"The plate was placed in front of me and instantly, I was swept away by the intoxicating scent. It was a glorious thing; the kind of smell that no reasonable man could be expected to resist. Instantly, I was ravenous, overtaken with my hunger. And yet, I couldn't take a bite. As I looked upon my plate of hot dogs, my thoughts constantly flipped back and forth between sating my hunger and the love I was feeling. The love I had for these, my hot dogs. I pushed the plate aside, knowing that my heart would never allow my physical urges to have control, the control required to eat my dinner. Sadly, I was in love with it."
If you're one of those kind of people that like rising action, falling action, or conflict in your books, then you might as well go read something else, because this book only has overwrought teenage melodrama in it. It's WB-level stuff, so I probably shouldn't have read it, not being a part of the target demographic. Lesson learned. The fact that author Stephenie Meyer was an English literature major at Brigham Young and still managed to write a book like this is a terrible indictment on the state of the American educational system.
"Twilight" is the heartwarming emo tale of a man who's in love with food. It's pretty much like if I tongue-kissed my steak, then expected my family to act like that was some normal. The fact that Edward Cullen's family accepted his insanity shows how progressive vampires have become.
But they still follow all of the traditional vampire conventions, like how all vampires are modelesque things of beauty, never sleep, and that the sun makes them sparkle like diamonds. Yeah, they're the real deal. Vampires are God's physically perfect killing machines. Killing machines that are still abominations before him.
But the story isn't so much about vampires as it is about the love that Edward shares with his plate of hors d'oveures. The story is told from the perspective of Isabella Swan, who prefers to be called "Bella." We know this because it's drilled into our head every time she meets someone, without fail, and with all the annoyance of a person who's being gangraped.
She's the main character, but you won't like her because she's about the most miserable main character I've ever read. Most main characters have some sort of quality that the reader might like, but not this one. She's so humorless and so emotional; the kind of girl that all of your good sarcasm is wasted on. Astrologically speaking, I'd guess she was a Cancer, based on the way she takes everything so personally. If I had known any girls like that when I was in high school, I would have gone gay years ago.
And perhaps I should have gone gay, because maybe then, it wouldn't have bothered me when Bella points out how attractive she finds Edward to be. She doesn't do it just once or twice; she does it every single time she lays eyes on him. If you don't know anything else by the end of this book, it's that Edward is the most beautiful man Bella's ever seen. And that's probably cool the first few times you're checking out a guy, but at some point, that has to wear off. For the average person, that moment would probably be when he tells you that he'd really like to eat you.
I'm not being silly, either. He really says that shit. And she still doesn't freak out when he openly stalks her or sneaks into her room while she's sleeping. A smart woman would have had a problem with this, but it just made Bella moist for Edward.
I actually had someone tell me that men could learn a thing or two from Edward. I wondered if she meant how he stalks her because if that's the stuff that women want their men to do, they should inform the police, since they're the ones preventing us from doing it. I didn't know that violating personal space was considered romantic. Call me old-fashioned.
Oh yeah, there is one instance of conflict in the book, but I won't spoil it because it's the only glimmer of light too look forward to in this book, aside from the last page. Better yet, just go see the movie. I cried when I reached the end of the book, and that's because when I turned the last page, I saw more words after it.
I'm going to go assume that if you have too much testosterone in your system, you're not going to like this book. It's just not going to make too much sense to you when people go through bi-polar mood swings two or three times in the course of an average conversation, for 500 pages. But I guess teenage girls are into this kind of thing, so I'll just reiterate that I'm not the target audience. That's the only way that I can explain this book being a New York Times best seller and getting made into a movie. At least it gets people reading. But if you don't like your vampires written with the emotional sensibilities of a teenage girl, then try Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's "Preacher" instead.
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