I "Read" Twilight: The Review

Before I get into this review I need to make two things clear:

1: This is not a review of the movie, it's a review of the first book in the series.

2: My opinion really doesn't matter.

Well to be more accurate my opinion doesn't really matter to you, but it means a hell of a lot to me. When it comes down to making decisions, my opinion is the first one I seek out. It means a lot to me because I take time to think about my opinions, and I try to give everything an honest to God try. I think its important to learn about something before trying to pass judgement on it. For the most part people don't want your opinion if it doesn't already confirm their own. Nobody is really interested in debate; you either agree with them, or to hell with you. All too often people confuse taste with intelligence, and it ends up making us look uninformed and small minded. We take what we like and attribute that to what we believe is important to the world, and by doing this we severely limit ourselves in our experiences.

I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. For the longest time I looked at the Twilight books as the ramblings of a lonely, horny, middle aged woman. But, I had never read them, thus creating a dilemma. In order for me to accurately pass judgement on the works of Stephanie Myers, I had to first read them myself. I'm not expecting this review to change any one's mind. Chances are if you are reading this you have already read the books or seen the movie and have created your own opinion on the subject.

I have some friends that are fans of these books. They range from being casual fans who enjoy stories about vampires, to borderline obsessed fans who have multiple pictures of Robert Pattinson on their walls. All of these friends are people I consider to have generally good taste, and by that I mean they have interests and opinions that are usually very close to my own. It is because of them I decided to read this book. To be honest I wasn't really expecting much based on the movie trailers I saw, and my opinion was already kind of one sided, but I charged into the story with an open mind.

That being said, lets get down to it. After reading every single page of that book, I think I can sum up my Twilight experience in five words:

What a piece of shit.

I honestly don't know how I made it through that book without slitting my own wrists. I can't believe this is what people are reading and trying to pass it on to others as "good literature". I think if someone gave me the ultimatum of either reading her books or watching Transformers everyday for the rest of my life, I'd say bring on the Michael Bay shit storm. You can try to make an argument for this book. You can try, but you will be unsuccessful. Of course, I can understand why people would be entranced with Myer's writing...it's clearly exemplary:

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked, distracted.
"No." I didn't feel like mentioning that my stomach was already full - full of butterflies.

He unleashed the full, devastating power of his eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial.

He paused to catch a stray lock of hair that was escaping the twist on my neck and wound it back into place. My heart spluttered hyperactively.

Bella-"I love you more than everything else in the world combined. Isn’t that enough?"

Edward-"Yes, it is enough. Enough for forever."

If you hated those four passages be warned, the whole damn book is like this.

Before I read the book my biggest beef with the story was that the vampires could walk around in the daylight. Over all the years, from the bad ass Dracula stories to the homo-erotic Anne Rice novels, one thing has always been consistent; when hit by sunlight vampires turn to dust. When I brought this up to one of my friends her response was "Vampires sparkle, fool." I thought she was using some sort of slang I didn't really understand and was trying to be cute.

I didn't realize until reading the novel that she was being serious. When hit with sunlight, the vampires don't burst into flames...they just...sparkle.

I thought Anne Rice had made vampires as gay as they could be. I was clearly wrong.

Sparkling aside, the biggest problem with Twilight is the characters themselves. To put it bluntly, they're stupid. Bella, who is supposed to be a plain girl, with no discernible personality, and no specific likes and dislikes. How plain can Bella be, when she has the attentions of Edward Cullen, Mike Newman, Eric Whoever, Jacob Black, AND Tyler Crowley? She's all, "I'm pale. I'm skinny. I'm not athletic. I'm not blonde. Wah, wah, wah." And yet, every single dude in the book wants to jump her bones. Bottom line is that Bella is the main character, and she's a completely unlikable "Mary-Sue".

Edward is worse. It seems like Myers has taken it upon herself to make this character to appear as "perfect" as possible. He sparkles, he's gorgeous, and he has cut out of marble abs. Yet, this demi-god of sex is only interested in the plain girl that seems to be nothing but a hassle. Oh, and he's kind of a creeper. He sneaks into her house to watch her sleep because he thought she "smelled nice". If he were any other person he'd be on a sexual offenders list, but just because he's mysterious and he sparkles, it's suddenly okay. Also he's over protective of Bella. My coworker gave me a brief run down of his insanity. Through the course of the other books, Edward destroys her car engine to keep her from seeing Jacob, and has his sister kidnap Bella. I guess Stephanie Myers wants girls to know that when a guy hurts you, he's only doing it because he loves you.

The only remotely likable character is this kid Jacob. You can tell he's into Bella, but when she does stupid shit he doesn't sugar coat his words, he lets her know when she's being a dumb ass. Edward on the other hand is a passive aggressive pussy who can't seem to get over the fact that his sperm will eviscerate her ovaries. It's great to know that young girls everywhere are being taught its perfectly okay to string along decent guys who love you until your vampire boyfriend shows up. Bella chooses Edward because he makes her feel "alive" even though he's constantly on the verge of killing her. And stalking her. Can't emphasize that enough.

This book was absolutely terrible. It was so bad I can't even really consider it reading, it was more like peering into Stephanie Myers's deepest darkest desires, which I find creepy. From now on when people tell me they read Twilight, I'm going to automatically put the word read in quotations (like this: "read"). I do not condone this book, I will not "read" the rest. As I said this is my opinion. You are free to have your own, but now that I've "read" Twilight I feel I have the right to criticize it as much as I want. I implore you people, please read real books once in a while. If you want to "read" this bullshit, fine. But, for the love of God read some real books too. I'm saying this, and I have an embarrassingly large comic book collection. How sad is that?

I'll leave you with this; when Robert Pattinson signed on to play Edward Cullen in a three-movie contract deal, he was unaware of how bad the books really were. When he discovered his mistake, Pattinson took to insulting the book and its author in interviews as much as he could. Check out the link and see for yourself. When the main actor of the film based on your books hates your work, you know you've hit a new low.

Suck it Twilight, you make even Michael Bay look good. For that reason, I will hate you forever.