Book Review: Twilight and New Moon

Twilight; The Twilight Saga Book 1
Stephenie Meyer
c2006 Little Brown and Company, 544 pgs.

New Moon; The Twilight Saga Book 2
Stephenie Meyer
c2006 Little Brown and Company, 563 pgs.



The Least You Need to Know... vampire themed bestsellers, four books in the series (I'm halfway through), movie version of the first book arriving in theaters this Thanksgiving.

Setting... Forks, WA (even farther northwest than where I am)

Major Characters... Bella, 17 year old recent transplant to Forks; Edward, Bella's vampire love interest; Charlie, Bella's dad; Jacob, Bella's best friend... who becomes a bigger plot fixture in the second book.

Favorite Part... the backstory created to explain the existence of vampires, and details of how they live and their world.

Reminds me of... Harry Potter, Philip Pullman's Dark Materials, Beauty and the Beast.

You'll like it if... you want to return to the deeply emotional days of high school love, or you enjoy good young adult literature.

You'll hate it if... you are easily bored by lots of descriptive prose and a slow initial plot.

Rated... PG for violence, imagery, and romantic entanglements; G for language.

Why I liked it... honestly, it's one of those books that you enjoy, but you can't quite put your finger on it. The writing isn't exemplary, the characters aren't amazing, and yet, you can't stop reading. (Hence, the slightly generic review... I liked it and want to read the last two, but I can't figure out why.)

Reading this book in public says... you're up on what's popular and have some taste, but don't want to strain your brain with a political tome or the new Philip Roth novel.

Sample sappy passage...

"Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars - points of light and reason... and then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything."

Recommended by... Princess of Ales

Movie Trailer