sara's writing and recommendations. - September 29th, 2007

The Twilight series may be the only work of fiction I was introduced to solely through the huge prevalence of its fandom on the internet. When you keep hearing about something that much, it seems the most typical reaction is either to A) get sick and tired of seeing it everywhere, or B) figure it must be a pretty big deal for a reason and decide to check it out. Since A was my initial reaction to Harry Potter, believe it or not, I have learned to avoid having that one in response to things. And now what I've found after following through with B for Twilight is...that I think it's a little overrated. Yet it's been a very long time since I inhaled a book that was not HP as quickly as I did this one, and I have already bought its sequel New Moon, so I can hardly complain either.

This novel starts out in such a promising way that once I was about a quarter into it I already felt a little angry about some of the negative comments I've heard about it even from people who admit they liked it, such as that it is almost like bad but addictive fanfic. If you know you've started reading a book about vampires - which you do if you've read the back cover - that makes the premise of the story instantly intriguing from page 1. Bella Swan, an uncommonly mature seventeen-year-old, has made a very difficult decision to move to Forks, Washington for an almost pathetically selfless reason some have found to be unbelievable, but turns out to be very consistent with the characterization and not at all the first time Bella shows a remarkable lack of concern for herself (and oddly enough, is the only thing that happens to the character in this book that Stephenie Meyer has explained is autobiographical). Forks is where Bella's father lives and a small town she has hated visiting all her life. It is also in the location that gets more rainfall than anywhere else in America and is in a constant overcast gloom. Hmm, why might she be likely to run into some vampires there?, I sarcastically wonder at this point, already a little sucked in...No pun intended.

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