Twilight

Last week, before going to Chennai, I went to Eloor lending library to pick up some “light-reading” books that will take me through the long afternoons when everyone else is sleeping.

I am one of those persons who can never sleep in the afternoons. When I am at home, this is a good time for me to catch up with pending office work / domestic chores. However, when I go on vacation, I tend to really scramble for things to do to make the time fly.

Anyway, for this trip, I picked up the following books from Eloor :

• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks

I picked up Twilight since there is a lot of buzz surrounding this book (it is actually a series of books), and there is even a movie coming out. I did not have a very high impression after reading the blurb at the back of the book. It sounded like a mushy love story between a school girl and a vampire. But, since the reviews have been good, I picked it up anyway.

Well, the book was exactly what the blurb promised it would be. Extremely disappointing for me. I was expecting something along the lines of Anne Rice novels, or at least something like Buffy – The Vampire Slayer TV series, which was also partly about a teenager who fell in love with a vampire. I used to be a huge fan of Buffy (when Sarah Michelle Gellar played the role). The script was really tight and there were a lot of surprises in store. But Twilight was the hugest disappointment. Considering that it is a vampire novel, there was scope to do so much. Instead, it comes across like any standard Mills n Boon ish kind of tale (extremely shallow).

The protagonist is the most milkiest girl I have ever come across. She is clumsy, quiet, shy, doesn’t have any personality at all. She falls in love with the god-like, handsome, and strong vampire ( the vampire also loves her back, but he also wants to eat her as she smells very tasty ! ). She is willing to give up everything for him – her friends, her family, her soul, even her life for him. The rest of the story deals with how he learns to control his carnivorous impulses, and protects her from other vampires who are not so self-controlled.

The book is full of the blahest love dialogues between the two of them. Consider the following example:

Bella : “Look, I love you more than anything else in the world combined. Isn’t that enough?”

Edward : “Yes, it is enough,” he answered, smiling. “Enough for forever.”

Another example:

Edward: Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars——-points of light and reason….And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliance, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything”

And tons more of the same (almost 500 pages)…This was a book that really took all my will-power to finish. Probably, the best thing about the book is the cover. I thought it was quite well-designed, very pretty and feminine (and somehow reflects the character of the heroine).

Although, I did not enjoy this book, I might just end up reading the rest of the books in the series:

• New Moon
• Eclipse
• Breaking Dawn

Somehow, when I start reading a book that is part of a series, I feel I must complete the entire series. This time though, I will take a long break before beginning New Moon. I just feel the need to take a break from this.

I should also be more careful what books I pick up in future and not get brainwashed into reading books that are so not my style.