"Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt like mine was about to."
So here we are again! Edward and Bella. Vampire and human. Romance and toxic relationships. Don't get me wrong; I am a strong Twihard. I am just very aware of how ridiculous and wrong it can be at times. But after reading this book, my 13-year-old self has been dancing and screaming with joy. I had been suppressing her for many years. I grew up, and I realised that a guy breaking into your room to watch you sleep and wanting to kill you half the time isn't exactly relationship goals. It was a painful transition from loving every single word I read, and each scene I watched to understanding that it was promoting an unhealthy ideal in young girls. I was heartbreaking. But I understood and accepted that it was the butt of every YA film joke. And after re-reading the books through this lockdown, I get why. The books were awful; the fact that people hated the films and I thought that they were a step up, says something.
But first, let's get the criticism out of the way.
I had trouble imagining the surroundings of a character in many scenes. Meyers wrote this book to portray the perspective of Edward; however, I think she did her job too well. I would say 70% of this book takes place in his head. Which means the reader is left to play a guessing game of the characters surroundings; are they still in the car, is Bella's hand still resting on Edward's cheek, how long is this thought process in the real world. It was very confusing. We had a whole page of Edward thinking when he was at dinner with Bella. However, when I flipped to Bella's perspective in Twilight, Edward didn't seem to make any extended pauses. It was somewhat complicated, and the only explanation I could come to is that Edward's ability to have 70 different thoughts within the space of one breath is due to his speed as a Vampire. However, Edward's ability to process thoughts faster than humanly possible was not confirmed in this book and feels like an excuse for Meyers lacking contextual descriptions.
"Emmett laughed his booming laugh."
The other main critique that bothered me was how clunky some of her action based descriptions could be. The above quote is just one example of many awkward phrased actions the characters made. I don't know why Meyers couldn't have expressed it simply, like this: Emmett's laugh boomed or Emmett's laughter rippled through the dense forest. The former is simple, gets to the point and doesn't repeat the same word twice. The latter also gets the job done, but in reference to my previous point; it also provides more contextual information for the reader. It is just a pet peeve of mine when books take me out of the world, due to a phrasing issue or a lack of fluid descriptive progression.
In my opinion, in the original books, there was also a total lack of literary vision. I actually stopped half-way through BD (it was a re-read) because I just couldn't read the word "face" one more time. Silly, I know. But it was little things like the lack of attention to detail when Bella has touched Edward's FACE five times on one page. How about the cheek, temple, chin, lips. I don't know. Anything other "face". It was an over generalisation. It hindered my ability to imagine the scene and connect to the emotion of the moment because I was so annoyed with her lack of imagination to think of a different phrase. There are other words, Meyers.
Despite all of that, I can finally be a proud Twihard once again. Midnight Sun was amazing. Meyers found other words and I loved each one.
"For just a second, I saw Persephone, pomegranate in hand. Dooming herself to the underworld. Is that who I was? Hades himself, coveting springtime, stealing it, condemning it to endless night."
She used Twilight as the spine of this novel and added so much more meat to it. This book made me wonder why this wasn't the first perspective. However, my friend pointed out that we were not yet ready to be thrown into the world of Cullens yet. We had to see and fall in love with the sparkling vampire before we could see him stalk and yearn to kill our female heroine. She was probably right. If this came around the first time, there would not have been a second book. But since we are already aware of Edward's less desirable traits, Meyers let it all loose. And I loved it; we got to know characters differently through Edward's ability to hear their thoughts. This favoured some and didn't do very well for others.
Jasper shone in a way that I have never seen. His ability to alter moods is far more useful and beautiful than I have ever thought it to be. Jasper is an unsung hero, working happily in silence but contributing so much to the group's dynamics. There are so many examples, but I will just provide one.
Bella, Edward and his family go to play Baseball but are interrupted by a rival clan. As they face off, the tensions are soaring, and everyone is on high alerts to the fact that Bella is now in mortal danger to these non-vegetarian vampires. Edward is confused as to why when he looked at Jasper, he was overcome with the feeling of immense boredom.
"Jasper was concentrating so hard that had he been human, his body would have been dripping with sweat."
"Jasper was really extending himself to protect the vulnerable members of our family."
He was using his powers to cloak Alice, Esme and Bella amid this face-off and I had never loved Jasper or Meyers more. It was such a little detail that wasn't explicitly obvious in either Twilight or the film. Yet, on that field, it made such a difference to their protection and my new-found appreciation of Jasper. There were so many more moments throughout the novel that Jasper was silently or forcefully, adjusting the moods of the people around him to help them.
And when is this shown in the films? When Bella is being moody about Alice throwing her a birthday party. What a waste.
This book had two outstanding chapters that portrayed the full extent of Edward's ability to link with Alice and see her visions.
The first was during their race to the Ballett studio on the freeway. Edward was practically tearing his hair out to get to Bella before James could kill her. Alice was lending Edward her power to seeing 30 seconds ahead of time to make the best lane changes, overtakes and take the quietest routes. Edward would even use Jasper and Emmett as side mirrors to give himself a 360 view of the car.
The second was on the way to the hospital, and Alice was looking into the future crafting their alibi's, creating and destroying evidence. She was replaying each scenario and adjusting each time for errors or mistakes she would make that would cause them grievances in the distant future. It was magnificent to read. It was like Alice and Edward put on VR goggles whilst sat in the car with the rest of the group. They were there, but they weren't present at that moment of time. They were straddled across two. Sitting in the present whilst looking into the future. For both the reader and Edward, it was as if the scenes that were described had already happened. Like when you get the end of a tv show, and they show you the trailer to the episode next week. But 1000 times better. Can you tell I enjoyed this book?
"I was a predator. She was my prey."
"I also saw very clearly in that moment that there was no separate monster and never had been one. Eager to disconnect my mind from my desires, I had - as was my habit - personified that hated part of myself to distance it from the parts that I considered me. Just as I had created the harpy to give myself someone to fight. It was a coping mechanism and not a very good one. Better to see myself as the whole, bad and good, and work with the reality of it."
This is the best book out of the entire series, hands down. Meyers was able to develop her writing skills, pacing and formulate exciting backstories about the characters that we would not have received otherwise. I learnt so much more about this world from this book, and I just wish that it would have been around to enhance the films. It wasn't until I read this book that I truly understood how dangerous Edward was. Or how early on Edward had fallen in love with Bella. Looking back, I would have liked a more equally balanced perspective of Bella and Edward in the films. It could have helped show the more profound love and affection between the two, instead of the overly dependent version they portrayed in the movie. Because, now that I know what both of them were thinking throughout various scenes, it has deepened my enjoyment of this world. And by extension, my appreciation of the beautifully flawed relationship between Bella and Edward has also intensified. It was just so beautiful to read Edward slowly fall in love with Bella and not even realise it. Alice had to point it out to him.
"You are so blind, Edward. Can't you see where you're headed? Can't you see where you already are? It's more inevitable than the sun rising tomorrow morning."
Edward's perspective was so insightful; it was like I put on glasses. As if I was seeing this world clearly for the first time. And now I want more.
