Plot or Premise

Isabella Swan moves to live with her father in Forks, Washington, and is stressed about starting life in the small town, meeting new people in the high school, fitting in. Until she meets one of the locals, Edward Cullen, and her life takes a strange turn.

What I Liked & Didn’t Like

It’s hard to write a review of the original book 20 years after it became a global phenomenon. Cutting straight to the chase, Edward and his friends are socialized vampires who hide their identity while living in a small town and attending the local high school even though they are LONG past high-school age in vampire years.

I love the initial pacing as the author introduces Bella and all her angst about moving to a small town, fitting in, getting to know the locals, wondering if she’ll ever have friends again. Bella sees Edward, and his broader adoptive siblings, but they generally avoid others and stick to each other. All any of the other highschoolers know is they are always together and drop-dead gorgeous.

Then Bella starts interacting with Edward, and some weird things start to happen. A truck sliding out of control towards Bella is stopped by Edward with merely an arm; Edward seems to have superhuman strength and speed. And Bella’s new friend Jacob, a kid from the local Indigenous community, seems to have a hate on for all of the Cullens, despite everyone else seeming to like him AND Jacob normally likes everyone else.

Eventually, Bella figures it out, and gets to meet the rest of the vampire family. When things really start to go weird as she learns to interact and experience amazing things with them, like the infamous baseball scene. Kind of like watching superheroes play sports.

Now for the controversy. There is a LOT of criticism for the series for its less-than-literary writing (not everything needs to be Shakespeare or Twain) or the overemphasis on teenage angst (hello, it’s supposed to be about first crushes and teenage obsession, intensified by coupling with a vampire). However, perhaps the largest criticism was the unequal power relationship between Edward, as a super old vampire with powers who just looks like a teenager, and Bella, who is literally just a young woman feeling certain things for the first time…and some concern that perhaps what she is feeling is brought on by the pheremones/charms that Edward exudes. I confess that it didn’t particularly bother me, generally because Edward doesn’t come off all that mature most of the time nor does it seem malicious. He’s certainly arrogant and condescending towards Bella, although it is primarily condescension towards weaker humans than her specifically.

Overall, I could maybe knock the rating down a star for the writing or a different star for the relationship imbalance, but ultimately, I have to jack it back up for the excellent world-building. I could do without some of the angst, but well, I was never the primary audience.

The Bottom Line

Come for the vampires, stay for the world-building