I definitely read this as a guilty pleasure and honestly? I don’t regret it at all. It was a fun read, even if I found myself rolling my eyes every couple of pages.

The biggest criticism I have is that the one bit of action took 350 pages to get to, and when it finally happened, Bella was blacked out for the entirety of it.

I also wished that the Cullens could have been introduced a bit sooner instead of just Edward for so long, but that just is an issue of Meyer’s minor characters being ten times more interesting than her main ones (in my opinion).

There were a lot of moments that screamed early 2000s Christianity allegory that were also very weird (“khaki-colored skirt”, anyone?), but I especially disliked the times when Edward seemed to compare a vampire attack to being raped. When he said that it was partially Bella’s fault that James was attracted to her, it just was an obvious comment to women in purity culture having to be careful how they presented to men. *vomits*

Meyer also writes some characters with such a misogynistic outlook. Rosalie exists purely to be a visual antagonist to Bella, and is always standoffish to her because she’s jealous - once again, putting female characters against each other for no reason! She exists to make Bella self-conscious, yet constantly is described as being inferior to her? Also, can we blame Rosalie for not wanting to be a vampire?

Finally, the Catholic allegory is already building with Carlisle’s backstory, so I’m anxious to see how it will build on with the Volturi in the next books (yes,  I watched the movies).

Oh, and I was very upset that Esme was never “making Italiano” for Bella.

My favorite character was definitely Rosalie. I agree with Bella that she IS a hottie, and also a badass (who rightfully is annoyed with the pick-me type that Bella is around her). Also, she’s a woman who loves cars - so cool.


EDIT - I’ve read it again, and I love this book I love this story <3