|
| Twilight (Twilight, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $11.40
You Save: $8.59 (43%)
New (25) Used (11) Collectible (1) from $11.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  2835 reviews
Sales Rank: 19
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Standard
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0316160172
EAN: 9780316160179
ASIN: 0316160172
Publication Date: October 5, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SPECIAL PURCHASE limited time only "Brand New Factory Sealed" (WE DO NOT SHIP TO HI, AK, KS, KY, NY, ND, WA)
|
| Customer Reviews:
 I Grimaced, and Grimaced, and Grimaced March 26, 2007
312 out of 414 found this review helpful
Twilight is fine example of how a book does not have to be especially well written and well-edited in order to earn a huge advance and become a bestseller. It's all about MARKETING. 500 pages of fluff. On practically every page, the weak, dependent heroine (great role model btw) "grimaces" and ruminates endlessly about how this "god" has deemed her undeserving self worthy of even talking to. Romantic? Hardly. Emotionally abusive and unhealthy, positively. Bella is so bright, she can't even figure out there is a prom coming up (don't ask!). The moral of the story seems to be that if you are "hot" that's all that matters, as evidenced by all the well intentioned Human suitors that get turned down because they can't measure up physically to an undead bad boy. After all, the key to a healthy relationship is not in stability, but in giving up your humanity to hang with a vampire hotty.
Near Nonsense January 12, 2008
253 out of 297 found this review helpful
I wasn't going to review the novel at all because I simply hated it too much and, well, why spend more time dwelling on it than necessary? But the amount of people who claim her writing is flawless, the story is original and perfect, and the book appeals to all ages just drove me crazy. No, her writing is not flawless. In fact, it's very juvenile for someone who has had as much schooling as Stephenie Meyer. The story itself is completely predictable from the drab and ridiculous Preface, to the very last sentence. And the overall plot of the series? Well, I'm not actually sure there is one.
Don't get me wrong. I understand why this book appeals to young readers. It has every girl's fantasy, doesn't it? A handsome boy falling madly in love with the supposedly plain new girl. The story is so simplistic and so centered on this love story that, frankly, it can become addicting whether you like what you are reading or not (and I will freely admit to reading it in about six hours). I would not shy away from giving this book to preteen friends of mine.
However, I think the bias has to end somewhere. This book makes Harry Potter a literary masterpiece. This book makes Anne Rice's novels appear well-constructed. This book does not do anything new for the genre--which is not wrong. No one needs to set out and create a new precedent. No one is under that obligation. That doesn't negate the fact that the entire story was very tired. I had no interest in Bella's questions. I had no interest in the long blocks of explanations. There is a good reason Jo Rowling left most of her explanations scattered through seven books of varying length, and not all at once in every chapter. For someone who is hanging on the fence, boring descriptions and Q&A sessions are a killer.
Additionally, and perhaps the real reason I disliked the book, Bella Swan made for one of the worst protagonists I've ever read. Reading Meyer's website, I was amazed that someone who loves her characters so dearly manages to create such lifeless, flat personifications of them on paper. Bella is your typical self-insert of the author. She shares the author's hometown. She has a beautiful name--Isabella Swan! She's so clumsy that you figure she probably has an inner ear problem. She's constantly miserable, irritatingly oblivious to the world she's describing to us, and overdramatic.
And none of these are endearing traits.
Handled differently, they could be. Handled differently, they would be. Third person would have been preferable, rather than first. In a romance story where the author is not quite sophisticated enough to actually provide realism instead of fanfiction, first person kills the narrative. One moment, Bella is weeping over how horrible her life is. The next moment, she's discussing how unattractive she is while rebuffing three invitations to the dance in one day--after having no relationships at home. These are not endearing. These are the hopes and wishes of very young teenage girls, and perhaps a few older ones. But it makes for a very ridiculous read through. Personally, I believe Meyer should have worked on reading a bit more structured works before sitting down. She ought to have researched fiction writing and the dynamics of creating a proper heroine, because she has managed to make someone that is very unrealistic to the point of frustration.
You see, it's frustrating because I know Meyer is trying to make Bella realistic instead of perfect. What girl doesn't think she's ugly sometimes? What girl doesn't stumble gracelessly over her own feet? The only difference is, in a novel, these traits are the superficial flaws of a Mary Sue. Simply, they aren't flaws at all. They are excuses to make Bella "less perfect" while achieving the exact opposite. Had Bella been genuinely shy (she so wasn't shy!), genuinely unhappy, genuinely boring, it might have been less irritating. But she was clearly outgoing. She was clearly beautiful. She stumbled into horrible situations only to be saved by a gaggle of boys. And all the while, she remained oblivious to all of it. That isn't a flaw--that's convenience. And it's very immature writing.
I also think all of the Prefaces should have been removed. Upon reading Twilight's, I burst out laughing. Coming forward to kill her, eh? The writing couldn't handle the suspense or drama the author was attempting to create--it left no room for either. This is where first person kills the narrative completely. This preface then set the tone for the entire book, and I laughed similarly at about half of the descriptions she used.
There is no need to reiterate that Edward is perfect. If you trust your reader, you should trust them to remember that Edward is, apparently, a Greek god or adonis with an angel's face and runway model physique with black eyes sometimes, topaz eyes sometimes, ocher eyes sometimes, and golden hair, and that he drives fast, has a lot of money, is a musical savant, sparkles in the sun, dresses impeccably, etc., etc. You only need to say someone is perfect a couple of times over the course of the novel for anyone to understand.
All the overdesigning of Edward's appearance ended up feeling like was the author relishing in this personal fantasy. And that's great. We all have personal fantasies! But this book doesn't quite deserve the enormous praise it's receiving from all corners. Dissect the writing. Look at the ridiculous romance novelesque style of it all. Don't tell me writing doesn't matter when it's Young Adult. The YA genre is expanding. Teenagers are writing exquisite pieces of literature and not publishing them anywhere. There is no excuse for poor writing.
If I wanted to read a romance novel, I would have picked one up. At least romance novels have plot. Meyer all-too-frequently used 'scowling' and 'glaring' as the only method of communication between people. And Edward's behavior was indecisive to the point insanity. His constant 'please go away I can't love you I'll kill you but don't go away I love you please go away' would drive any sane human being into a psychological tailspin. If you made the movie exactly how she wrote the book, Bella and Edward would be consistently scowling at one another and arguing over everything. And there would be no plot until the last fifteen minutes.
Because, frankly, there was no plot. After the lust between Edward and Bella was reconciled, my interest left completely. After the relationship became whole, I was done. Everything else Meyer threw in seemed very, very half-hearted. And that's a shame, because I know she dedicated as many years into her characters. I only wish her results were better.
May your writing improve in the future, Stephenie Meyer. You have serious potential, but you probably jumped on writing and publishing these novels too soon. You definitely needed more time in Washington, as well.
what a stinkin piece of tosh August 7, 2007
218 out of 273 found this review helpful
I am disapointed by how many teen girls think this is the best literature avaliable. This book has practically no substance. Unless you count endless discriptions of Edward Cullens "amber eyes and full lips". I am not exagerating when I say that if these discriptions were taken out the book would be about half its size. Bella, the main charactor, is pathetic and boring. She practically passes out every time Edward (her gorgeous vampire boyfriend) comes in a room, it is rediculous.
The whole book is basically: "Today I went to school. Edward gave me a ride home. I couldn't speak for his amber eyes were oh so mesmerizing! When I got home I made dinner for my father and cleaned the entire house. Then I got myself into mortal danger and Edward saved me. His eyes are soooo amber and mesmerizing."
DO NOT READ THIS BOOK
When I first read it I absoulutely loved it. Then I realised how utterly stupid it is and how degrading and antifeminist. EXAMPLE: Edward stalks Bella and watches her at night. Bella is flattered. After I came to my senses I was a bit humiliated I ever liked Twilight.
If you must read it, fine, but I warned you. Just think about how this is a romance between a 100+ year old and a 17 year old.
ALSO- It is an insult to Harry Potter to even be mentioned in the same sentence with this book.
Sucks like a vampire on your neck January 19, 2008
217 out of 258 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I believed all the hype. Silly me! I fell for that ploy yet again. It seems these days that sometimes the bigger the hype, the bigger the disappointment I'll feel.
Usually I don't write a review before I've finished reading a book. But I've read over 200 pages of 'Twilight', and I'm not sure if I can bear reading the rest, so I think I may as well review it now.
How best to describe this book? Hmmm...
Remember back to when you were a little kid in school, and your teacher would set you an essay-writing assignment on 'What I Did At School Today'? Well, this book reads like one of those essays, only it goes on and on and on and on and on, day after day after day...I don't get why it's so important to tell us EVERY SINGLE CLASS that Bella goes to at school, for months on end, especially if it's totally irrelevant to the storyline. It's like reading someone's school diary, the kind that outlines which classes to go to at which times each day and which assignments are due, but leaves out any of the juicier, more interesting gossip you'd get in a normal diary. And the same goes for Bella's homelife - we get to hear what she eats and when, what she does for homework, exactly how well she slept each night, and so on, every day. And it's almost never interesting facts that are relevant, it's dry, boring, repetitious stuff. Bella's life is so DULL, I think you could read instruction manuals for watching paint dry that were less boring. Ugh! If my pillows were this overstuffed with fluff and filler, I'd have to sleep almost in a sitting-up position.
And Bella was annoying. Whingy, self-centred, quite rude to her 'friends' at times, and totally lacking a sense of humour or a modicum of intelligence or any genuine concern for anyone other than herself or her pretty boy boyfriend, she grated on my nerves like a constantly dripping tap. I could understand why no one at her old school liked her. I couldn't understand, though, why everyone at her new school seemed to treat her like royalty and wanted to be with her constantly, right from day one of her arriving there.
Using first person narrative can be a wonderful thing, in the hands of a good writer - it can be used to convey the central character's feelings and thoughts and motivations so much more effectively than third-person narrative. But this author wasted this opportunity, and gave us practically nothing in the way of the narrator's personality, or nothing positive, anyway, unless you think that being a whingy sociopath is a positive. The other trap with using first person narrative as a writer is that you can fall into the trap of making too many 'I' statements, which gets really dull, or even annoying. This author fell right into that trap. It wasn't uncommon to find an entire, long paragraph where every sentence began with 'I' (like on page 114, for instance). Perhaps if the character of Bella had thought about others more often, instead of just herself, or had made witty commentary about current events or what was going on around her, she wouldn't have had a need to start so many sentences with 'I'. Clearly, a very self-centred character, written by an author lacking in imagination or experience, or so it would seem.
And the hero of the piece, Edward, was dull - his only features seemed to be his unbelievably godlike good looks and his flashy car. I want more to my heroes than that, thankyou. And as for the other characters in the book, we learn practically nothing about them - they only seem to exist to help or interact with the heroine; they don't seem to have any lives or character or quirks of their own.
I found this book REALLY painful. I hate quitting, and I usually see books through to the end. But this one is so bad, I don't know that I'll be able to force myself to finish it, and I don't think I should - I'm just not a fan of masochism. I've been having to force myself to read it, for a few minutes at a time, here and there, over months, just to get to page 200+. Spending time with this book is like being forced to visit relatives I don't like - I sit there, lamenting that I don't like them, that I have nothing in common with them, that they're about as exciting as a day spent staring at the wall, that it is a waste of my valuable time to be there, and I count down the minutes until I can escape. Better that I had never visited them in the first place - in other words, better that I had never started reading this book in the first place.
I think that if I crave any vampire tales in future, I'll just stick to watching Buffy reruns or reading Patricia Briggs' wonderful 'Mercy Thompson' series of books. I definitely won't be reading any more of Stephenie Meyer's books, anyway.
a redundant snooze-fest May 11, 2006
215 out of 308 found this review helpful
This book was: Contrived, languid, repetitive and vapid.
Meaning it was a slow-moving, overly crafted knock off of every other "romantic" vampire novel written. Meyer had a few good ideas, like the venom theory, but reading about yet another clutzy, slow-witted, dull heroine becoming an inexplicably fasicnating love object to yet another beautiful immortal who despite his many eons lacks the imagination to latch on to anything more interesting should have us all giving up on the vampire genre all together.
Reading this book dragged like a government job, with the exception of pages 374 through 422 where the story briefly picks up and looks like it might actually go somewhere beyond the silly infantile romantic lingerings of Bella & Edward. (wonderbread, anyone?) Don't be fooled, it dosen't.
I'm guessing Meyer was trying to make an arguement for chemistry to explain an attraction that makes no sense at all. But I got bored because repeating a half-formed sentiment over and over is not really an explaination. Unless you are sleep deprived there is nothing to gain from this rather empty literary exercise.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
