So I read twilight for the very first time. Why so late on I hear you ask, well when the book first came out I thought my dislike at watching romance would translate to a dislike of reading romance too. Well as it turns out I not only like reading romance, I absolutely love it! I am a hopeless romantic and I am not even ashamed of it ❤
Now back to twilight. I have seen the first film so I knew that it was going to be cheesy and there were going to be a number of things about it that would annoy the heck out of me. I was however prepared to put this to one side so that I could enjoy one of the most popular love stories of our time. Unfortunately I was disappointed because what I got was something that felt more like a thriller than a romance.
I have a theory, I could be wrong but it is literally the only thing that could possibly explain Bella’s erratic and completely unrealistic reactions throughout this story. Edward has hypnotic powers that even he may not be aware of. This is not so farfetched in the context of the other skills that these vampires are meant to possess. Still not convinced? How about some evidence? There are many times when Bella admits that her mind is being muddled by his presence. This is something that he later plays on to get her to do something against her will (I am not even going to go into the concerning implications behind this). As he also talks about almost using his powers to persuade her to go with him the first time they met (you know when he really really wanted to kill her) I have a feeling he isn’t completely unaware of this. As well as using it on her friends and the waitress to get his own way.
There are also many times where Bella herself recognises that she should be scared and her reactions are not rational. This would be puzzling behaviour ordinarily but taken in the context of hypnosis it would make perfect sense. The ability of a vampire to persuade it’s prey to go against it’s survival instincts would be a powerful weapon would it not?
Given this the story does have a lot more depth and merit that I originally thought. I still have issues with the story. For example: the language is overly complex to the point that it sounds pretentious! There is far too much focus on the small details which means you often can’t picture the whole. Edward is an example of this, there is so much focus on his smile and eyes but little else. I have no picture of what he is meant to look like so all I can see is a floating mouth and eyes! I also got very little in terms of character substance from any of the characters for instance Bella came across as pretentious with a unhealthy obsession with the weather (this coming from a British person).
Now, of course my theory could be wrong. If this story is nothing more sinister than a love story then it has a lot more issues than I have already mentioned. Bella’s character is questionable at best and the story shows up some concerning ideas about relationships.