Product Description

Deeply sensuous and extraordinarily suspenseful, TWILIGHT captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.Isabella Swan+s move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella+s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #874 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780316160179
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat."

As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.

Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell

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10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Stephenie Meyer

Q: Were you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? What are you watching now that those shows are off the air?
A: I have never seen an entire episode of Buffy or Angel. While I was writing Twilight, I let my older sister read along chapter by chapter. She's a huge Buffy fan and she kept trying to get me to watch, but I was afraid it would mess up my vision of the vampire world so I never did.

I don't have a ton of time for TV, and my kids get rowdy when I have on "mommy shows," but I do have a secret fondness for reality shows (the good ones, at least in my opinion). I always TiVo Survivor, The Amazing Race, and America's Next Top Model.

Q: What inspired you to write Twilight? Is this the beginning of a series? Why write for teens?
A: Twilight was inspired by a very vivid dream, which is fairly faithfully transcribed as chapter thirteen of the book. There are sequels on the way--I'm hard at work editing book two (tentatively titled New Moon) right now, and book three is waiting in line for its turn.
I didn't mean to write for teens--I didn't mean to write for anyone but myself, so I had an audience of one twenty-nine year old (and later one thirty-one year old when my sister started reading). I think the reason that I ended up with a book for teens is because high school is such a compelling time period--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating memories. It's a fascinating place: old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval. There's a lot of scope for a novel in that.

Q: What is your favorite vampire story? Fave vampire movie?
A: I guess my favorite vampire story would be The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice, simply because it's one of the only ones I've ever read. I keep meaning to pick up Bram Stoker's Dracula, because I get asked this question so often and I should probably start with the classics, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Again, I'm afraid to read other vampire books now, for fear of finding things either too similar, or too different from my own vampire world.

Ack! I can't even answer the movie question. I can't remember ever seeing a single vampire movie, outside of clips from Bela Lugosi movies on TV. I don't like true horror movies--my favorite scary movies are all Hitchcock's.

Q: What other young adult authors do you read?
A: My favorite young adult author is L.M. Montgomery I also enjoy J.K. Rowling (but who doesn't?), and Ann Brashares. As a teen, I skipped straight to adult books (lots of sci-fi and Jane Austen), so I'm rediscovering the world of teen literature now.

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Stephenie Meyer's List of Books You Should Read

Anne of Green Gables

Romeo and Juliet

Dragonflight

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Princess Bride

See more recommendations from Stephenie Meyer

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Q&A with Stephanie Meyer

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: The book with the most significant impact on my life is The Book of Mormon. The book with the most significant impact on my life as a writer is probably Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier coming in as a close second.

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: The CD is easy: Absolution by Muse, hands down. It's harder to give myself just one movie, but the one I watch most frequently is Sense and Sensibility--the one with the screenplay by Emma Thompson. One book is impossible. I'd have to have Pride and Prejudice, but I couldn't live without something by Orson Scott Card and a nice, thick Maeve Binchy, too.

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: My lies are all very, very boring: "No, you really look great in hot pink!" "My children only watch one hour of TV a day." "I didn't eat the last Swiss Cake Roll--it must have been one of the kids." That's the best I've got.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: It's late at night and the house is silent, but I'm still (miraculously) full of energy. I have my headphones in and I'm listened to a mix of Muse, Coldplay, Travis, My Chemical Romance, and The All-American Rejects. Beside me is a fabulous, and yet mysteriously low in calorie, cheesecake....

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I'd like it to say that I really tried at the important things. I was never perfect at any of them, but I honestly tried to be a great mom, a loving wife, a good daughter, and a true friend. Under that, I'd want a list of my favorite Simpsons quotes.

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: I'd love to have a chance to talk to Orson Scott Card--I have a million questions for him. Mostly things like, "How do you come up with this stuff?!" But, if he wasn't available, I'd settle for Matthew Bellamy (lead singer of Muse).

Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: I'd want something offensive, rather than defensive. Like shooting fireballs from my hands. That way, you're really open to going either way--hero or villain. I like to have choices.

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From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 9 Up–Headstrong, sun-loving, 17-year-old Bella declines her mom's invitation to move to Florida, and instead reluctantly opts to move to her dad's cabin in the dreary, rainy town of Forks, WA. She becomes intrigued with Edward Cullen, a distant, stylish, and disarmingly handsome senior, who is also a vampire. When he reveals that his specific clan hunts wildlife instead of humans, Bella deduces that she is safe from his blood-sucking instincts and therefore free to fall hopelessly in love with him. The feeling is mutual, and the resulting volatile romance smolders as they attempt to hide Edward's identity from her family and the rest of the school. Meyer adds an eerie new twist to the mismatched, star-crossed lovers theme: predator falls for prey, human falls for vampire. This tension strips away any pretense readers may have about the everyday teen romance novel, and kissing, touching, and talking take on an entirely new meaning when one small mistake could be life-threatening. Bella and Edward's struggle to make their relationship work becomes a struggle for survival, especially when vampires from an outside clan infiltrate the Cullen territory and head straight for her. As a result, the novel's danger-factor skyrockets as the excitement of secret love and hushed affection morphs into a terrifying race to stay alive. Realistic, subtle, succinct, and easy to follow, Twilight will have readers dying to sink their teeth into it.–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 9-12. In the tradition of Anne Rice and YA titles such as Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss (1999) comes this heady romance that intertwines Bella Swan's life with that of Edward, an alluring and tormented vampire. Bella's life changes when she moves to perpetually rain-soaked Forks, Washington. She is instantly drawn to a fellow student, Edward Cullen, beautiful beyond belief and angrily aloof. Bella senses there is more behind Edward's hostility, and in a plot that slowly and frighteningly unfolds, she learns that Edward and his family are vampires--though they do not hunt humans. Yet Edward cannot promise that his powerful attraction to Bella won't put in her in danger, or worse. Recklessly in love, Bella wants only to be with Edward, but when a vicious, blood-lusting predator complicates her world, Bella's peril is brutally revealed. This is a book of the senses: Edward is first attracted by Bella's scent; ironically, Bella is repelled when she sees blood. Their love is palpable, heightened by their touches, and teens will respond viscerally. There are some flaws here--a plot that could have been tightened, an overreliance on adjectives and adverbs to bolster dialogue--but this dark romance seeps into the soul. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Customer Reviews

Good for a rainy day fantasy...
It seems this book has received massive amounts of acclaim, but I never heard of it until I decided to watch The Dark Knight. A preview for the movie Twilight came on and mentioned that it was based on the best-selling novel by Stephanie Meyer. Since the preview looked good and I prefer to read books before seeing the movie, I picked up a copy.

Now that you know why I purchased the book, I should also mention that I'm not necessarily the target demographic and haven't been for a few years. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the good YA fantasy fiction book every now and again. (I've been called a perpetual teenager on more than one occasion.)

I'm going to try and keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. In case you haven't already gathered it from other reviews, or the book description itself, Twilight is about a young girl named Bella Swan who moves to Forks, Washington and finds herself in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. The climax of the story happens when a vampire who doesn't abstain from feasting on humans, as the Cullen coven does, decides he wants Bella. Up until this point (first three quarters), the novel progresses at a moderate, but not lagging pace and then instantly picks up.

The book itself is a rather easy read, however, the characters seem somewhat shallow. Bella is supposed to be an honour student, but behaves exactly the opposite. Edward, who has been in existence for more than a hundred years, should be more intelligent and far wiser than is portrayed in his character. Armed with this tidbit about him, Meyer had plenty of room to play around and mold him into so much more, but never truly took that opportunity.

In fact, after finishing the first book (I've read both Twilight and New Moon), I wondered what a century old vampire might find utterly attractive in a seemingly average 17 year old girl, besides the fact that she smelled delectable, could pick out a common tune by Debussy, and had a penchant for identifying the mitotic phases of an onion. Even Bella herself wonders the same thing and makes it plainly obvious by asking almost every other page what this magnificent Adonis can possibly see in her, which became rather tiring.

(On another note, I'm still trying to figure out how any person with dark circles under his eyes and lavender eyelids can be likened to Adonis. It could just be me, but the way Meyer described their features, I couldn't help imagining a well-fed crack fiend half the time.)

While I don't understand how the love between Bella and Edward can be so true and deep as made out in the book, considering they only knew each other for a few months, I can understand how Bella formed such a strong attachment to Edward: he saved her life on more than one occasion and, in a sense, has become her personal Superman. Is this right thinking? Dunno, but I guess constantly saving a girl who can barely walk without tripping does equate to being inexplicably lovable.

By the end of the novel, I realized that Bella's character, though stubborn, was unbelievably insecure--more so than one would expect from the typical teenage girl--and Edward, arrogant as he can be, used this insecurity to his benefit (whether consciously or not), thus causing multiple crises of conscience for "putting [her] in harm's way".

When one really steps back from this novel and looks at the entire scope of it, the true dysfunction of their unhealthy relationship is obviously apparent.

Plus, Meyer's overuse of the word incredulous began grating on my senses, not to mention all the glaring, whining, cringing, grimacing, and her overwhelming need to append a "he said" or "she said" to almost every bit of dialog that transpired. (Surely, even truly young minds are able to keep up with the general flow of dialog). And let's not get started on the editing: You know the editor was asleep at the wheel, or either non-existent, when there's a glaring grammatical error within the first ten pages.

But, despite all of that, I enjoyed the book. Meyer is a wonderful storyteller. There was a cliffhanger at the end of each bite-sized chapter pressing the reader to continue on, if for no other reason than to see whom else is glaring or grimacing at whom. The story also had a light-hearted comedic edge which played in its favor.

Rather than feeling as though I were trudging through a heavy piece of fantasy fiction, I was able to let my mind relax and float into the story as if I were watching some strangely intoxicating reality show about a clumsy teenage girl and a thoroughly confused vampire. In the end, despite their flaws and not fully understanding their logic or reasoning, I even enjoyed the characters Meyer created.

This is a novel you should pick up when you just want to shut off your brain for a little while and escape reality. Basically, you shouldn't try to read this novel with too serious an eye. Ideally, it should be read while curled up in your most comfortable outfit eating your favorite snack with the lights dimmed, and television and phone turned off.

Best book of the decade? Really?
I seem to be the only teen/preteen girl who isn't obsessed with Twilight. Unlike the doting fangirls who seem to make up about 80% of the reviewers, I found it to be a bit like pudding~ simple and easy to swallow, but with absolutely no nutritional value.

{{WARNING! THIS PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILERS!}}
We all know the story: Isabella Swan (what a dumb name!) moves to the rainy town of Forks, Washington to live with her divorced father, who can't cook anything despite having lived on his own for years. Bella enrolls in the local high school and meets the impossibly beautiful Edward Cullen, who she falls madly in love with within the first few months of knowing him. That was the first half of the book--after that, there's a lengthy period where not much happens, we just get lots of purple descriptions of Edward's magnificence, and how Bella couldn't possibly be good enough for this "Adonis-like creature", blah, blah, blah. Then near the end, this random evil vampire shows up to kill Bella, and--* Gasp *!?--Edward comes to her rescue.

All of the characters are extremely flat and undeveloped (some, notably Eric, shouldn't even exist), except for the two leads, who are at least two-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. But am I seriously supposed to care about these people? The only character I did like was Jacob, because he had the essence of an actual person.

Twilight has got to be the most blatant reader insertion/wish-fulfillment scenario I've ever read. It might as well be told in the second person. I mean, what teenage girl doesn't want a gorgeous vampire boyfriend (Meyer's thinking)? This is made even more blatant by the fact that Bella is very much a blank canvas onto which the reader can project herself; she doesn't have much of a personality besides being clumsy and fainting easily basically so Edward can come save her, and we never even get a good idea of what she looks like. She has no goals or ambitions--she simply wants to be with Edward 24/7. [" `I would rather die than stay away from you.'"]

And that brings us to Edward. In case you haven't gathered this already, he's inhumanly beautiful, as we're reminded at least once on every page. We constantly hear about his "angel's face", his "perfectly muscled chest", his "flawless lips", his "gold-colored eyes", etc., etc. His only defining personality trait is being very, very moody.

The two leads love each other for incredibly shallow reasons. Bella loves Edward because he's beautiful and mysterious and has saved her butt on numerous occasions because of her own penchant for getting into damsel-in-distress situations. Perhaps it's understandable she's infatuated with him, but "unconditionally and irrevocably in love"? Not right. After the halfway point in the book, she becomes annoyingly obsessed with him, not wanting to be away from him for more than two minutes.
Edward loves Bella because she smells good and he wants to take a big bite out of her jugular vein. Really, Stephenie Meyer, you could've done better than that.
It's clear even to me that their relationship is not a healthy one--it often borders in the obsessive, including the fact that Edward is protective of Bella to the point of stalking her--but Meyer romanticizes and idealizes it so supposedly no one will notice or care.

The writing style is just mediocre, with a distinctly amateurish, almost fanfiction-like atmosphere to it, as if the author were purposely dumbing it down for the target demographic. The main problem is that the characters rarely just "say" anything. Almost always, they have to "muse" it or "agree" it or "retort" it or "promise" it or "mutter" it, a feature that gets annoying after a while. [" `Very different', I agreed."] Meyer also has a tendency to overuse adverbs and adjectives, clearly with the intent of stretching out sentences ["I followed two unisex raincoats through the door." "His low voice was cold."]. She doesn't seem to be able to mention Edwards's eyes--as she often does--without also noting their color. And didn't it bother anyone else how much cringing, grimacing, glaring, and scowling there is going on?
To conclude this rant about the writing style, I feel obliged to mention this wonderful line from early on in the book: "Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful."

There is no message to speak of... well, not a good one, anyway. There seem to be three here that are particularly wrong to be sending to the intended teenage female audience. The first is about the importance of external beauty. The second is about how life is not worth living without a man. The third is about how infatuation equals love, and that when you "love" someone, you should give up everything for them, even if it's dangerous to your well-being.

Twilight may be unoriginal, poorly written, and flimsy, but "boring" is one thing it's not. Despite at its heart being a true Meyer lemon (if you'll pardon the expression), it has a strange addictiveness to it that makes you want to keep reading through the mediocrity and trashiness. Perhaps it should simply be taken as mindless fun; you can enjoy it as long as you don't use your brain too much (i.e., at all). So when you're reading the book, just do as the song says...

"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."

~~LJB, age 12



(Just don't spend too much time reading it, or your IQ might drop a few points.)

Are you guys serious?
I don't get it. I just don't get it. I thought young adult fiction had hit its low point with Eragon, but apparently I was wrong. Bella Swan (literally, "beautiful swan," which should be a red flag to any discerning reader) moves to the rainy town of Forks, and the whining begins on page 1. She goes to live with her father Charlie, and is quickly established to be a mopey, ungrateful, self-pitying little toerag. Bella then attends her new school, which turns out to be an all-out caricature of high school with about zero (rounding up) grounding in real life. Her classmates' reaction can be summed up thusly: "OMG. NEW STUDENT. OMG YOU GUYS, NEW STUDENT. STARE AT HER, FOR SHE IS CLEARLY SUPERIOR TO US." Bella Sue is promptly adored by everyone in the school, except the mysterious Cullens, who spend their time brooding, being pretty, smoldering, being perfect, and sparkling. No, seriously. NO, SERIOUSLY. Bella meets Edward, the Culleniest of the Cullens, (meaning he is more perfect and emo than the rest of them,) they fall in love within thirty pages, (much of this time is spent in Bella's head going back and forth between "Does he like me?" "Does he hate me?" "Do I like him?" "Why does he hate me?" and on and on and on AND ON. That is, when she's not being a horrible snobby twit to the boys at school who show affection in genuinely sweet ways, i.e., not breaking into her house and watching her while she sleeps. While she sleeps. Not knowing that he's there. IN HER HOUSE.) The plot shows up somewhere in the last fifty pages, which involves an EVIIIIIILL vampire named James who wants to eat Bella. James is the only character I like.

I generally try to find something redeeming about books, but I honestly have nothing good to say about this drivel. Meyer writes as if the reader is an absolute idiot who has to be told every sing tiny little thing; we are never given the chance to interpret what's going on in the characters' heads. There is no mystery, no intrigue, no suspense. The characters themselves are cut-and-dried, stereotypical, and maddeningly unoriginal. Bella's (supposedly) the clever, beautiful heroine, Edward's the dark, brooding bad boy, James is... uh, the guy that wants to eat Bella. Meyer clearly wants Bella to be a strong female character, but the horrible sad truth is that she's pathetic. Bella follows Edward's every word religiously, never sticks up for herself, has no spine to speak of, plays Suzie Housewife to her father, and has no existence outside of her "romance" with Edward. On that note, let it be said that Nathaniel Hawthorne got more romance into a few lines about a rosebush than Meyer managed to cram into 400 pages. Edward and Bella's relationship consists almost entirely of staring at each other dewey-eyed and arguing about who's prettier (NO I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.)

You know what? This could have been a great book if Meyer had focussed more on the relationship between the leads, (and treated it for what it is: unhealthy, creepy, pathetic, borderline psychopathic,) and less on how perfect Edward is (interesting note: the word "perfect" or related terms like "flawless" are used to describe Edward more than a hundred times. That's just bad writing, guys.) What burns me up most about this book is that Edward and Bella are obviously meant to portray the perfect couple. Yeah, I really want my hypothetical daughter to walk out on her family for a guy she barely knows, invite said guy to sleep in her bed, have absolutely no life outside of said guy, and turn into a sniveling wreck when this guy looks at her the wrong way. And I also really want my hypothetical son to break into his girlfriend's house and watch her sleep (SERIOUSLY, GUYS?) , abandon whatever life he has so he can stalk this girl, and be so possessive of her that he throws a fit whenever she so much as looks at someone other than him. And people think these two are good role models? WHAT. JUST WHAT.

This book really wouldn't bother me if it were being taken for what it is: a silly, sappy, shallow, juvenile, wish-fulfilling rag. The fact is, everyone is going on about how its literary merit rivals the frakking "Scarlet Letter" and how Bella Swan is the new Elizabeth Bennet (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). "Twilight" should be rotting on some publisher's desk in a pile of rejection letters; not being lauded as the greatest novel since "Pride and Prejudice." I weep for literature.