Book Review: "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
The Twilight series may be the only work of fiction I was introduced to solely through the huge prevalence of its fandom on the internet. When you keep hearing about something that much, it seems the most typical reaction is either to A) get sick and tired of seeing it everywhere, or B) figure it must be a pretty big deal for a reason and decide to check it out. Since A was my initial reaction to Harry Potter, believe it or not, I have learned to avoid having that one in response to things. And now what I've found after following through with B for Twilight is...that I think it's a little overrated. Yet it's been a very long time since I inhaled a book that was not HP as quickly as I did this one, and I have already bought its sequel New Moon, so I can hardly complain either.
This novel starts out in such a promising way that once I was about a quarter into it I already felt a little angry about some of the negative comments I've heard about it even from people who admit they liked it, such as that it is almost like bad but addictive fanfic. If you know you've started reading a book about vampires - which you do if you've read the back cover - that makes the premise of the story instantly intriguing from page 1. Bella Swan, an uncommonly mature seventeen-year-old, has made a very difficult decision to move to Forks, Washington for an almost pathetically selfless reason some have found to be unbelievable, but turns out to be very consistent with the characterization and not at all the first time Bella shows a remarkable lack of concern for herself (and oddly enough, is the only thing that happens to the character in this book that Stephenie Meyer has explained is autobiographical). Forks is where Bella's father lives and a small town she has hated visiting all her life. It is also in the location that gets more rainfall than anywhere else in America and is in a constant overcast gloom. Hmm, why might she be likely to run into some vampires there?, I sarcastically wonder at this point, already a little sucked in...No pun intended.
As a magical realism story usually should, the book gradually makes its way to unraveling its supernatural elements, first introducing a quite normal-seeming town and letting us get to know Bella, her father, and her new friends. As soon as her very mysterious, surreally beautiful classmate Edward Cullen is introduced, we can guess there's something more to him than can be explained with something like colored eye contacts, but through Bella's narrative there are, of course, only completely wrong conclusions made about him. But as she begins to figure out what he must really be, the way her reaction is written is very well done: it seems ridiculously sensible in a way, reflecting her personality well, yet is done with enough realism that instead of just seeming unbelievable it makes her clearly very brave. You can tell that if it were somebody else put in the same situation, they'd be very likely to get much too terrified and just stay away from him (or for that matter, that if it were anybody besides Edward that she discovered this about, this would be her reaction).
At the same time that I understand how people would liken this book to fanfiction, I think the comparison is unfair. A lot of the characteristics associated with badfic are thought of as always bad because bad writers cannot use them and pull it off or know when it's justified. With his gold eyes that change colors, intelligence and talent for everything, perfect body, and general godly perfection, Edward does seem exactly like a typical Mary Sue character (or Gary Stu, I suppose). But I think this is forgivable for the fact that along with seeming to have no flaws, he does actually have a personality, and a likeable one, rather than being a cardboard character you can't even care about. Edward is not like a real person, so he doesn't have to have human kind of weaknesses. He probably deals with his own kind of inner struggles that are a lot more difficult than anything humans commonly have to handle and which are beyond Bella's comprehension. Beyond that, Bella is such an unreliable narrator when it comes to describing herself that I have to wonder how rose-colored the lens is we see Edward through. Meyer means to write a book in the future that tells a lot of the events in Twilight through his point of view, and I imagine this could shed a lot more light on his complexity.
This first book in a series feels to me sort of like the first season of a show, as it has no overall conflict running through the whole story and is mostly exposition and development of the characters and of Edward and Bella's relationship. I must say that for the romance being basically the central plot of the book, it could be better. There are some essential ideas of the relationship that I think are brilliant. The contrast is very interesting between the graceful, invincible, immortal Edward and the comparatively awkward Bella, who is not only mortal but just about the most fragile human being imaginable; hopelessly clumsy, accident-prone, and always seeming to have bad luck with getting herself into dangerous situations. As if that's not enough, the love of her life must use a lot of effort to restrain himself from killing her every moment they're together because his hunting instincts are so strong. They are undeniably a sweet couple to read about, but their love cannot be identified with very much because they share a deep, instantaneous kind of connection that's only possible in fantasy. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but doesn't make for very good relationship drama and conflict. They are clearly soul mates who will never want to be separated, the kind of couple who are easily imagining being married by the third date. I am just thinking with some worry, without having moved on to the next book yet, This is going to get old really fast, isn't it? But I'll give them a chance before I start shipping Bella/Jacob or anything...
Even if the romance had not been just enough to hold my interest, there are plenty of other appealing aspects of the story. I personally find Edward and Bella not to be the most interesting characters at all; I could gladly read an entire other series about Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale, two of Edward's adopted siblings who have been a couple for a lifetime and have very strange pasts even for vampires. Aside from being a romance, the book is of course a fantasy, and a good one at that, with a quite original and unique approach to the vampire novel genre. The vampires of Meyer's invention are absurdly powerful and strong, and somewhere in her universe there is even the possibility for a great action book (I can only cross my fingers for an eventual full-fledged vampire fight scene).
Most of my complaints I have about the book are more problems of preference than valid criticisms. For the most part, Meyer has succeeded in writing exactly the kind of story she intended to write, and which obviously a lot of people very much like to read even if parts of it didn't work so well for me. It is definitely fun young adult fiction, not fine literature, and even quite tame despite the possible implications of the apple of temptation on its cover, with only one scene I can think of that makes it inappropriate for anybody younger than a young adult. Somewhat like the way I felt when I tried Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, my experience of reading this was rather lukewarm after what I expected because of the hype, but I enjoyed it for what it is regardless. It's the kind of book I must recommend not just because I liked it but because for all I know, others may like it even more.