Books & You

Twilight
The Book Author- Stephenie Meyer

when the first book of the Twilight series made its appearance, I was a bit skeptical about reading it. However, I was in the mood to try something different. At first glance, it sounds just another Harry Potter book…in a way it is! However, the Twilight series of books are for more mature readers and contain far more violent combats than in the Harry Potter series.
The story is quite simple: a growing romance between a girl and a boy. What’s unreal about it, is that the girl is a human and the boy is a vampire. Edward Cullen is over a century old when he meets Bella. He’s first nauseated by the alarmingly delicious scent of her blood. But as he learns to suppress it and stay away from her, he finds himself deeply in love with her. Bella too, the daring girl she is, falls for the ‘bad boy’. The plot is more or less the love story of these two lovers. The subplot is woven around the community, which is the small town of Forks. The nomads who try to hinder the peaceful atmosphere of the town, by killing the townsmen are met by the Cullens who have made a pact with the humans that no human killings would occur in the area. The adventure begins when the nomads encounter Bella and figure out the growing romance between the vampire and the human. Unable to resist the smell of her blood, the tracker of the group of nomads, James, ventures to corner her and make his killing.
The book is quite gripping and I personally took a liking to it. I was pleased to see that the author has not written just another mythical adventure story but has actually adopted some normalcy into the plot and into its characters. No one is depicted as perfect. Even the Cullens, who are picture perfect in appearance, bear many weaknesses. This is also a detail which made me read on. Emotions and feelings play a huge role in this mythical romance.
The whole series of Twilight books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn make for leisure reading. The books that follow the first Twilight book also introduce werewolves who bring more action and emotions into the plot. They are written in simple English although the last book contains some, rather violent and explicit content.

Maneshka Silva BA (Journalism, Psychology & English)