Twilight

by Stephanie Meyer

Seventeen year old Bella Swan moves from Phoenix to small town Forks, WA to live with her father. Although it is her choice to move, she does not like the darkness and gloominess of Forks.

Forks is a small town and Bella’s father, Charlie, is the sheriff, so everyone knows about her. She tries to acclimate to her new home and school and soon finds herself falling in love with a strange boy named Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire.

Bella has a couple of shortcomings, two of which are having a terrible sense of direction and being very clumsy, both of which get her into trouble that Edward always seems to get her out of in the nick of time. 

Bella is in love with Edward and accepts him and his vampire ways.   

Soon, another vampire family comes to town and the leader, James, goes after Bella and hunts her, viciously attacks, and bites her, but Edward saves her and sucks James’s venom out of her before she can be transformed into a vampire.

Edward takes Bella to the prom and she asks him to bite her so that she can be a vampire too, but he refuses.

Edward promises that he will stay with her forever.

Meyers is expert at setting the mood of the story by describing the gray skies, damp place. She writes, “…alone in the darkening forest. Not while the rain made it dim as twilight under the canopy and pattered like footsteps across the matted earthen floor.” (p. 184).  She also uses foreshadow to give hints about events to come. When describing Bella on that first morning at her new school, she writes, “I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me.”

Meyer, S. (2005). Twilight. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press.