It was two average thirteen year-olds, Nicole and Megan who introduced to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. As I walked through the school cafeteria one day, I passed by their table, the table I like to call The Good Books Group, for the eight or nine girls who sit there seem to always have their latest novels close at hand as they eat lunch, connect and share. This is the best book ever! Nicole proclaimed. Her eyes glazed over with the same pure revelry of a chocolate sugar high, she recounted how desperately she wanted to be Bella, the narrator of Meyer’s vampire fantasy. For her, Twilight was not just good, it was sweet mind-candy.
I ready the whole thing this weekend! Megan impressed me, for the book I held in my hands was almost 500 hundred pages long.
I finally picked up my own copy yesterday afternoon. Barely a hundred fifty pages into this tasty tome, I can see that Meyer’s debut novel is filled with many appetizing adolescent girl elements.
Seventeen year-old Bella, though neither athletic nor graceful, is beautifully pale, intelligent and observant. As a loving gesture to allow her mother to spend more time on the road with her professional athlete stepfather, Bella elects to move from warm, sunny Phoenix to a chronically dreary town in northern Washington where her quiet and emotionally distant father is the town sheriff. In some ways, Bella is a parent to both of her parents, thus making her a strong character despite her own self-doubts. Bella is also appealing because, despite her akward self-esteem, the boys in her new, tiny school stumble over each other to win her affection. However, there is only one boy, Edward Cullen, who intrigues her. Edward, as it turns out, is a vampire whose conscience waffles between protecting her from his own treacherous nature and his desire to be with her. Bella responds with teenage confusion and worry also as she hungers to understand what it is that makes Edward different, something that the other members in the community are not able to pick up on.
So far, Twilight is filled with mystery and sexual tension. I suspect that the next course will also serve up danger and suspense. Like Nicole and Megan, I will probably gobble it up and hunger for more.
3 comments:
Hi Je M'amuse,
I couldn't finish Twilight for a number of reasons, but mainly because I felt the so-called "starcrossed love" got in way of the really interesting story, which is Bella's changing life. Two people can't be starcrossed lovers if they have no real strife between them, no? The love story felt entirely too heavy-handed, and in the end, turned me away from it.
Have you read A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray? Great YA fiction, along the same lines, and very much a "power of girl friendship" story.
Ciao,
Amy
Loved the review and I can see why this book would be so appealing to adolescent girls! My 15-year old is sadly no great reader, but as part of her school day she has a compulsory 30-min reading period and thus is always on the look out for books. I am very tempted to buy or borrow this book for the both of us!
Thanks, je m'amuse!
Twilight is the teen read of the year in my classroom--for the girls anyway. I have picked it up several times, but I'm still wondering how thick the teen angst is. Thanks for some extra imput here, too!
Post a Comment