Twilight Series Book Review

So I am a little late on reading these, I understand, but it took a little convincing from my wife for me to wade through 4 books and a couple of thousand pages of material touted as fantastic mostly by 14 year old girls. Further, my wife said there was very little violence and virtually no sex betwixt the covers, so I was less than enthralled. I used to be a big Anne Rice fan, so I’ve done the vamp thing. The seduction and the violence is what made it good, without that, it might as well be the literary equivalent of the movie Powder. Just some pasty dude with some powers, brooding and lonely.

I am reviewing the entire series here but I can’t ignore the qualities or lack there of, of individual books. For instance, if you are not currently, have never been, or never wanted to be a high school girl with a crush, the first book will likely disappoint. It is simply a tween take on romance fraught with all the he-said, she-said, what is he thinking drama of everyone’s freshman year. The climax was as absolute cop-out and cut short any hope of a payoff for the previous 500 pages. I almost didn’t continue the series after the first book ended. But, as a poker player holding pocket deuces into “The River”, I was pot committed and pressed on.

I won’t give anything away yet, but with the exception of one battle scene, Stephenie Meyers builds and builds, creates great potential, and then cops-out when it is time to pay up. This was repeated several times throughout these books. Maybe she just wanted to keep-it-clean, but come on, give me something for my time. Other than the cop-out annoyance and the constant wining from Bella over “the wrong guy”, in my opinion, the series was mildly entertaining with a couple of unique “takes” on the vampire/werewolf genre.

While reading, I didn’t find myself aching to get to the next page. Though, to my surprise, I was a little sad when the journey was over. As a slow reader, it took me forever to get through these. Also, as a desensitized monster, I am less interested in my imagination for the good parts and prefer to have here spell-out a couple of things in a little more detail. It doesn’t have to be graphic, but a simple description of what occurred would be nice. Also, the first person point of view becomes confusing when she changes characters, but only for a couple of pages. You’ll flip back a few pages and go “Oh..I’m Jacob now.” Gotcha.

I think the series was ok and I see why the squeamish would gravitate toward this kindergarten approach to something devilish. Worth a read, but only if you can’t stomach Stephen King. If so, he has plenty to chose from, so close your eyes and pick one, I promise that any of his work is better than this.

WARNING!!! Big Time Spoiler:
Ok, so I said I wouldn’t give anything away, but there is one other thing. A major storyline flaw that made this series less than it should have been. The cookies and ice cream finish was absolutely wrong. Forget the anti-climactic end to the build-up of the century (women are more about the foreplay than the shiver, I grant you), but Jacob needed to die. I loved him like a brother, but that tragedy is what this series was lacking. That ultimate sacrifice was his destiny and Mrs. Meyers deprived him of that. I would have hated it, but it should have happened. She knew it too, but took the easy way out. As a writer, she isn’t very courageous. Stephanie, the story was already there, it just needed you to put it on paper. Please don’t betray the characters or yourself like that again. BTW…Hermoine Dies.