The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer | Teen Ink

The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer

May 30, 2010
By Anonymous

“So, are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?” This question has been asked of me far too many times. It means choosing between the 107 year old glittery one who enjoys watching the main character sleep despite the fact that he’s not sure he can keep himself from sucking her blood, or the lovesick anger-management teenager who’s not sure if he can keep himself from tearing her to pieces. This itself wouldn’t even be that bad if the book weren’t completely amateur and overdone.

The basic plot of the series can be easily summed up in less than a paragraph. In the first book, the main character, Bella Swan, moves from her mother’s house in Arizona to her father’s in rainy Forks, Washington. After that the books turn into the typical “boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy breaks up with girl. Girl meets someone else. Boy wants girl back. Boy and other boy become friends” story, only the “boy” is a century-old vampire (Edward Cullen), the “other boy” is a werewolf (Jacob Black), and the “girl” (Bella Swan) is so accident prone she’s almost always in danger of her life for some reason or other. These three characters have a painful lack of personality. Edward’s only traits are A. likes going fast B. is incredibly protective of his girlfriend and C. arrogant. Bella had a fine personality in the Twilight, but that quickly drains by the fourth book. Jacob was a typical awkward teenager at first; but then becomes a depressed, over-zealous buff guy.
My question is, why do people say this book is original?

How many vampire and werewolf romances are there? I assure you, if you go to your local bookstore or library, you’re going to find at least five books involving vampires, werewolves, vampires and werewolves, and romance within fifteen minutes without even trying. The earliest vampire literature was written in the eighteen hundreds, and since then, hundreds of other vampire stories have been put on the market.

There’s almost nothing that distinguishes Twilight from any of them except for the style of writing, which itself suggests that Stephanie Meyer read too many “You can write too!” books; any given page shows careful use of topics covered in school and self-help books, such as description, internal thinking, or metaphors, while the story itself is lacking in suspense, action, character development, or even a lot of plot development. Stephanie Meyer may know how to write; given a topic or prompt, I’m sure she could do an amazing essay. However, she knows nothing about writing stories, and even less about writing series.

Admittedly, the books were improving very quickly; the third book, Eclipse, was infinitely better than Twilight. So why was the fourth book so much worse? Almost all the things set in motion in the first book had been concluded in the third book. The fourth showed an amazing lack of planning. The plot was completely sudden with absolutely no foreshadowing in any of the others. If she’d had the imagination, there were plots which tied in neatly to the other three books which she could have used while still keeping the plot she ended up using for the fourth book. However, what annoys me the most about the fourth book was the utterly anticlimactic ending, which abruptly finished an already mediocre book like an executioner’s axe.

I think you should read this book if you enjoy shallow love stories which don’t make you think and something to waste your time. I’m not the kind of person who advocates only reading book you can learn from or which add to your personality; it’s true that I have enjoyed my share of trashy novels. Twilight, however, is incredibly overrated, so it's time for "twi-hards" to wake up: Edward adn Jacob are not real, so you can just relax.


The author's comments:
Do these books send out hypnosis rays??? That's got to be the only reason I actually read them again. That, and a lack of any other books.

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This article has 4 comments.


Bones96 BRONZE said...
on Dec. 14 2011 at 11:12 pm
Bones96 BRONZE, Charlotte, North Carolina
2 articles 0 photos 108 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life isn't about finding yourself it's about creating yourself-

I agree with you. It annoys me that millions of girls fall head over heads for this. I didn't even finish the first book I was so bored and was very disapointed. The only reason I have any Idea is from my friend telling me and from seeing the movies. I also am discussed that when going to my local book store most of the teen books are trashy vampire love stories. 

on Jun. 6 2010 at 9:08 pm
i really love this book and the movie it does matter how many books that are out there with vampire and wovles fighting..just konw it was the greatest out of every one of them :-)

on Jun. 5 2010 at 12:19 pm
chocolatesummerlaughterbliss SILVER, Seattle, Washington
7 articles 0 photos 7 comments

Favorite Quote:
the moving finger writes, and having writ<br /> moves on; not all your piety and wit<br /> can bring it back to cancel half a line<br /> nor all your tears wash out a word of it

Also, I already had a buncha stuff to say about it already, so writing an actual review wasn't that hard at all. The book's not that good, but what really creeps me out are the "twihards". if you go to www.mylifeistwilight.com you'll see what I mean.

on Jun. 5 2010 at 12:16 pm
chocolatesummerlaughterbliss SILVER, Seattle, Washington
7 articles 0 photos 7 comments

Favorite Quote:
the moving finger writes, and having writ<br /> moves on; not all your piety and wit<br /> can bring it back to cancel half a line<br /> nor all your tears wash out a word of it

yeah I know, I'm not obsessed with hating it or anything, I just think it's overrated. in reality this was just kind of a desparate attempt to get published for a school thing. It's not like I put a lot of time and thought into this or anything.