Twilight (Meyer novel)

Plot summary

Bella Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula to live with her father, Charlie. Her mother, Renée is traveling with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and makes friends quickly. A shy girl, she is dismayed by several boys competing for her attention.

As Bella walks into the class, a fan blows her scent towards Edward. Bella sits next to Edward Cullen in biology class on her first day of school, but he seems repulsed by her, hurting her feelings in the process. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship Is interrupted after Bella is nearly crushed by Tyler's van in the school parking lot. Edward saves Bella, stopping the van with only his hand.

Bella annoys Edward with questions about how he saved her life. She hears that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood. She is told legends of the local Quilyeute people by a friend Jacob Black who she met during a camp out (a character who becomes more important in the later books in the series). Disturbed by recurring nightmares, Bella researches about vampires. To her dismay, she then realizes that Edward hadn't come to school on the blood typing day because he is a vampire; she compares the characteristics of the vampires in the myths to the Cullens, and finds many similarities. Convinced he's a vampire, she finds herself in the state of bewilderment. Bella is saved by Edward again in Port Angeles when she is almost attacked. Driving a silver Volvo, Edward takes Bella to dinner and home. As they drive, she tells him of the stories that he is a vampire. Edward says he tried to stay away, finding her scent too desirable. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.

Their relationship is affected when a nomad vampire coven arrives in Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullen family try to separate Bella and Edward, and send Bella to Phoenix to hide in a hotel. James calls and claims to be holding her mother. When Bella surrenders, James attacks her. Before he can kill her, Edward and other Cullens rescue her and destroy James. He still attacks the girl. Edward prevents her from becoming a vampire, and she is treated at a hospital. After they return to Forks, they go to the school prom together. Bella says she wants to become a vampire, but Edward won't help.

Bella's desire to become a vampire increases throughout the series. Edward continues to refuse as he hates being immortal and does not want Bella to suffer the same fate.

Main characters

Development

Meyer claims that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. She dreamed of a human girl and a vampire who loved her but still wanted her blood. Inspired by her dream, Meyer wrote the draft of what is now Chapter 13 of the book. The first drafts were titled Forks instead of Twilight; the publisher requested the title change. At first, Meyers didn't name her two main characters. She chose Edward, influenced by Charlotte Brontë's Mr. Rochester and Jane Austen's Mr. Ferrars. She named the female lead Isabella, thinking she would have chosen that for a daughter. Rosalie and Jasper were originally named Carol and Ronald.

Meyer continued writing to the end chronologically, not worrying about the backstory. She lettered the chapters instead of numbering them, Chapter 13 being E. The last chapter of the first draft kept getting longer and longer, so she wrote epilogue after epilogue. However, she realized that she wanted to explore many of the events in the backstory and the reasons behind the events in the chapters, so she planned to write a 5-6 chapter backstory. Instead, these turned into twelve chapters by the time she was finished. In a matter of three months she had completed a novel. She has said she was writing for her own enjoyment, never thinking of publishing the work. She finished the manuscript on August 29, 2003.

Her sister liked the book and encouraged Meyer to send the manuscript to literary agencies. Of the 15 letters she wrote, five went unanswered, nine brought rejections, and the last was a positive response from Jodi Reamer of Writers House. Meyer had merely sent out letters to literary agents inquiring if they would be interested in a 130,000-word manuscript about teenage vampires. Luck helped. An inexperienced assistant at Writers House responded to her inquiry, not knowing that young adult books are expected to be about 40,000 to 60,000 words in length. Due to that error, Reamer eventually read Meyer's manuscript and signed her up as a client. During the editing process, a chapter that used to be Chapter 20 was cut out of the manuscript along with Emmett's account of his bear attack and some parts of the epilogue.

Cover

Stephenie Meyer has said the apple on the cover represents the forbidden fruit from the Book of Genesis and Bella and Edward's forbidden love. She uses a quote from Genesis 2:17 at the beginning of the book. It also represents Bella's knowledge of good and evil, and the choices she makes. Meyer says, "It asks if you are going to bite in and discover the frightening possibilities around you or refuse and stay safe in the comfortable world you know." An alternative cover features Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the actors who play the lead characters in the film adaptation.

Awards and honors

Publication

Meyers inquiry letter was initially rejected by 14 agents. Eight publishers competed for the rights to publish Twilight in the 2003 auction. Little, Brown and Company originally bid for $300,000, but Meyer's agent asked for $1 million; the publishers finally settled on $750,000 for three books. Twilight was published in 2005 with a print run of 75,000 copies. It debuted at #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list within a month of its release, and later peaked at #1. Foreign rights to the novel were sold to over 26 countries.

In October 2008, Twilight was ranked #26 in USA Today's list of "Bestselling Books of Last 15 Years". Later, the book went on to become the best-selling book of 2008. and the second biggest selling of 2009, only behind its sequel New Moon.

For the tenth anniversary release Meyer released Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined alongside the original Twilight. Life and Death is a reimagining of the story with Beau (a male human) and Edythe (a female vampire) as the leads.

Critical reception

Initial reviews for Twilight were generally positive, with Publishers Weekly called Meyer one of the most "promising new authors of 2005". The Times praised the book for capturing "perfectly the teenage feeling of sexual tension and alienation", and Amazon.com hailed the book as "deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful". Hillias J. Martin of School Library Journal stated, "Realistic, subtle, succinct, and easy to follow, Twilight will have readers dying to sink their teeth into it", and Norah Piehl of TeenReads wrote, "Twilight is a gripping blend of romance and horror". Publishers Weekly's starred review described Bella's "infatuation with outsider Edward", their risky relationship, and "Edward's inner struggle" as a metaphor for sexual frustration accompanying adolescence. Booklist wrote, "There are some flaws here–a plot that could have been tightened, an over reliance on adjectives and adverbs to bolster dialogue–but this dark romance seeps into the soul." Christopher Middleton of The Daily Telegraph called the book a "high school drama with a bloody twist ... no secret, of course, at whom this book is aimed, and no doubt, either, that it has hit its mark. Jennifer Hawes of The Post and Courier said, "Twilight, the first book in Stephenie Meyer's series, gripped me so fiercely that I called the nearest teenager I know and begged for her copy after I misplaced my own." Roberta Goli of Suite101.com gave the novel a positive review, saying that while "the first half of the novel lacks action", the writing is "fluid" and the story "interesting". She also praised the depth of emotion shown between the main characters for pinpointing "the angst of teenage love."

Kirkus gave a more mixed review, noting that, "[Twilight] is far from perfect: Edward's portrayal as monstrous tragic hero is overly Byronic, and Bella's appeal is based on magic rather than character. Nonetheless, the portrayal of dangerous lovers hits the spot; fans of dark romance will find it hard to resist." The New York Times review stated, "The premise of Twilight is attractive and compelling — who hasn't fantasized about unearthly love with a beautiful stranger? — but the book suffers at times from overearnest, amateurish writing. A little more "showing" and a lot less "telling" might have been a good thing, especially some pruning to eliminate the constant references to Edward's shattering beauty and Bella's undying love." Although the Daily Telegraph later listed Twilight at number 32 on its list of "100 books that defined the noughties", it said that the novel was "Astonishing, mainly for the ineptitude of [Meyer's] prose". Elizabeth Hand said in a review for the Washington Post, "Meyer's prose seldom rises above the serviceable, and the plotting is leaden".

Book challenges

Twilight was on the American Library Association Top Ten List of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010, for containing a "religious viewpoint" and "violence". The Twilight series was on the same list in 2009 for being "sexually explicit", "unsuited to age group", and having a "religious viewpoint". A NYC Psychologist addressed issues in the Twilight series and how it relates to women and expectations of healthy relationships versus illusion based relationships with her short film "Into The Twilight Haze".

Film

Twilight was adapted as a film by Summit Entertainment. The film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke and stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as protagonists Bella and Edward. The screenplay was adapted by Melissa Rosenberg. The movie was released in theaters in the United States on November 21, 2008, and on DVD on March 21, 2009. The DVD was released in Australia on April 22, 2009.

Graphic novel

On July 15, 2009, Entertainment Weekly confirmed rumors that a graphic novel adaptation of Twilight was in the works. The book was drawn by Korean artist Young Kim and published by Yen Press. Stephenie Meyer reviewed every panel herself. According to EW, "it doesn't look simply like an artist's rendering of Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson. In fact, the characters seem to be an amalgam of Meyer's literary imagination and the actors' actual looks." EW magazine published finished illustrations of Edward, Bella, and Jacob in their July 17, 2009 issue. The first part of the graphic novel was released on March 16, 2010.