Twilight

I’ll be straight about Twilight: it wasn’t for me, not even close.

Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular vampire romance, in which teenager Bella falls for the brooding vampire Edward, became a global phenomenon and launched a franchise that millions of readers adore. I’m not one of them. I do like romance, certain kinds of it. The writing style and the subject matter here weren’t my cup of tea, and I bounced off the book hard.

That last point matters, so let me put it up front: this book has sold tens of millions of copies and is beloved, so my dislike is only a difference in taste.

Not my kind of book

The real core of my reaction is that the writing style and the subject matter didn’t work for me. The prose didn’t land, the central romance didn’t draw me in, and the whole sensibility of the book ran against my own preferences as a reader.

I do enjoy romance when it’s the kind that suits me, so this isn’t a blanket dismissal of the genre, it’s that this particular flavor of romance, the brooding, all-consuming teenage variety at the heart of Twilight, isn’t what I look for in a book. Where its many fans find swoon and intensity, I found a story I couldn’t connect with, and its popularity doesn’t change that it left me cold.

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A matter of taste

What keeps this from being a simple thumbs-down is the undeniable fact of the book’s success and the real love so many readers have for it. Twilight didn’t sell tens of millions of copies by accident. It delivers something powerful to its audience, an emotional experience and a romantic fantasy that grips a great many readers, even if it does nothing for me.

That gap, between my flat reaction and their devotion, is the clearest thing I can point to: it’s a vivid illustration of how much taste varies, and of how a book can fail completely for one reader while being exactly right for millions of others. My low rating is about my taste alone.

The real caveat on my own review

This is very much a personal reaction, and I’m aware of it. A book this popular obviously works for an enormous number of readers, and my disliking it says as much about me and my preferences as it does about the book. I’m not arguing that Twilight is objectively worthless, the market has thoroughly disproved that, only that it didn’t work for me, on the level of both style and subject.

A reader who loves intense, brooding romance, who connects with this kind of story and voice, may well find here exactly what I couldn’t, and they should weigh my reaction accordingly. I’m one reader with particular tastes, and on this book those tastes and the book’s were simply a poor match.

Is Twilight worth reading?

It’s a five, the floor of my scale, and I won’t pretend otherwise: Twilight wasn’t for me, on the level of both its writing style and its subject matter, and I couldn’t connect with it despite enjoying certain kinds of romance.

But the rating comes with an honest and important qualification, millions love this book, it sells enormously, and it clearly delivers a powerful experience to its audience, so the distance between my reaction and its devoted readership is a matter of taste instead of a claim of objective failure. For readers who love intense, brooding teenage romance, it may be exactly right; I simply didn’t enjoy it. One reader’s miss, and a vivid reminder of how much taste varies.

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