Twilight--A Review of the Saga

I think that by this point most of us know that the Twilight saga is about a plain Jane falling in love with a sparkly vampire and his mysterious obsession with her. Right. So I won't go into a "what this book is about" review. Instead, I'm going to give you my completely biased opinion on it.

You may remember me telling you a little over a month ago that I was reading the saga and that I was pretty much obsessed with it. Yes, it's true. I'm a Twilight fan. And no, it did not take me this long to read all four books. In fact, it took me a little over a week to finish them all, and then I just kept reading them over and over again. Seriously. I'm still reading them. I can't even tell you how many times it's been now. I honestly don't know. It's a lot, though.

I've also read Midnight Sun--the incomplete draft of Twilight in Edward's POV. For those of you who are aware of the drama concerning this one, I assure you that I found this copy on Ms. Meyer's own website.

After reading the saga numerous times, I've come to a few conclusions. The first is that, despite what a lot in the writing community may think, Stephanie Meyer has talent. And the second is that all writers make mistakes in their works, and I found them. And I'm not talking about those so called mistakes that many writers say she made like having Edward leave in New Moon and the mysterious disappearance of the sex scene in Breaking Dawn. I'm talking real mistakes. As in, certain data was changed between books, etc.

But first, let's talk about Stephanie Meyer's talent. I know, I know. I've heard the arguments. But truthfully, she did a LOT right when she wrote these books. For one, despite being written in First Person, all of her characters came to life. I don't feel like I didn't totally grasp a single one of them. Second, she artfully portrayed Edward's true character even through Bella's very biased filter. And third, she brought a mythological creature that was honestly getting boring in its repetitive usage in books and made it something completely different. This is what agents and publishers are telling us to do all the time, my readers. Don't get mad because these vampires don't do what you think they should do.

Now about those mistakes... Well, let's start with the first book. It's pretty well established in this novel that vampires have a hard time being around people without the bloodlust becoming a potential problem. Though the Cullen family is able to live through it after years of self-discipline, even they admit to losing it when blood is exposed. Admittedly, I didn't think about this problem until the beginning of Breaking Dawn, but if all of this is true and Edward would not have been able to resist Bella if her blood had been exposed prior to falling deeply in love with her...well, without being too crass...she wouldn't have lived through the first month. That's all I'm saying. I think you know where I'm going with that. *cough*

Second problem in Twilight is in the hospital at the end of the book. Edward had just saved Bella from becoming a vampire by drinking her poisoned blood. And yet, Bella made no mention of his red eyes (or murky brown if he was wearing contacts), which I find very odd considering how obsessed she was with the color of his eyes.

Other mistakes: the length of Edward's stay with the Denali clan repeatedly changed between two and six days, the Chevy was described as a '57 in one book and a '53 in another, and when Alice came back in New Moon, Ms. Meyer forgot that she had been there for two days before Edward called.

Why do I bring the mistakes up? Well, for good reason: it happens. Those books went through a dozen hands and these little mistakes are still in there (As for the first one I pointed out, I'm sure Stephanie Meyer was just hoping no one would pick up on that one). We obsess and obsess about our works all the time to the point that we don't bother putting them out there. Look, mistakes will be in there. If you write an engrossing book, your readers will forgive you and your editor might not even notice.

This saga is amazing and continues to succeed despite all the disparaging comments many have made. No, it's not literary, but it wasn't intended to be. It's just plain good.

So, what do you think about the series? Have you read it? Did you like it? For the adult men out there, my husband was not a fan of the first two, but he likes the fighting in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

~Emily White