Twilight is a series of 4 books written by Stephanie Meyer which quickly rose to fame, gathering an almost rabid fan-base. The books’ obvious popularity prompted film adaptations, the most recent of which, New Moon, broke box office records on its opening weekend. (What? You expect figures? Look it up yourself.) [$26.3 million midnight takings, $72.7 million first day, $142,839,137 first week -Ed.]

Of course, for every insanely popular series of books/films, there are those who hate them. And the hatebase for Twilight, as I shall call it, is particularly vast, even though most of its critics have never read the books or watched the films. Until recently, I belonged in this category.

I have taken it upon myself to read the books and watch the films, for your benefit. Now, these reviews will hardly be impartial. I am in no way a member of the target demographic. I’m an 18-year-old male, and these books are written for 13-year-old females. So in the interest of a fair and balanced debate, I have recruited one such 13-year-old girl. Meet Josie:

hai guiz, i was so xited wen mark sed i cud hlp him wiv his reveiw, i ttly looove twilite. edwards so dreemy hehe <3. ill be mkin sur he dusnt get 2 mean, nd tellin u bout all the stuff he dusnt understand :)
[Yeah... Not quite sure about that, translations may be made available on request -Ed.]

Erm…indeed. I apologise in advance for her. Just watch out for anything in italics, I’ll let her cut in whenever she feels like it, so don’t shout at me for spelling or anything, please. On with the review!

Twilight is the first book in the aptly named Twilight Saga, and follows 17-year-old Bella Swan as she moves to a new town, meets new people, makes new friends, risks her life, and falls madly in love with a vampire. And this is as far as I’ll bother with the plot…because that’s all the plot there is.

The rest of the book is largely made up of Edward and Bella spouting romance at each other (some of it barely even being describable as romance, but we’ll come back to that). All while Edward and his family shit all over any existing vampire mythology.

In order to fill space, however, I will drag out the points that I think were the worst, and see if we can get Josie to weigh in.

GRIPE NUMBER ONE
Bella is a total non-character. She has no personality of her own, she is never described, and can do nothing but whine about Edward.

hey, she ttly is described!
Oh really?
yeh! shes pale…and clumsy, but liek, ttly hot nd cool.

Of course, allow me to explain. Bella was designed to be a shell of a character. She was given just 2 defining characteristics. Paleness, and clumsiness. By leaving the rest of the ‘character’ blank, it allows any teenage girl to fill in the role, and be the main character in the romance. She can just slip in, and imagine that the rest of Bella’s traits are exactly the same as hers, it’s brilliant really. Let me demonstrate.

Hey, Josie. Have you ever thought that you were a bit like Bella?
r u flirtin wiv me? daddy sed 2 b careful of boyz lyk u…
No Josie, just answer the question.
well…i gess she is a bit lyk me. we can both b pretty clumsy…and i dont always do well @ skool…

And there you have it. By creating the emptiest, most generic teenage girl ever, she has created the perfect main character for a 13-year-old girl to enjoy.

GRIPE NUMBER TWO

The ‘romance’. At many points in the book I am left doubting the author’s sanity. Dialogues about heroin are passed off as insanely sweet comments. I shit you not. There is an actual section in which Edward compares Bella to heroin, and she is flattered. I guess that this is to be expected in a romance novel masquerading as science fiction/fantasy, but it really reaches the limits of acceptability. But enough of my point of view. Josie, take the floor.

omigod, edward is liek sooo sweet. i wish the boys i new were liek that :(. their all mean and stuff, they dnt understand grls liek he does <3. i culd just read this 4eva 2 hear his wordsn my hed *sighs*.

Ok, that was a little disturbing. I may need to keep Josie’s father from reading this…

GRIPE NUMBER THREE

The writing. Dear god the writing. It’s like Stephanie Meyer wrote a book, picked up a thesaurus and went “AND NOW TO MAKE IT SOUND CLEVER”. I think I only need one quote to point out how awful her writing is.

“No.” I didn’t feel like mentioning that my stomach was already full — of butterflies.

Now. This doesn’t quite fit the aforementioned thesaurus theory. But it hurts all the same. If you were capable of reading that without cringing, I’m sure Josie would love to meet you. You’ll have great fun discussing boys and Barbies. I’m not even gonna let her at the keyboard here, her writing is even wor-

HEHEHEHE, got the keyboard anyway ^_^. twilite is a brill book 4 girls like me. its smart, bt not 2 smart, u no? nd the stuff mark tld u is rubbish. it jst shows how gr8 steph meyer is. all that metafor nd stuff (hehe, i jst had english 2day as well :D).

That bloody girl. I don’t know why I put up with her.

GRIPE NUMBER FOUR

SHE

RUINED

VAMPIRES

*ahem*. Vampires do not sparkle in the sunlight. Vampires die in the sunlight. Vampires dislike garlic. Vampires dislike holy relics. Vampires are not entirely fucking indestructible. Vampires cannot live solely on animal blood. Vampires are not insanely conspicuously attractive. Vampires do not have reflections. That is all.

maaaark ur so borin. all those old vampires r booooorin.twilight jst made them better! they can like…liv wiv humans nd stuff, means they cn be happy nd not jst get killed all the tym!

No. I will not let you have this one Josie. Vampires have and always will need human blood. That’s half the point of the mythology. They aren’t meant to be lovely, friendly, cuddly people. And yes. I know they aren’t real. But that doesn’t mean you can mess with well established mythology. JUST LEAVE THE VAMPIRES ALONE. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING ELSE, COME UP WITH A NEW NAME. [We'll ignore the fact that some of the better Vampire books/films play with vampires a little, See Cronos (Film) or Let The Right One In (Book and film) -Ed.]

*cough* Apologies. I got carried away a bit there. Won’t let it happen again, I promise.

thx. u scared me :(

GRIPE NUMBER FIVE

This got a film? Seriously? A poorly written romance, with broken vampires, written in 2005 got a film before..say…anything by Neal Stephenson? A book that was rejected by FOURTEEN publishers. There just aren’t words for that. I honestly can’t say anything more on the topic. [Money, money and more money -Ed.] And Josie definitely doesn’t get to. Her dad wouldn’t be happy if she got home with a broken neck.

That’s all I have to say about Twilight. I’m going to let my brain settle a bit before I write my review of New Moon. Until then, it’s goodbye from me.

nd i gess i better b goin home. dad will b wonderin wer i am. he doesnt like me goin out :(. bye xoxoxo

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