When the movie "Twilight" first came out, I had never heard of it, didn't know what it was about and didn't in the least care to read it or so I thought. My daughter had heard of it, but hadn't read it. I guess it hadn't become the sensation here as it had in other parts of the country. But as the movie's popularity grew so did my interest, especially after I had read the reviews that it was a movie about a teen vampire. Eventually the feverish pitch of the movie made it way into my daughter's psyche's need to see it. I told her that movies are always better when one has read the book first, as books are always so much better than the movie, well in most cases. I'll do anything to get her to read more, so I bought the book "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer, but told her I was going to read it first as I had to screen it to see if it was appropriate for an eleven year old. Of course, I was not overly concerned as most of the theater audience comprised of tweeny to teens. I must admit I was secretly eager to read this vampire novel as I love a good vampire story and especially with this take on a high school girl falling for a high school boy whose a vampire. Now why didn't I come up with that original plot? I loved Ann Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" which of course set the standard for all vampire novels to follow. I liked her "Lestat" but her other novels that followed in that vampire vein lost my attention. She just didn't know when to leave the classic story line alone. "Twilight" is no 'Interview with the Vampire" to say the least, but it does tell a very compelling story that I skipped through this 400 some pages within a weekend. I found the characters very real and of course imaging them made all the more possible with it's theatrical release. I could definitely see it as a movie, ah like ya! "Twilight" makes a good read and a gripping story but it's not going to win any literary prizes. It's filled with pretty vampires that are more human than supernatural, rather prefer to dine on forest creatures than human creatures, don't sleep in coffins, in fact don't sleep at all, and are more polite than your average teenagers. It's a straight forward, gotcha at the seat of your pants reading. I'm thinking it's such a hit with the teens because Edward, the teen vampire, is totally hot and Bella, the awkward clumsy, pretty girl he falls for is your average girl next door. It's a love story made in vampire teen heaven, which I'm sure millions of teen girls are turning pages to see if they eventually kiss, which is exactly what my daughter is looking for.
When I finished "Twilight", my daughter took the book to school, to show off that she too was reading it.
"Twilight" was so good, I picked up installment two "New Moon", hoping that the love story would continue into the sequel. I don't want to reveal the entire storyline, but I was disappointed that "New Moon" takes a totally different turn revealing even more cast of characters of equal menace like the vampires. Did you know that the werewolf were the vampire's mortal enemy? Here Bella hardly even sees Edward which is totally disappointing. This read could have been a totally different series of books in this sequel. Bella is making new friends and travels great distances, to Italy of all places, oh yeah, who knew there is a vampire coven in Italy? Speaking of Italy, another great book that has that sinister vibe and takes place in Venice is Daphne du Maurier's short story, "Don't Look Now", see the movie with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christi. Now back to "New Moon", the whole premise of book two seems somewhat outrageous and decadent. There is one horrific vampire scene which was reminiscent of Rice's Vampire Chronicles and left me with chills.
As I was disappointed with "New Moon", but I still want to finish out the series and am now in the middle of "Eclipse" which is proving slow and steady, no hasty intent on racing to the finish line although my daughter spilled the beans and said that the third book is when Bella gets bitten. Well, didn't we know that was coming anyway? I still have my hopes that "Eclipse" will get better with the increasing pages, but it is not quite the page turner that "Twilight" held over me. Parts of the story tends to meander and roam like filler of styrofoam in a package, you just want to get to the good parts. So stay tuned for my conclusion of "Eclipse" and my review of the last book in the series "Breaking Dawn" which I'm sure won't be Stephanie Meyer's last word on the whole subject, look at JK Rowling, didn't she spin out the Harry Potter series into seven or so books?-Single D
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