twilight

=Reviews of the //Twilight// series= =**Va**mpire Love=

By Cristina Gratton
Stephenie Meyer. 498. Little, Brown and Company. $10.99
 * Twilight**

As a child I always heard the same old fairy tales about the damsel in distress that is being held captive by a terrible person, who usually has some sort of strange power. A charming prince would then come to rescue this damsel in distress. This story replays itself in my childhood memories so much that I might predict the same conclusion while reading __Twilight__ by Stephenie Meyer. Instead, __Twilight__ takes a twist towards the unpredictable by making a damsel in distress fall in love with a kind vampire. Yes, a //kind// vampire. This vampire has it hard. As a human, Edward was about to die from influenza at the beginning of the 1900s but, instead, he came upon a vampire doctor who turned him into a vampire to save his life. He didn’t have a choice and now he is stuck for all eternity struggling against what regular vampires would do. He doesn’t want to be evil and he doesn’t want to kill people. Bella, the damsel in distress of this book, is madly in love with Edward. Edward is handsome and perfect, and as she stared at Edward and his family she sees everything that a girl could ever want…“I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful.” This book by Stephenie Meyer was quite simply a good book to read on a day off from school or work. Stephenie Meyer’s writing makes the book very intense, and the details vivid. The characters that are introduced in this first book of a popular series are so real that the book doesn’t seem to incorporate the mythical but the extraordinary reality of life. The author, Stephenie Meyer, did a lot of background research before writing the book. This may be surprising, but the Indian reservation La Push actually exists and the little dreary town of Forks is not made up. There really is a town where it rains all the time and nothing exciting happens. Well, that is, until vampires showed up. None of the places where the story takes place are imaginary, which makes the story all the more believable as the author draws us in to this dramatic love story of vampires and humans that all young adults will love. The book has a great uniqueness to it that is very rare to find. The plot is original, the characters interesting, and the writing appropriate for the type of book it is. Stephenie Meyer tells readers the story with dramatic and at times sarcastic writing, which makes the book all the more interesting. Sarcasm is seen when Bella says “Safe in Forks—what a challenge.” Her writing style is not something that is seen very often in fairytale books, but then, again, this isn’t a regular fairy tale. Bella’s perspective is seen throughout the book, from her first thoughts of Edward, to the dreams and nightmares that plague her mind. Bella’s life is the life of the readers; it is all that they see as they take a journey through a girl’s junior year in high school, in a town that nobody knows about, except for the people who live there. This book is enough to get you hooked on the series, wanting to know what’s going to happen with Bella. Will she be turned into a vampire? Will she be with Edward forever? Only time will tell. According to an amazon.com interview with the author, what was a dream is now a reality for her, as millions of readers learn about vampires and werewolves and discover love. A story that will be known forever, __Twilight__, is a great fantasy reading for all young adults. __Twilight__ is sure to please any Harry Potter fan. If you believe in fairy tales then this twisted one is a new and interesting addition to the wide collection: with vampires and werewolves, humans, and school in the mix it is sure to make a great one. __Twilight__ is a perfect blend of adventure, fantasy, and romance, as it explores love, life, and vampires.

Breaking Dawn Stephenie Meyer 768 pages. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. $22.99 Isabella Swan, Bella for short, is an average human girl who happens to fall in love with Edward Cullen, an unbelievably beautiful vampire. To make matters even more complicated, her best friend, Jacob Black, is a shape shifter who also happens to be madly in love with her. Leading up to the final book, Bella has gone through too many near-death experience to count, from being hunted by one evil vampire in __Twilight__ to being hunted by a group of young evil vampires helping to avenge the death of another vampire in __Eclipse__. Her heart has been broken by Edward's departure and eventual return, and mended by Jacob's loveable spirit and friendship in __New Moon__. Now Bella has made her final decision: to stay with Edward and marry him. Upon hearing this news, Jacob gets upset and decides to leave. Will Jacob ever come back? Does Bella become a vampire? Will Bella ever have her happy ending with Edward, or will danger come between them again? All of these questions are answered in __Breaking Dawn__, the final novel of the Twilight saga. With each installment in the series, the novels get more predictable. __Twilight__, the first book was the most unexpected because it was the first in the series and there was no plot information to base any predictions off of. As the characters and story progress through the next two books however, the plot becomes apparent after putting together all the clues and hints that are given in the previous books. However, in __Breaking Dawn,__ the plot is apparent after the first fifty pages because the clues were either too clear and understandable or had been used too many times before in other books and movies. This makes the book lackluster because there is no suspense that makes the reader want to continue reading. Bella gets married to Edward at the age of 18. To most parents that is a nightmare, and for the first three books Bella’s parents were no exception. In the final book, Bella tells her parents about her upcoming marriage fearfully because she believes that they will freak out, especially her mom. In the preceding books, Bella makes a big deal about how much she loves Edward but how her mother wouldn’t be happy with her if she got married at such a young age like she did. Even her father thinks that her mother will blow up when she finds out saying, “Get Married. But...//you// have to tell your mom! That’s all yours.” But instead of freaking out and giving her a big lecture, she decides to support her instead, which was too convenient. In __Twilight__, everyone was obsessed with Bella because she was the new kid in town. Although she wasn’t really close to any of them, she still had lots of friends at school who had semi-important roles. She invited them to her wedding, and that was the end of her human friends. No one tried to get into contact with her which was unrealistic and too easy for Bella to live her life as a vampire. Edward mentions the fact that Bella will have to deal with her human friends when she becomes a vampire, but once she changes, she doesn’t have to deal with them at all. During the first three books in the series, Bella is eager to become a vampire and could care less about living her human life. But once she finds out that she is pregnant with Edward’s child, she decides that she would rather have the child (which they know nothing about) and put her life in danger than get rid of it. Once the child is born who she names Reneesme, they realize it she half human and half vampire. Bella describes how she grows, “She was maybe twice the size of the baby in my dim memory, and she seemed to be supporting her own torso easily as she stretched towards me.” She is also measured every day, “‘Yesterday she grew two inches. Today it’s less’. ‘By a thirty-second of an inch’ Carlisle [Cullen] said quietly.” She drinks animal blood like the rest of her family does, but she is not venomous like a human. And although I applaud Bella’s bravery in the matter, it is very out of character, which is a major flaw of the book. Bella made it clear to Edward that she would not miss being a human or any of the experiences that she would have as a human. But still here she is, fighting to have a child. After having the child, things get even more sappy and predictable. Jacob is a shape shifter, and part of being a shape shifter is “imprinting” on people. Imprinting is described as seeing somebody and realizing that they are meant to be with you for the rest of your life. Once you imprint on somebody, your life is devoted to keeping them happy, whether it be love, friendship, or being like a brother to them. This is exactly what happens between Jacob and Reneesme. This is predictable because in the last two books of the series, Jacob has fallen madly in love with Bella only to get his heart broken. But to give him his happy ending and keep him close to Bella and the Cullen family, he ends up imprinting on Reneesme. __Breaking Dawn__ completes the progression of Bella’s life from a weak, lowly human to a powerful vampire who is indestructible. Although Stephenie Meyer does a lovely job in intertwining real life with the fantastical life of mythical creatures, __Breaking Dawn__ does not live up to any expectations that were put on it. It was a decent book, but not enough to end an outstanding series of books.