Twilight

I just finished reading the Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer. I read it not out of any interest for vampires and werewolves but because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I started reading the series in early September and have been reading them on every single lunch break since then. It’s taken that long! I’ll be glad to move on to something else for my lunch break reading.

The first book, Twilight, was actually pretty good. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, here’s a brief synopsis. Bella, a 17-year-old who has recently moved in with her father in Forks, Washington, meets a strange boy at school. At first she pretty much hates Edward but soon becomes quite intrigued by him. She eventually finds out that he and his family are vampires, although she is not frightened by this fact, especially since these vampires are “vegetarians”: they drink animal blood, not human blood. She falls in love with Edward and the two start dating. We get many (MANY) descriptions about how dazzling and beautiful and perfect he is. Ugh. Nevertheless, this book was pretty good. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from here.

In the next three books New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn, Edward leaves Bella then returns to her, Bella befriends Jacob (who turns out to be a werewolf and a sworn enemy of the vampires), human and vampire lives alike are threatened and battles are fought because of evil vampires, and other adventures ensue. The love story between Bella and Edward runs throughout the series. Their love is sweet (and chaste), although it frequently descends into nauseating territory. Bella constantly begs to be transformed into a vampire herself so that she and Edward can live together in eternal happiness, but on the off chance you’ve escaped the Twilight hype, I won’t tell you if that happens or not. Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise!

As with many series writers (J.K. Rowling, ahem!), Meyer let the fame go to her head and each book is longer than the next. The last book weighs in at a hefty 750 pages, and no way did it need to be that long. By the end, she has clearly developed what I call “diarrhea of the pen”, seemingly unable to stop writing long drawn-out descriptions and dialogue for every single scene. Like the end of Rowling’s last Harry Potter book, I was getting rather bored with the drawn-out story by the end of Breaking Dawn. I will say, though, that Meyer is a fairly decent writer and I plan to read her new book, The Host, next.

Don’t know yet if I’ll see the movie now or wait for the DVD. I’m more intrigued by the fact that it was mostly filmed here in Oregon than I am by the story itself.