Twilight

Title: Twilight (Twilight Saga #1)

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Publisher: Little, Brown

Year: September 2006 (Paperback)

Price: RM27.50

Pages: 498

About the book: When you discovered that the person you fell in love is an immortal vampire, what would you do? Would you sacrifice your mortality to become a part of it? Or would you just run to a safe place and be oblivious?

Thus Bella Swan, falling in love with a 108-year-old vampire Edward Cullen, wanted to be one too.

And knowing that vampires exist in this very world is not a good thing. Remember that, guys.

My thoughts: Twilight is a romance-fantasy novel, first in the Twilight series about human-vampire love. Well, when you read what the publisher got to say about this book, it stated: Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite. And I can assure you that’s quite true (but not the seductive part—I didn't feel seduced pun). For the suspenseful part, it seems the climax works. Mainly I would prefer just plain fantasy with a little bit of lovey-dovey in it, sure; and obviously romance is not my favourite, but the thing is, this book sure is good, lookin through both aspects. Yes, it has romance element in it, since it’s a romance novel, but then the plot and storyline is very well-written, thus making my perception of romance novels a bit less pessimistic. Besides that, I also like reading about the vampires. Meyer let them look like what we always see on tv but she tried not to make them exactly the same. Such as the vampires hates cross, it does not apply for Twilight's bloodsuckers. Then I thought vamps drank human blood, but Cullens do not. They drank animals'. Guess what Meyer call them? Vegetarian. Lol, seriously, that is funny-lah! Wonder if she considered the word herbivore? Haha.
However, though the book is good, I am not very excited about first-person perspective. Because the story must revolves only around one character at a time. This happens in Twilight and the other three books. Maybe Breaking Dawn, the last volume, can be an exception as it contains first-person perspective from two characters—Jacob Black and Bella Swan—hence provided more happenings. But all in all, Twilight is still an exceptional novel, a good debut from Meyer. Nonetheless Meyer wrote the first-person-perspective-storytelling in control, so I guess that’s my own problem for not liking how the story is told.

Though Bella is the main protagonists, I honestly love Alice Cullen more. She is absolutely adorable in this series! Well, maybe in Twilight, this 'adopted' sister of Edward still looks mysterious and a bit creepy, but then—in later sequels—when Bella start to hang out with her, look how it turned out! Alice is truly the centre of attention to me more than Bella is. I was disappointed in New Moon and Breaking Dawn to see that there were many events left without her. But then I realise, yeah, Bella's the main character. Alice couldn't be more popular than she is, right? Oh well.

Ah, the epilogue—how would Bella decide in the end? What would she choose, her family, or eternity? What an ending! Loved this one. The sequel comes with the title New Moon.

P/S: I like this book's cover! The publisher sure did a great job.

My suggestion: A good read for fantasy lovers, and romance too. Well, the story sure gave me some moments of surprises and suspense. All in all, I would give this novel 7.5 out of 10. Plus watch out for the movie—it's coming this December!