Tag: Twilight

Retro Review: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Posted May 31, 2017 by Tracy in Reviews | 8 Comments

Retro Review: Twilight by Stephenie MeyerReviewer: Tracy
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Series: Twilight #1
Also in this series: Eclipse, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Breaking Dawn, Twilight, Twilight

Publication Date: July 18th 2007
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 544
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
five-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

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.Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

*****As part of our 10 year anniversary celebration, we’ll be re-posting old reviews that make us cringe, laugh or sigh all over again.

Holly: Ah, the Twilight craze. This book is responsible for a lot of young adults becoming steady readers – and a lot of adult women losing their mind over fake characters. Good times. 

This review was originally published April 20, 2008

So yesterday I took my oldest daughter to a birthday party and dropped her off. It was either sit and watch her go down huge inflatable slides (um, no thanks) or mosey around the nearest store since I had forgotten to bring a book (I know, what was I thinking?). So I drove to Target and immediately went to the book section. The very first book I see is Twilight. My friend Christine raves about this book but I had never read YA before so I hadn’t really given much thought to reading this one. I grabbed it off of the shelf but still looked around. Nothing else seemed to grab me so I bought Twilight, sat down in the food court and started reading.

ok – how stupid am I? Don’t answer that! When I put off reading books that people tell me that are great and then I finally read them that’s the first question I have to ask myself. I should know by now that my “book” friends just don’t steer me in the wrong direction! Example: books I’ve put off reading then kicked my self afterward: Dark Lover by JR Ward and the rest of the BDB series, the Dark-Hunter Series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy – you see the pattern.

That being said – I LOVED Twilight. I thought that it was a charming, sweet love story that had adventure & humor. Can you ask for more? Bella’s thoughts (and of course her dry humor and sarcasm) as she moves to a new town and starts a new school were so familiar to me since my family moved a lot up until I was about 20. Because of that I was immediatly drawn into the story and then just couldn’t put the book down.

I don’t think I’ll be putting off reading these highly recommended books any longer. And I certainly won’t not read a book just because it’s labeled YA.

Rating: A+/ 5

five-stars

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Review: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Posted November 1, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 6 Comments

Review: Twilight by Stephenie MeyerReviewer: Rowena
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Series: Twilight #1
Also in this series: Eclipse, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Breaking Dawn, Twilight, Twilight

Publication Date: February 26th 2009
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 464
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

When 17 year old Isabella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father she expects that her new life will be as dull as the town.
But in spite of her awkward manner and low expectations, she finds that her new classmates are drawn to this pale, dark-haired new girl in town. But not, it seems, the Cullen family. These five adopted brothers and sisters obviously prefer their own company and will make no exception for Bella.
Bella is convinced that Edward Cullen in particular hates her, but she feels a strange attraction to him, although his hostility makes her feel almost physically ill. He seems determined to push her away - until, that is, he saves her life from an out of control car.
Bella will soon discover that there is a very good reason for Edward's coldness. He, and his family, are vampires - and he knows how dangerous it is for others to get too close.

 

 

Oh, Twilight.

I remember the first time I read this book. My friend Izzy had read and loved this book. She gushed and gushed over this book until I finally agreed to read it and after I read it, I was glad that she was my best friend because she introduced me to Edward Cullen. We were those old ladies that were drooling over a forever teenager. We liked Edward before he was cool.

That first time, I inhaled this book. I read it so fast that I had to read all of my favorite parts again because I was annoyed with myself for reading through this book so fast.

It’s been a few years since I’ve picked up this book and I wanted to see if it would hold up to my love for it so I read it again and while reading it again bring back a lot of welcome memories, the story itself and Edward didn’t hold up this time around. This time around, Edward was so much more creepy in a way he wasn’t before. Let’s be real, he stalked Bella. He watched her while she slept. He was protective in a way that wasn’t exactly healthy. In short, the dude was on the creepy side.

I have to wonder if the books didn’t as popular and the movies didn’t burst onto the scene, would I still love this book as much as I did?

I’m not sure.

While I’m on my rant about this book and what made Edward a little creepy monkey, let’s talk about Bella. Edward has been alive or undead I should say, for hundreds of years and in all that time- he’s never felt anything as strong as what he feels for Bella?

Seriously? What is so great about Bella that she would warrant such adoration from one of the hottest guys on the planet?

Can she karate chop you into next week? Can she sing like the angels above were shining golden sprinkle dust upon your head? Is she an amazing athlete that you can’t take your eyes off? No to all of that. She’s just your regular bumbling idiot of a teenage girl who mumbles and who has a case of the woe is me syndrome.

I will say that Stephenie Meyer has a way with weaving a story that makes you really sit up and take notice. While she’s waxing on strong about how in love both Edward and Bella are, you can’t help but fall in line and love with everything she writes. It’s only after you put the book down and really think about what you just read that you’re wondering what the hell is wrong with you that you would lust after a creepy stalker guy with bad taste in women. In the way of plots and everything, this story is pretty simple. Not a lot is going on in this story but that doesn’t stop you from eating up every word. That’s gotta count for something.

I don’t think I could do a re-read of New Moon and I know for damn sure that I won’t ever pick up Eclipse to re-read because reading it the first time nearly gave me a concussion from the book bouncing off the wall I threw it at and almost nailing me in the head.

I will say that while I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did the first time I read it (even the second time), I can still see why it’s so popular among the twi-hards (Moms and daughters). The romance between Edward and Bella is what most women dream of. Someone to love them so intensely and so fiercely the way that Edward loved Bella. Everything that they went through in this book, everything that they felt was all laid out and it was easy to fall in love with but true love isn’t like that. Edward is a fictional character who is too perfect even when he’s being a bonehead.

The story revolves heavily around Edward and Bella and it was through this reading that I realized how two-dimensional everyone else is. You hear a lot about them and you get their story but their characters aren’t as well developed as Edward and Bella. I found myself wanting to know more about Bella’s Mom’s life in Arizona. I wanted more from the other Cullens, especially Carlisle (even though I hate the way he looks in the movies).

Overall, this story was good and it’s easy to see why the series is so loved around the world but for me, this time around, the book wasn’t perfect and still, I enjoyed it.

..and that’s your scoop!

4 out of 5

Buy the book: B&N|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com

four-stars

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Hero of the Month: Edward Cullen.

Posted July 2, 2010 by Rowena in Features | 8 Comments


When I first started blogging, my book blog was Sanctuary’s Finest but then we shut that blog down to start fresh and Book Binge was born. At both of those blogs, I had a weekly feature that later became a monthly feature about my heroes.

I called it Hero of the Month.

I stopped doing it over at Book Binge because we started spotlighting our favorite authors and we played a fun voting game and crowned a Last Hero Standing so it was kind of pointless to do a Hero of the Month but now that I have this nifty little place of my own, I’m going to bring Hero of the Month back and feature my favorite heroes from our YA books!

To start things off, I’m going to spotlight the one guy that I absolutely adored from the moment I started reading his first book, Twilight.

I can still remember picking this book up on the recommendation of my friends, Isabel and Holly. I remember not being able to put this book down and then finishing it and having to immediately start New Moon..and then having to wait on pins and needles for Eclipse.

I may not be a Twitard now but back when I first read these suckers, I had it bad…for Edward. I had it so bad that I used to fight over him with Izzy and Holly. We used to steal “Edward” from each other and be total boobs over him.

Yeah, we were those people.

The thing I loved the most about Edward was the intense love he had for Bella. He loved her so passionately that it should have been creepy but it wasn’t. The whole forbidden love thing that they had going on just had me on the edge of my seat, wanting more and more.

Then he would say things like:

“Bella, I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don’t know how it’s tortured me. The thought of you, still, white, cold… to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses… it would be unendurable. You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”

And…

“If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

..and then there was this one:

“Isn’t it supposed to be like this? The glory of first love, and all that. It’s incredible, isn’t it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?”

*sigh*

I seriously heart Edward Cullen, even though I could not stand the way that he let Bella treat him in Eclipse. In my heart of hearts, I’ll always be Team Edward. He was one of the first YA heroes that I read and fell in love with and so that is why he’s this month’s Hero of the Month.



What about you? Love Edward or hate him? Share your thoughts on this yummy sparkly vampire that I love oh so much!


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Twilight movie

Posted November 12, 2008 by Casee in Discussions | 16 Comments

It’s no secret that I haven’t read Twilight. Holly tried to get me to read it after it first came out. I didn’t do it for several reasons. 1) I don’t like 1st person. 2) I like sex and/or sexual tension between characters which seemed unlikely considering that it’s a YA book. 3) I really didn’t want to get hooked on another series. The fact that Holly tried to convince me, knowing my aversion to first person really speaks to how much she loved this book.

I’m glad I didn’t considering how the series went downhill for so many readers. Putting that aside, I was thinking about going to see the movie. Even though books are usually better than the movies, I wouldn’t have that problem. Then I got to thinking…for those who’ve read the book, do the movie characters look like what you’d imagine them to look like?

I’ve watched a lot of made for TV movies. Okay, I’ve watched a lot of Danielle Steel made for TV movies. The characters were never how I imagined them to be, which kind of messed with my head. I haven’t yet watched any of the Nora Roberts made for TV movies. The only actress I could actually see in the book was Heather Locklear in Angels Fall.

So tell me Twilight readers, are you going to go see the movie? What do you think about the actors that were chose to play your beloved Twilight characters?

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