"Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)" by Stephanie Meyer

Meyer, Stephanie (2005). Twilight. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Book One of the Twilight Series.

The book opens with Bella Swan in the car with her mother driving away from Arizona toward Forks, Washington. Bella is to live in Forks with her father since her mother will be traveling with her new husband. When she arrives in Forks, she is greeted not only by her father, Charlie, but by dismal rainy clouds which will stay constant throughout the book.

On the first day of school, Bella encounters Edward who seems to absolutely hate her and is absent from school for several days after their first encounter! His attitude changes upon returning and Edward tries to be friendly. This starts up what Bella perceives as really moody behavior, which escalates after a traumatic event. Bella is almost crushed to death in the school parking lot by a van sliding on ice. Edward comes to the rescue in quite a strange way. He seems to have stopped the sliding van from crushing Bella with his bare hands and both escape unscathed.

Bella later finds out that Edward is not fully human. He is actually a vampire! However none of the vampire lore seems to be true, only misconceptions conjured up by ignorance. What is true is that Edward indeed needs blood to live, but chooses to drink animal blood so as not to harm any humans.

Although Bella’s scent drives Edward a bit crazy, they manage to get to know each other and fall in love. Their relationship deepens, and Bella must hide what she knows about Edward. Edward must take care to keep Bella safe from harm (not an easy task since Bella is quite a danger magnet!) All is fine until another group of vampires called a coven arrives into town. It includes James, a tracking vampire who indeed drinks human blood and makes a sport of it. Bella becomes his new target. Bella is placed in hiding to no avail, since James manages to coax Bella into meeting him and attacks her. Just in time, Edward and his family come to the rescue, kill James, and take Bella to the hospital since she has been severely wounded.

Bella, Edward, and Edward’s family manages to keep the secret and convince everyone that Bella had a bad accident. Bella and Edward are again able to resume their relationship seemingly in peace until book two, New Moon, comes around!

I really enjoyed the dialog used by Meyer in the story. It gives insight into each character. Meyer also successfully keeps the plot action-packed and moving swiftly (actually starting in the fifth chapter) to suck the reader in and keep her hostage until all four books of the series are read!