Bookin' It My Way

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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

I can't imagine a world with no books in it, which is why I read and write so much.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Book Review - Twilight


I know I’m behind the curve to just now be reviewing Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, book one of a teen vampire series set in Washington State. This new series is topping the best seller lists and has gotten rave reviews, including being an Amazon “Best Book of the Decade….so far”. It has 1300 customer reviews on Amazon, and 1070 give the book 5 stars.
So it won’t matter a bit when I say – I don’t get it. I don’t get the hype, and I don’t understand why this book has been deemed incredible. It was entertaining, to a point. The premise is good. Bella, a high school junior, moves from the home she shares with her mother in Phoenix to Forks, Washington, a small town in the Olympic Peninsula. Forks has the distinction of being the cloudiest, gloomiest place in the U.S.
Bella likes warm weather and sunshine, so she’s not too excited to have relocated. Things look up for her however, when she meets Edward, this really, really, REALLY good looking guy who has equally good-looking adopted siblings and young adoptive parents (also good-looking). At first Edward acts like he can’t stand Bella, but then he saves her life, and the truth comes out. (Spoiler coming…)
Edward and his family are all vampires! Bella smells particularly good to Edward. So, it’s not that he hates her; he’s just torn between loving her and wanting to rip her to shreds and drink up all her blood.
Edward explains this to Bella, and she’s cool with it. More than cool, actually – she soon is addicted to Edward. But their relationship isn’t an easy one, and they now have to deal with all complications that come in a romance where the guy is constantly fighting his animal instincts to, you know, kill her.
Is that a metaphor for something?
Anyway, I’m not big into vampire stories, so hey, whatever. But what really bothered me was that in this 498 page book, nearly half of it was exposition, done in conversations between Edward and Bella. During these conversations they did nothing but sit and talk. My writing instructors would call them “talking head” scenes, and the author would be instructed to put in more action and details. My other big gripe is how whiney and clingy Bella quickly becomes. It’s hard to like her or sympathize with her plight to love Edward when he so desperately wants to eat her.
But I know I’m probably just jealous that my book isn’t a best-seller with 1300 reviews on Amazon.



By Laurel Osterkamp, 2008. All rights reserved

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