Book Log: Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

[grammargirl]

I was not expecting great things from this book. penmage, one of my two trusted arbiters of taste where YA lit is concerned (the other is beingblueagain), read and mostly panned it months ago, and the things she criticized (MarySue protagonist, endless schmoopy bullshit between said Mary Sue and her vampire Twue Wuv, etc.) tend to annoy the bejeezus out of me. But hey, I got a free copy in the goody bag I received on my first day, and I'm on a YA kick, and I was curious about the juxtaposition of a devout Mormon author writing Intense Vampire Romance, so I gave it a whirl, and much to my surprise I really enjoyed it.

The story revolves around Bella, a 16-year-old girl who exiles herself to her father's home in dreary, boring Forks, Washington. She rapidly falls in love with Edward, her strange, pale, moody, devastatingly handsome Biology lab partner who turns out, naturally, to be a vampire.

And okay, Bella is an obnoxious MarySue whose only faults are an almost suicidal clumsiness and a complete lack of personality. And yeah, the Bella/Edward schmoopfest is grating in the extreme. But if you can set aside those faults as the inevitable side effects of a trashy good time, the rest of the book is entertaining as hell. I'm excited to read the sequel, New Moon, as soon as I get around to lugging the stupid hardcover home from work. Since my free time for non-subway reading is going to be severely restricted until late May, it'll probably be a while.

Comments

[beingblueagain.livejournal.com]

I unexpectedly really liked it too. I'll be working on the series, so had to read them all to get background, and wasn't really dying to start, despite everyone at work's general obsession with Stephenie Meyer. I ended up tearing through them both in a weekend.

New Moon is slower than Twilight in the beginning, but it's totally worth it to keep reading.

[beingblueagain.livejournal.com]

Particularly worth it for Jacob, the hunky were-teenager.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

We can still be YA friends, Melanie. The remarkable thing about Twilight is that people who have excellent YA taste seem to be firmly divided on it. Some love it, some hate it. It's weird like that. I read New Moon, and I was actually enjoying it quite a bit, which surprised me - and then Edward showed up again, and the book descended into icky shmoop again.

By the by, I just finished The Book Thief, and, oh my god. I sat there bawling like a baby for the last thirty pages. I would cry, and think I was done, and start reading again, and then start crying again. Wow.

[beingblueagain.livejournal.com]

I think we would get along quite well.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

So let's be friends, dude. Or at least the livejournal equivalent. I trust Melanie's judgement, especially when it comes to YA people.