Do NOT Tell Anyone About This

Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
Originally published in hardcover in 2005 - Little, Brown and Co

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I was challenged to read this. (By whom I don't remember now, but let's go with this premise.) And now I've read it. And unlike my other reviews, I am "starring" this review based not entirely on how the book affected me, but more as how I think of the book based on its genre. I have heard complaints of the writing being poor or the story being shallow or the plot being just for girls, but I have no complaints there. Or anywhere really. I absolutely love a book that can inspire those to read who normally wouldn't, and/or inspire those who read to read more.


I also like how Meyer came to writing and how she wrote this book (stuff I usually don't care about). I like that she really had no concept of vampires and subsequently I like how she defined her vampires. I like that her background was reading fantasy, a genre I do not typically associate with female readers. The story itself is decent. Kudos to Mrs. Meyer.


Amazon description - "Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat."

As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.

Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell