still into Twilight?

Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyers

My Summary:

Oh, come on, you know what this one is about! It’s your classic girl-meets-vampire love triangle, complete with a werewolf, I mean shape shifter, best friend, set in a rainy little town, where the good vampires play baseball and the bad vampires play blood lust.

My review:

Contrary to what you may be thinking my opinion on the Twilight novels is after reading my summary, know that I love Twilight. I wrote the plot out in that way because I know that you know what Twilight is all about, and my review, though it will be fun to write, and hopefully better still to read, will probably not change your already solidified opinion on Twilight, due to the explosion of Twi-life in Teenage USA.

I am one of those people who love the books, I went through my obsession period, yeah, I did, but that’s over now and I am sort of itching to read them again and remind myself why I fell in love with them in the first place.

Seeing as how we are getting a reprieve from Robsten, on the set of the movie, director drama and all things Twi-hard and Fan-pyre, this is as good a time as any to fall in love with the literary (no I’m not going to say masterpiece) phenomenon that started out as the book with the apple cover.

I suppose it was Edward’s words that captivated me, as he has so many others, he could have been human and said those things to Bella and we still would have melted, that is my other favorite thing about this book, it doesn’t have to be about vampires. It is, of course, about vampires, but what I mean is that it is written in a way that keeps you from feeling like you are reading about satanic, undead creatures. Make no mistake, vampires are satanic, undead creatures, at least that is how they are usually written and perceived, but in Twilight, you could almost be reading about super hero’s! The vampire-ness does not Eclipse (sorry) the love story.

Now, let’s talk about Bella, if you didn’t know Bella is my nickname, not because of Twilight, thank you, but because my friends would call me Gabriellabelle and I shortened that and rearranged some letters. It is quite strange to be writing in this fashion, as I feel I am refering to myself in the third person.

Bella in Twilight: some say she is a blank slate, ready for teenage girls across America to drape their own personalities on, and to them I say, yes, her name is Kristen. No author, who had no intention of even publishing, let alone believing she was going to write the next big thing, would have written Bella without any Bella-ness. That is what one would call stupid.

My greatest example comes from my favorite Twilight scene, which was cut from the film, where Bella, craving the sun shine, takes a blanket and her Penguin copy of Jane Austen’s works outside to read; we all know Edward is watching her. This scene is so personal, it shows her tastes, her desires and a sort of purity in the way she aches hearing names like his that really gives Bella a character.

And now, to the teams, I am Team Edward for the books and have planted my flag on Team Jacob for the movies. Eclipse, the movie, did it in for me, when Taylor/Jacob begged Bella to be with him, I wanted her to say yes. I think that the books and the movies are polar opposites in mood and taste. I feel like Melissa wanted to write her own Twilight, so she took bits from Meyer’s book and made her own screenplay. I will bet you dollars to dimes these two have never been close friends.

Alright, a mini-review for each book.

Twilight, I fell in love, James was a cool villain.

New Moon, I threw it across the room when Edward left, I got the flair that says it, and then I started thumbing through, looking for Edward’s name, I seriously thought that was it, and that Jacob was going to take over. The inner-monolouge about Count Paris and Juliet is the best thing Stephenie wrote in all four books.

Eclipse, I loved it and have probably re-read scenes from this one the most. The Victoria battle was my favorite battle scene from any of the books; I was so upset when Rochelle was re-cast, not because I don’t love Bryce (although I thought she did a horrid Victoria, it was like someone was trying to scare me with a kitten) but Rochelle was the embodiment of Victoria for me.

Breaking Dawn, some people love it, some loathe it; I loved it, I knew *not so much a spoiler now* that Bella would get pregnant back in Eclipse, when Rose told her testimony, I knew Bella would have a baby and I knew it would be a girl. I just felt it, people. That’s the kind of reader I am, spoiling things for myself with my intuition. I really didn’t like being in Jake’s head, but I think it was the right choice. Maybe flipping between Jake and Edward would have been the best choice, yeah, I like that idea. The battle wasn’t really a battle, and yeah, I can see how Meyer’s foreshadowed it, using The Merchant of Venice (one of my favorite Shakespeares, in case you were wondering) would support the choice, but I believe that since Renesmee (no, I don’t mind the name, she’s a one of a kind kid, what do you name a kid like that? Elizabeth? Jane? Catherine? Juliet? Portia? Points for you, if you see what I did there, tell me in the comments if you got it) was so magnetic, everyone adored and cherished her, that love itself could have propelled the Cullen side to win, I really think they could have. I kept waiting for some mondo kick-butt Bella-mommy-power to come into play, and it never did...boo. Maybe those themes would have been too rich for pre-teen’s to really get, but I think it would have worked. I know that if the undead was threatening my gorgeous red-head daughter, those fools would be ashes faster than you could shout 'Flame!'

So, there you have it, my Twilight review, because any respectable YA blog should have one!

Happy reading!

Below is my Twilight reading theme song, and also one of my very favorite songs ever! Enjoy!