Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine if you will the epitome of an angsty teenage girl. She lived in an uneventful rural town. She held the age-old adolescent belief that she was tragically misunderstood and utterly unique. In actuality, she was an average, goody-two-shoes daydreamer desperate to escape from reality. Her extreme idea of Teen Rebellion™ was painting her nails black, being constantly morose, and giving obnoxious, unsolicited hot takes about the most inane things. She thought she was different and special. If she had had any self-awareness, she would have realized she was just another privileged, boring, white girl whose greatest life trauma was the onset of puberty. Her two biggest problems were gym class and the world moving around her much faster than her desire to grow up. But for a middle school girl, every small problem tends to become a major calamity, and likewise, every minor interest tends to become an outright fanatical obsession.

It was this girl who walked into a Scholastic Book Fair (which happened to be her Favorite Place in the World) circa 2005 and saw the most interesting book cover of all time. Now, this girl revered books as holy objects and had seen many intriguing cover designs during her short life, but this one put them all to shame. It was minimalistic—consisting of stark white hands on a solid black background. The hands held a blood-red apple practically begging for someone to bite into it. She snatched the book up at a quicker pace than her poor P.E. teacher had ever been able to coax from her during laps around the gym. If the front cover had not been alluring enough, the back cover held this oh-so-beguiling snippet:

“About three things I was absolutely positive.
First, Edward was a vampire.
Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood.
And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

The effect of these words was akin to a siren's call for the girl’s totally-(not-so-)unique pubescent brain. She made one of the easiest purchasing decisions of her life and took her new prize along to gym class so she could once again ditch mandatory physical activity for reading. She was instantly lost in a world where interesting things could happen to a boring, brooding book lover like her. She was drawn to a fictional immortal boy who was at once more compelling, dangerous, and chivalrous than the nightmarish 13-and-14-year-old males who surrounded her daily. Before she realized what was happening, she had become unconditionally and irrevocably smitten with this forbidden and charged-yet-chaste romance novel.

I think you would have to embody this middle school girl who was once me to understand just how fast and how hard I fell for Twilight back then. No book has captivated me the same way before or since—not even Twilight itself; my eyes felt glued to the pages when I read it that first time. I will always be grateful for how it landed in front of me at the perfect place and time. I was lucky enough to discover it while it was still brand new—before it became a big enough topic of discussion to be controversial. It was such a glorious time for us Twihards. Fansites were in their heyday and the films were still only fan-casted fantasies on our blogs. Back then, none of us could have imagined that Twilight would become a massive franchise that would be equally loved and loathed.

Whenever I reread this book as an adult, I can objectively appreciate the issues others have with it. I do not think any rational person would argue that it deserves to be held up first and foremost as the pinnacle of young adult literature. Is it a perfect book? Not in the slightest. But do you know who it was perfect for? It was the perfect book for that awkward, uncomfortable kid who would rather read than participate in the horror called Physical Education Class. It was the perfect book for a begrudging, barely teenager going through some of the hardest years of her admittedly privileged life. It was the perfect book for the girl looking forward to romantic love but terrified of the imminent entry into adulthood it would require to get there.

Even though I do not fanatically adore Twilight nearly as much as that girl-who-was-me once did, I will never forget how it felt to be her reading it for the first time. She was not concerned with critical analysis or potentially problematic subtexts. She did not consider whether fictional liaisons between humans and vampires represented healthy relationship dynamics. For her, stories were only meant to be taken at face value and used as an escape from the mundane world around her. Her adoration was blessedly untainted by the opinions of others. She was just a girl who loved books falling simply and hopelessly in love with a book. What more could any of us ask for?

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Postscript Notes:

• Twilight’s popularity has unfortunately led to it being critiqued as a serious piece of literature. But I think—like most trendy romantic fantasies—it became so popular because it’s highly consumable frivolity and not a serious piece of literature.


• I highly recommend Meredith Holley’s five-star and one-star reviews of Twilight. They are two of my favorite Goodreads reviews and make some excellent points.