A Review Of Twilight By Stephenie Meyer; Or Why Edward Cullen Is Actually Riley Finn.

"Ooh, I'm so scary. Look at me I'm positively oozing with scaryness. Aren't you just so terrified? Thought so."

This is not a direct quote from Twilight's Edward Cullen. Obviously. But it might as well be. As one of the most ineffective characters I have ever had the misfortune to read in my entire life, it wouldn't really have mattered if he had said something so highly camp and ridiculous, mainly because Edward is more than a tad on the camp side, and not in a good way (A CREAM TURTLENECK? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY?)

Now first and foremost I'd like to say, before I get into the Edward/Bella bashing, I actually quite enjoyed Twilight. It wasn't a bad book at all. It wasn't brilliant either though, which was a pity considering how much many of my friends had hyped it up. I happened upon the world of the Cullens rather late in comparison to most other people, so by the time I actually sat down to read Tilight, over last night and this morning, my hopes had been rather built up. What I was hoping for was some teenage vampires (check), some romance (check, well, sort of, but more on that later), some mildly diverting occurences (check), and a few scares.. ah. And this is the first problem. Twilight, a book about vampires, is complete devoid of any degree of horror. Not only does it completely lack horror, in fact, but there is not one whiff of menace, not on ounce of peril. It's just not scary, and, I don't know about you, but that's what I want from my vampire novels! I want to feel the shivers down my spine, I want to be intrigued, I want suspense and mystery - and unfortunately, Twilight has none of this. Despite a fairly good premise - the vampire helplessly in love with the human, to the point where she'll risk her life to be with him - there was no tension, no spark. This was never more evident than at the "climax" of the novel - Bella and James The Tracker in the dance studio. Talk about bad James-Bond-style plots. I found the whole thing a) utterly implausible; b) reliant on at least three of the characters being utterly and absolutely stupid AND irrational; c) to involve an evil "genius" who might as well have had a white cat and a dodgy Russian accent because he certainly had the brains of a lesser field mouse which usually accompany these other attributes; and d) REALLY, REALLY NOT SCARY. Aside from this farce, a villain named... James? Whatever. Might as well have a vampire caled Edward. Ah. And that is what brings me to my next point.

Ah, Edward. Eddie. Ed. The big E man. What a life eh? Handsome, smart, athletic. What a drag. And, y'know, meeting the perfect girl for you, that's got to suck even more, I'm guessing. YOU MUST BE SO FRICKIN TORTURED. Well, you would be.
See here's the thing. I hate Edward. I mean, I really HATE him. I really tried hard to like him, but he is possibly the most annoying, irritating, boring, whiny, pathetic character that ever was created. I get that "oh no he's a vampire and she's a human and arghhhh the torture oh noooo" but the problem I have with this is that the author then completely fails to deliver on Ed's supposed "dark side". Not once, in four hundred-odd pages of reading did I ever feel that Bella was in even a modicum of danger from him. I literally felt that he might as well just have been Mike or Eric or Tyler for all the personality he had. If he truly is so dark, then this element of his personality has to counter his restraint and gentlemanlike behaviour in more than just words, in more than just him saying it. Pretty much none of his actions back up his words, and even when they do, there is still a degree of trying to pretty it up, humanise him. He is a vampire. He is a killer. Ok, only animals (another thing I wasn't happy about...), but he is BLOODTHIRSTY. This is not sufficiently developed, especially considering he spends a good three quarters of his airtime moaning about how cursed he is by this thirst. Again, he just isn't scary. He's not sexy either, not after he loses the mystery of the first fifty pages of the novel. And this brings me to my next point: why Edward Cullen is really Riley Finn.

Now anyone who knows me will know two things. One is how much I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy is the reason I read vampire stories at all. It's the programme which at ten stole my heart. The second thing that's well known about me is how much I hate Riley Finn. I can't stick him. He is the worst thing about the programme, and the only thing that I will actually admit to really not liking about the series. He basically ruins Season Four. And about halfway through Twilight, I had a revelation. Edward was Riley. The relationship between Bella and Edward is pretty much reminiscent of those dark days before Spike, after Angel. Now, Angel is probably where the obvious comparison with Edward, at first glance - he's tortured (note to Stephenie Meyer: HERE is how to do guilt/torture/despair), he's handsome, he's her first love, and there is a restraint between Buffy and him. Theirs is an understated, slow burning passion. To divert for a moment, there is obviously NO comparison between this and the relationship with Spike (as someone *cough*Sean*cough* tried to argue to me earlier) because the Spike thing had intensity, passion, it was based around lies, deceit, and screwing really. And by Season 7, Spike and Buffy are equals, which none of these others ever are (unless something happens in subsequent books of the Twilight series). They can have a relationship on an equal footing, just holding each other... until Spike dies about two seconds later of course. But I digress. The reason I chose not to compare Angel and Edward is that Angel has many, many reasons to feel so bad, not just Buffy. Angel has a soul and yet manages to thrill and scare in equal measure about ten times better than Ed. And, unbelievably, angel manages to have... a sense of humour! Angel is just a superior characterisation of a vampire than Edward can ever be. And, worst of them all, there is heat, passion, and chemistry between Angel and Buffy. Which brings me to Riley. Riley is a pretty boy. Riley is Captain Plastic. He's perfect - good looking, smart, athletic. He's completely devoid of a sense of humour. There is all the passion of a breadstick about him and Buffy. And it's the same with Edward. He's just rubbish. In every way. And he's rubbish because he's TOO perfect. He's too nice/sweet/smart/gentlemanly/restrained for there to be any excitement. You never really feel there's any chance of them losing it... just like Riley. Riley tried to do a little tortured towards the end of his tenure (my girlfriend's stronger than me... wahhhhh) and it worked just about as well as Edward's version of the same thing. Essentially, what I'm trying to say (in among the rambling) is that Riley/Edward just like is just like an Easter egg - sweet and chocolatey on the outside, but hollow through and through.

I have some other issues with the novel. I don't like Bella much either. She also feels underdeveloped as a character. Some aspects are played up too much - for example, her clumsiness. It's just unlikely and exaggerated. Also the fact that she was soooo pretty but she never really realised until now - a complete cliche if ever there was one. Apart from that, she barely expressed one emotion except for love for Edward... she didn't have much strength of character at all, which disappointed me really, I wished she had been a bit more feisty. Also, although this is purely a matter of personal taste, I wasn't too keen on Meyer's prose style. It's far too literal for my taste, there was absolutely nothing special about it, and again, there was a real lack of the spellbinding menace I was hoping for.

I stand by what I said: I did like the book. It had some major saving graces. Glittery vampires in the sunlight. Vampires driving softtop cars. ALICEALICEALICE. Charlie (who needs a HUG). Jacob. Chopin. That sort of thing. I was just disappointed. I wanted, no, I EXPECTED more. I like a good forbidden romance as much as most people. Probably more. But that's the very point, right there. Nothing about this ever feels forbidden. No, it's all too easy. Two starcross'd lovers? More like a match made in heaven.