Before I begin this long requested rant, I feel the need to inform you all of something. I have indeed read the novel Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I read it from page one, cover to cover. I read the preview for the next ‘novel’. I read the authors biography, and I was not impressed in the least. Recently, this book has gotten quite a bit of publicity, hype, and popularity. I can’t say that I understand why that is. The book wasn’t particularly interesting…at all. The characters were two dimensional and lacking personality, and the ‘plot’ didn’t make its appearance until the last five or so chapters of the book (if that), and it was pulled out of thin air. I’ve browsed this site and seen fan-fictions for a book that might as well be a fan-fiction itself; I’ve seen fanarts, stamps and other pieces of artwork proclaiming its ‘absolute greatness’. It’s been compared to Harry Potter and other popular works of fiction, and I’m getting sick and tired of it. I’ve seen rants of this type before, and I feel it’s finally my turn to get my opinion out there.

Bella
The main character of the novel, and possibly one of the most annoying ‘heroines’ I’ve ever read about over the course of my life. She spends the entire book whining about how ordinary she is, how plain. She’s completely normal in every way, and yet everything that happens in the book, from her point of view mind you, contradicts that. The moment she arrives at the school, boys start fawning over her. While everyone is as nice as nice can be, she pushes them all away. Three different boys asked her to a SADIE HAWKINS dance (for those of you who are not aware, a Sadie Hawkins dance is a dance in which the girls ask the boys), and yet she still doesn’t get the hint that there are numerous boys at least mildly interested in her.

Besides the fact that she’s ‘normal’ she’s also one of the slowest, and yet flawless characters I’ve ever seen. She has no faults. Her unbelievable clumsiness (with unbelievable being no one is that uncoordinated all of the time) is meant to be a fault, and yet she herself remarks that its ‘cute’ from the perspective of everyone else in the school she attends. All it does is make her seem like even more of a damsel in distress from the reader’s point of view. It doesn’t give her any depth, and seeing as the entire book is told from her point of view, that really is a shame. She unbelievably shallow, falling for Edward’s looks (seeing as he has no personality) and nothing else. This is further confirmed by the fact that the majority of the book is her thinking about how incredibly gorgeous Edward is in the first place.

Any attempt to make her seem bright (as in her Biology class) failed miserably. She turned down three boys asking her to a dance, saying that she was going to take a trip to Seattle, which was a decent and believable excuse ruined by the fact that Edward Cullen, who seems to hate her at the beginning of the book, offers to take her to Seattle (they’ve had one ‘intelligent’ conversation by this point) and she automatically agrees, with very little thought or hesitation. If you, as a fan or anyone else for that matter, agrees with allowing a strange boy you hardly know drive you to a city miles away from where you live where you might never be seen again, PLEASE, explain yourself to me. Seeing as he also made her cry on her first day (which hardly make sense seeing as she was perfectly fine with anyone else ‘dissing’ her, and don’t you DARE tell me that Edward was the last straw.) this is highly illogical.

Along with exploits such as this one, she also dove into her ‘relationship’ with Edward one an obsessive whim. Please take note that I did not use the word ‘romantic’. After he followed (or rather stalked her) into the city, her rescues her from yet another situation in which she was going to be attacked (he also rescued her from being crushed by a car) she decides that she is in love with him. She also learns that he is a vampire, but because she is so incredibly in love with him, she completely disregards the threat to her life. Keep in mind that this is after she has a talk with Jacob Black (a character who had potential before he dropped off the face of the Earth) and does some research herself, after not having any reaction to what he says at all. As a character, she just doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t believable for her not to have any reaction at all except saying that she was scared one time, and not doing anything to act on that statement.

One last note on Bella Swan—she is the queen of anything and everything related to a Mary Sue. This is taken to an extreme I didn’t think was possible for an original novel. She has no faults (her being accident and trouble prone is not, and I repeat, NOT a fault), she has no personality, and she has to have her knight in shining (Edward Cullen) save her in any and every situation. Edward is able to read everyone else’s mind, but not hers and his attraction to her blood is ‘dangerous’. She doesn’t think for herself or act on her own, and while she is ‘ordinary’, everyone she meets seems to fall for her at the same time. From her name to her actions, she is every inch a Mary Sue. If you are unsure about what this is, please, take a look on Wikipedia or some other source. I’m sure it’ll make sense after that.

Edward Cullen
Most Twilight fans (I’m not putting everyone into this category…) are hardcore Edward fans for reasons I can never, and will never be able to comprehend. He is the ‘perfect’ man, simply because the author didn’t give him any faults other than the fact he is an unbelievable, bipolar, sorry excuse for a vampire. Most of the book concerns Bella talking for paragraphs upon paragraphs about how beautiful, gorgeous, perfect, faultless and handsome he is, and as most of the book is dialogue, we get no looks into his thoughts (not that I would want to) and his ‘personality’ is never established. He can’t decide on how to act, and is the king of all Mary Sues (or Gary Stus…whatever it is you want to call him.)

You never once get a description of him besides the hundreds of times Bella refers to how gorgeous he is, and his eye and hair color, along with how pale and cold his ‘perfectly sculpted chest’ is. Words used to describe him ranged from ‘beautiful’ to ‘gorgeous’ to a ‘statue of Adonis’ sitting on her bed. There were also quite a few other words I’m sure are not in Bella’s vocabulary. It is also established that he is a stalker (for those you reading this, if watching some random girl from your school through her second floor window while she’s sleeping is not stalking, then there is something wrong with your sense of judgment), not to mention that his ‘love’ for Bella is highly unbelievable.

I was going to use this paragraph to rant about how Edward and other vampires sparkle in the sunlight, but I don’t even know if it’s worth it.

Every other male in the series was added to make Edward look even more perfect by the reader’s standards. Seeing as Bella (with her flawless logic and intelligence) can see no fault in him but sees all the ‘faults’ of others, he must be perfect in every way, and nothing is ever set up to dispute that. Every boy wants to be him because he’s hooked up with the oh so ordinary and normal Bella Swan. Every girl wants to date him, but he doesn’t date (except for Bella). His obsessive nature (as proven earlier by the mention of his stalking) is something that should worry Bella, but doesn’t. There’s a difference between being jealous, which is normal, and freaking out the moment someone so much as breathes in Bella’s direction, which he does indeed do. Also, please remember that Bella is flattered by this. Yes, flattered.

His love for Bella seems to be very superficial. He claims to love her, and yet the moment he has the chance to act on it (and his ‘vampire’ nature for that matter) he passes it up. When he rescues Bella from her potential rapists, he had every possible chance to rip out their throats for attempting to harm his beloved. He seems to rant about it for a few pages and then stops. He also had a chance to kill the villain, and he of course passed this up. It’s as if the author is afraid to have him take any drastic, killing type of action, instead having other characters dirty their hands. There were no scenes of him doing his so called ‘hunting’, and nothing was done to make him seem even slightly like the ‘monster’ that he claims he is. It’s really sad, because things like this could possibly give him depth, development, FAULTS. This wasn’t even attempted.

Villains and Other Vampires
Quite simply, there were no villains. The two or so that did appear had no depth, personality or time in the novel. They were brought in at the very end (after having no history on such beings…most of the vampire ‘history’ concerned the angsty past of Edward and the other vampires), showed up did some ‘evil’ things, and then disappeared. Evil being in quotation marks seeing as he is a VAMPIRE and was acting on instincts, doing what to him was natural, and what was to others evil. Also, the villains fell into every stereotype of the evil, ugly (they weren’t pretty like Edward) calculating evil doers. They can’t be bright, seeing as they tricked Bella, who goes against all common sense in the first place, into coming to her dance studio and being beaten into a pulp only to be saved by Edward once again.

As for the other vampires…besides having a past that was remarked on briefly, we learn very little about them, except that some have powers like Edwards, and while they had potential, like Jacob for example, it was basically overshadowed by Bella’s lack of thought and Edward’s…well. He’s Edward. The king of Mary Sues. There’s little to explain.

The ‘Plot’
The ‘plot’ which is Bella being kidnapped (of course) begins within the last few chapters, giving Bella another chance to once again act on her stupidity. A vampire is after her blood in particular, so they help her escape, she breaks her father’s heart and ‘runs away’, only to receive a call from the above evil vampire. Even though Alice (one of the good vampires that had potential as a character…) who can see the future is sitting in the next room, Bella leaves Edward a note, disappears and doesn’t bother to even think about whether it’s a trap or not. As such, she is beaten to a pulp. Edward and company go after Bella of course. Others are sent to kill the evil vampire (whose name I can’t remember…I must have blocked it out) and we learn that Bella has been bitten and is going to turn into a vampire. Edward absolutely has to suck the blood out, because there is no one else in the room who can do it, even though Edwards is drawn to Bella’s blood like a moth to a light…and he sucks it out, drinking and tasting her blood, which he craves, and not even bothering to go a little bit crazy for us. Because even as a vampire, he loves her that much. Seriously. After she is saved, they take her to the hospital, she gets better and Edward takes her to prom. The end.

I say that this is the plot because the other four hundred pages of the book consisted of Bella thinking about Edward and how perfect he is as he sparkles in the sun.

Conclusion
I don’t know if I’ll be flamed for this or anything. All I know is that with all the popularity out there, it needed to be said. I have nothing against the fans who can think for themselves, as many of my friends are fans as well. If you’re going to flame, however, I have no respect for you or your opinion, as you obviously enough don’t respect mine. I know that there is a small population of people out there who agree with this, whether they are fans or not, and I’d love to hear from you.

If you are going to flame, or attempt to defend this ‘book’, please answer the following questions in detail.

1.Describe Edward Cullen in detail. This includes looks (you are only allowed to mention his beauty once), personality, faults (yes faults) and what makes him a great character or a perfect man without the mention of his looks or lack of faults.
2.Do for Bella what you did above. Describe her, defend her, and tell me what makes her great and believable.
3.What makes you love this book so much? And I don’t want to hear anything about ‘true love’ either.
4.Explain the plot, and what makes it ‘gripping’. All I can call it is mind numbing and nonexistent.

In other words, defend this book with actual reasoning. THAT is an opinion. I’d love to hear it.