On my recent trip to Fiji, I finally sat down and read the first Twilight book.

I’ll give it credit, it actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.   I can definitely see why people enjoy it.  The average girl gets the adonis forever-young boyfriend.  We get to feel like it is happening to us, or something similar.

The first half of the book was  a decent read.  I have seen the movie (though it was certainly not my favorite of the year) and the first ten chapters or so are a blow by blow of movie, but with more character/relationship development.  The movie had a tendancy to have things occur with very little explanation, if you ask me. It was nice to see that the book could explain most of the decision it made, opposed to leaving the audience guessing. I almost even bought the sparkle part.  (You know the part– that major criticism of the series where the vampires aren’t killed in sunlight so much as they twinkle, like diamonds.)  I’ll give Meyer the benefit of the doubt.  She needed a reason to have the vamps walking around in the day without them going up into smoke.  Something to do with their skin is a logical angle to take, however I can’t help but think that maybe she missed the mark a bit.  Anyway, I digress.

After the heroine Bella and Edward decide that they like each other, they proceed to have the same three conversations for the rest of the book.  They love each other, but he might eat her, he should leave, no he should stay.  Not to mention, for a good five chapters we get nothing but conversations about Edwards backstory.  It was like Meyer thought “oh, we’re half way through the book, when things really should start to move forward– I know, I’ll give eighty pages of exposition!”  That did get almost unbearable.  

I soldiered on and finished though, and I’ll say it’s not the worst book I have ever read in my life, which is something every author wants to hear.  Honestly I think the problem  mostly was that I am not the target audience.  There were hints of cleverness and forethought peppered into the inevitable cliches that I did enjoy, but high school love is not something I’m into.  I don’t know about anyone else, but two teens walking around declaring that they will love each other for all eternity just makes my eyes roll back so hard I can see my brain.

I guess it didn’t hurt that the movie was already out and I knew that I was allowed to imagine RPattz as the leading man.  Despite that he’s a bit squinty for my tastes, he really seems to stir the ladies, which is the whole point of the Edward character’s existance.  I think.

Overall, I don’t understand the phenomenon of the book.  But, I guess that’s what makes it phenomenon, ay? However, the outcome could have been a lot worse.  I see myself completing the series, just to see how it turns out. Since the series is written for the average high school cheerleader, I think that it won’t take me long to get through them.  I’m lucky that the books already exist, because I don’t think I would have to patience and followthrough to wait for the next installment to be published.  Team RPattz for the win.

A side note.  I also just finished  The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.  It was an entirely delightful read about a man who decides he is going to take everything in the bible literally for a year.  One can imagine the hijinks that ensue.  His poor wife… I know that you would never know by the proportion of my comments of this book to the former, but if you have to choose a book to pick up, pick up this one.