During the month of September I heard of a book called Twilight. I was intrigued by the premise and also its popularity. So I decided to read the novels and see what everyone else was talking about. I had high hopes for the books, their popularity made me believe that they were or could possibly be as good as the Harry Potter series. I was sorely disappointed. It may be because I am a Literature major that I am unduly critical of this book but i really think that it could have been so much better. It’s a vampire romance story, how hard could that be to write… and write well.

Well it was apparently quite difficult for Stephanie Meyer. I guess I should give her a break though since this is her first writing experience, however that’s why people have editors and her’s certainly did not do a good job.The writing on a whole is a catastrophe; the numerous descriptions of Edward Cullen’s beautiful face and marble like body and deep golden eyes, it got sickening after awhile. No reader really and truly wants to hear about all that, well maybe if your a love sick thirteen year old who thinks your very own vampire boyfriend is goign to come and whisk you away. Now apart from the grossly overdone depictions of Edward’s perfection there is also the grossly overdone depictions of everything else. This book (as well as all of its follow ups) drags on and on and wastes the readers time with useless details. Did none of her editors see it fit to actually edit? Or were they newbies to field just like she was?

Now apart from her horrid verbal diarrhoea the characters themselves are nothing to be lauded. Edward’s pefection is sickening and totally unrealistic. He was an outright jerk to Bella when he first met her but that is suddenly erased when we find out that he’s a tortured soul and he really longs for her. Then in the matter of absolutely no time they’re inlove, really? I know that popular culture greatly influences some people and this book might just adversely influece a number of girls into thinking that this is how a real relationship goes. There are no perfect and saintly vampires out there to rescue you when you trip over a rock!

The worst character in the novels though isn’t Edward, its Bella. I can at least say that its nice to see a man portrayed nicely even though its utterly absurd. Bella though is a trainwreck; she can’t walk properly, she can barely talk to Edward properly and she is the stereotypical girl that gets caught up with a boy and totally looses sight of her friends. They might not have been the best friends and yes Bella was not close to them but she did like at least one person and as soon as Edward begins being nice to her she ditches them all for piggy backs in the middle of the woods. Apart from her apparent disloyalty to her friends she is just a plain weak character. Not just physically weak but emotionally as well; there is nothing that this girl can do without the help of her dear Edward. It’s rather frightful such a overly dependent depiction of a girl, a depiction that only gets worse in the second book.

Apart from the Edward and Bella love train the other note worthy characters would be Edward’s family of vegetarian vampires who I happen to find much more interesting than Bella herself. I also think their stories could have been implemented a bit more into the novel, they just seem to be bystanders within the story.The other characters within the high school at Forks are not event that important. Stephanie Meyer could have just said made them all random and the book would still have the same effect. Why so… because these characters are not important. There is nothing to draw the readers to them and as time wares on they barely get mentioned by Bella. 

The next set of characters are in the novel are Jacob and his tribe. They become increasingly important as the series continues but in the first book he’s just a little kid who seems to like Bella, for what I still don’t know. These characters though, of course, all serve to move along the plot. That being Bella and Edward’s love is endangered by non vegetarian vampires who want to eat her. Fast forward a couple chapters Bella is saved and by Edward, though hospitalised because of her injuries, and once again all is well and young girls have a new story to fawn over.

Now to make a few things clear I am not hating against Stephanie Meyer because of the basic plot. I mean it’s fine, it just could have done with some more work to make it actually good in my opinion. Secondly for those who I’m sure will wonder why I read all the books seeing as how I hated them so much. Well, I’m a reader for one, its extremely hard for me to put down a book. Also I wanted to be able to give an actual opinion on why I like the books or not so I had to read them. Last but not least, Ms Meyer, I know you wrote another book called The Host, I have not read it and I really don’t think that I will. I just hope that you used that criticism that you got from the Twilight series wisely. Here’s to growth in Stephanie Meyer’s writing!