The Twilight Saga Collection
by Stephenie Meyer
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Book Reviews of The Twilight Saga Collection
Book Review: One Star is WAY Too Much to give for this series.
Summary: 1 Stars
To put it simply, the books were terrible. Not only did they have purple prose on every page, but the lack of general writing quality was horrifying, and Meyer appeared to have wanted to set feminism back about 100 years in the process. 'Twilight' introduces the main heroine, Bella Swan ('beautiful swan') who is nothing more than a walking doormat. She could hardly take a step without needing a boy to come and rescue her, which (as a girl) I find extremely degrading.
Bella gives up all her ambitions, goals and dreams (which consists only of reading 'Wuthering Heights' over and over again, but nevertheless...) to marry Edward, abandoning her friends and family without a second thought. Oh, how lovely...
Not one of the characters were developed well in the least. Meyer used Bella's clichéd flaws to try to make her endearing, and failed miserably. Bella is a seemingly unattractive, plain, clumsy, immature, self-concious girl, yet every person with a 'y' chromosome feels the need to throw themselves at her. Please, spare me.
Bella and Edward's 'love' is never explained. The only thing we know is that she thinks he's hot and he thinks she smells good. Not exactly a captivating romance.
The entire series revolves around 'Edward is beautiful and prefect and gorgeous', 'I hate Forks', 'Edward is beautiful and perfect and gorgeous', 'How dare these people actually be nice to me, they must be out to get me, that's the only explaination', 'I hate Forks', 'Edward is beautiful and perfect and gorgeous'. Gets a little straining after a while.
The dialogue isn't in keeping with the targeted age group. At one point (eighteen-year-old) Bella actually states "Holy crow!" Come on, I'm a thirteen year old and I don't even say things like that.
There are so many plot holes it's ridiculous. I mean, her father is the Chief of Police and he doesn't know that a strange man is sneaking into his daughter's room at night and sleeping over? And he can't tell when his own child is lying through her teeth at him? Call me crazy, but I find that really hard to believe.
Bella is one of the most co-dependant characters I've ever come across, and I've come across a lot of characters. At first, she was okay, not ideal, but okay. But after she met Edward, she became completely dependent on the Cullens, drooling over them and hanging on their every word. If Edward didn't come to school one day, was she seriously going to die? I think not.
And Edward! Contrary to popular belief, he's not 'every girl's dream'; *he-hem* I'm a girl, thank you very much and Edward is about the worst boyfriend I could ever imagine (with the possible exception of George Bush) Ugh, and I thought I was going to hurl at all the corny one-liners he was dishing out. 'Before you my life was like a moonless night, but you brighten up my world with your beauty' (or something to that effect) Yes, okay, you like her, we get the point, jeeze! And through the entire book, he was practically groping her. Every other sentence was '... and he leaned in to brush his marble lips once more to my [insert body part here] I'm glad I'm not a gullible person, because this is teaching teenage girls that groping is okay, it shows that the guy loves you! Not a great message to be putting out there- even though half the fangirls proclaiming their undying love to him would've- had he been real -put a restraining order out on him two day into the 'relatinoship'.
And the name Renesmee Carlie Cullen? Seriously? If Meyer wanted to encorperate Renee, Esme, Carlisle and Charlie into the 'child's' name, why couldn't she have used Charlotte (nickname: Charlie/Carlie) Esme Renee Cullen? At least that's realistic and it avoids the whole 'Loch Ness Monster' fiasco (which a responsible writer would have taken into account).
Meyer frequently changed the POV of her characters; at one point Bella stated that her 'cheeks were as red as tomatoes'. Not only is this one of the most clichéd similes a writer can use (tomatoes are red? Wow, I never would have known *rolls eyes*), it begs the question, how could Bella have known what color her cheeks were? They could have been blue with green polka-dots for all she knew, she wasn't standing in front of a mirror.
I'm completely baffled that a book this mediocre made it on the New York Times Best-Seller List. It's a huge kick in the stomach for all us writers who want to add something meaningful to the literary world, and not include a 'hawt' guy for eleven year old girls to drool over.
Book Review: Breathless....!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I must admit I hadn't heard much from Stephanie's amazing world until the day I came across the Twilight movie ad on the bus stop. At first I said yuck! vampires! but there was something in the girl's face and the way the were together that I kept looking at the poster and missing my bus to work!! had to wait 20 min for the next one and was eager to get to work to google. the title said little to me, and in spanish, worse! so I was amazed when I found out about the Twilight universe. I must say I could have been fired for all the days I spent on the net searching and reading thru every bit of info I would get. I inmediately ordered my books. I couldn't understand why I was so hooked on the story, but it was a need, an eager "thirst" to read the story, I don't know how I managed to wait till my books arrived. I looked at the amazon book as an idiot! amazed and waiting for my lunch break with no hunger for food but for my reading. I loved the slipcased books, I loved the cards, and I started reading and....I haven't stopped yet!!!! My husband is seriously considering a mental institution!! I just couldn't stop reading. And as I said, I'm married and I have a beautiful 3 yr old princess to take care of, but I just had to keep reading, I couldn't stop! I haver never, never, never been so hooked up on a book (well, the 4 of them actually), and it was such a need, like breathing, that made me read at night, sacrificing the rest both my body and mind desesperately needed, but I couldn't stop. I read during the bus ride to work, at work too, on the ride back home, and would stop only during the few hours I was with in my wife-mother-role, and then, when my baby was sleeping, I would keep reading. my husband got really mad at me, he only reads sports news and couldn't understand my total obsession, yes, that's the right word: obsession. He has seen me all these yearse reading my books, enjoying them, I do read a lot, but had never seen me like this before! And when I read all thru the 4 books, well, I had to start reading them again!!! and, now I'm scared of myself, I keep reading them thru and thru...if you'd ask me how many times I've read them, I couldn't honestly answer and would just state that I'm now reading Breakind Dawn yet again.
I love the story and it keeps me there, hanging on, even though I know what's going to happen, but it just takes me to Forks and I manage to relax my wringled mind from the stress and exhaustion of my life...so I guess it's kind of a medicine, a need, for relaxing that keeps me reading again and again.
Of course I almost on a daily basis, go to Stephanie's page and have read everything. I love all the outtakes and extras and have download them to be able to read them without connecting to the net so often (I do think I might eventually get into trouble with my boss!). I also read and got trapped yet even more, when I read Midnight Sun, and I do hope that Stephanie can someday find the peace to finish it, you can't imagine what it means to a lot of us! I guess I'm a "twilight mom"!! and to be able to understand the full picture, to understand Edward, it's just, well, perfect, amazing...a need as breathing. So I do hope she recovers, but as Bella's says" time heals all wounds..." so I'll be here, desesperately waiting that it's the sooner than later. If Amazon would put it on a "preorder"list, I'm sure it would hit number 1 in just hours!! If Stephanie is reading this, please, don't forget us.
Now, someone has asked me, well, being a Twilight fan, have you seen the film? and I must say yes and no. first, to view it in spanish is unbearable for me (I'm an aussie stuck in Madrid!) so I NEED to view it in english and have already ordered my (I am truly looking forward to the Midnight Sun scene!!, well, all of the stuff actually). but I have viewed what's available on the internet. all the clips and trailers on the official website and I'm planning a visit to some friends in London just to be able to go to the movies and view it a few times!! (Dicky, Doreen, you know I love you and I visit Lon basically for seeing you!!!)
So, as for the intended review, I definately love this slipcased books option. I'll be looking forward to receiving my DVD and I do keep a daily check on any news about the New Moon film (I do hope they get the love part right this time, and don't screw it about!!)
so, definately, a must have!!!
Book Review: Sparkly vampire blues
Summary: 1 Stars
Mix together random ingredients of Anne Rice and Anita Blake, add a teaspoon of overblown writing, and finish with a vacuously attractive heroine who serves as the readers' stand-in.
This is the winning formula for Stephenie Meyers' bestselling "Twilight Saga," four books chronicling the overwrought romance of a century-old vampire and a completely ordinary teen girl. It's the stuff of a thousand teenage girls' fan-fiction fantasies, and Meyer's purple prose and highly melodramatic storylines add to the feeling that that's just what she's writing.
"Twilight" introduces us to Bella Swan. She hates everything about her new hometown of Forks, until she bumps into the gorgeous Edward Cullen. Edward is not only hot and rich, but he has the whole bad-boy factor -- he keeps warning her that he'll hurt her, so she should stay away. Then when a car almost mows Bella down, Edward leaps in to save her -- and reveals his secret.
Yup, he's a bona fide vampire with sparkly skin and marble flesh. Oh, and he's a "vegetarian" who abstains from human blood, and belongs to a close-knit vampire "family." How cute and cozy.
But their budding relationship is thrown into turmoil when an evil vampire decides to hunt Bella, and draws her into a dangerous trap. Then things get even worse when Edward and his family depart Forks. So Bella starts doing dangerous sports that allow her to hear Edward's voice, when she isn't hanging out with hunky werewolf Jacob. But a mistaken vision leads Edward to believe Bella is dead -- and soon HE might be if Bella doesn't stop him.
Of course -- as they always are in urban fantasy books -- the werewolf and vampire vie for Bella's attentions, even as an old enemy attacks the vampires of Forks. But even the long-awaited marriage of Edward and Bella doesn't make things peaceful at last -- on their Brazilian honeymoon, they conceive a superpowerful, blood-drinking vampire baby. And of course, this brings the wrath of another angry vampire group down on them....
"The Twilight Saga" is a teenager's dream of vampire romance -- it has plenty of hot supernaturals, magic powers, a swooning damsel in distress, evil vampire clans, lots of melodrama, and frequent references to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Shakespeare. It's the ultimate example of a guilty pleasure read, but the pleasure decreases as the book goes on.
The storyline is simple, but what starts as a teen romance is stretched out over two more books of tedium and a truly surreal concluding volume. Stephanie Meyer tries to keep it suspenseful by slapping in a series of brief vampire conflicts, as well as an utterly pointless love triangle. But this can't disguise the fact that the entire story revolves around tiresome angst -- everyone mopes, whines, moans, and occasionally gets suicidal.
The writing doesn't help either -- all four books are smothered in a thick layer of ornate, swooning purple prose. It's tolerable when Edward isn't on the scene, but things fall apart whenever he's onstage. Every other sentence seems to be a paeon to to how gorgeous the "incandescent" and "scintillating" Edward is. It gets a bit nauseating.
And Meyers adds some distractingly bizarre stuff -- sparkling vampires who inexplicably go to high school, werewolves falling in love with babies, and a gruesome birth scene involving vampire teeth.
And alas, no strong heroines here -- Bella is a wimpy, clingy, superhumanly klutzy girl who is nevertheless attractive to all males. Her main goal in life is to cling limpetlike to Edward for all eternity, because apparently she does whatever the Big Strong Men say. Sadly she's even more insufferable -- and Mary Sueish -- after she does become a vampire.
Edward is much the same -- he exists to be obsessively in love with Bella (to the point of stalking her in her home) and being "incandescently" sexy. That's it. Most of the others are pigeonholes as "the quiet good-natured cop," "the magic baby" or "the nasty blondes," although there are a few amusing characters like the fey, twee vampire Alice.
"The Twilight Saga" takes the basic conventions of the popular urban fantasy genre and soaks them in lethal levels of teenage angst. This quartet has no life -- it's clearly undead.
Book Review: I would give this zero stars if I could
Summary: 1 Stars
TwilightI spend a lot of time browsing in the book section. I pick up books and then put them back down. I picked up Twilight and set it back down, a bunch of times. One day I didn't. I had heard a lot about the Twilight series and every time I read the back of the book I just couldn't see the point in reading it. It just sounded silly. It sounded like something totally aimed at a teenage girl (which there is nothing wrong with), but then I heard about all these women my age who read the books and were totally absorbed by them. I figured I was missing something, I put off reading Harry Potter for a long time because I thought it would be silly and I was wrong then, so maybe I was wrong this time. I wasn't. If there was ever a book that I wished could be banished from the earth, this is one of them.
I read the first, and forced my way through the rest because I felt like if didn't read the entire series then I really couldn't develop an informed opinion about the series. As I paged through the books, the feeling of disbelief grew and grew and grew. By the end, I wanted to throw the book across the room.
Bella, a teenage girl, moves to Forks, Washington and then falls in love with a vampire. Throughout the book, Bella talks about how she doesn't understand why Edward, the vampire, loves her, despite the fact that every. single. boy in school wants to go out with her. Her self-loathing is frequently evident in the book and although she appears to be perfectly normal and is supposedly very smart, she labels herself irredeemably flawed because she appears to be clumsy. Bella and Edward progress through the book trying to decide if they like each other and then decide that they are incredibly in love, but Edward must stay away from her to keep her safe. End of Book 1. The entire book is plagued with trite dialogue and horrible description. In fact, if I never read the world alabaster skin again, it would be too soon. The vampires are not scary. In fact they seem like pleasant people who simply like to eat freshly killed animals and happen to sparkle in the sunlight. They also skip school a lot when it's sunny, because I guess sparkling too often would become passe and might let people onto the fact that they're vampires.
Some spoilers, if you really care....
The rest of the books: Once again we are plagued with horrible dialogue, I don't think any of the character "said" anything, I think that "breathe" or "murmur" or "whisper" everything. Edward left and only shows up when Bella seems like she might kill herself due to her clumsiness. She spends the entire book curled up in despair because Edward has left. She can't imagine life going on without him. Her reason for living is gone, and I think this is what bothers me most about the entire series. I am tired of reading about girls who can't go on when a man leaves them. Come on, Bella. An equally cute werewolf named Jacob wants to take you out and doesn't talk down to you, but you are stuck on a guy who left you for your own good. It's a supernatural take on "it's not you, it's me." When Edward comes back, because Bella just can't live without him, Bella decides to not go to college and get married as soon as she graduated from high school. She quickly gets pregnant (I don't know how that happens, because Edward is dead..you know...no blood flow and all that) and has a baby (with a horrible, horrible name-Renesmee) who almost kills her (which allows Edward to finally make Bella a vampire) and then is totally perfect and matures super fast so we can hear all her thoughts on life. And it's kind of gross that Jacob, the werewolf, falls in love with a baby.
I get forbidden love, I really do. I read Romeo and Juliet. I get the bad boy thing, I read Wuthering Heights. I don't get Twilight, and I don't see how grown women are fawning over Edward who displays stalker like and control freak personality traits through the entire series. Don't bother, unless who want to torture yourself.
Book Review: sigh... what can I say about these books...
Summary: 2 Stars
First off... there was NO need for this story to be drawn out into four novels.
Twilight (or, as I call it: The Giant Teenage Hormone) was enjoyable enough, simply because I loved the total "oh my god I'm too in love for words", that was expressed and only can be experienced in a 1st time teenage love. There is a comparison that I WANT to make but shouldn't... but I'll make it anyway... it reminds me kinda sorta not really but almost and definitely not in the same fabulous way as My So Called Life... (UGH I know, hate me now, I deserve it...!)
New Moon, (or, The Giant Teenage Melodrama) was TORTURE. Bella Swan is THE most annoying character (I'm not even going to go into Edward's over reaction...ugh) and the only thing that got me through it was the slight change of pace that Jacob offered. This book was unnecessary and there is no reason I can see that this story could not have been told in the first book. (Except, as a good friend pointed out... to make money...)
Eclipse... I've been sitting here for several seconds trying to remember what on earth happened in this book... Oh yes (after scanning the pages), the Newborns. And... ooh Jacob... I was counting on you to not get annoying. Oh well. At least I can be happy that the story seems to be moving forward somewhat, and it's not just a long, drawn out means to introduce a measly part of the "big picture". Meh... is all I can say really.
I don't remember in which book (thus far) that it annoyed me most, but Edward's over-protectiveness and Bella neediness and "allowing" him to be pretty much the protective "daddy" figure was also most irritating. (In a time when women (yes, and even teenage girls) are so much more independent and play active roles in their relationships, Bella Swan is just a pure disappointment.
Breaking Dawn. I actually enjoyed this one, from beginning to end (aside from all the little annoying things that accumulated throughout the previous 3 books; although it seems the characters got slightly less irritating.) By the end of it, I actually found myself wanting to read more, learn more about this (and I quote) "unforgettable world Stephanie Meyer created" (and I'll get to THAT in a minute). However, while I found myself strangely unsatisfied... it wasn't because I was so engrossed and captivated that I just didn't want it to end. It was because I felt similar to how I would feel if I had paid too much for a four hour long movie that ended well enough, but felt like it was only now starting; and after that, leaving the cinema remembering nothing about how I got there in the first place... AND it not really mattering ANYWAY.
...and as for this "unforgettable world" created by Stephanie Meyer, (taken from the advertisement for "The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide" at the back of the book where it states that "The phenomenon continues..." by offering you, dear reader, character profiles, charts, maps, cross-references etc..... um.... WHY is Ms. Meyer trying to make this book into something that it's not, when the likes of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and J.K Rowling are kings in this department. I'm sorry, but she introduced NOTHING in The Twilight "Saga" that warrents maps, cross-references or any such documentation. I can't imagine that people would actually get sucked into this blatant attempt at "trying a ting". (Just a side note on this thought: I literally laughed out loud at the lonely asterix in one of the later chapters of Breaking Dawn that directed the reader to a back page where he would find a basic, simple and near pathetic listing of the members of the covens.)
I honestly don't know what all the fuss was about with this series. I saw the movie before I read Twilight and thought it was SO terrible. I pleased myself into thinking that the books are usually so much better. Alas, after reading the books, I think the movie was spot on.