Twilight, A Novel by Stephenie Meyer

Meyer, S. (2005). Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 498 pp.
Genre: Adolescent Literature, Future Award Winner, New York Times Best Seller, Fiction.

Twilight is a modern day love story about a young girl named Bella Swan who finds herself in a new situation discovering new romances with one very suspicious male, Edward Cullen. After moving to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father, Bella begins school in a new place and tries her best to fit it. She makes several friends, but is particularly captivated by the mysterious and unbelievably gorgeous Edward Cullen. Bella suspects that something is not quite normal about him from the start because she witnesses his appearance go from cool, calm, and gorgeous, to angry, solemn, and black-eyed. As Bella lives her life day to day thinking of nothing but Edward and obsessing about his every move, she is dying to get to know him better and to discover what makes him different. She has no real proof that he is actually "special" until he performs an act of heroism and saves her from being crushed by a vehicle in their high school parking lot. After weeks of wondering and questioning, Bella and Edward have formed a very close bond and he feels comfortable telling her the truth. The truth is that he is a vampire, but not just your typical vampire. His people hunt animals instead of humans in order to maintain the most normal life possible; not to mention he hasn't aged a day since he was taken into the vampire world and was technically born in June of 1901. Although he knows it is not the brightest idea to be romantically involved with Bella because her smell is more tantalizing to him than any other humans smell, he cannot resist her. And although Bella should be scared to death to risk being in a relationship with a vampire, she too cannot draw herself away from her true love. The only way for Bella and Edward to be able to be together forever is for him to turn her into a vampire as well. Will she ever become a vampire?...that is still left to be determined.

Meyer does a great job at going into great detail with her characters. I felt as though through her descriptions I could accurately predict exactly the kind of people Edward and Bella were (which would be kind of hard not to know about Edward seeing as to how the majority of this book describes his gorgeousness and perfect everything every other page). The other characters in the book, such as Bella's father, Charlie Swan the Police Chief, were given just enough detail to add a more interesting story line to the novel, without taking attention away from Bella and Edward. It is very interesting that the plot of this novel is about a vampire love story, and these books have done so well. I think that this type of book is definitely not one that I would have thought I would have been interested in, but it was written so well that it keeps you on your toes throughout the entire read and you just have to know what happens next. What's really neat about this novel is that even though it is a fantasy, it is still somewhat set in a realistic situation and the characters are still easy to connect to. As far as adolescent development, this story contains a lot of social and emotional aspects that teens can relate to. Not only does Bella have to move to a new school and make new friends, but she also winds up falling for the one guy that no one seems to be okay with. I think that many kids could connect to the feeling of having to adjust to a new social setting and could relate to Bella in the awkwardness of that situation. The story is also emotional because it is about a forbidden love that is being fought for, and many teens can connect to that issue as well. This book addresses multicultural issues by having several different characters that are of different races and social classes. Edward is from a rich family ( his adopted vampire father is a doctor), and Bella is just a typical middle class daughter of a Police Chief, yet they still connect. There are also several different characters that are different races and one man is confined to a wheelchair, but none of them are discriminated against in any way in the text.

This book would be best suited for an individual choice read, because it would probably be pretty hard to incorporate into an actual classroom learning activity that is relevant. But, books like this one are definitely getting kids reading which is awesome so I would highly recommend it.

Although this book is considered adolescent lit, and should probably be said that it would fit best from ages 11 to 18, I'm going to say that it is also good for adults because I loved it!

I personally truly enjoyed this book and could not put it down. I don't know that I would recommend it to my male students, because it does have a lot of very girly " I love hot boys," moments in it. But I would for sure recommend it to any female student who was interested in a fun read, or male students if they wouldn't mind all the "mushy gushy" stuff. Although some might say that vampire love stories are somewhat of a "lost genre" I would say that Stephenie Meyer has definitely turned that trend around.