Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

I recently received the book as a gift from a very dear friend and seeing as I have been wanting to purchase the four-book set for a while, I obviously jumped straight into reading it that very same night. *smiles*

I finished it within the same sitting, although it took be hours (till half past four in the morning actually) to finish it. I can't remember what time of the night I started reading so I can't tell you how long it took me, but its about standard with the last few Harry Potter books...

This is one of the few books where I actually saw the movie before I read the book itself, so I set about deciphering what the script writers changed in order to make the movie coherent within the two hour time frame. The verdict: they changed plenty... the characters started appearing at different stages and the core vein of the story itself is different, the movie was much more violent and featured more layers than what was depicted in the book... and honestly? I liked the movie version better... and I've never liked a movie version of a book better than the book itself before... (not including remakes of classics where the book is just too difficult to digest).

Now, that's not to say that I disliked the book, because if I did, I wouldn't have read it in its entirety cover to cover within one sitting, but I found her writing lacking depth and the editing not quite up to mark. There were instances when references were made to situations that were not clear, likely due to the original event having been heavily edited to such a small paragraph (or sentence) that it didn't strike me as a reader as something that I should remember for future reference further down the book.

Also, there seems to be too much word-space dedicated to repeating how gorgeous Edward looks and how Bella feels without actually adding to what readers could already glean from previous entries. Again, I put it down to bad editing...

For the length that the book appeared in, I feel that she should have been able to include much more layers and depth than the movie could depict instead of the other way round, but then, she did admit in interviews that she wrote the book with the simplistic style of movies in mind.

Despite all that is lacking, the book is fun to read on a day when one just doesn't what to think about anything, for it doesn't provoke as much thought as books should and leaves too little to the imagination. This is something that Meyer could learn from Rowling, who infused many accompanying storylines between the main and little details that evokes wonder from her readers, providing a platform on which readers guess and imagine where the story would go and what is the truth behind those little apples she dangled.

However, if books like Meyer's end up being the best selling books on teenager's read-list from now on... We should wonder what on earth happened to our younger generation? Do they not think anymore? Or do they not want to think and just want to be fed details and facts?