Immaculate Obsession

The first installment in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga follows an misleadingly simple plot. Girl, daughter of divorced parents, goes to live with father in small Northwestern town. In trying to fit in in the ridiculously small high school, girl unwittingly falls for “gorgeous”, reclusive boy. Relationship develops, girl gets into trouble, boy saves girl. Simple, yes? Don’t let the plot’s simplicity fool you. The complication, in this book as in a great number literary works, comes from the nature of the work. Isabella Swan (Bella to her friends), is the ‘girl’ in this story, as well as being narrator, protagonist, and self-described as exceptionally plain. The boy she falls in love with is named Edward Cullen, member of the wealthiest and most reclusive family that inhabits the small town Bella moves to.

The character difference that Edward (and by extension his family) brings to the conflict is that they are all vampires. Bella, in the course of getting closer to Edward, discovers this, and in an almost shockingly suicidal moment (given the nature of vampires as depicted in popular culture) decides she doesn’t care and wants to be with Edward.

Let me take a moment to say that this is not an easy review to write. Especially because this will be part one of essentially four reviews, its difficult to know where to begin. This book, and indeed the entire saga, is quickly characterized and tossed away as being ‘Young Adult Fantasy Romance”, but that is far too mcuh of an over-generalization. First of all, if this is “Young Adult”, then so is the majority of all published Science Fiction and Fantasy. Just becuase the characters are depicted as being high-school age does not make it irrelevant to those of us not in high school. Its themes and character development show a promise found lacking in a great number of strictly adult fictional novels.

Second, if this is truly only a romance, then perhaps I should be reading more romances. I have read books with no romantic element what-so-ever that contain less suspense and action than Twilight. Does the book focus heavily on romance? Yes. And perhaps too much if the reader is coming from Military or Space Opera Science Fiction, where the conflicts and settings are so large that almost no chance is given for character development on a major scale.  I submit, however, that at no point is the action sacrificed for the romance.

Turning away from my defense of the story and returning to my critique, there are some very good and rather annoying things about the book. On the plus side, the book is filled with a driving tension from the moment the word ‘vampire’ is read. Reading the story, I felt like I was infinitely waiting for the other shoe to drop: a girl is deliberately choosing to spend her time with a group of people who need to suck blood, preferrably human, to stay alive. Despite the fact that Edward’s family is self-described as ‘vegetarian’ (a vampire inside joke denoting that thye only drink animal blood rather than hunt humans), the inherent horror-movie-esque strain is still there. It is relieved, somewhat at the end of the story when Bella becomes a damsel in distress at the hands of a non-’vegetarian’ vampire, but the tension is still there.

On the negative side, Bella has some truly annoying moments. For 80% of the book, her character is well-developed, realistic to a point, and likable. Towards the very end, when she seems obsessed with Edward turning her into a vampire in order to be with her forever, she cna only be described as petualnt at best. The idea of giving up her mortal life for her undead beloved is quite noble, but she seems to be blinded as to what it actually will mean. She seems more like a reckless, love-sick teen in those final moments than at any other point in the book, despite the constant descriptions of how Edward sets her knees a-tremble. Edward, at least, is fully aware of what his lifestyle means, and refuses to turn her.

Now, we’ve done a little plot summary and a little critique, so how best to wrap this up? I believe I can only say that Twilight was well worth the read, and would be for anyone who enjoys a broad spectrum of literature. It may be the hopeless romantic in me dying to get out, but I devoured this book. The dramatic tension drives you through the book, and the character development makes every page worth it. By it, spread it, and remember that love just might still be alive, even in the undead.

Also, stay tuned for my reviews of the next three books in this series, and please leave comments or questions here or in the forum at this review’s response page.