Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

So, what in the world can I say about Twilight that hasn't been said before. With its immense popularity, this may be one of the most reviewed books on the planet at present. I'm not in the habit of reading young adult fiction very often any more, unless it's to re-read the Narnia chronicles, L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time or Alexander's Prydain books - all huge classics. The whole adolescent angst thing just isn't all that relevant to me any more.

I picked up a copy of Twilight while I was in Portugal, figuring it would make for some light reading, and got about a third of the way through it in a couple of days, so I picked up a copy at the library the other night, just to get closure. I could definitely relate to Bella's klutziness and lack of sporting coordination. I was extremely bad at athletics as a young person. One bit just cracked me up,

"Gym was brutal. We'd moved on to basketball. My team never passed me the ball, so that was good, but I fell down a lot. Sometimes I took people with me."

I personally remember nailing someone on the other side of the net with a tennis ball direct to the breadbasket one day in gym, and there was that incident with Bryan Bateman breaking my nose with the locker room door. Water under the bridge, eh?

I think that Ms. Meyer did a really good job of writing a vampire novel for young adults that is free from the usual blatant sexuality you'll find in most adult vampire novels these days. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with the liberties she's taken with vampire lore...Sparkle??? It also seemed like the confrontation with the vampire tracker from the other coven was a little contrived, and he went down too easily, but I'm accustomed to a perhaps more graphic blow by blow approach to battling bloodsuckers.

A very readable novel. I might even pick up New Moon,  on a slow day.