Today you all get a real treat; a guest review of
Twilight! Jonathan Glass, a young Christian happily married man, has taken it upon himself to enter the dangerous waters of this very recently popular story and has emerged {alive} with the following review. Be warned, it is wonderfully sarcastic! Special thanks to Mr. Glass for sharing his review with us today.
Twilight. Yes, I actually read this book. Why you ask? Well, mostly because it’s such a big name series that I wanted to know what all of the fuss was about. Sure it’s a chick story, but I like romances like the Austen novel Pride and Prejudice and the film Leap Year. And if people are going to be discussing and arguing over this book, I wanted to at least have a well informed opinion about it. For those of you who don’t feel like subjecting yourself to 498 pages of paranormal romance gush, well, that’s why I’m here.
Now what follows are my own personal opinions and observations. You may agree or disagree with me, that’s perfectly fine. But in the end we all know that I’m right anyway…
So, with that in mind, let’s dive right in!
For those two or three people who don’t know, Twilight is about a girl named Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington, to live with her dad. While there she ends up falling in love with a boy from her school named Edward, who just happens to be a vampire… and who also just happens to be one of the few vampires in the world who has sworn off eating humans. And that’s pretty much all that happens in this story. I’ll admit the idea of a story with a vampire who didn’t want to be a killer and fell in love with a human was kind of interesting to me, I think it could have had a lot of cool development and tension. I’ve always been drawn towards “what if” stories, especially ones that take a new look at a well established character type. That being said, this is a terrible example of that type of work. The author takes an interesting premise and turns it into a four book soap opera. The first half of Twilight is basically Bella narrating about boring high school stuff and how strange Edward acts, building towards the big reveal that anyone who read the back cover summary already knew was coming. After that, nothing happens until around page 380 when a trio of vampires shows up and threatens Bella’s life. She runs back to Phoenix to escape, but one of the Evul vampires follows her, luring her into a trap only to have Edward & Co. save her life at the last minute. Of course, Bella blacks out during the only part of the book where there might have been any action, coming to just in time to have a “Don’t leave me” scene between her and Edward, and then end the book with Edward taking her to prom.
All of the possibilities for tension and character development in this type of story are thrown by the wayside in favor of an unrealistic and unbelievable romance between Bella and Edward. Most of it really amounts to little more than pages and pages of padding, with Bella playing “He loves me, he loves me not”, and then more pages and pages of atrocious dialogue once we establish that Edward does in fact love her. When the story does finally introduce some sort of tension as the Evul vamps arrive, it is so contrived and forced that it just ends up being stupid. The characters are forced into actions and situations not because it is what they would naturally do, but because it’s what the plot says they must do. And to make matters worse most of the decisions have no logical basis whatsoever.
For instance, when James (the evil vampire) threatens Bella, she comes up with brilliant idea of letting him hear that she is fleeing back home to Phoenix and then actually going there. Her reasoning is that James would be too suspicious to believe that she would actually let him know what she is planning on doing and then go through with it. Edward’s family thinks this is a brilliant plan and they go along without question, although they should clearly have seen the danger involved. Of course she was wrong, and James follows her and almost kills her. All of this could have been avoided if she had said she was going to Phoenix and then gone somewhere like Alaska (Edward’s family was crazy wealthy and could easily have afforded a plane ticket). But of course, that kind of decision would involve logic, and that has no place in these books.
Another example is Bella and Edward’s relationship. Edward at first acts as if he is absolutely repulsed by Bella. After a while however he becomes more friendly and then suddenly admits to feeling very protective of Bella. He follows her around without her knowledge and intervenes when she is in danger of being mugged, and then admits to sneaking into her room at night to watch her sleep. Instead of being immediately creeped out by this behavior, Bella is only more and more attracted to him. Sadly, there are many, many irrational and illogical decisions like this made in the book. Because of this it often reads more like a mediocre vampire fanfic than an actual novel.
One thing that really annoyed me about the book was the characters themselves. Bella and Edward are terrible, terrible characters and go through little to no character arc at all. The book is written in first person from Bella’s point of view. This really fails because, rather than gaining insight into what the character is feeling or thinking, most of the book reads like this: “Putting the dishes away…gosh I hate my friends at school…OMG EDWARD IS SOOOOOOOOOO PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL AND GORGEOUS!!!” Honestly, after reading the whole book I understood very little about this character other than the fact that she makes terrible life decisions and is borderline emo. She really is a blank slate that the readers can project their own emotions and experiences into. She gives no reason for falling in love with Edward other than how perfect he looks and how beautiful his voice is…and oddly enough how good he smells (I guess that’s where Axe got their marketing campaign from). I think Meyer meant for her to be awkward but self-sacrificing, but how she really comes across is reclusive and self-centered, obsessing over Edward to the point that nothing else matters in life (literally). Of course, she has such low self esteem that she doesn’t think she could ever deserve to be loved by someone as purfect as Edward. She even tries to blame herself when things go wrong in the story even when are clearly not her fault (like when the vampire James decides he wants to eat her). I’m also pretty sure that her basic anatomy is different from the rest of humanity since her heart literally stops beating every time Edward looks at her.
Bella is also a chronic liar. She is constantly lying to her parents and friends about her relationship to Edward. The book tries to use this to say that she is protecting them from the vampires, but anyone with half a brain would realize that she is just being selfish because she knows that her parents would never let her near Edward if the truth came out (and I’m just talking about their relationship, not necessarily the truth about his being a vampire). I could really go on all day about what a terrible character Bella is. Overall she is an unlikable, masochistic, self-centered, emotionally troubled individual who desperately needs psychiatric treatment, but instead receives hero treatment by the author.
Edward is little better. Besides the stalkerish behavior mentioned earlier, Edward has constant mood swings between “I’m too dangerous for you to be around” to “I can’t stay away from you”, finally settling into the decision “I know this relationship is really stupid and dangerous for you, but I’m going to ignore that and be your boyfriend because I can’t live without you.” Yes, Edward really says she has become his entire existence. The reason for this you ask? The smell of her blood is irresistible. That is all the explanation we are given. There is literally no other reason in this book for these two to be together other than Edward is hot and Bella smells good. Epic romance fail.
The nature of their relationship actually becomes somewhat abusive, with Edward forcing Bella to do things that she doesn’t agree with. Of course sex is not one of those things; Edward is too purfect and pure for that. Bella is the one begging Edward for a more intimate physical relationship, even allowing him into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep some more. Edward’s abuse comes in the form of being overly protective and trying to take charge of her life, using the excuse that he is “keeping her safe”. There is even a point where Edward literally kisses Bella into submission so that he can have his way. This is not a healthy relationship at all. But Bella refuses to even think of living without Edward despite any and all arguments and objections from simple common sense. Of course, I could write this off to the fact that neither of them have any common sense, but at one point in the book they actually talk about how dangerous and unhealthy their relationship is. So I’m not giving them a pass on that one.
The really crazy thing is that there is no reason for these two to be in love. Aside from Edward’s “godlike” beauty and Bella’s…scent, there is no indication as to why they are attracted to each other. Of course, Bella is the one person in the world whose thoughts can’t be read by Edward, but this should only serve to make him curious, not fall in love with her. There is really nothing about their characters or personalities that suggests any sort of real connection between them. In fact, they actually argue more than they get along. At times this can actually be rather entertaining, but most of the time they genuinely should not be able to get along. In fact they argue so much that in real life this relationship would not last with any degree of happiness. And yet, of course, “Tru Luv” holds them together.
Really the only interesting characters in this book were the side characters, particularly Edward’s vampire “father” Carlisle. One chapter is devoted to explaining Carlisle’s back-story and his transformation into a vampire. This was actually the most interesting part of the book, and I really began to wish that this book was about Carlisle instead of Bella (and written by someone other than Stephanie Meyer, of course).
And that brings me to my final issue with the book. Namely, the vampires. Now I am not a vampire fan and have very little knowledge about vampire lore. That said, I do know enough about vampires to see that Meyer dragged traditional vampire mythology through the gutter in this book. I don’t mind people re-imagining a mythological character or creature for a modern retelling. But here, Meyer gives her vampires too many strengths and takes away all of their weaknesses, and it severely cripples the story. Instead of burning in sunlight, Meyer-pires sparkle. She builds up that vampires go crazy when they smell human blood, but then makes it way too easy for Edward to get over his desire to eat Bella. In addition to having superior speed and strength, Meyer-pires are also more beautiful than any supermodel in the world (unless they are evil, in which case they are completely ordinary). Crosses, garlic, and stakes don’t bother them, and they can mingle freely in a human high school without being detected, even though their eyes clearly change color based on their diet. Overall, the vampires in the Twilight world have a god-like perfection that is to be envied rather than shunned. Instead of soulless demonic killers, Meyer-pires have the mild inconvenience of being immortal glittering X-men, different than the rest of society but ultimately still capable of good. Of course, Edward has to angst about how he is a monster, and I believe in the later books he admits to believing that he is going to hell for being a vampire, but it is never clearly established what the actual nature of a Meyer-pire is. Of course there are a lot of inconsistencies with Meyer-pires (like vampires hunt by smell, but don’t actually need to breathe, so why is being around humans so hard?), but with those kinds of perks, who wouldn’t want to be a vampire?
At one point in the book, Edward admits to Bella that he went through a "rebellious stage" after becoming a vampire and actually did kill people. He tried to justify it at the time by only choosing victims that were criminals, but he still killed them and drank their blood. Rather than being shocked at this information, Bella doesn't even give it a second thought and dismisses it. I could understand if this was something that her character struggled with and eventually came to terms with after seeing how Edward acts now, and actually would have been a great chance for some character development and tension. But nothing like that happens; his revelation doesn't even phase her. In fact she seems to have forgotten about this completely by the second book, New Moon. While discussing Edward's belief that his soul is damned for being a vampire, Bella says that he is just too perfect for that to be true and that "if there is a God", he must take into account the fact that Edward doesn't kill people like other vampires. But that argument is unsupportable because Edward actually did kill people at one point as a Vampire. Again, epic vampire fail.
So there you go, that’s Twilight. I could get into some of the other issues and plot holes, but I think you get the idea. The writing is pretty bad, from the plot to the character development (or lack thereof) to the dialogue, making it an excellent example for aspiring authors of what not to do with your novel. The story was boring, the romance was too contrived and unhealthy to be engaging, and the main characters lacked most if not all of the qualities that would make them in any way likeable. But apparently there are a lot of people who like this book, and the rest of the Twilight “saga” for that matter. Why? I can only guess that it is because this is, at its core, teenage chick wish fulfillment fantasy. There’s an overpowered female protagonist (and I use that term loosely) that can pretty much be a self insert for any reader of the same gender, vampires that are reduced to sparkly angels in human form, a male love interest who has a bad boy, abusive edge and enough drama issues to be on “The Bachelorette” but for some reason falls so in love with the protagonist that she literally consumes his life, and a story where the main character is the main character in every sense of the word, with the whole world completely revolving around her. If you want to read Twilight, by all means, be my guest. But at least be aware of what you are reading and don’t take this so seriously. Twilight is in no way a model for life or relationships, and the few good points that it has are mired in poor writing and terrible characters. My advice: watch the movie. You will get all of the flaws of this tale presented in a hilariously awful fashion and only have to suffer through about 2 hours instead of the many, many hours it takes to wade through this book. Afterwards be sure to apply brainbleach liberally.
