Reviews

Say what you like about Twilight, it has one of the most passionate, loyal, and interminable fanbases around, and I'll tell you exactly why.

This is a novel written for young teen girls and nobody else. From the plot (or lack thereof) to the characters, to the backdrop, Meyer has created a world for us to live out a fantasy.
She sets her mythic tale in the real world as we know it. A high school with the same classes as ours- we've studied the same books, we've run the same science labs. It's familiar, it's normal until it's not normal, it's extraordinary. The slow and careful unraveling of the mystery paired with the ripe imagination of the young teen mind makes it feel like it could happen to us.
The novel is often criticised for its lack of plot but I would argue that this actually works in its favour. The plot isn't what we're interested in, we want to see Bella discovering this secret world within our world and watch her relationship with Edward blossom. It's first love, it's escaping the mundane world, it's something we dream of for ourselves. The limited plot there is, namely, the hunt in the third act, is not where the appeal lies- quite honestly I often skip this part on re-reads.

Bella is often accused of being vapid, uninspiring, and generally lacking character. Absolutely correct. She is a vessel for the twilight experience. It's so easy to step into her mind and imagine ourselves as her, imagine ourselves in this extraordinary story.
Edward is an archetypal love interest. He is the model for what all teen girls want before they have really developed their tastes and types- mature, protective, devoted, dutiful, and mysterious. Everything actual teenage boys are not. You really can't fault teen girls for wanting the stereotype, they don't know any better.
The secondary characters exist to flatter the reader (-sorry, Bella). All the humans fancy her or want to be her friend, or are jealous of her. She is immensely popular without having to do anything- that's the teenage dream, yet another layer to the ultimate young fantasy.

Forks, Washington is the perfect backdrop for this dreamy love story. An isolated corner of America- it feels intimate and comforting. The constant natural imagery gives the feeling of an earthy green fairy tale. The whole twilight ambiance is this wild, dark, green, cloudy, rainy, atmosphere contrasted with a shy blossoming romance. Every time I open that book and return to that inconsequential town under a near-constant cover of clouds, I feel like I'm twelve years old again, like everything is still to come, and anything could happen, maybe even something extraordinary.
One thing I know for certain is that if I'm ever unlucky enough to have my heart broken, I shall go to Forks and I will stay there until the mossy small-town energy has healed me.

So there you have it, if you read Twilight and you didn't like it, it's probably because you weren't a twelve-year-old girl. If you were then it probably has a very special place in your heart like it does for so many of us.