Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

About the Book
Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father when her mother remarries and goes on the road with her new husband. She's not too keen on Forks as it rains most of the year. On her first day at school she becomes intrigued by the Cullen family, particularly Edward Cullen. After a bad beginning.

My Thoughts
We read this book for book club. This was the second time I've read this book. I seemed to gloss over the things that annoyed me the first time I read the book, such as Bella constantly saying how ordinary she is, and how perfect Edward is. It still had the "this book is bad but strangely addictive" hook that it had the first time I read it. A couple of the book club ladies felt the same about it. It was nice to know it's not just me. This book isn't the best written book I've read. But there is something about it that makes me want to keep reading, even though the characters are annoying and this could be an abusive relationship. The first time I read
it, I was quite annoyed even angered by Edward's possessiveness which gets worse with each book. I couldn't believe that Bella was so willing to put up with it. We had a discussion in book club whether Bella going to meet the Vamp in the Ballet School was in character. The book clubbers didn't think so, but one of my colleagues did think it was.

I like the movie much better than the book because it's not so directly from Bella's point of view, and Edward's possessiveness is toned down a bit. I can see why teenagers would get into the series though. It is a pretty romantic story and everyone wants to "be taken care of".

The second short life of Bree Tanner - Stephenie Meyer

It has been quite a while since I read the Twilight books. When I first read them I really enjoyed them. I was quite excited to hear that Stephenie Meyer was releasing a new Twilight novel... well it's called a novella but that's just pedantics. I found The second short life of Bree Tanner hard to get into.

It took quite a while to warm up to the characters... and we don't really get much history about Bree before she became a vampire. I think that's the danger of picking up an established character; that there is all this assumed knowledge. Well that would make sense if we got to know Bree in Eclipse, but we don't. I read most of the novel without remembering who she actually was and only found enlightenment at the end of the book. That's probably why I wasn't so keen on the book, that we don't get to know the characters really... it's like we've come in half way through a movie.

I did enjoy reading it... the end especially when Edward and his family make an appearance. But I had to force myself to sit down and get through it. Certainly a different experience to what I had when reading the other Twilight books.