Well, I did it. I finished Twilight, and in record time at that! (Record slowest time . . . I haven’t heard of a single person who took more than 2 days to finish this book, which I far surpassed with an incredulous length of FIVE days!! Yikes!) So by this point, I have no doubt you are all about to pee your pants with excitement and anticipation in hopes of hearing my take on it. Here you go . . .
It was good. It was fine. It was even an easy, pleasant read. But I just didn’t love it. Of course I did dive into the Twilight phenomenon planning on not liking it –I don’t have a problem admitting that– but there is certainly more to it than that. Before starting Twilight, I had just finished the most amazing book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. It was beautifully written, emotionally powerful, and historically accurate; my kind of book. So to follow it with a young-adult book that described the central character as nothing more than “beautiful,” an “angel,” “stone cold,” and always with a “mocking” smile, it was disappointing. And how many times can an engine “roar to life”? There was a lot of repetition; it was slow moving, and very simple. It was cheesy and a bit forced. I got bored fast. There were catchy and intriguing moments, and I can see how so many people have been able to sink right in to these books. It just didn’t quite do it for me.
In the midst of this whole delightful experience, I was awake one night thinking about the Twilight fascination. I can understand the appeal this book holds for so many others. It stirs up long forgotten feelings of first love, or else it reawakens secret little desires that never played out how we wanted. So the appeal is either in remembering or in wishing for something that didn’t happen.
I remember those high school feelings all too well, and the difference between me and so many Twilight fans, I think, lies in the fact that reliving the feelings was not a fun thing for me. I loved high school. I had the cool boyfriend, I had the big group of friends, I went to the dances and the pep-rallies. It was great. But I’m over it! I have moved on. I’ve come a long way since then, and I’ve changed a lot as a person. High school was a lifetime ago, and I’ll keep it there. All the memories seem so trivial to where I am in my life now, and being so acutely reminded of it from Twilight made me a bit uncomfortable.
Still awake and thinking about this stuff, my mind drifted to what didn’t make me uncomfortable. I remembered an FHE where we played soccer, and this crazy guy showed up even though he had just broken his hand hours before. I remembered the first time that same guy finally got up the guts to call me and invite me out to watch him play “real” soccer. I remember his roommates strategically leaving us for their rooms so this guy would maybe one day actually kiss me. I remember when he finally did. I remember the first time he casually called me his girlfriend. I remember so many nights sitting on the nasty apartment sofas talking about anything. I remember when he told me he loved me. I remember him so matter-of-factly stating that he was pretty sure “one day” our relationship would lead to marriage. Those memories are what got my all insides all jittery and filled my stomach with little butterflies. Those memories are the ones that left me with a longing to be relived.
So, if anyone knows a book about a blonde bombshell falling in love with a short goofy noob, let me know. I bet that one would do for me what Twilight did for just about everyone else!
