The Twilight movie series has always had a special place in my heart, so finally I thought it was about time to read the books. Reading this for the first time, it’s crazy seeing that Edward and Bella were this toxically obsessed with one anothe after just a few months 😭

Inarguably, Twilight is not the greatest book of all time, but it was still a really enjoyable read. I loved getting to better understand what drew Edward and Bella toward each other, what made them fall in love. I loved getting to learn more about how vampirism (& other magical elements discussed in the book) works in this world Stephenie Meyer created. And I loved getting to see more of the characters’ personalities - especially Bella and Edward. I was surprised that they didn’t necessarily act the way they do in the movie - they aren’t super serious & brooding all the time. They joked around a lot, were very sarcastic…It honestly made me wish we got to see more of that in the movie. I feel like Bella’s personality especially felt very watered down in the movie. It’s also reading this being completely aware of Meyer being a Mormon because it is VERY obvious when you read the book.

However, there were some things I thought were better done in the movie. I think the movie did a better job of setting up Bella’s relationships with everyone other than Bella. I was surprised at how little time we spent getting to know her friends/family/the Cullens, how long it took before Bella even meets another member of the Cullen family, how little attention the 3rd angle of the Twilight love triangle was given. The movie also did a better job of setting up the main conflict (James wanting to kill Bella) and creating more drama around the big moments of Bella and Edward’s relationship (e.g. Edward revealing he’s a vampire). These were things I was looking forward to learning about more, to seeing how they played out in the book, so it was disappointing not to see any of that. Every moment I was excitedly looking forward to ended up being so anticlimactic.

The book spends a LOT of time focused on building up the relationship between Bella and Edward through a series of very long conversations. I didn’t necessarily mind these conversations - it was interesting getting to learn more about Bella and Edward & getting to see the way they interact with one another. But unfortunately, that meant this book was one were not much happened - and that surprised me for a book about vampires.  It wasn’t until  the last few chapters of the book that something actually happened, and it’s insane that it took so long to get there. 

Nonetheless, I’m excited to continue reading the rest of the series & getting to learn more about these characters and the world they live in. I’m hopeful that now that we’ve set up Bella and Edward’s relationship, we get to learn more about this world & the other interesting characters in it.
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Slightly unrelated to my review, so I’m putting it down here, but is it not insane that Edward literally wanted to kill Bella, stalked her, watched her sleep…& we’re supposed to find all that charming ??? If he wasn’t a vampire - his one excuse for his behavior - he’d be a weirdo like ???