Rereading Twilight – Review

I actually did it – I reread the first Twilight novel by Stephanie Meyer. But it wasn’t totally out of the blue: her new book, Midnight Sun, has been all over the news lately. I’ve read so many negative reviews claiming it to be super annoying, only describing Edward’s hunger and his desperate tries to keep his blood lust under control. Briefly said: I had no other book to read, saw Twilight on my shelf and made the desperate move to take it with me – and I wasn’t able to put it down, despite some very negative thoughts. Here is my wildly confusing, irrational and controversial review of rereading a series I always put in the “I read it when I was 12 and was the biggest fan but now it’s rubbish and I hate it” box.

I won’t start with my typical “synopsis, how many pages, publication date” theme because we all know why we’re here. To start of: I had no real recognition of the book, I hadn’t read it for five years and only watched the movie because of, well, Edward (I only watch the first movie when I’m bored, I don’t know, I really like the way they portrayed them falling in love). Hence, I didn’t really remember how their story is pictured in the book and to be completely honest, only disliked the books and put them in the boy because I thought they were overly romantic and cliché, but I guess now after rereading I can finally form a real, empirical opinion.

This is a very hard rating for me: I am torn between 3.5 and 4 but since I was absolutely hooked and wouldn’t stop reading, let’s be nice. And here we already have the first dilemma: I actually haven’t got one single positive thing I can think of except for me being absolutely hooked and I can’t explain why. Maybe I did like the plot, okay I did, how it all went down and Bella couldn’t explain Edward’s behavior and maybe I also liked the writing (difficult to tell, I read it in German).

Despite having me absolutely hooked, there are a few factors that have me raging and raging about the book and annoyed the hell out of me while reading. So, here you go, a list as clean and structured as I can possibly write this review:

#1 Bella only being interested in the vampire-aspect and not actually the person: since I only ever watch the movies, I hadn’t remembered this aspect but it annoyed me so drastically, that I really hated her personality. She only ever asked questions about vampires, how it works, why he liked her – and never asked him about his characteristics, what he liked and stuff. When talking about his history, she asked how he was bitten, how he was as a vampire. What about the human Edward. Ughhhhh – so shallow.

#2 They never talked about anything else than vampires: to be honest, I don’t even know why they like each other except for Edward being crazy about her smell and Bella thinking he’s the hottest and most beautiful boy ever and being intrigued by his vampire-being. They never talk about ANYTHING – literally anything. When I’m with my friends, we talk about school, people, politics, our interests and future. But nothing. It seems like they hardly know each other as a person, except for Edward ONCE asking her random questions like what’s your favorite color.

#3 Edward’s rage: he was so enraged sooo many times, and it was super overly dramatic. She would say one tiny thing and then the book said “Edward looked at her with rage” (in German Er sah sie wütend an). That strong negative attitude was incomprehensible for me and trenched their whole relationship with negative energy.

#4 The mood swings: Bella had terrible mood swings. I can’t describe it right now, but one second she was like “Oh Edward, he’s so cute I really like him” and the next she’s like “I don’t understand that, he’s so annoying” and that made her really annoying to me.

#5 Bella being overly uncoordinated and mentioned every 10 seconds: this might not be understandable to everyone, but for me, this might have been the most annoying and unnecessary part of the book. There are uncoordinated people, no questions, and I am even one of them. But I don’t need to write that in a book every time I walk, like She couldn’t walk straight without falling and stumbling over her own feet everywhere she went – everywhere. It was mentioned like 50 times, and to mention it one two or even three times is totally fine with it, but after a while I get it, she’s uncoordinated you don’t have to mention it every few pages it was irrelevant for the whole story.

These are only five aspects and you might think okay, five aspects but why does she make such a big deal about them and it’s as simple as that: said five aspects were my steady companion throughout the entire book and annoyed me all the way from page one to page 508.

That’s it: after my little outburst of rage, I am thinking about rating it 3.5 stars because I have to relive the whole dilemma again – but let’s remember I didn’t end the book on a negative note, but was actually sad it’s over. To be honest, I am thinking about rereading the third book which used to be my ultimate favorite up to the point that I actually reread it eight times IN A ROW. I was crazy. We’ll see.

Tell me: did you like Twilight, what were your favorite and least favorite aspects and do we share any thoughts? Feel free to comment!