Stephenie Meyer - The Twilight Saga Collection

The Twilight saga is a book that turns traditional vampire concepts upside down. Its main character, Bella, is a walking talking I-hate-myself machine who simply never shuts up about how ugly and clutzy she is. We get the point, we don't need to hear it over and over and over again over multiple books. Plus she's shown being clumsy; does she really need to berate herself over and over again in her head?

The books are entertaining, with Eclipse being the best of the four.

In Twilight Bella moves into a very rainy town in the states, where her dad lives. She really hates it (almost as much as she hates herself) at first. Then she meets Edward, and spends about 2 out of every 10 pages describing how ultimately sexily perfect he is. But she doesn't like him, at first.

Then they fall in love, and Edward seems to hate himself (in spite of being perfect, in the eyes of Bella, and supernatuarally sexy) but completely adore Bella, who hates herself but adores him. They are both extremely clingy and needy.

Edward just happens to be a vampire-and in this series, apparently vampires sparkle and have special talents. This is why he is supernaturally sexy. He has a bit of a self-hate problem though, and when we're not listening to Bella whine about how she's ugly and clumsy, we're listening to Edward whine about how he's a monster.

Edward is part of the Cullen family, who are all vampires that don't eat humans. They eat animals. And live in a rainy place so they can act like normal humans.

Bella becomes part of this family and has crazy adventures and several near-death experiences. All the while she longs for nothing more than to be a vampire, and Edward does nothing other than refuse to let her be one because he wishes he could be human. Meanwhile, there's a werewolf and some drama. And a 'royal family' that acts more like the vampire mafia and some more drama.

This book is filled with cliches about forbidden love. If Edward has sex with Bella, it could quite possibly break her fragile human body, so there's an extra element to it.

The first three books are interesting and entertaining, but there's a very large build up towards their first time having sex-and the reader never actually sees them having sex. Which is rather anti-climactic. The ending is rather a let down after the other three books and a major disappointment in the eyes of several readers. And some of the names are just tacky.

Really, these books are designed for hormonal teenage girls who hate themselves and think vampires are sexy. They aren't very deep and don't really make you think.