Twilight by Stephenie Meyer – Romance

Image:

Evaluation:

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight is a teen sensation young adult romance involving a century-old vampire who still looks like a teenager and the new girl in town who strikes his fancy. This series exploded with popularity among women from puberty-stricken teenage girls all the way up to hopeless romantic housewives. However, Meyer’s understatement is debatably the only aspect of this book that actually makes it a good read. The thing that seems to be what garnered fame for the series is the fact that the reader can put themselves in the main character/narrator’s shoes and insert their own personality.

The dialogue in this book could have been what saved it, but much of what the narrator wants to say only comes out as thoughts and is never actually said. When she does speak, it’s awkward and choppy depicting her as stiff and dull. The vampires are all very quiet, stoic characters and therefore don’t say much themselves. There are a few minor characters who speak more but this is just accredited to their “bubbly” personalities.

Meyer’s vocabulary in Twilight waivers between precise and controlled throughout the book. There are pages where Meyer uses words like “shattering, thunderous” and then there are pages where it seems she’s just throwing words out there for the sake of elongating sentences. She also attempts some figurative language in the book by comparing the way the vampires look or how they act to other things, but it is too few and far between to make an impact.

Response:

I first read this book when it came out, which was when I was in high school. Of course, back then, I was more interested in love stories than in actual good writing. I had to read and analyze enough good writing in school, so when I was outside of school I wanted to read something with a topic that interested me. That topic at the time happened to be unique romance. I will give Meyer this: Twilight appeals to a societally driven desire for women to fall madly in love with handsome, mysterious, rich, young-looking, yet wise men. I loved it when I read it and bought each new book as it came out. I even watched each new movie as those premiered, though the movies were MUCH worse than the books. After a few years of college and the real world slapped me in the face, I realized that these books do not stand the test of time. They were not very well written and do not accurately portray real love, but the mere fantasy of it.

Conclusion:

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight is the fantasy tale of young love between a painfully awkward teenage girl and a century-old vampire who at least looks the same age as the girl all told from her perspective. Meyer’s understatement, particularly when it comes to dialogue, is the only redeeming aspect and even then it does occasionally detract from the story. I do recommend this book to any lovelorn young females looking to satisfy their hormones.

Citation:

Meyer, S. (2005). Twilight. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.