. I like the vampires who actually enjoy being vampires, and I preferred James to Edward. But, after all, it’s all a matter of opinion.
Thanks to Twilight, though, I can’t find any decent books in the Borders’ Young Adult section anymore because it’s all been taken over by cheesy vampy love stories.
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OMG I just spazzed when I you mentioned The Mortal Instruments! I absolutely love those books. I’ve got City of Glass sitting right beside me on my desk :D I can’t wait to read the next one.
Anywho — I’m not a writer or anything so I didn’t realize the book was poorly written lol. I was 20 when I read it, so I was still in that kind of high school girl frame of mind I guess with the cheesy romance stuff (not that THAT really matters because I’m almost 26 now and still read Teen and Young Adult fiction) But I really liked the books! I was so in love with Edward while reading and Alice… well I pretty much loved everyone lol. I’m not too terribly hard to please though, and I like vampires.
Haha and I thought the same thing about their clothes XD
About their relationship developing too quickly– I didn’t really notice it too much in the book but it just *snap* happened in the movie. Way too fast for me and it just didn’t feel right.
I remember when I first saw the book. We were looking around and my hubby spotted it first and said “here’s one you’d probably like”. I read the back and I was just like YES! and threw it in the shopping cart XD
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This was a really good review. When most people talk about Twilight, they’re always either overly positive or overly negative. At least you weighed things out.
I actually like Twilight more than hated it. The first book was definitely better than the other ones though, at least to me.
I loved the book while I was reading it, actually, mostly because it had a good amount of detail in it while still being such a light read.
It is unrealistic, but I don’t expect books to be too realistic anyway.
It did seem a bit unedited at times. Sometimes, more was written than needed.
While I did like the story overall, I don’t actually like most of the characters. I don’t like Edward, I don’t like Bella, but I usually liked Jacob. Usually. He wasn’t in the first book too much though, so this is kind of unrelated.
I did not notice how quickly the relationship developed while I was reading the book, mostly because I was still in grade school then and didn’t exactly understand the concept of love so much. I just went with it.
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Nice review, I pretty much agree with you there. I used the series in my first cognitive research project actually. Pretty fun. You’re right about the The Mortal Instruments series. Jake gave me his copy a few days ago. Not too far into the first book yet but love it so far!
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I enjoyed reading this review, it’s a shame the video didn’t work it. Dx
The things is, although I don’t love Twilight, I do still intend the movies and I was originally hooked once I read it. When I look back on all the bad points (ie. weird descriptions, badly written as some points, totally undeveloped characters other than Edward, Bella and Edward’s Dad & siblings, how stupid Bella is [I mean she's in love with this guy who says he can kill her and drink her blood AND watched her sleep wtf is that]) I wonder why I enjoyed it so much. But when I read the series, I was so totally hooked. I read the third book the the series in two days. O.O probably the fastest I’ve ever read a book… ever. (Actually, remembering now I read the first Pretty Little Liars book in one day Dx)
I do think it’s fine for the audience. I mean it’s not the best book like you said, but it’s strangely addictive in a way, well for some people at least, haha. :P
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Your review was a refreshing one. Every other review either raves it endlessly, or trashes it endlessly. Good review.
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I read the Twilight series too years ago and I have no plans of reading it again. Though I did notice some points you got there! I personally think that Meyer’s pretty good in describing the characters and what’s there with them that you’d really like and wont like. And you’re right. Bella is indeed, not so likeable. She restless and there’s nothing more to think than love life . Lol.
Good review though! Really.
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I really enjoyed this review, even though I am not a fan of the series :’) I totally agree that Meyer describes the characters in such interesting ways, yet they hardly ever display actual personality through actions; it’s all just appearance. That’s probably the main reason why I couldn’t stand the series. There’s hardly any substance and there’s a very weak plot.
And yes! Yes! Yes!!!!! The fact that so many teenage girls absolutely love the series, and Bella is portrayed as this weak, man-needing girl who always has to have Edward save her makes me so mad! Girls shouldn’t find that romantic or ~look up~ to that at all! Gah. I don’t know what possessed Meyer to make her so… blah.
You’re right, though – she’s rich now, and we’re still not. Pahaha. Sad world that we live in, when there are such great novels out there that don’t get half as much attention and the author is barely even recognized. Yet here’s fracking Stephenie Meyer, famous as all get out. How do these things work? xp
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So, to sum it up, if you’re not amused by either vampires or love stories, you shouldn’t read this book? I didn’t have any plans on it, saw the movies because of my ex, but it’s good to know now that I can carry on without having the Twilight experience :-) And YES it would be cool if we had changing eye colour!
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I agree with almost everything you said. And like you, I like strong female characters, too. A dependent and obsessive girl-character is cliche. And yeah, everything between Edward and Bella happened too fast. Would have been better if there were more “chase” or “suspense”.
LOVE YOUR REVIEW! =)
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Wow, way to spend your summer! Haha you know, this is something I would do if I had the time, but summer doesn’t give me the leisure time for that.
I’ll admit that the Twilight series has nice covers and Meyer did an interesting job of creating the background stories of her characters. However I never liked Edward Cullen because I never got the point to how he was attractive, and Robert Pattinson made it even worse if any possible. And of course I don’t get how he and Bella ever started liking each other. Dude, all they did was talk and one day she found out he’s a vampire and fell in love with him.
But yeah I really hate Bella, and Kristen Stewart just turns her into someone I’d wanna stab. If there’s any character I like it’s Alice. At least she’s got some real powers.
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You took the words right out of my mouth. I reread the whole series for like a fourth time now and I agree it’s garbage, but it’s also alluring at the same time. I could say it’s my guilty pleasure hehehe
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This is a fabulous review. I’ve never read Twilight before since school started and I didn’t get to go to bookstores or purchase any books on the net, but you’ve sparked my interest in it.
I’ve been eyeing it in the bookstore for quite a while. It’s rather expensive, and I fear I’m not able to understand the content. I suppose I could try it out. Thanks for this great review. :)
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I’ve read all the books and it’s been a long time since I read Twilight… I have to say I can’t really remember the writing, but I think that’s because I was so excited to read the books. I didn’t read it critically, I just… read it. And I couldn’t stop. And when I finished Breaking Dawn I wanted to start over. It was just not as fun as the first time because I wanted to skip and go to all the fun scenes you know haha. So I stopped and started reading other books.
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I remember reading Twilight and not being able to put it down. I don’t really remember a lot about it since I haven’t read it in a long time, but I do remember loving it. New Moon took me a longer time to read because I got tired of Bella’s depression. Eclipse took me a shorter time to read because I loved how much Jacob was in this book, and how well his character came out. Breaking Dawn took me forever because I REALLY didn’t want to finish it. I did, however, and that’s when they made the (cheesy) movies and the (stupid) action figures. -_- Now I’m just greatly annoyed with it.
However, I did find your “in-depth analysis” of it to be spot on from what I can remember from the books. It always bugged me how Bella seemed to be this “out of place all the time” type character, and how she was so dependent on Edward. If I were Edward I’d be getting my ass outta there! xD Also, like you said, the clothes! I do pin this on Meyers being a Mormon, and they dress quite reserved, but it could be Bella/Meyers has a poor choice in fashion and Edward still wants to drink her blood and have mad sex with her anyways. I DON’T KNOW!
This was a really entertaining blog. I might want to do this someday with a book I didn’t enjoy at all…hmm…
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The only reason why I ever read the Twilight books was because I was surrounded by 13-year-old fan girls. I gave into peer pressure and read the books. I also only read them because I was curious.
I never liked the character Bella, and the storyline moved too fast. The plot was good, though.
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I agree with your review. I hate it when like in a romance novel/movie the characters quickly fall in love. That’s so unrealistic. When I first read the book, I actually enjoyed it, (my favourite genre is romance :D) but for me the movie and fans destroyed it. And the sparkling vampires, that’s a bit weird :S. I don’t like Bella either, she’s not likeable!
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That’s a great well-balanced review! And I agree with most of your points, especially about Bella, although I tend to dislike many lead female characters for some reason, lol.
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I actually quite liked reading what you had to say. Applause for reading the book and writing a review, I’ll give you that.
I think, for me, the movie ruined the books. I genuinely dislike the cheesy, cliché tween+vampire love story. Watched the movie, but reading a whole novel was too much for me.
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When I first started reading a Twilight book, I thought that the writing was really bad. But then..somehow I got “used to it”..and it got addicting. I guess that is a skill aswell.
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You know what? I like Twilight and people hate on it because they prefer Harry Potter and feel like, challenged or something. I like Twilight and Harry Potter (though I probably like HP more:P) ANYWAY, you can’t deny the fact that the actual literature is good. (Not that I’m saying you HAVE, I am generally speaking). It’s gotten so many young people into reading and that is never a bad thing.
Stephenie Meyer has written a saga that has captivated many readers and she has done well for herself. It’s addictive! I love it.
But yeah , that’s just my two sense.
It’s just like Justin Bieber. He’s talented. And you know what? I like him, too.
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Gabi replied...
July 8th, 2011 at 1:06 PM
The knock-offs are pretty horrendous. I’ve had that problem myself. I love fantasy, but it seems like all of the ones I pick out have the same cheesy formula now.
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