Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Book Bella is awesome. My fav part is when she wants to crush Edward's Volvo. She's a lot more human than the movies have depicted her.

The pacing is excellent. Although, the chapters do tend to drag out a lot making it a bit boring. But hey, it might just be me. It's definitely not neurodivergent friendly and there were a couple of times when Bella had used the word "mentally handicapped" which I did find insulting but then again this was written in 2005 when we did use phrases like that.

Character development is thorough. I can tell Stephenie Meyer definitely drew on her own experiences and I do believe that's what makes Bella come to life. Edward can be very creepy though which say red flags!! And at the same time he can be very romantic. But mostly creepy. The backstories are incredible and thorough.

Dialogue is believable though at times somewhat...cringe. I think that's the reason it got ripped apart so much by teenagers. Because no teen talks like , "So, I'm your brand of heroin." That’s what made it cheesy. Though, I do admit, sometimes Edward can be very romantic in his words which did leave me breathless.

Descriptions blew me away. I loved every scene where Bella described the outdoors. It literally felt like I was in Forks, Washington. Her character descriptions are on point especially when she introduced Jacob for the first time. And yes, I was Team Jacob when the movies came out.

Now for the age old question, is it YA?

In my opinion, no. It's got a lot of sexual tension and scenes of Edward going into Bella's bedroom to lay on her bed which is very risque. Not to mention, a lot of twelve year olds were able to get their hands on this book in Junior High. I should know, I was almost one of them. If it were to come out today, I would label it as New Adult.

Even though some of the scenes can be cheesy like Edward sparkling, I do believe this book is a phenomenon for a reason. It kept me turning page after page eager to see what would happen next even though I already knew. And Stephenie Meyer did an excellent job of writing a solid story with an awesome plot.

All in all 8/10 🌟