Twilight

Cindy Lai (赖晓君)，Class 1

Have you ever dreamed of the pure Platonic love between you and your lover? Have you ever consider what will you do if you find out that your lover is not a human, or rather a vampire? Has it ever dawn on you that you do want to experience a hell love in spite of anything? I really do. Maybe that is the reason for Twilight being so popular all around the world. Every American girl likes Twilight, my foreigner teacher told me so. Now please follow me to begin the journey of this book, and you will find out the dreamy witchcraft used by the writer, Stephenie Meyer.

Bella moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father. Bella settles down at a new school. When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems totally repulsed by her. Their relationship changed when Bella is nearly run over by a classmate's van. Edward saves her life with his bare hands. Bella becomes determined to find out how Edward did that. Then she comes to know that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love. Their relationship is disturbed when another three vampires sweep into Forks. James, a tracker vampire, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to save her. But when Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before she is killed, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and defeats James. At last, Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses.

The first time I saw this book, I was deeply attracted by its cover. A pair of pale and helpless hands is holding a carmine apple, as carmine as blood. It’s not a piece of sanguinary picture, but it makes me feel scared. Stephenie Meyer has stated that the apple on the cover represents the forbidden fruit from the Book of Genesis. It symbolizes Bella and Edward's love, which is forbidden, similar to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It also represents Bella's knowledge of what good and evil are, and the choice that she has eaten the "forbidden fruit", Edward, or choosing not to see him. The cover successfully catch the eyes of readers.

I spent one month to finish Twilight, 434 pages, which is a difficult task I could hardly believe myself. I am crazy about this book! Once I pick it up, I can’t put it down. It has been hard for me to withdraw from Twilight. 

"Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I love. Noble, even. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end."  It’s the first sentence of the book, and also my favorite one. That’s the hell love. Though I haven’t experienced it, I think I could understand. It's not hard to imagine when Bella falls in love with Edward in first sight. The phrase "if looks could kill" confesses everything that is going to happen.

Every single moment that Bella spends with Edward is so splendid and sweet that I at times got lost in it with imagination and envy. When I read through the kiss scene, I could actually pictured the wonderful sight of the happening! Edward's kiss for Bella is always special and requires Bella's absolute still. Instead of eager kissing like normal humans, Edward would just press his cold lips against Bella's. "...he simply bent his face to mine, and brushed his lips slowly along my jaw, from my ear to my chin, back and forth..." When Bella moves over his restriction line, he then firmly holds Bella's shoulders and pushes her away in a way of warmness. He has to control himself so that he couldn't hurt Bella with his vampire instinct.

The book brings the book's name Twilight back at the end. "Twilight, again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end." It has many implications. Twilight might implies Edward and Bella's unfathomable and  unpredictable destiny. No one knows how their fate will change after twilight of everyday.

Many people may have negative reviews are by women and a few men that find fault in Bella's relationship with Edward and their characters because of charming princess damsel in distress personalities. This is a love story not a depressed and desperate housewife "real" love gone wrong in every sense story. If that is what you expect then you are reading, have read or are about to read the wrong book. This book is a novel, is not supposed to carry out a "message" nor supposed to be part of an agenda of how teenagers should behave or think, is not trying to present nor portray any "role models" etc, etc. The book is very entertaining and the love story is exquisite. Is that kind of love that we humans are not meant to find, especially in a selfish society like we live in today, where the first thing people look into a relationship is what the other person can do for you, not whether you like them or not, and that you need to have a "valid" reason to like them.

Bella is the average town girl who is lucky enough to be liked by the most desirable guy at her school. Edward is the perfect man, in all respects. He is good looking, caring and adores Bella with his life. What I believe makes this book so popular is that Bella is the "girl next door" you can relate to. She is not the prettiest girl in town, yet she is intelligent and humble and very caring towards her family (her father in this case). Other vampire books don't quite cut it (i.e. Vampire Diaries) whom some claim Stephanie Meyer's took most of her ideas from, has a self indulgent, shallow, selfish, mean and capricious teenager for the lead female role, very far from Bella's sweet and vulnerable personality.

If you believe that love at first sight is possible. If you like a sweet and "clean" teenager love story. If you like happy endings. If you believe that love prevails all.
If you think that is possible for a smoking hot guy to fall in love with the girl next door. If you just like a good relaxing story that takes you out of all the cold, calculated and manipulative relationships that we see everyday. If you can enjoy fiction without over analyzing it. You will fall in love with this book just life me!

If you do not like this book, you believe that love should be sort of like an equation (x amount of time will give you permission to receive x amount of love, etc, etc) no room for love at first sight or just loving someone unless a specific amount of time has gone by. You think that a "strong" female lead cannot be vulnerable and caring towards her father (i.e. Bella cooking and taking care of her father). You believe that obsession means when two people that love each other do not want to be separated under any circumstances. You do not like a love story and are seriously depressed and negative about love. You do not think love at first sight exists and neither willing to read about it in a fictional novel. You are too selfish to even love someone unless they are "contributing" something to the relationship. You cannot enjoy yourself for a minute without over analyzing everything around you even fictional stories. You hate anything related to the "pop culture". You expect a book should emphasize every aspect of a character's personality even if the book is regarding a love story not the diaries, thoughts and dreams of the individual characters.  You think that a 100 year old teenager vampire is too old for a 17 year old human teenager (believe it or not there is a review there calling Edward a pedophile). If you believe that stalking someone is to show up supernaturally in their room and watch her sleep even though she is more than glad that you are there with her. And lastly if you are just naive enough to spend your time writing a negative review about all the things above criticizing a FICTIONAL book for being idealistic and lacking reality. Next time have more common sense and grab a "true life story" book rather than going shopping into the fiction section if you just can't handle the fiction to begin with.

We all girls are like Bella, dreaming to find a vampire prince like Edward, handsome, strong and sometimes dangerous. In fact, deep in our heart, we do want to take risks. We want to experience something special, something new. We hope to have a hell love, happiness with sadness. Though we may be hurt, we won’t regret. We can’t do that in our daily life, but we can taste the joy of it in the book. That’s why young girls like Twilight, which provides us the room to dream. Twilight’s massage to us all: in spite of everything to love someone, I hope I can experience that in the future, otherwise I will feel sorry for my life.