|
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $10.99
Buy New: $4.86
You Save: $6.13 (56%)
New (75) Used (66) from $4.75
Rating:  2222 reviews
Sales Rank: 3
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0316015849
EAN: 9780316015844
ASIN: 0316015849
Publication Date: September 6, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: **brand new, no NY, HI or AK**
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat." As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship. Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell
10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Stephenie Meyer
 Q: Were you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? What are you watching now that those shows are off the air?
A: I have never seen an entire episode of Buffy or Angel. While I was writing Twilight, I let my older sister read along chapter by chapter. She's a huge Buffy fan and she kept trying to get me to watch, but I was afraid it would mess up my vision of the vampire world so I never did. I don't have a ton of time for TV, and my kids get rowdy when I have on "mommy shows," but I do have a secret fondness for reality shows (the good ones, at least in my opinion). I always TiVo Survivor, The Amazing Race, and America's Next Top Model.
Q: What inspired you to write Twilight? Is this the beginning of a series? Why write for teens?
A: Twilight was inspired by a very vivid dream, which is fairly faithfully transcribed as chapter thirteen of the book. There are sequels on the way--I'm hard at work editing book two (tentatively titled New Moon) right now, and book three is waiting in line for its turn.
I didn't mean to write for teens--I didn't mean to write for anyone but myself, so I had an audience of one twenty-nine year old (and later one thirty-one year old when my sister started reading). I think the reason that I ended up with a book for teens is because high school is such a compelling time period--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating memories. It's a fascinating place: old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval. There's a lot of scope for a novel in that.
Q: What is your favorite vampire story? Fave vampire movie?
A: I guess my favorite vampire story would be The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice, simply because it's one of the only ones I've ever read. I keep meaning to pick up Bram Stoker's Dracula, because I get asked this question so often and I should probably start with the classics, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Again, I'm afraid to read other vampire books now, for fear of finding things either too similar, or too different from my own vampire world. Ack! I can't even answer the movie question. I can't remember ever seeing a single vampire movie, outside of clips from Bela Lugosi movies on TV. I don't like true horror movies--my favorite scary movies are all Hitchcock's.
Q: What other young adult authors do you read?
A: My favorite young adult author is L.M. Montgomery I also enjoy J.K. Rowling (but who doesn't?), and Ann Brashares. As a teen, I skipped straight to adult books (lots of sci-fi and Jane Austen), so I'm rediscovering the world of teen literature now.
Stephenie Meyer's List of Books You Should Read 
Anne of Green Gables | 
Romeo and Juliet | 
Dragonflight | 
To Kill a Mockingbird | 
The Princess Bride |
See more recommendations from Stephenie Meyer
Q&A with Stephanie Meyer
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: The book with the most significant impact on my life is The Book of Mormon. The book with the most significant impact on my life as a writer is probably Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier coming in as a close second.
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: The CD is easy: Absolution by Muse, hands down. It's harder to give myself just one movie, but the one I watch most frequently is Sense and Sensibility--the one with the screenplay by Emma Thompson. One book is impossible. I'd have to have Pride and Prejudice, but I couldn't live without something by Orson Scott Card and a nice, thick Maeve Binchy, too.
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: My lies are all very, very boring: "No, you really look great in hot pink!" "My children only watch one hour of TV a day." "I didn't eat the last Swiss Cake Roll--it must have been one of the kids." That's the best I've got.
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: It's late at night and the house is silent, but I'm still (miraculously) full of energy. I have my headphones in and I'm listened to a mix of Muse, Coldplay, Travis, My Chemical Romance, and The All-American Rejects. Beside me is a fabulous, and yet mysteriously low in calorie, cheesecake....
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I'd like it to say that I really tried at the important things. I was never perfect at any of them, but I honestly tried to be a great mom, a loving wife, a good daughter, and a true friend. Under that, I'd want a list of my favorite Simpsons quotes.
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: I'd love to have a chance to talk to Orson Scott Card--I have a million questions for him. Mostly things like, "How do you come up with this stuff?!" But, if he wasn't available, I'd settle for Matthew Bellamy (lead singer of Muse).
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: I'd want something offensive, rather than defensive. Like shooting fireballs from my hands. That way, you're really open to going either way--hero or villain. I like to have choices.
Product Description
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. ''Be very still,'' he whispered, as if I wasn''t already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat. " As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he''s a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward''s sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer''s writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up)
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 2217 more reviews...
 Not just for young adults September 30, 2005
445 out of 641 found this review helpful
I am a big vampire genre fan, so when I saw this book in a magazine, it caught my eye. I have to admit, I felt a little funny even thinking of buying it, because it is listed and shelved as a young adult book. Well, I decided to "bite" the bullet, and I purchased it, curled up with it over a weekend, and could not put it down. Don't let the fact that you have to visit a different section of the book store stop you from reading it, (or of course, purchase it on Amazon, no one will ever know if you don't want them too). This is a really great book with real emotions all wrapped up in a vampire story, a young woman's story of having to grow up faster then she maybe should have because of her parents, and yet still dealing with all the issues that growing up brings with it. All in all, a great book, glad I decided to overlook the age description.
144 positive reviews - and they're right! March 6, 2006
41 out of 76 found this review helpful
This time the readers got it right. This is a book well worth reading and an absolute MUST for fans of themes revolving around vampires. Buffy fans should be delighted by this one as well.
By the way, don't be put off by the fact that it was written for the Young Adult crowd. It has plenty to engage any adult reader as well, from romance, bittersweet moments and, of course, the dilemna of vampire meets human, including romance and danger.
THere are also two competing vampire "clans" leading to moments of great suspense.
Intoxicating and addictive September 24, 2006
55 out of 75 found this review helpful
"Real" Rating: 5+
For any potential readers concerned that this might be a retread of twelve combined seasons of Buffy and Angel, set your fears aside. It's not. That said, now go and buy the book.
Buffy and Angel were never set in "our" world - the real world. It was the "Buffy" universe, and/or the "Angel" universe. At first glance, it seems inconceivable that Bella not realize what Edward is. Most of the requisite indicators are evident. You find yourself reading and wondering how Bella could possibly guess "Peter Parker" instead of "vampire", but then it sinks in. Bella can't conceive of such a thing because this book is firmly, irrevocably set in our world, and that, indeed, is the magic of this story.
It is a remarkable accomplishment, often attempted, but rarely achieved, and far more rarely executed with such (apparent) ease.
I did not expect to like this book, and started to read it only as a courtesy to the person who gave it to me for my birthday. But twenty pages in, I was hooked. If we want to follow that metaphor to its inevitable conclusion, I was so hooked that by the time I finished it I was in the fisherman's pail, flopping around as if gasping for air. Instead, I was begging for a sequel. Thankfully, I already knew that the sequel was out.
To quote a character from the book, "W - o - w". I haven't sped through something like this since I picked up the first Harry Potter book.
Ms. Meyer handled the developing relationship between Edward and Bella with the mark of a seasoned professional, not a first-time novelist. We need to remember that this is coming-of-age book, or a romance - more a combination of "Catcher in the Rye" and "Pride and Prejudice" than a vampire story. It certainly has far more in common with those two books than "The Vampire Lestat". (And, of course, Buffy and Angel.)
It is very difficult to write a coming-of-age story. Why? It's been done a million times, and finding new material to mine becomes more difficult every month. It's also difficult to write a vampire story. Why? Same reason. Yet those reasons didn't give Ms. Meyers, it seems, any pause. It would have given me considerable pause. Kudos to her bravery.
Edward Cullen, the vampire, is perfect - and we are reminded of exactly how perfect nearly too often. While reading the book, I found myself frustrated with the never-ending descriptions of his perfect body, perfect hair, model-like looks (maybe I was jealous?) but then I realized that the book wasn't being written in the third person. It's a first-person narrative, so we're getting the story as *Bella* tells it, and how Bella sees it. His burning black eyes, or warm topaz/butterscotch eyes, are magnets to her, as are every single movement he makes. It's not difficult to step back into high school and remember your first love (or crush) and recall similar feelings. Their eyes never ceased to captivate you; their smile melted you; when they kissed you, you felt faint. And you felt these things every single time you saw that person.
One of the more interesting aspects of the book is that we never get a sense for how unique and beautiful Bella is until we start to see her through Edward's eyes. This being a first-person narrative, it takes a while for the reader to understand how Bella - so awkward that she can trip while walking on a flat surface - could have fascinated such a magnificent...creature. I even questioned it myself while making my way through the book. But again, Ms. Meyer's deft hand brings the realization of how special Bella is very slowly and deliberately - much the way in which we didn't find out why Bella moved to Forks until page 50 or so, and why we never knew exactly why Edward had such a powerful, apparently repulsed reaction to Bella when they first came close to each other.
That's just one thing that makes a writer truly exceptional - the ability to hold back, and tell the story as the story needs to be told. Or to put it another way, to know exactly how the story needs to be told. That might just be the most difficult task a writer has. There are a million ways to tell the story in the writer's head, but to find the right way is often elusive.
This was such a remarkable and refreshing story. Even when Buffy and Angel similarities started to pop up, they quickly fell away as Ms. Meyer staked an irrevocable claim to this story as absolutely her own. Nothing borrowed, nothing...
The representation of the vampires, their unique talents, and the unique way in which they blend into society is marvelous, and provides a firm backbone to the story. While this is a story that is decidedly told in our world, and while I have said that this is more of a coming-of-age story than a vampire story, there are still vampires in it, and the vampires - the fantastical elements of the story - need to be believable. If not, the entire story, no matter how well told, falls apart, and the reader is left wondering why the vampires are even in the story. Her vampires, and their lore, are distinctly drawn.
I wanted to title this review, "My brand of heroin", from a line in the book, but thought twice seeing as it's a young adult book and I didn't want parents or anyone else thinking that I was advocating heroin use, or claiming to be a heroin addict, etc. But this book is absolutely intoxicating and perhaps addictive. Thankfully, the worst side effect of the intoxication is you might suffer a lack of sleep on *one* night (if you have the time, it shouldn't take much longer), and the addiction - to a book - is harmless. Unless, of course, that book actually contained heroin, and then we'd be talking a bit differently about this one.
Twilight August 25, 2007
17 out of 26 found this review helpful
After hearing praise after praise after praise of this book, I finally caved in and bought it. I know why I waited so long -- even though vampires, werewolves, and high school can be mingled oh-so-well, it was still a *shudder* ROMANCE. Yes, I need to grow up sometime in the vague future, but I have a thing with romances.
I needn't have feared. TWILIGHT, while being appropriately sweet and touching and, dare I mention it, romantic, wasn't irritatingly shallow (a problem some romances have, particularly teen romances) nor did it have an excess of extraordinarily sappy scenes with bad dialogue. It blew me away -- I was expecting good, but not THIS good: the book has an indescribable aura of CantPutItDown that sticks even in the non-action scenes. In other words, it's perfect.
One thing I really liked was that Bella wasn't fawning over Edward like some mindless obsessive creature. She was just as sarcastically funny toward him as to everyone else, and just as occasionally grumpy. This definitely added a reality to the romance, and a sense of "humanity" -- pardon the irony -- to Edward.
TWILIGHT is the sort of book you just ENJOY reading. There's something about it -- whether it's the vampires, the realism, the romance, or some blend of both -- that just makes it flawless.
Now, despite myself, I've managed to become another abject fan of the Twilight series. I'm scheming out a way to get the second book right -- this -- minute...
Rating: Masterpiece
Absolutely amazing! October 22, 2005
17 out of 25 found this review helpful
Quite possibly one of my top five favorite books of all time, "Twilight" captured my attention and heart in the first few pages. What is so remarkable about this book is that the author incorporates such realistic themes into the story that it is hard to discern the fantasy elements. The author touches on everyday teenager topics such as moving to a new town, fitting in to a new school, and falling in love.
When the main character, seventeen-year-old Isabella "Bella" leaves her home in Arizona with her mother and moves to the little town of Forks, Washington to live with her dad, it seems that she will never get used to certain things: the constant clouds and rain, the forests all around her, and the smallness of her school, where everyone seems to know everybody. Luckily, Bella is welcomed immediately by her schoolmates; that is, except for a boy named Edward Cullen, who on the first day of school gives her such looks as to make her believe that he finds her utterly repulsive, which is a huge mystery to her. When she asks her new friends about him, they say that he is the adoptive son of Dr. Cullen, and his "siblings" include Jasper, Emmett, Alice, and Rosalie. All five are incredibly beautiful, in a cold and pale way.
Eventually Edward begins talking to Bella, who is in his Biology class, and Bella notices that he and his family are very different from the other students; for one thing, Edward's eyes slowly change color within the span of two weeks from golden to black; he is always in a darker mood when his eyes are black; he and his family move with incredible, no, impossible speed; and although he seems to like Bella, he is constantly warning her to stay away from him.
To top everything off, Edward always seems to appear when Bella is in some sort of danger, always in time to rescue her.
Eventually, Bella finds out what Edward really is: a vampire born in the early nineteen hundreds. In fact, Edward's whole family is vampires, and some of them even have special abilities: Edward can read minds, except for some reason Bella's is blocked to him; Jasper can control people's emotions; and Alice can see into the future. Fortunately, this family of vampires is totally against drinking the blood of humans; they have learned to control their urges and therefore can attend school and mingle freely with the students.
In spite of themselves, Edward and Bella fall deeply in love, but there is a problem: because Edward is a vampire, he is drawn to blood, and Bella's smell is especially sweet to him, so it is dificult for the two of them to get too close. However, this does not stop them from loving one another, and they find ways around this.
Later on in the story, there is a conflict with other vampires who also find Bella's blood appealling, and the Cullen family of vampires works hard to protect their Bella, who has become important to them as well as Edward.
I don't know if anyone else ever worries about this, but I like happy endings, and obviously vampires are immortal and don't grow old, which presents a problem with their mortal lovers, because it could quite obviously lead to a not-so-happy ending. However, I just want everyone to know that the book does end on what I would consider a happy note.
The author does a GREAT, great job of portraying the vampire world in a totally new light; the vampires of this story are so intriguing!
I would consider "Twilight" to be mostly a love story, and let me tell you, an absolutely breathtaking one! Edward and Bella's love is one that transcends all time.
Trust me, you DEFINITELY do not want to miss this one.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
