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Twilight (Twilight, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $11.82
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Rating:  2974 reviews
Sales Rank: 18
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Standard
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 544
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0316160172
EAN: 9780316160179
ASIN: 0316160172
Publication Date: October 5, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Amazon.com Review
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat." As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship. Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell
10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Stephenie Meyer
 Q: Were you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? What are you watching now that those shows are off the air?
A: I have never seen an entire episode of Buffy or Angel. While I was writing Twilight, I let my older sister read along chapter by chapter. She's a huge Buffy fan and she kept trying to get me to watch, but I was afraid it would mess up my vision of the vampire world so I never did. I don't have a ton of time for TV, and my kids get rowdy when I have on "mommy shows," but I do have a secret fondness for reality shows (the good ones, at least in my opinion). I always TiVo Survivor, The Amazing Race, and America's Next Top Model.
Q: What inspired you to write Twilight? Is this the beginning of a series? Why write for teens?
A: Twilight was inspired by a very vivid dream, which is fairly faithfully transcribed as chapter thirteen of the book. There are sequels on the way--I'm hard at work editing book two (tentatively titled New Moon) right now, and book three is waiting in line for its turn.
I didn't mean to write for teens--I didn't mean to write for anyone but myself, so I had an audience of one twenty-nine year old (and later one thirty-one year old when my sister started reading). I think the reason that I ended up with a book for teens is because high school is such a compelling time period--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating memories. It's a fascinating place: old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval. There's a lot of scope for a novel in that.
Q: What is your favorite vampire story? Fave vampire movie?
A: I guess my favorite vampire story would be The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice, simply because it's one of the only ones I've ever read. I keep meaning to pick up Bram Stoker's Dracula, because I get asked this question so often and I should probably start with the classics, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Again, I'm afraid to read other vampire books now, for fear of finding things either too similar, or too different from my own vampire world. Ack! I can't even answer the movie question. I can't remember ever seeing a single vampire movie, outside of clips from Bela Lugosi movies on TV. I don't like true horror movies--my favorite scary movies are all Hitchcock's.
Q: What other young adult authors do you read?
A: My favorite young adult author is L.M. Montgomery I also enjoy J.K. Rowling (but who doesn't?), and Ann Brashares. As a teen, I skipped straight to adult books (lots of sci-fi and Jane Austen), so I'm rediscovering the world of teen literature now.
Stephenie Meyer's List of Books You Should Read 
Anne of Green Gables | 
Romeo and Juliet | 
Dragonflight | 
To Kill a Mockingbird | 
The Princess Bride |
See more recommendations from Stephenie Meyer
Q&A with Stephanie Meyer
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: The book with the most significant impact on my life is The Book of Mormon. The book with the most significant impact on my life as a writer is probably Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier coming in as a close second.
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: The CD is easy: Absolution by Muse, hands down. It's harder to give myself just one movie, but the one I watch most frequently is Sense and Sensibility--the one with the screenplay by Emma Thompson. One book is impossible. I'd have to have Pride and Prejudice, but I couldn't live without something by Orson Scott Card and a nice, thick Maeve Binchy, too.
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: My lies are all very, very boring: "No, you really look great in hot pink!" "My children only watch one hour of TV a day." "I didn't eat the last Swiss Cake Roll--it must have been one of the kids." That's the best I've got.
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: It's late at night and the house is silent, but I'm still (miraculously) full of energy. I have my headphones in and I'm listened to a mix of Muse, Coldplay, Travis, My Chemical Romance, and The All-American Rejects. Beside me is a fabulous, and yet mysteriously low in calorie, cheesecake....
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I'd like it to say that I really tried at the important things. I was never perfect at any of them, but I honestly tried to be a great mom, a loving wife, a good daughter, and a true friend. Under that, I'd want a list of my favorite Simpsons quotes.
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: I'd love to have a chance to talk to Orson Scott Card--I have a million questions for him. Mostly things like, "How do you come up with this stuff?!" But, if he wasn't available, I'd settle for Matthew Bellamy (lead singer of Muse).
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: I'd want something offensive, rather than defensive. Like shooting fireballs from my hands. That way, you're really open to going either way--hero or villain. I like to have choices.
Product Description
Deeply sensuous and extraordinarily suspenseful, TWILIGHT captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.Isabella Swan+s move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella+s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2969 more reviews...
 Overrated Trash December 4, 2008
Eileen L. Fay (Rochester, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I mean, I don't even know where to begin here. As a long-time Anne Rice fan (I first read "Interview with the Vampire" when I was thirteen) I was intrigued by the excitement surrounding Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" saga, which is said to be bigger than Harry Potter in some circles. However, I was also wary. According to several online reviews I had read, the series is also alarmingly sexist, maybe even misogynist, especially given Edward's controlling nature. I entered the first book with an open mind, but all too soon realized that the criticism was well-deserved. In fact, I will venture to say that the fact that I even finished all 498 pages of that tripe is surely a testament to my tenacity as a reader.
Now I'm not such a literary snob that I think all YA novels are mere fluff. Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and Diane Duane's Young Wizards series are challenging, philosophical, and composed of flowing lyrical prose. Duane's "High Wizardy," for example, tackles themes of entropy and redemption against a sci-fi backdrop that rushes from one fantastic planet to another with an ancient, demonic enemy in hot pursuit. So in other words, to excuse poor writing and weak plot by saying, oh, it's only a teen book, what do you expect, you're too old to understand. . . That's insulting to teens and insulting to the writers who write for them. So no, I am not going to walk away from "Twilight" and its sequels and dismiss them as a lower literary form not worth my time. There are real problems with these books that need to be addressed.
The meteoric celebrity of cheesy boy bands, trashy reality shows, and Paris Hilton is more than enough evidence to prove that popularity does not always indicate quality. To me, the hype surrounding the "Twilight" saga is equally mystifying. Thematic issues aside, if the first book is any indication, they're not even good. The story is overly drawn-out and needlessly meandering, while the characters have no character at all: they're dull, flat cardboard props that merely people a plot. Take protagonist Bella Swan (and yes, that is her name), for example. When we first meet her, she's nothing but a sullen child transplanted to a town she hates. "It was to Forks that I now exiled myself - an action that I took with great horror. I detested Forks." (Oh the DRAMA, the sweeping FLOURISH.) From there she never develops, never exhibits anything but perpetual disdain for her surroundings despite the two boys who immediately fall in love with her and the group of friends she effortlessly joins. But then she meets undead Adonis, a.k.a Edward Cullen: "He was too perfect, I realized with a piercing stab of despair. There was no way this godlike creature could be meant for me." It's as though the existence of this flawless being alone lifts her from her interminable grumpiness to a blindly blissful stratosphere beyond the reach of such lesser beings as her classmates and father.
And yet, paradoxically, it is also the proverbial gilded cage. She's lost in him. He has become her whole world: "I wondered where we would have gone. North somewhere, so he could be outside in the day. Or maybe somewhere very remote, so we could lay in the sun together again. I imagined him by the shore, his skin sparkling like the sea. It wouldn't matter how long we had to hide. To be trapped in a hotel room with him would be a kind of heaven. So many questions I still had for him. I could talk to him forever, never sleeping, never leaving his side." (Oh yeah, he sparkles. For a REALLY good example of Meyer's bad writing, read the section where Bella first sees him sparkling in the sun. My friends and I had ball doing "dramatic readings" of it.)
Now obviously, that's how love often is for teens, there's no denying that. But the simple fact that we're talking about a guy whose sole asset seems to be his utter physical perfection leads the reader has to wonder if this is only a case of the other L-word: lust. And it isn't so much that Edward lacks a personality (as some have charged) - it's that the personality he has is so damn disturbing. I mean, he sneaks into her room at night and watches her sleep? And she's cool with this?
*Sigh* That's really the whole book - sour girl mopes around, then becomes trapped in the orbit of possessive, threatening sexy vampire dude. Oh, there's some action involving a "tracker" who wants to kill her, but it's still not enough to raise "Twilight" as a whole from its own banality. I think the real losers here are all those teenyboppers and bored middle-aged housewives who, for whatever reason, have fallen head over heels for these books. Please, for the love of God, I beg you, read Anne Rice instead. Even the worst novel of the Vampire Chronicles ("Blood Canticle" comes to mind) is better than this trash. If you like anime and manga, I would also recommend Kouta Hirano's "Hellsing" series.
Welcome to Dullsville December 3, 2008
Severen (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Alrighty then....after all the hype I caved and bought "Twilight" with the full intent of giving it a fair shot. And I did. I'm about a third of the way through it now (just past the part where Edward rescued Bella from the thugs on the street) and have to say that (a) I'm just a tad bit underwhelmed, and (b) I'm bored out of my skull. Good grief, if I read one more sentence about how beautiful Edward is or what Bella is cooking for dinner I'm going to have a stroke.
Speaking of Bella, my bathmat has more depth and personality than she does. Calling her a waste of oxygen would be the understatement of the century. I know why Edward can't read her thoughts...because she doesn't have any!! If he could read her mind, he'd die of boredom. It's Edward this, Edward that, Edward Edward Edward. Does this chick have any plans for her life after high school? Any plans for college? Any hobbies? Any dreams, wishes, or hopes of her own? A single firing of a brain cell inside her pretty little thick skull that doesn't revolve around Edward? Nope. Thanks to the less-than-subtle sexism and misogyny Meyer pounds us over the head with, this girl's only purpose in life is to have a boyfriend, and she's nothing without one. Since the clumsy Bella can't walk down the hallway without tripping and nearly decapitating herself, Edward must swoop in and 'protect' her. See, women are weak, stupid and frail and therefore must be 'rescued' from themselves by the big, strong man. And now because of Meyer there are about a million 13-year-old girls out there who think they must be 'protected' and need a boyfriend to survive in the big bad world.
Don't even get me started on Edward the Creepy Stalking Control Freak or I'll be here typing all day. Okay, I'll start...a little bit. Can someone explain why a 100-year-old vampire is enrolled in high school? And why he's actually doing the assignments? High school? High. Freakin'. School. No wonder he's so tortured. Is this Washington state or one of the outer circles of Hell? Jeez, Edward, you're filthy rich and immortal. Buy a house in the middle of nowhere, hide out there and stop whining about having to "blend in" already.
I bought another hyped-up book, "The DaVinci Code", and can honestly say it's Pulitzer material compared to the "Twilight" trash. At least TDC characters had something that resembled a personality and the book actually had a *plot*, not page after page after page of Robert and Sophie or Leigh and Silas making goo-goo eyes at each other.
So...um...I didn't like "Twilight". The End.
 Love it December 3, 2008
Frances Posnanski (Charlotte, NC USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I cannot understand some of the terrible reviews here. The book is what it is. It is geared towards teenagers but us older folks are enjoying it as well. Cannot wait to read the second book in the series.
 a fantastic book December 3, 2008
A. M. Molloy
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am reading the book Twilight. I love it. I did not think I would like this book because it involves vampires and I automatically thought it would be a lot of blood and gore but it is a different kind of story.
My sister-in-law and my two nieces introduce me to this book and I am glad they did. I cannot wait to read the series of books. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a great story. It is a great read
$20 Down the Drain... December 3, 2008
C. Mong
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book about a year ago, buying it for a friend as a gift. I heard it was good, and decided to borrow one to check it out.
It feels like I am the ONLY teenage girl that not only does not like the book/series, but absolutely hates it. There are many well-written reviews about this book here, and they can get more in-depth than I care to.
Keeping it short:
- Cliche and boring
- Insult to human intelligence
- Essentially an allusion to Mormonism (I can provide links to anyone who would like to read up on this)
- Horrible plot holes
Just a filler for the female Harry Potter fans that don't know what good fiction is.
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