The Gist:
Twilight – Bella Swan lives with her father in Forks, Washington were she meets the evidently mysterious Edwards Cullen. She eventually learns that he is a member of a vampire family who drinks animal blood rather than human blood. Edward and Bella fall in love, while James, a sadistic vampire from another coven, is drawn to hunt down Bella.
New Moon – Edward and his family leave Forks in order to keep Bella safe. She spirals into depression and turns to Jacob Black , whom she discovers can shape-shift into a wolf. Jacob and the other wolves in his tribe must protect her from Victoria, a vampire seeking to avenge
Eclipse – Victoria has created an army of “newborn” vampires to battle the Cullen family and murder Bella for revenge. Meanwhile, Bella is compelled to choose between her relationship with Edward and her friendship with Jacob.
Breaking Dawn – Bella and Edward are married, but their honeymoon cut short when Bella discovers that she is pregnant. Her pregnancy progresses rapidly, severely weakening her, Edward then injects her with vampire blood and turns her.
The Review:
Before I tear the series apart I will remain just and work on pros and cons. So, sucking up my inner rage and disappointments, I will remain humble of what I have thought of the Twilight Saga to the best of my abilities.
The pros for Twilight movies (never thought I’d say that sentence out loud) it does remain faithful to the novel, which we hardly get considering movies dominate the reading era, this is true whether you like it or not. The only scene I fathom from the series was of course the final battle scene, were everything you hated about the series finally gets its sparkly bottom thoroughly spanked, I can describe the reality of the ending being all in one of the main characters head as – Pissed. For the record, that scene wasn’t in the novels, I guess the film has saved her work.
Very few moments work in the novel, such as the detachment of the main characters Bella and Edward. The classy characteristics within Edward work to show his differences from Bella, he is a vampire after all and has lived throughout many generations, I also enjoyed the back story how he controlled his blood lust, there is no doubt that it gives off a depth to the characters.
That slowly changes, as Meyer’s way of writing seems a little off key, understandable that we are being told through the point of view of Bella, but she seems such a disinterest from the whole situation and spends a lot of time whimpering over Edward. Suck it up woman!
There is also a lack of understanding of vampires, to me vampires are very distinguishable to the human race, as they are creatures. Meyer really screws all the consequences from the books and it does not give her justice, she plays it too safe apart from the love scenes that are meant to entice readers more however I for one do not find stalking attractive. I don’t know about you, but there are certain things about a vampire that attracts me. The fact that they aren’t human is one of those things. Taking out interesting stuff, the things that make them lethal and dangerous… that makes them humans with extended lives! Vampires are supposed to be tempting, alien, but most of all dangerous. A vampire without danger, to me, isn’t a vampire at all. At least, not one I would like to be around.
Lust for human blood was turned to “vampire vegetarianism”? The sparkly skin? Scared for life!
Boring and safe seems to be the theme this saga revolves around, there aren’t many risks being taken, and surely vampires are all about risks right? The Cullen family seem to be very one dimensional, and also too goody goody for my liking, there is nothing wrong with playing around with good characters personas, or somewhat robotic.
I am fed up with the female lead always chasing after the main guy, this stereotype nature needs to be put to rest. It’s a shame really as Bella seems to just fall flat and have some series signs of martyr complex, which should have been thrown as an awareness rather than spoiled and ridiculed.
Meyer’s writing style fails to grip and entice me the way previous vampire novels have shown me, there seems to be a lack of general construction. It’s more of a deliberate documentary, my concerns with this first person narrative is that it’s very lackadaisical very shrewd, as it’s from first person but seems to be worded from a passerby, I almost wished the novels had a Wuthering Heights feel sadly no, Twilight lacks forms of emotion or reliability.
The Verdict:
Twilight should be a series the author should of revised, each character is very robotic and leaves questions to what the next generation will become. It’s an insult to classics such as Dracula, The Queen of the Damned and gothic author Anne Rice.
So I’ve read the series, time to go scream into a pillow.
Twilight, Hatchette Book Group, 2005, USA
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