Twilight

After hearing so many people rave about it, I finally read Twlilight by Stephenie Meyer. I believe I am about to express an unpopular opinion: I think Twilight is rather drivelly. I know everyone loves the Twilight series; I can definitely see the appeal to teenage girls. But I don't understand why so many grown-up women are so excited by it. I found the book disappointing.

To be sure you understand me, I'll say that Ms. Meyer writes well enough to keep me wanting to read more; I was interested enough to finish the book—and even finish it in one day. I kind of enjoyed it—except that I was unable to completely suspend my disbelief. In plain English: I found it less believable than your average story about a vampire and a normal, human girl falling in love. But as I thought about the characters and situation after I finished reading it, I became even more dissatisfied.

I really couldn't see why Edward would fall in love with Bella; she was kind of a whiny teenager. Yes, they say that she is grown-up for her age; but you know . . . Edward, although he appears to be seventeen, is over 100 years old. I'm only 41 and, even though teenagers are nice enough, I can't imagine falling in love with one now. Our life experiences are too completely different; we don't see things in the same way at all. I don't even see things in the same way that I saw them as a teenager. But factor in the idea that Edward, besides being a century older, is also a vampire—their life experiences are completely, totally, vastly different. As far as I can tell, he is simply intrigued by this pretty girl whose mind he is unable to read. Edward even tells us (through Bella) that he is unfamiliar with and unable to understand human emotions. Why would he fall in love with her?

As for Bella, all I could see on her side is that Edward is the most unbelievably gorgeous boy she (or anyone else in the world) has ever seen: He wasn't nice to her; in fact at first he seems to be repelled by her—maybe even hate her—with no provocation on her part. Granted, he did save her from a tragic car accident; but she can't figure out why he saved her since he so obviously dislikes her (which is, in itself, weird. Why wouldn't anyone step in to save her, if they could?). Bella gives us no reason that she would fall in love with him except that he's soooo gorgeous. It seems more a matter of lust than love to me.

OK. So much for credibility. How about content?

I'd have to say that a good thirty percent of this book is spent by Bella telling us how totally gorgeous Edward is, from his perfect, rock-hard figure to his amazing smile and melt-you-into-a-puddle voice. I think I really understood that after the first few tellings. Another ten percent of the book is spent by her saying that she's going to be in love with him no matter what he does to discourage her (which is, basically, him saying, "You shouldn't like me."). And another ten percent is Edward telling her that it's really a bad idea for her to fall in love with him. * bored sigh *

Besides all that, they all take themselves sooooo seriously. It's like, "I love you, dang-it. And this is serious stuff!" She did attempt to lighten it up a little bit with a vampire baseball game, but that event was quickly broken up by the evil, bad-guy vampire. Oh well.

However, I admit, I did read it all the way through to the happy ending. And I cared about it enough to find out what will happen next. I asked Michael, who's read through the third book, and that's enough for me.

My overall rating? I'd have to agree with a (40-year old, married, male) friend of ours, who said: "Those Twilight books really bring out the twelve-year-old girl in all of us."