Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) Review

This is the book that spawned a pop culture phenomenon, the first of a quartet of novels by Stephenie Meyer that currently occupy the four top spots on the best-seller list, now a major motion picture which is packing them in on opening weekend.

My wife is a Twi-Hard First Class, having read all four books several times each. She's even a special correspondent for TwilightersAnonymous.com. I would never have read this book, or New Moon, the second novel in the series, if not for her. While my taste in fiction leans heavily toward the hardboiled, gritty realism rather than fantasy, I must admit that I enjoyed reading Twilight.

Existing somewhere on the literary map between Bram Stoker and Judy Blume, Twilight is the story of Bella Swan, a 17 year old who moves from sunny Phoenix to gloomy, rainy Forks, Washington, where she meets Edward, a brooding, incredibly handsome teenage dreamboat, who also happens to be a vampire.

Edward, however, is not your garden variety bloodsucker: immune to crosses and garlic, able to cast a reflection in a mirror, and when caught in the sunlight, he doesn't burst into flames, he sparkles. He is also the embodiment of every young girl's ideal boyfriend: romantic, heroic, offering a chaste form of love. Edward's love for Bella is chaste by necessity, given his vampire superpowers. With his extraordinary strength, doing it is out of the question.

To get the full picture of Edward's side of things, I recommend reading the excerpt of Midnight Sun on Stephenie Meyer's website. It's essentially Twilight as told by Edward, much, much scarier, and much less caught up in the mundane world of who's sitting where at lunch and who's going to prom with whom.

While I may not be the predominately female target audience, I like a good vampire story. Told from Bella's perspective, it starts out as classic young adult fiction, a fish out of water story, before becoming something else: romance mixed with sweet horror. It is easy to see that what appeals to the teenies, the tweenies, and even the moms is the chaste purity of Edward and Bella's love, which is all about self-sacrifice and self-denial.

A total fantasy, of course.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.