Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Stephanie Meyer's Twilight tells the story of Bella Swan, seventeen years old, clumsy, and fresh into town, and her romance with the "charming" Edward Cullen. At first Edward can hardly stand the sight of Bella, but we soon learn this to be a result of Edward being a vampire. And the fact that Bella's blood smells 'special', being nearly irresistible to him. The two soon get over that hurdle, and the rest of the book follows the relationship roadblocks they face in their odd pairing--mortal and vampire. While many readers of Twilight adore, even go as far as to worship the book, I personally could not stand it. Limited vocabulary, repetitive story lines, and two-dimensional characters make up the entirety of this book. The only reason I continued reading was to see if Meyer actually took the story somewhere. Through reading the entire book, I found out that it was all stuffing. Padding. Fluff. Over and over the same theme repeated itself. Bella gets herself into a sticky situation, and Edward comes out of nowhere to save her. Edward tells Bella how pretty she is, she blushes, he brushes hair from her face and laughs, and she pokes fun at his immortality. The one time Bella does end up sticking up for herself, she is reminiscent of a two year old trying to gain independence from her parents. The two are like oatmeal. So predictable, so boring. Their actions and words were already in my head before the page had been turned. Our heroine's passive character does not evolve at all throughout the five hundred pages of Twilight. What really angered me was the message Meyer is sending out. The whole story is projecting the idea that you are incomplete if you don't have a gorgeous, charming, vampire by your side. Is a weak, shallow, dependent, Cinderella-esque character really someone we want the young girls reading this book to be looking up to? The good of Twilight? The vampire theories---glitter and venom, were two original ideas which I hadn't yet seen in a vampire novel. Too bad their role in the story was minimal. I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious as to what amuses teenagers today. This is it, folks--shallow, simple, undeveloped fluff. By all means if you're a damsel in distress type, looking for a quick, easy read that never goes anywhere, read it. If you're after dynamic characters, an original plot, or anything even remotely literary, please: Put Twilight down.