The Twilight Saga Collection
by Stephenie Meyer
|
List Price: Our Price: $70.77 You Save: $12.23 (15%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $26.97 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Twilight Saga Collection
Book Review: Still not sure why I bought it, but I'm glad I did
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm still not sure what possessed me to buy the boxed set of the Twilight Saga over a year ago. Typically I prefer to stay out of the really popular trends in reading (especially if they cross age groups as this series did so easily) but there was just some thing about what I heard about this book-good and bad, obsessive and hateful-that interested me.
Of course I still ignored it on my shelf for a year and a half.
And then I picked it up. And I was shocked because I liked it. I really did like it.
I'm not going to waste time with plot descriptions here. Everyone knows it already. If you don't: vampires, forbidden and dangerous love. There, that's the story.
A couple of things made me love this series. First of all, the narrator (Bella) is so natural in what her voice comes off as. She changes her mind, thinks she's stupid, is insecure, admits embarrassing things to herself...she's about as close to a real person as I've ever seen a narrator get. And that makes it impossible not to want to know what happens next to her.
The same thing applies to the dialog. It's just so real! People say things they never should have said are painfully stupid and rude and cruel at times and frequently change their minds in minutes-just like in real life. There is no attempt in this series to make big, memorable dramatic moments in every conversation. They do happen, it's true, but most often the dialog comes across as so natural.
And then there's the Edward/Bella love story. There is something so sweet about a romance that isn't based at all on physical affection, but at the same time isn't sappy or demeaning to the woman involved. Romance with no pressure for more than you're ready for-romance with safety and respect and mutual friendship implied in it. It's a wonderful concept and it's not hard to see the appeal of it (even if you're not sure would would like it yourself.) Modern chivalry and (I hesitate to use this word because it denotes an opposite connotation to everything else) pure love.
And of course, there are the plots. Each of the four books in the saga has an excellent plot line which features a lot of action, adventure, romance and angst. All of these books move at breakneck speed through increasingly interesting and dangerous adventures that threaten to tear our characters apart. Once I started reading "Twilight" I couldn't put the series down until I'd finished all four books in four days. And I'm no young adult. In fact, as far as I can see the only real young adult thing about these books is no bad language and no sex scenes.
I'll never be the kind of Twilight fan who waits in line for the movies or names their pets after characters. And I don't rate these books amongst the best of all time. But these books had some amazing elements and took my mind off everything else in the world for four days. That earns them five stars.
Book Review: Great books, great presentation, and a nice packaging (to strengthen?)
Summary: 4 Stars
This collection offers the whole 4 book-s saga of Stephenie Meyer's famous TWILIGHT series, in a nice packaging, especially for that price!
-About the STORY itself: I just LOVED this saga I had already read in French (twice...). I find the English version offers an even greater experience (maybe because I am reading English more slowly than French). I would suggest people NOT reading any summaries or synopsis about the story (if it's still possible!) to get the best of it.
-About BOOKS: Under their classic removable cover (looking each that of the classical individual books), they have a black rigid sober and smart not-shiny cover, with nothing written on it. The Title/author name are on the side (written in silver color). The paper makes it easy to turn the pages (not sleepery), tiping is nice (Times new Roman, I would say?). Chapter Titles are written in grey which definitely suits the style of the set. (I just find strange the first line of each chapter being written in capital letters but actually it's common in litterature and you get used to it.)
- ACCESSORIES : The set includes 4 pictures (approx. big postcard size) representing each the cover of the classical book + backside a quote from the book. Personnally it's no use to me but it could be for other fans.
- BOX : books are lined together inside a box, one face of the box remaining missing to see and take/replace books: nice for a bookshelf.
The outside is covered with a classic pictures of the saga on each face (shiny paper, stuck on): I would have prefered it printed on it...
My only criticism is indeed that the box (strong carton) is not strong enough for the quality and affective worth of the books is contains...
when I opened the delivery corners were a bit crushed after travelling overseas to me (only slighlty , luckyly), and the joints between faces of the box were a bit strained (I had to rub) : Mr everyone may not care, but a collectionneur does.
I would suggest then either the box being reviewed , either box corners + each book inside being much more protected just like fragile objects.
- DELIVERY: delays were exactly those announced (even faster), but I was astonished the postman just let it down in the middle of the common stairs of my building! Anyone could have stolen/damaged it and the item be spoiled. (which happened to mine, while not very badly)
I guess many French people wait the good be available in France, in English and French: for sure it may garantee them almost perfect state of the good (you check before buying)... but I just could not wait for this to happen, especially considering that the DOLLAR-EURO change rate + American prices makes it really interesting (normal books being sold here 18 euros each)
CONCLUSION: Great books, great presentation, and a nice packaging which however may need strenghtening !
Book Review: Vampire Romance
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been reading the Twilight saga; as of this post I'm about half way through the fourth book, Breaking Dawn. Now while I've been finding all of the books to an easy read, I do have some issues with the books. My main issue with the books have been the lack of a struggle on the part of Bella when it comes to her decision to become a vampire; it's as if the author is not familiar with the term foreshadowing. I realize the intended audience for these books is female teenagers, but come on, even they can comprehend foreshadowing! It's almost as if the audience is being treated like they're stupid. I would have liked to have had some suspense on Bella becoming a vampire up until the time she actually becomes a vampire. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Even after the vampire police insist Bella be turned into a vampire, there should have been some struggle on Bella's part; I wanted Bella to scream that becoming a vampire was ultimately her decision and that she alone would face the consequences of that decision. But Bella didn't. Because it's all about Edward after all, and being with him forever.
There was more of a struggle in Bella's mind between her being with either Edward or Jacob, and ultimately, there wasn't much of decision. In the instance of this particular decision it really boiled down to this: I want to spend eternity with Edward but I love Jacob, too; this was a theme that was repeated several times throughout the series.
Let me focus a little more on Jacob for a moment here. With all the discussion on imprinting in the series, it was pretty easy to figure out that eventually this was going to happen to Jacob; it was just a matter of who. And it keeps Jacob in Bella's life on top of that!!! Too much of an easy out, if you ask me.
My other issue had to do with the whole vampire/human sexual relations. According to the series, and this is assuming that I read this correctly and all, vampires use up their own blood within the first year of their changing. In another series that I've read concerning vampires, males can still father children for a year after they have become a vampire, which makes a lot of sense to me. Edward has been a vampire for 90 years approximately. So I'm having issues about the amount of blood Edward has in his system and the whole reality of biology, as in men don't have enough blood in their systems to run their brain and their balls at the same time. So reality is making it extremely hard for me to buy into this particular part of the book. But if you assume that vampires and humans can interbreed, the whole situation about Bella being pregnant makes sense to me.
Now I don't want to make it sound like I dislike this series, because on the whole, I do. I just wish their had been more of a struggle about becoming a vampire and the choice between Edward and Jacob, because it really wasn't there for me.
Book Review: What a waste
Summary: 1 Stars
A friend lent me the entire Twilight series and after reading the very first book and part of the second I will be so glad to give the entire bundle back this weekend. I found myself agreeing to the reviews where only one star was given. A lot of this can be summed up to a story that has no depth to it at all. I mean there was so much talk about Bella's attributes that Edward saw in her, but they were in no way evident in any of the story. That she was special - really, special how? What did she do other than being incredibly self centered and shallow?
For a guy that is 100 years old he surely didn't seem to learn much in all of that time. What was he doing with a teenage high schooler anyway? With all of his refinement he had to find a clingy self centered teenager that he had nothing in common with. As others have pointed out, Bella herself has absolutely no interest outside of Edward, and this makes her an interesting person how?
The other grating thing I found in the story is the total lack of interaction between Bella and her father. This story reminds me so much of Sleeping Beauty actually (with respect to the parent(s)). If you recall, Sleeping Beauty (I'm sure she had a name but it escapes me at the moment) was selflessly given away to fairies by her parents in order to protect her. She then grows of age and has a one day encounter with her prince. By the end of the story when she is saved she is IMMEDIATELY whisked away from her parents who hardly have a chance to say hello to a daughter they gave away for her protection so that she could go off and marry a guy she had only known for a day.
So Bella has not seen her father in years and had spent very little time with him. He takes her in and she spends most of her free time trying to avoid him. Avoiding any real discussion about anything substantial or finding ways to circumnavigate any objections he may have because heaven forbid he actually care about her and her well being.
By the end of the story I really didn't care for any of the characters - as a matter of fact I ended up disliking Bella VERY much.
Saddest of all is that teenage girls are flocking to this garbage. Yeah, I do get that young women may feel this way at that age (I have two daughters myself) - but when does a feeling constitute a good thing? How about a story in where her "feelings" of inadequacy are actually dealt with? How about working on her actual problems instead of focusing exclusively on another guy to solve all of them for her?
As for the story itself - does it really matter? No, believe me the problems that I've just outlined above (and many others have) should be enough to keep you away from this fly infested rot.
Book Review: Acceptable Romantic Thrillers
Summary: 4 Stars
Keep in mind that I don't normally read romance novels (not even when I was a teen) nor am I "into" vampires. Yet, when my teenage niece and her friends got into the Twilight craze, I decided to read the series. I wanted to know what the big hype was all about.
There were some logic issues and a few abrupt places in the first book that yanked me out of the story, but I kept reading....well, the masses cannot be totally wrong, eh? So, I persisted. The author did succeed in making me curious about what would happen to the characters, so I went on to the next book. The second book got me to caring about the characters. There weren't any blips to yank me back into reality. I was hooked by the time I got to the third book, which was better written than the second. Then, when I read the fourth book ("Breaking Dawn"), I was reluctant for the series to end. The author had made the characters very real to me. I wouldn't say this was a typical pulp romance (I despise those) nor really a garden variety vampire thriller. There's some depth here that I didn't expect. The series isn't just for teens. Indeed, they are mostly stories for the female species (hubby isn't into it). They are for thinking females, which I like.
Reading the reviews for the first three in the series as well as for the last book in the series, I find it intriguing that my opinion seems to be the reverse scale of many. Many loved the first 3 and had several complaints about the last. I almost didn't continue from the first book to the second, for I was a bit disappointed with the writing quality of the first book. But, I kept going. I'm glad I did. I think the last book was the very best of the series. As some of the reviews said, there's nothing wrong with a happy ending and tying up "loose ends" the way the author did. Is it too graphic for the teen audience? Well, you'd be hard pressed to find a teen nowadays that hasn't been exposed to much worse in horror flicks and other books. Even the Bible is pretty graphic when you use your imagination. Unlike some horror writings, I don't think this author gets unnecessarily graphic in detail. She writes just enough for the reader's imagination to be able to understand what happened. And, face it, childbirth in the real world is pretty violent to the body and graphically intense.
By the end of the series, I had better respect for the author's writing skills. In fact, enough so that I decided to go on and read "The Host," even though the "body snatcher" theme had me a little reluctant. "The Host" grabbed me even more than this series. If you liked the Twilight books, I think you'll love "The Host."