Book Review
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Publication Date: September 6, 2006
Number of Pages: 544
ISBN: 0316015849



Reviewed By: Karen O'Connor (Okinawa Correspondent - Japan) 

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is a story about a seventeen year-old girl named Bella, who moves from the Valley of the Sun to the cold, dreary, rainy yet beautiful Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.  There she starts to make a life with her father Charlie and the kids at the local high school where she joins as a junior.  There, Bella meets Edward Cullen and the Cullen family; her life is never the same again.  After a scary and almost life ending accident she realizes that Edward is not like herself.  He has strength and speed unlike anything she has ever seen before.  Bella puts the pieces together with the help of an Indian reservation myth and lsubtle hints to discover that gorgeous Edward, and his beautiful family, are actually vampires...but not in the way that we are familiar with.  For one thing, they have been able to change their diet to animal blood instead of human blood.   

As Bella's friendship with Edward grows they realize (very suddenly actually, but remember this is a vampire story) that they are deeply in love with each other and that they can never be apart again.  Due to a terrible case of klutziness, Edward becomes Bella's guardian and vows to keep her safe forever.  Little do they know that that will mean safe from a "tracker vampire" later on. 

This book was an amazing read and I thoroughly enjoyed every word of it.  The mystical atmosphere that this book brought over me in the last six days has been wonderful.  I found myself reading during any free moment I had.  I didn't watch much television and I didn't surf the web much because I was reading.  The character development was well paced and the plot was strong.  I felt that the school scenes were right on and I found myself reminiscing about high school.  I remember being as boy crazy over one particular boy as Bella was with Edward in the story; he was mysterious, romantic, interesting, brilliant and not what I was expecting either.    

I am very excited about reading the rest of the Twilight series and finding out what happens to Bella, Edward and the Cullen's.  I have also been watching the trailer and behind the scene footage I have come across online.  The movie, Twilight, will be in theatres on December 12^th, 2008.