Today, we'll be reviewing the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, a very recent, and very controversial novel. Now, by controversial, I don't mean that it is particularly offensive to a certain group of people, nor does it spark ethical arguments. Instead, it has sparked an issue about it's quality. Is it good? Is it bad? But the major controversy is how it is viewed by both genders. So here at Artistically Speaking, we've decided to do two points of view in this review. One from a girl, and one from a guy.
*SPOILER ALERT*
David's Review:
2 out of 10 stars
Of all the well written books I've read, Twilight, definitely is not one of them, for many, many reasons. We'll start off with the first, and one of the easiest to recognize. Meyer has no real character development in the book, and even when she does, she often contradicts it. For example, take our main character, and narrator, Bella Swan.
We believe she is an intellectual character and unpopular being the new girl in town. She also convinces us that, no matter how hard she tries, she can't lie to save her life. As the book progresses she makes very unintellectual choices, such as lying to her dad when she's about to meet Edward, the vampire who wants to suck her blood, alone in the forest. Although Bella is new in town, she is suddenly popular and is invited to go shopping with her new friends. While shopping, she decides she wants to go hunting for a bookstore, alone, in a city she's never been to before, also knowing that she is clumsy. Obviously, she gets lost, and almost attacked by a group of men. Intellectual, I think not. And her lying skills, apparently very good when they help the story, easily convincing her dad, Charlie, that she broke up with Edward.
Next, up, the plot, or maybe, the fact that there is none until the book is more than halfway over. We start out the book with Bella telling us she's moving to Forks, for an unknown reason, later revealed in the story, but that's unimportant. From there, the book is pretty much boring, and plotless. She meets Edward in Biology, and he hates her. Then, his eyes change colors and he loves her. Boring things continue, etc. Then, when he tells her she can't love her, because he's really like a villian in a comic book. Meyer then proceeds to bring us to one of the many anticlimactic scenes in the book. We've all seen the commercials, where Bella and Edward are in the forest, speaking as dramatically as they can (which, if the commercials show the skill of the actors in that movie, isn't very dramatic) as Bella figures out the Edward is a vampire. No. In the book, she uses a search engine to look up monsters, finds two stories about vampires that fit Edward's character, and then is convinced that he his one, without directly questioning him.
Meyer's writing (for the first half of the book anyway) is completely horrible. Not only are we subjected to more of what Bella's wearing rather than thinking, we're also subjected to bad dialouge. And once we meet Edward, things go way downhill from there. Meyer literally creates a perfect character, and by perfect, I don't mean the best character ever. I mean, Edward is just perfect. Now you girls may not mind, but most writers and critics will agree that making somebody perfect is not a way to help a story. Yes, it may seem awesome that he can do almost anything, but with no flaw, there's nothing interesting to happen. And even though Bella has seen him and been around him for months, we still have to sit through Meyer telling us how perfect and gorgeous Edward is, everytime Bella is around him. Now, in the second half of the book Meyer's writing gets a little better, and this could be because a plot is finally introduced in the second half, (around page 360 to be exact, which is about 100 pages from the end of the book). But all-in-all I only found one paragraph throughout the entire book that was truly well written. In the book I had it was on page 232, the first full paragraph. Bella describes Phoenix to Edward, and I must admit that it is very well written.
Also, you can't say this book is an extraordinary love story, because, it's not. All the "love" is, is a very Romeo and Juliet-esque obsession. There is a large difference between an obsession and a love of somebody in my opinion. One of them is the fact that, when you're in love with somebody, you shouldn't only think about is how good they look. Bella, our narrator, uses the word perfect, or similar words, to describe Edward every time we see him! We got it the first time your friend told us he was good looking Bella, he's fantastic-looking! The problem with this "love" is that Bella never connects to Edward personally. The only reason he likes her, is her smell, which means that he wants to suck her blood. To get over this fact, he chooses to be nice to her, which ends up with her just being more obsessed with him. So all-in-all this story is not about love at all.
Overall, this book is not good at all. It is poorly written, and the plot is nonexistent most of the time. Out of ten stars I gave this book a two. Yes, I know I said it gets better toward the end, but not nearly enough to rid us of the horrible rest of the book.
Cassie's Review:
7.5 out of 10 stars
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 2 years, you know that the Twilight sensation has overrun pop culture, causing millions of teenage girls (and a few moms) to giggle, swoon, and act silly in general. Unfortunately I happen to be one of those girls, although I pride myself on being a fan before the movies swept Hollywood. But aside from the disappointing and overrated movie, how great was Twilight as a debut novel for one of the most promising authors to hit mainstream America?
Vampires have never been my thing, but Twilight was highly recommended to me, so I went in with a positive attitude and an appetite for a good sci-fi romance. I was disappointed with the first few chapters; we meet Bella Swan, who just moved to Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie Swan. Bella goes to school, Bella gets a truck, Bella meets new friends, Bella is clumsy, blah, blah. I’m not one for books that start off slow, and Twilight was one of those books. I stuck it out, though. The only interesting thing we find is the introduction of Edward and his family; they don’t socialize with anyone else and are therefore deemed snobby. Bella is intrigued by Edward, and finds herself in class with him. He acts strange, doesn’t talk, and Bella feels awkward. Big deal. A ho-hum start to a novel that’s supposed to be fantastic.
Onward the story goes. It picks up the pace, thankfully, and we’re properly introduced too Edward as a character. Bella is really curious as the relationship between the characters develops and Edward insists he’s a “bad guy”. Through an unlikely set of circumstances, Bella comes to the conclusion that Edward and his family must be vampires, and that she is in love with him.
The rest of the story unfolds, with Bella and Edward’s romance at the center, ending in a semi- climactic race against time; a good conclusion, but written in a way that didn’t really draw on any of the reader’s emotions the way I expected it to. Even with the lackluster ending, I walked away with a good feeling about the book, and I greatly anticipated the sequel.
Meyer seems to have missed a few English classes in school. The writing style was inconsistent, to say the least. It was like ice skating- you were gliding along for a while, and suddenly you hit a rough patch, stumble, get back up, and glide some more, until you hit the next rough spot. And with all his perfection, Edward just seems a little boring. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the moody, secretive type. And Bella has a way of making me roll my eyes, with her self- sacrificing ways and her inability to accept the fact that Edward can kill her with a twitch of his cold, sparkly hand. Although it’s not great style, look at the first Harry Potter books, they’re exactly the same way- Rowling wasn’t so great at structure and variety, either. I have to say, though, that Meyer has a rich vocabulary, more advanced than one would normally find in a teen novel. I learned words like chagrin, vicarious, and glut. I appreciated that Meyer wrote for no particular age group and therefore didn’t dumb down her words; about fifty percent of teen-specific novels are void of intelligent vocabulary.
You might be wondering why I gave seven and a half stars to a book that I didn’t seem to like very much- on the contrary, I greatly enjoyed reading Twilight. It was a good storyline, with interesting (if a little unrealistic) characters and moments of brilliance by Meyer (we find out why vampires don’t go out in the sun, and it’s not because they’ll burn up and die). Meyer also has a way of describing Edward in a way that makes any female wish her boyfriend or husband was undead. Who wouldn’t want someone who looked like a perfect Roman god? Yes, Twilight, with all its flaws, is unexplainably intoxicating. Stephenie Meyer started a phenomenon, sparking many other writers to follow suit with vampire novels of their own, and thereby overrunning bookshelves with the undead (an unfortunate result of Twi-mania). In short, whether you loved it or hated it, Twilight has set the standard for vampires to come, and America remains wrapped around the fictional fingers of Edward and Bella, or in some cases, Jacob. But that’s a discussion for next time.
P.S. If you’re still not willing to give Twilight a try, or you tried and aren’t crazy about it, try Meyer’s other, separate novel, The Host. It has a better developed style and story line, and has absolutely nothing to do with smitten, undead teenagers.
As you can see there are two very different ideas of the story, and we want to hear your opinion, so comment below!
