Posted on June 25, 2009 by Nancy Callahan

I recently finished Twilight, the first of Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer. Part teenage romance, part paranormal, with a dash of action…the book definitely has America hooked.

Here’s a very basic synopsis: Bella is a human. Edward is a vampire. They meet, eventually fall for one another (despite their differences), and (at the end) undergo a painful ordeal that threatens both of their lives.

So is this book really as good as everyone says? In my opinion, no. Here are my two biggest criticisms:

• The quality of the writing was shockingly poor. The book seemed to me like the second or third draft of an unfinished manuscript, not a published book. Among other things, I spied sloppy sentence construction, terrible grammar, questionable diction (Meyer really had fun with her thesaurus), and far too many adverbs and adjectives. It was hard for me to ignore these errors and focus on the unfolding story.
• Most of the characters seemed unbelievable. The teenagers at the local high school didn’t act (or react) like genuine human beings, but more like caricatures of teenagers plucked from an out-of-touch TV sitcom. In fact, of all the characters in the book, the only two that really rang true for me were Charlie (Bella’s father) and Jacob Black (who, I hear, figures much more prominently in the second book of the series).

Did you read Twilight? If so, what’s your opinion of the book?