Thousands upon thousands of teenage girls have fallen for the (seemingly never-ending)Twilight series, yet I've emerged from the first novel unmoved and utterly disappointed. Several friends, readers themselves who I respect, even admire, responded so excitedly when I'd bring the book to class and read it under the desk, with variations of "I LOVE that book"
...Really?

The characters, bland and predictable. The plot, bland and predictable. The novel gives off the unprofessional aura of Fanfiction, complete with Mary-Sues and bad writing.

The main character is Bella, the plain average girl who is somehow actually not plain or average at all. Despite her new-girl categorization, she is the subject of three mortal teenage boys' affection before the first dance. Her only bad trait is clumsiness, which really can be quite sexy, and so can't really be called a bad character trait. I could not find any respect in Bella's character. And then there were the gender-degrading "damsel in distress" moments that simply seem to prove Edward's vampire-strength and brute power over Bella.

I simply could not get over the Mary Sue-ish-ness of this character with whom the audience is supposed to relate.

And then there's Edward-the-Vampire. His family of vampires have special abilities, and he can hear minds. And the reason why he likes Bella is because her blood smells good and because her mind is unreadable. Their love is just too shallow. (And doesn't their love sound suspiciously like a less thought-out version of Sookie and Bill's relationship of The Southern Vampire Mysteries?)

But I put up with the nonsense. I read and I read, enjoying the hatred that grew inside me for the book. But once the story got to the "Vampire Baseball" bit, I could not read it anymore. It was just too... stupid.

And so this review will end on that frank term that I like to call the book. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


(Please, all Twilight fans, comment away)