Fantasy

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005
498 pp.
$10.99 Fiction
ISBN: 0316015849

Would you be willing to give up everything even “though your life has barely started?” Isabella “Bella” Swan thinks she would.

17 year-old Bella is a recent transplant from the always sunny and bright metropolis of Phoenix, AZ to the perpetually rainy and dreary small town of Forks, WA. She decides to go live with her father Charlie so her mom (Renee) can travel with her husband Phil, who is a minor league baseball player.

Bella is self conscious about starting a new school. She feels as though she will be looked upon as “the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak” with her pale “ivory-skin”, clumsy, awkward lack of athleticism, and her average looks. The first day of school goes better than expected and her fears are unrealized as she is befriended by several classmates. During lunch with her new friends she sees five “chalky pale…devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful” students at a table in the corner of the cafeteria. She inquires and finds out they are the adopted children of Dr. Cullen and his wife. Later that day, she meets Edward Cullen face to face as she is assigned to the only open seat in Biology, which happens to be next to him. Their first encounter is not pleasant. He sits “on the edge of his chair” as far away from her as he can. She cannot figure out why she is getting such a negative vibe from him since she has never met him before.

Much to Bella’s relief, Edward is absent from school the rest of the week, which allows her to relax. When he does return he introduces himself and is quite polite. During a Biology lab he inadvertently touches her hand and she notices “his fingers were ice-cold” and it stung her “hand as if an electric current had passed through us.” Later that day Edward saves Bella from serious injury as he stops the progress of a van skidding out of control that is on a collision course with her. From that moment on their relationship blossoms and Bella is obsessed with and “consumed by the mystery Edward presented.”

Bella goes into detective mode as she searches for answers to explain Edward. At the beach with a group of friends she speaks with Jacob Black, the son of a family friend. He tells her about an old legend among the Quileute (a local Native American tribe) that revolves around the Quileute being “descended from wolves” and “the cold ones” being “the natural enemies of the wolf” thereby automatically becoming their enemies. He claims that Edward and his family “are the same ones” that made a treaty with his great-grandfather to stay off of their reservation many, many years ago. At home she searches the internet to find out what she can about vampires. “Overall…there was little that coincided with Jacob’s stories” and what she had personally observed. Still she couldn’t let go of the notion that what Jacob said could be true. She mulled everything over in her mind

After seeing his super human strength first-hand, knowing his ability to read people’s minds, noticing his eyes change colors, the frigidness of his skin, the way him and his family “never seemed to eat”, witnessing his avoidance of human blood, and talking with Jacob, Bella unravels the mystery of Edward and his family. When she confronts him with her theory, that he is a vampire, he is somewhat amused as she admits to using trickery and flirtation in her quest to uncover the secrets surrounding him. Most importantly of all, and much to Edward’s surprise, she concedes “it doesn’t matter…what you are.” Their relationship grows into a very intense mutual romance with Edward thankfully being there for her in her most desperate hours of need. In the end Bella is so enamored with Edward she is seriously considering the prospect of spending eternity with him.

In terms of plot, the book challenges our belief system. This is similar to HBO’s “True Blood” challenging the hard and fast beliefs about vampires. For example, Edward and his family drink animal not human blood. Meyers takes aspects of teenage life and makes them bigger, wider, and deeper to illustrate the trials and tribulations they go through as they negotiate that precarious time between adolescence and adulthood; the breaking away of one from the values of the family and the development of one’s sense of self. Bella doesn’t tell Charlie how Edward saved her from a group of thugs in Port Angeles. Not only doesn’t she want to worry him; she’s also asserting her growing independence. This is also a story as old as time: forbidden love. Edward tells Bella on more than one occasion that he is “dangerous” but Bella is unable to ignore the intense pull of that very first love. Some parts of the book were a bit disturbing: such as Bella’s abuse of over the counter medication and Edward spending the night in her room without her father’s knowledge.

This book would be appropriate for ages 14 and up. The themes covered in this book include: High school; horror; romance; suspense; mortality; vampires; friendship; and family. Students who like this book may also enjoy: Thirst, no. 1, Thirst, no. 2, and The Last Vampire series by Christopher Pike and Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.