First Things First…
I was still teaching when this book first popped off, long before Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were ever cast. I’d always wanted to read it because, for a book to captivate so many high school students who otherwise wanted no part of reading, I was intrigued. Plus, I knew it was about vampires.
It wound up taking nearly 20 years, but I’m finally going to read it. Amazingly, I’ve avoided spoilers about the series, for the most part. I have a general sense of what it’s about, at least in terms of it being a love story between Bella and Edward. I know vampires and, eventually, werewolves, are involved. And I’m quite certain that, as a 43-year-old man, I’m not the target audience. But beyond all that, I really don’t know what the plot is. And I want to go in with an open mind.
4 Things I Like
4. Realistic Friends
I had a hard time getting a handle on Jess, Mike and the rest of Bella’s new friends in Forks. I kept waiting to see for sure whether they were true friends or not. After awhile, I realized they’re not so easy to pin down because they’re fairly realistic.
Take Mike, for example. He’s always got Bella’s back, which she appreciates. But it’s often tempered by him acting possessively when he sees her relationship with Edward growing. She says numerous times that she doesn’t like it when he acts like that. He’d have no hold on her even if they were dating, so he clearly doesn’t have one with them not dating.
This strikes me as a pretty realistic way for a high school boy to act. He’s far from a perfect friend, especially if some of his niceness comes from him hoping he gets a shot with Bella. At the same time, he’s still there for her even after she continues to rebuff him.
The situation is never exactly what he wants it to be, but it seems he’d rather have her as a friend than not have her in his life at all. Regardless of how you judge Mike for that, it feels more realistic to me than if things were black and white—and he was either a huge asshole who was clearly only trying to sleep with Bella and wouldn’t respect her after being turned down, or if he was a true 100% gentleman who could simply forget about his romantic feelings for her and just be a perfect friend.
Bella’s friendship with Jess is similar. At times, Jess seems to genuinely care about Bella. But she can’t mask her jealousy when Mike showers Bella with attention instead of her.
3. Jacob and Billy Black
“The Cullens? Oh, they’re not supposed to come onto the reservation.”
Jacob Black
I’m pretty sure I know at least a little more about Jacob than what’s revealed in this book. In fact, I was surprised he’s in this at all. I guess I expected him to show up in the second book. But I like his character. And I like having his father seemingly in the know when it comes to the Cullens, trying to get Bella to back away from Edward. It’s teasing much more to come from this family rivalry.
2. How to Get by in Polite Society as a Vampire
With the little bit I knew about the story coming in, I was pretty sure Edward was one of the protagonists. So I had wondered if he feeds on humans.
Turns out he and his family have adopted a new way of life where they avoid killing humans and instead feed on animals—particularly bears.
Edward’s adoptive father and creator, Carlisle, seems like a genuinely wonderful person—despite his vampirism—and is the one behind this new way of life. It’s not always easy—I think that’s important, because their thirst is their biggest struggle. But this is an effective way to make them good guys. (Though the jury is still out on Rosalie.)
1. New Vampire Lore
Every vampire story gets to put its own spin on vampire lore, and this is no different.
The sparkling skin is another thing I had heard of prior to reading this, but I never knew the deal with it. I always assumed it was just to add to Edward’s hotness and appeal to teenage girls. But it’s actually an interesting wrinkle.
The sparkling—not potential spontaneous combustion—is the reason vampires don’t go out in the sun, and it’s probably where the myths of the sun harming them come from. If they want to remain incognito, they can’t have regular folk seeing them sparkle. So they only go out at night, or they stick with places like Alaska or Washington, where the sun is scarce.
Some of the Cullens’ backstories are cool, too. For one, Carlisle only turned Edward because Edward had contracted the Spanish Flu and was certain to die. Carlisle would never turn someone whose whole life was in front of them.
And Alice’s mysterious story was one of the things I was most curious about throughout the book. She’s cookier than the other Cullens—turns out she was a patient in an asylum as a human child.
I also like that people in this world don’t inevitably become evil when they’re turned into vampires, like in so many other vampire stories.
2 Things I’m Mixed On
2. What’s So Special About Bella?
“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?”
Bella Swan
This isn’t meant as a knock on Bella, who I like well enough. She’s smart, she’s funny, and she has a lot going for her. But for Edward to fall so hard for her, when he’s been alone for an eternity, seems odd.
Now I know there are a couple of things that help explain this…
One is that Bella is the only person whose mind Edward can’t read. I can see how that would be appealing to someone with his power.
But would that make him so obsessed that he just sits in her bedroom watching her sleep every night?
Then, there’s an entire discussion about how Bella’s… scent? Fragrance? Flavor? Whatever it is, it appeals to Edward in a way none ever has before, in nearly 100 years.
Considering he’s a supernatural creature, I can buy this idea. But, Edward senses this about Bella before ever meeting her. He tells her all about how he nearly threw away everything the Cullens have built because he could barely resist her the first time she sat next to him in their science lab.
In both cases—immunity to his mind-reading and irresistible flavor—Bella’s appeal to Edward, at least at first, isn’t about her personality, her heart and her soul.
Now, good for Edward for taking the time to get to know Bella by asking her a million questions. But that comes later. I’m still hoping eventually there’s more about exactly why he can’t get enough of her.
1. Ready to Be a Vamp Already
Knowing I still have three more chunky books to go, there’s one thing looming over the whole story for me, and I don’t know how I feel about it because I didn’t expect it to be an issue so soon.
I’m glad they didn’t go the route of Edward wanting to turn Bella and trying to coerce her. That’d make it impossible to view him as any sort of hero.
But I’m not sure about her being so eager to sacrifice her humanity so soon.
No matter how much she loves Edward and wants to spend every minute of every day with him, that’s such a monumental decision. And, presumably, there’s no going back from it.
Part of me appreciates the internal conflict this causes Edward, who feels he could never take so much from Bella, no matter how willing she says she is. But part of me also feels she should be wrestling with this decision a lot more.
3 Things I Don’t Like
3. An Easy Sacrifice?
Edward makes it clear—not in so many words—that sex is off the table for he and Bella.
No matter how much he’s improved his self-control, it won’t extend that far.
There’s also the issue of how “breakable” Bella is, and how easily he might kill her simply by accident.
And Bella is just okay with this, almost as if it doesn’t register at all. Maybe as she gets a little older and their relationship progresses, it’ll become a bigger sticking point. But even if she’s willing to accept this right away—whether for Edward’s peace of mind or for her own safety—you’d think there would be at least some sense of disappointment.
2. James Is Late to the Party
The villain, James, doesn’t show up until page 375—three quarters of the way into the book. And it’s not like he was looming over the book before that—we didn’t know of his existence. We just had some vague notion that other vampires are out there, and they don’t live the same way the Cullens do.
I actually spent most of the book wondering what the main conflict was. Surely, it couldn’t have just been between Bella and Edward, until he came around and started being nice to her.
And the fact that she starts sneaking around with Edward behind everyone’s backs—Charlie and her friends—wasn’t nearly enough. Even the tension between the Cullens and the Blacks wasn’t enough, considering the Blacks are barely in the story.
I’m not sure how I would’ve done it differently, but the book feels surprisingly drama-free until the end of the baseball game.
1. Cringy Romantic Dialogue/Inner Monologue
“Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn’t get used to it, though I’d been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”
Bella Swan
So this is where I have to accept that the book isn’t aimed at me. I won’t harp on how ridiculous it is when Bella goes on and on about Edward’s perfection in every way, especially since I really did genuinely like the book. It’s just that these parts—which permeate pretty much the whole book—made me feel pretty weird as I read them.
Tim Matassa
