Teenager’s Review of Twilight – 15 Years Later

Twilight is a young adult paranormal romance written by Stephani Meyer and published in 2005. The story follows one girl, Belle, when she moves to a small lonely town where it is constantly raining. She expects she will be bored. What she doesn’t know is she will meet a hot vampire and that the two will instantly fall in love. Many people hate these books. Is that justified? (Spoiler alert, yes it is.) Here is one teenager’s review of Twilight 15-years later.

Themes

Twilight plays on the theme of forbidden love. Throughout the book there is a sense that the love of the main charters isn’t supposed to be. Edward is a vampire, Belle is not. Edward, being a vampire, has certain desires, namely, he wants to bite Belle. All of this makes their love forbidden and dangerous. It adds to the appeal. However, it seems as if their relationship may be dangerous in more ways than one.

Problematic relationships

Belle and Edwards’ relationship with each other is very problematic. The biggest example of this is that Edward watches Belle while she sleeps. He did this without her knowledge and consent. But, Belle decides that she likes his presence and the book makes it all seem ok. Well, this is not. Passages like this enforce harmful ideas about relationships.

There is also the fact that Edward has all the power in the relationship. Because he is a vampire he is super strong, fast, and attractive. He proves this by overpowering Belle and pinning her to the ground to prove that he is dangerous and that their love should not be. I agree if that is how Edward shows his love, that is a problem.

Characters

The characters are bland, having almost no personality. At the very beginning, Belle is described as smart and a bit bookish, but this is quickly dropped. We don’t even see her read another book. Her entire time is spent with Edward. Now, Edward could be used to characterize Belle. Maybe he likes her smile or finds her clumsiness endearing. Bo. Instead, we find that the reason why he is in love with her is that he likes the way she smells. It appears that the reason why vampires want to eat humans is because of the smell. Edward is infatuated with Belle for this reason. She smells the tastiest.

Verdict

Everything I said in the previous sections is true (or mostly true, I may have made a few mistakes.) However, despite what I said, the book isn’t that harmful. The only big examples of the relationship being problematic have already been described. The rest of the book is just a bland paranormal romance. The writing is bland, the characters flat. This teenager’s review of Twilight 15 years later is that you can skip it.

But, if you want to read it, you can and should. It can still be a fun read. Though many aspects are bland it is high on wish fulfillment. If you like it, good for you. I won’t judge.

For another article on Twilight with a good bit of humor, read this article, titled Twilight Saga: Observations from my Teenage Son. He seems smart.