Twilight

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die, but dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go." Bella Swan

It started in middle school. I had a friend; we met through one of my classmates. She and I did not have any classes together; we only talked when we were waiting in the cafeteria for our rides to come get us. She told me about The Twilight Saga and was generous enough to let me borrow all of her books, one at a time. And, having more respect for her than I did my childhood friend, I gave them back in the conditions they were in when I got them (I always destroyed my childhood friend’s stuff, out of spite or jealousy).

I didn’t pick those books up again afterwards, but I liked them. Following that, I ended up watching the movies. Between my mother, sister, and I, our mother liked the series the most. They were Team Edward and I was Team Jacob, even after the forced kiss because at the time, I still wasn’t aware that such action wasn’t actually okay. Basically, like most Jacob fans, I was all “he’s hot, so it’s fine”.

I started rereading this book, again, for the third time ever recently; the second time was last year. When I still had my old Vocal account, I was writing "reviews" for each chapter and I was being very negative for no reason, other than I didn't like certain aspects of the book. I was nitpicking, basically.

Now, with a clear head, I can actually make a proper review for it, where I'm not blinded by spiteful, sometimes irrational negativity.

4 Stars - Here’s Why

When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret.

What Bella doesn’t realize is that the closer she gets to him, the more she is putting herself and those around her at risk. And it might be too late to turn back…

Deeply seductive and irresistibly compelling, Twilight is an extraordinary love story that will stay with you long after you have turned the final page.

Stephanie Meyer, back cover of Twilight

Everyone calls Bella Swan a Mary Sue and/or an awful representation of a female lead character. For a while, I believed so, too, after the hype I felt died (after I first read the books and watched the movies). But then, looking back at my negativity and such, I realized I disliked Bella because she was me.

I was a boring, immature, cringe-worthy teenager who thought the world revolved around me; I had main character syndrome. Hell, I’m a boring, immature, cringe-worthy adult that occasionally still gives off main character syndrome energy.

Yes, she’s insignificant; she’s a normal human teenager, goddamn it. Was anything we did as teenagers significant? No. We went to school, we made friends, we went home; rinse and repeat until graduation or college. We’re all boring. Even now, as adults. We probably had conversations with family or friends about our jobs, and got a “that’s interesting” answer but it’s really not that interesting because thousands of other people got the same job, bruh. You are no more important than the rest of the people in the world.

Celebrities. Politicians. Civilians. We’re all people living normal, boring lives outside of social media. That’s just life.

Sometimes, I think Bella can be absolutely delusional, with all the assumptions she makes about her “friends” (people you won’t talk to ever again once you’ve graduated and moved on with your life) and her friends (people she’ll stay connected with her whole life), but, like, same; I made assumptions in my head, too, very negative ones sometimes. Who the fuck hasn’t? We ain’t perfect.

Her interests and/hobbies consist of reading and cooking; she particularly enjoys classics, like Pride and Prejudice or Romeo and Juliet, and she’s constantly cooking for herself and her father, and it’s not just basic recipes.

She’s an introvert like myself; she prefers listening to others over conversing with others. Same.

She has some sense; she quickly becomes aware of the group of men following her and does her best to lose them, even has thoughts of defending herself, even if it won’t be enough to stop an attack. She’d rather go down fighting then just take it.

Her group of friends and “friends” treat her like she’s special because that’s literally what people do when there’s a new student. I don’t know why; new person, I guess. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually extremely boring or not, people will still do this for a while. I have witnessed such events. The hype dies, of course, and specific people will stick around; that’s life. It’s completely normal. And just so you know, people will ignore your glaring flaws for three reasons: they want something from you, they have the same flaw, or they like you as a person regardless.

Other complaints about Bella are that she's too clumsy, she’s too awkward, she sucks at basic things, she sucks at peopling, and so on.

Like, guys. You’re literally nitpicking.

Guess what? I’m clumsy; I trip over my own feet sometimes, even when I’m not moving fast (and very rarely do I move fast). I’m extremely awkward; I have difficulty starting and maintaining conversations, I fidget a lot, I cannot keep eye contact with someone to save my life, I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable silences between conversations, I’ve misinterpreted a lot of social cues because I don’t know how to human sometimes, I overthink because I worry about the result, and I’m overly anxious in social settings but that mostly comes from the disorder I’ve got.

I also suck at basic things. I don’t dance; I used to and it was fucking terrible, but I stopped when I started getting more self-conscious about it. I don’t like sports whatsoever; I don’t like playing them and I suck at them when I was forced to play them in school. Bella and I have these things in common.

Just because you think someone is cringey or boring does not mean a person like this doesn’t exist in real life. And the fact that someone like this does, in fact, exist in real life makes Bella a very realistic character. And a relatable one.

Now, Edward Cullen is a different story. He is not the person you want to spend the rest of your existence with. He is a big fat red flag made out of a million tiny red flags; that’s how huge of a “nope” he is.

Sure, he is stuck as a teenager, and all teenagers are melodramatic in some shape or form, at some point in their life, but the fact that he’s forever stuck that way is what makes that trait extremely annoying, more than it needs to be.

He is a gaslighting bastard. He's passive aggressive almost constantly. He has anger issues. He literally scared the absolute shit out of Bella in the meadow, who decided to ignore those red flags because he made her wet, basically.

Sometimes, he amuses me. Sometimes, his interactions with Bella are kind of cute. Only kind of, though.

Who cares what his hobbies and interests are; he’s an old vampire, he likes classic shit and whatnot. Typical vampire stereotype. And I say who cares about this because he is just the worst.

His general personality is not cute, very unattractive. It gives off toxic relationship vibes most of the time he's around Bella, which is not a good thing but chicks go nuts over it. Probably why all these toxic relationship books get so popular. And why people get stuck in them in real life; the fictional universe tells them it’s okay.

I tend to be attracted to emotionally manipulative men when they're my type; I focus too much on the positive aspects of them that I ignore the glaring red flags. So, if you ever find me liking a toxic relationship, it's likely because I entered one.

Now, let’s move away from the main characters.

The writing, it reads like how my thought process goes, except with bigger words. The big words make it unrealistic; I don't think teenagers are formal sounding in thought. Authors are formal sounding in thought; think like a teenager, not a writer. And all the "crooked smiles" and Bella tripping over everything (it’s mentioned more than it should be), and everyone supposedly crushing on Bella is a bit much, feels very self insert, but I'll just see that as Bella being delusional again; I view this as a retelling of her life story, therefore things will be exaggerated.

The vampire stuff, I mostly like but they should have fangs, they shouldn’t have random magical abilities, and they shouldn’t sparkle in the sunlight. And the age gap between vampires and their human lovers; while that bothers me, vampires are usually stuck in the same mental and physical state as when they were turned.

In hindsight (might be using this term incorrectly), Rosalie’s behavior makes a lot of sense, given what state she was in when she became a vampire; spoilers for the third book, she went through some awful shit, so that on top of her snobbish attitude is yikes but I get it. She’s stuck there.

As for the other members of Edward and Rosalie’s family, there’s very little I’ve got to say about them. Emmett, Esmé, and Jasper are just there; speaking of Jasper, the energy he gives when he has those moments with Bella late in the book DOES NOT give me “I struggle with controlling myself around humans”; it gives “Edward is being judgemental of his brother who has trauma”. Carlisle is there a bit more, but he’s also just, you know, there to either advance the plot a little or to give backstory. Alice is mostly just there, too, and, also, her power just conveniently doesn’t work like it should, just so that Bella can be in complete danger and almost die; Alice’s power just is not consistent enough for me.

The plot, it exists. People say the plot doesn’t come in until towards the end, when the trio of human killing vampires jump into the story without warning. The insta love between Bella and Edward is the actual plot; the danger was just added in to make it more interesting. A lot of stories have the slowburn or fastburn romances being the plot, with all the other stuff just being extra things to advance it.

Back to the writing. It's not well-written, it's not unproblematic, and it's not super great, but it's fun and it's realistic enough to how teenagers think, when they're retelling something because they exaggerate. Hell, I still exaggerate. I could also do without the ridiculous things, like sparkling vampires and random superpower for specific people. I could do without the other issues, too.

I liked Jacob in this; he didn't quite speak ill of the Cullens here, probably because he doesn't, yet, know that the legends of his people are true. And this might be the only book where I like him completely because boy, is his character development sour.

Yes, character development can consist of negative changes, not just positive ones. A good character can become a bad character, in terms of they can be a genuine nice person to a “nice” person. If you know, you know. Just like a bad character can become a good character; that’s called growth.

Don't be surprised by the very high rating; it's for the near realism of a teenager's mind. And the realism of girls falling for toxic dudes very, very quickly, to a point where it's definitely just lust right now but the girl clearly believes it's love; that happens far too much in real life but it does happen, therefore it's realistic.